Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Chelsea Clinton, and this is in fact a
Speaker 1: podcast about why public health matters even when we're not
Speaker 1: in a pandemic. Today, we're talking about substance abuse, disorders,
Speaker 1: and addiction. When we think about a public health crisis,
Speaker 1: we often think about a contagious disease like COVID nineteen.
Speaker 1: But substance use disorders and addiction are another epidemic, yes,
Speaker 1: an epidemic in our country right now. This epidemic is
Speaker 1: fueled in part by the over prescription of opioids, and
Speaker 1: it's made worse by the stigma that has too often
Speaker 1: kept us from talking about and treating. This is what
Speaker 1: it is, a health issue like any other. The good
Speaker 1: news is, over the last few years, the conversation around
Speaker 1: addiction in America has started to change. More and more
Speaker 1: people are speaking out about their own experiences, including celebrities,
Speaker 1: and elected leaders are taking on the issue in new
Speaker 1: ways rooted in public health. All of this is particularly
Speaker 1: urgent right now. Overdoses and overdose deaths have risen during
Speaker 1: the pandemic. According to the Center for Disease Control, thirteen
Speaker 1: percent of Americans say they've started or increased substance use,
Speaker 1: including alcohol in order to cope with the stress of
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen, and for people in recovery from substant use disorders,
Speaker 1: isolation has made it harder to get the support they need. Today,
Speaker 1: I'm talking with two people with unique perspectives on these issues.
Speaker 1: We'll hear from Dak Shepherd, an actor who is incredibly
Speaker 1: candid and pointing about his own addiction and recovery, including
Speaker 1: on his own podcast, Armchair Expert. But first I'm talking
Speaker 1: with Washington, d C Mayor Muriel Bowser. D C was
Speaker 1: once a place that I called home, and it's so
Speaker 1: much more than our nation's capital. Nearly a million people
Speaker 1: live in the metropolitan area, and it's one of the
Speaker 1: most diverse cities in the United States. And let me
Speaker 1: just say, it's long pastime for d C statehood. That's
Speaker 1: a topic deserving its own podcast, but it's also one
Speaker 1: that matters for public health. To just give one example
Speaker 1: particularly relevant to today's topic, because DC isn't in its
Speaker 1: own state. Years ago, Republicans and Congress were able to
Speaker 1: block d C from using its own non federal funding
Speaker 1: for needle exchange programs. Thankfully that ban was reversed, but
Speaker 1: it shouldn't have been possible, and it wouldn't have been
Speaker 1: had DC been a state. Leading the city today is
Speaker 1: Mayor Muriel Bowser, who has stayed focused on the very
Speaker 1: real challenges posed by substance abuse disorders and addiction, even
Speaker 1: while managing many other crises of this last year. She's
Speaker 1: committed to improving access to mental health services like Oxford Houses,
Speaker 1: community based and run sober living environments, and to Narcan,
Speaker 1: a life saving antidote to opioid overdoses. And as you're
Speaker 1: about to hear, that's just the beginning. I was so
Speaker 1: happy to have Mayor Bowser on the podcast and I
Speaker 1: started our conversation by asking her what it's been like
Speaker 1: to address substance use disorders in DC, also navigating the
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen pandemic. What does the opioid epidemic look like
Speaker 1: in d C. Well, it doesn't look like the national
Speaker 1: picture that we have of the opioid epidemic. In fact,
Speaker 1: people who are suffering and dying from opioid addiction in
Speaker 1: DC are usually African American men in their fifties, were older,
Speaker 1: and there are folks that have been living with substance
Speaker 1: addiction for sometimes decades. And what we see is these
Speaker 1: very potent street mixtures of drugs that are causing overdose
Speaker 1: and death in our city. Were you aware of the
Speaker 1: extent of the crisis when you became mayor or was
Speaker 1: this an issue you really had to confront more head
Speaker 1: on once you took office. Absolutely, it was an issue
Speaker 1: that we had to confront when we saw these very
Speaker 1: potent fentel mixes that emerged seemed to me almost overnight
Speaker 1: on the streets, and we had been seeing the kind
Speaker 1: of over prescribing of aipiens in how that also has
Speaker 1: mixed with the street trade and the spencinal mixtures that
Speaker 1: are killing people in our city. In last year, during
Speaker 1: the pandemic, we had a pretty significant number of people
Speaker 1: who succumbed to these overdoses. For so long, we've treated
Speaker 1: addiction as a matter for the criminal justice system, and
Speaker 1: yet we really know the addiction is a public and
Speaker 1: a patient health crisis. How do you help shift the
Speaker 1: public's understanding of what addiction is and also how they
Speaker 1: can hopefully be part of helping support people who might
Speaker 1: be struggling in their community. I do think we've seen
Speaker 1: some shifts in the way that we are thinking about
Speaker 1: drug treatment and the criminal justice system. Certainly in d C.
Speaker 1: We have been on a multi year strategy of decriminalizing marijuana,
Speaker 1: for example, and making sure that at the same time
Speaker 1: though we're educating young people about the dangers related to
Speaker 1: overusing marijuana. We also seen more help and support for
Speaker 1: people to get on medically assisted drug treatment, which is
Speaker 1: changing the conversation for people who have dependence of opiates
Speaker 1: and they've been in this kind of circle for decades
Speaker 1: and decades that have separated them from jobs and family
Speaker 1: when there is a medical treatment available to them. Because
Speaker 1: I do think that as we see that type of
Speaker 1: treatment go up, then people can better manage and they
Speaker 1: won't go to the use of street drugs, which is
Speaker 1: very dangerous. But with quarantine and isolation, the risk of
Speaker 1: death with the use of some of these drugs goes
Speaker 1: up for people who are used to being among a
Speaker 1: group of people and now they're on their own. And
Speaker 1: I'm very focused on what the use of telemedicine in
Speaker 1: this COVID period is going to do for us. How
Speaker 1: can we use technology and put it in the hands
Speaker 1: of people or put it in more public spaces so
Speaker 1: that people can connect with providers. I'm really excited about
Speaker 1: the kind of continuum of public health supports that can
Speaker 1: be provided in that way. Mona, Mary, you spoke a
Speaker 1: little bit ago about your hope to build a facility
Speaker 1: where people could detox and hopefully could be well positioned
Speaker 1: to be on a path to recovery. And yet often
Speaker 1: facilities and clinics that do that work receive some pushback
Speaker 1: from neighbors saying like, we don't want those people here,
Speaker 1: We don't want that in our backyard. Have you confronted that, NDC,
Speaker 1: and how do you respond to that? Oh, no, not
Speaker 1: inting that would never happen. Yes, I have confronted that,
Speaker 1: and I've had the opportunity, you know, d C Chelsea.
Speaker 1: So you know, before I was mayor, I was a
Speaker 1: Ward Council member and this issue has come up many times.
Speaker 1: We for example, and I'm sure you're familiar with Oxford Houses,
Speaker 1: when people come together in a residential environment, independent living
Speaker 1: and they're all everybody's in recovery. It's a kind of
Speaker 1: hands off government approach to people getting back on their feet.
Speaker 1: And I love the model and it actually has worked
Speaker 1: very well here. But you're right, if people know about it,
Speaker 1: they're concerned about just other people who made too many
Speaker 1: mistakes living close to them and maybe being a danger
Speaker 1: to them. And the thing that always gets me when
Speaker 1: I'm in a community, I can always say, who do
Speaker 1: you think these people are? They're your neighbors, they are brothers, cousins, nephews, friends.
Speaker 1: We all have somebody that we know who needs help
Speaker 1: getting back on their feet, and they have to have
Speaker 1: a place to live us like you, and you know,
Speaker 1: I've developed over the years all kinds of ways to
Speaker 1: help homes like that integrate into d C. It's not easy.
Speaker 1: I've had too many neighborhood fights about it, but it's
Speaker 1: so worthwhile when people just recognize that there are all
Speaker 1: kinds of people in the world, and sometimes people are
Speaker 1: going to need a second chance, and it maybe you,
Speaker 1: it may be a cousin and nephew, your son, daughter,
Speaker 1: And we live in a community that values supporting each other.
Speaker 1: So it takes a little bit of extra leadership and
Speaker 1: work on the part of elected officials, but it is
Speaker 1: worth it, clearly I agree, And certainly over the last
Speaker 1: few years there has been a real push from the
Speaker 1: public health community and from clinicians and others who are
Speaker 1: on the front lines of treating and working with people
Speaker 1: who have substance use disorders and addiction to really try
Speaker 1: to move to an approach of harm reduction. You know,
Speaker 1: while you certainly hope people can be on a path
Speaker 1: of recovery and sobriety, you want to reduce the harm
Speaker 1: that they are doing to themselves while that happens. And
Speaker 1: clearly nar Can is a major example of harm reduction.
Speaker 1: Can you just talk a little bit more about your
Speaker 1: citywide commitment to narcan now? Absolutely, I don't think that
Speaker 1: we've done enough to talk about harm reduction because we
Speaker 1: still live in a world where addiction is seen as weakness,
Speaker 1: not as an illness. So that's why I do think
Speaker 1: that leads to some of the persistent stigma related to
Speaker 1: substance abuse disorders, and so really educating people and constantly
Speaker 1: having those conversations I think will reduce the stigma, will
Speaker 1: help people get help and manage their illness and stay alive,
Speaker 1: and all of those things are important. I've been Mayor
Speaker 1: six years and over that time we've been working on
Speaker 1: nar Can distribution. Very recently in our drug stores. Now
Speaker 1: someone can go in who is a family member, friend,
Speaker 1: potential bystander, and get the nasal spray, which were is
Speaker 1: going to help us save lives and also lead to
Speaker 1: some productive conversations about substance abuse disorders and harm reduction.
Speaker 1: That we're trying to keep people safe and keep people
Speaker 1: alive and not come to some judgment about their illness.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back stay with us, so Mayor Bowser,
Speaker 1: as we hopefully are moving out of the pandemic over
Speaker 1: the course of this year. How do you think about
Speaker 1: your job to help people move forward from this collective
Speaker 1: trauma that we've been through, especially for young people who
Speaker 1: have been so dislocated and so isolated from going to school,
Speaker 1: from playing sports, from going to church, from seeing their
Speaker 1: friends in the park, from seeing their grandparents at holidays.
Speaker 1: Because this has been a collective trauma too, and one
Speaker 1: that's fallen the hardest on our most vulnerable. I think
Speaker 1: I struggle with that, to be honest with you, Chelsea,
Speaker 1: because my experience has just been so different, because I've
Speaker 1: been in person at work every day of this pandemic,
Speaker 1: and so when I'm talking to friends. I have a
Speaker 1: god daughter who's a tween, and I just see in
Speaker 1: them what this has done to their social interactions, to
Speaker 1: their love of school, their love of sports, just as
Speaker 1: you said, and people have to ease back into that.
Speaker 1: I noticed that when we reopen our schools, people have
Speaker 1: given teachers are hard time for this, that and the other.
Speaker 1: And I did too, except they were at home. Had
Speaker 1: to pivot to teaching lessons at home. Some teachers hadn't
Speaker 1: been in their buildings for eight or nine months. And
Speaker 1: so what I have seen, just and because we're just
Speaker 1: trying it putting one foot in front of the other,
Speaker 1: is that as people come back to those environments, they
Speaker 1: have to kind of softly come back. So maybe you
Speaker 1: don't say everybody starts work on Monday at nine am.
Speaker 1: Maybe you invite one group in to have just a
Speaker 1: small staff meeting, or you invite you know, a sit down,
Speaker 1: little coffee for six, or you do a tour so
Speaker 1: everybody can see how the plexiglass has been put up
Speaker 1: and their social distancing reminders. So I think people have
Speaker 1: to be eased back into their normal lives and we
Speaker 1: have to give each other the grace to do that.
Speaker 1: While at the same time all of us are leaders
Speaker 1: in our communities, we have to recognize that we've lost
Speaker 1: some things not being together and having a real plan
Speaker 1: to get back to those things. It's just really important
Speaker 1: to our mental health, physical health, or academic health. Our
Speaker 1: relationships are jobs and productivities in our downtowns. I'm sitting
Speaker 1: in downtown Washington right now, and sometimes early on in
Speaker 1: the pandemic, it would make me cry just to see
Speaker 1: how empty the streets were and how a restaurant clothes
Speaker 1: meant thirty people who weren't working and didn't know how
Speaker 1: they were going to feed their families. And they have
Speaker 1: these beautiful museums where Americans aren't visiting right now. So
Speaker 1: I think that we all have to ease back in,
Speaker 1: but we have to have a plan to get back.
Speaker 1: To learn more about Mayor Bowser's work on addiction treatment
Speaker 1: and harm reduction and everything else she's doing, please go
Speaker 1: to Mayor dot DC dot gov. Dak Shepherd wears a
Speaker 1: lot of hats. He's a hilarious and informative podcast Armchair Expert,
Speaker 1: which he co hosts with Monica Padman. He's a talented
Speaker 1: actor who has appeared in too many movies and TV
Speaker 1: shows to list. He's husband to actor Kristen Bell. He's
Speaker 1: a dad, and he's an advocate for approaching issues of
Speaker 1: addiction with openness and honesty. It's inspiring to have the
Speaker 1: chance to talk with someone who has worked so hard
Speaker 1: to shatter stigma around substance used disorders and addiction, particularly
Speaker 1: including by speaking openly about his own experiences. One of
Speaker 1: the reasons I'm so grateful to talk with you today
Speaker 1: is I think we need people who just refused to
Speaker 1: be shamed and are honest because I hope that helps
Speaker 1: other people. Then refused to be shamed privately or publicly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think maybe it would be helpful for me to
Speaker 1: say how I delineate between shame and guilt. I think
Speaker 1: guilt is a tremendously wonderful emotion. I think it is
Speaker 1: often the motivation for change, It's the motivation for apologies.
Speaker 1: It's great guilt is I did something bad, or I
Speaker 1: did something I wish I hadn't. Shame is I am bad,
Speaker 1: I am a piece of ship, I am not worthy
Speaker 1: of love. There's nothing very constructive that can come out
Speaker 1: of that, but guilt. I'm all about embracing guilt, and
Speaker 1: I have it all the time. When I've been very
Speaker 1: public about my stuff. I don't feel shame because I apologize.
Speaker 1: I make amend I make an attempt to write the
Speaker 1: things I've done, and once I've done that, I don't
Speaker 1: have any shame about it, and I'm not carrying around
Speaker 1: fifteen years of shame from when I was a raging addict.
Speaker 1: I felt guilty about a lot of those things, but
Speaker 1: I I'm not embarrassed by them. I agree. I mean
Speaker 1: guilt hopefully helps us take responsibility, and certainly as parents,
Speaker 1: I want my when like you're throwing a magnetile down
Speaker 1: the toilet and we had to call the plumber, Like,
Speaker 1: I'm glad that they felt guilty about that. I'm also
Speaker 1: like even more glad they took responsibility and apologized for
Speaker 1: anyone who's listening to us tax who may not be
Speaker 1: familiar with your story, would you just share a little
Speaker 1: bit of your history with addiction? For sure, but briefly
Speaker 1: to want to say yeah. The proudest and I am
Speaker 1: of my children ever is when they admit something and
Speaker 1: say sorry. That to me is the single most impressive
Speaker 1: thing a little person can do, because it's the bravest
Speaker 1: thing to own your shortcomings. It's so hard to do.
Speaker 1: It really is hard to do. So when they do
Speaker 1: that to me is like way better than a's way
Speaker 1: better than cartwheels and all this other stuff they do. Okay,
Speaker 1: so my story in a nutshell is if people know
Speaker 1: what the ACE score is, you know you can take
Speaker 1: this childhood trauma test. There's I want to say, eight
Speaker 1: or ten questions and I'm getting get all these numbers wrong,
Speaker 1: but you'll get the message if you had a parent
Speaker 1: that was mentally ill, if you grew up with food deprivation,
Speaker 1: if you had an addict in the house, if you
Speaker 1: were subjected to sexual abuse, if you're subjected to physical abuse,
Speaker 1: all these things. I took that test because we had
Speaker 1: a guest on explaining it to us, Nadine Burke, and
Speaker 1: I was like aid to the ten or something, and
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, that explains a lot of things.
Speaker 1: You know, an addiction being one of those. I come
Speaker 1: by it through generations of addicts before me, and then
Speaker 1: I had a good deal those childhood traumas. And if
Speaker 1: you had asked me at eighteen, I would have just
Speaker 1: said I liked drinking. It's fun. I like having fun.
Speaker 1: It was tremendous amount of fun for eight years. It
Speaker 1: worked great. And uh I also did a copious amount
Speaker 1: of cocaine. That was probably my favorite thing to do,
Speaker 1: and then it became untenable and it didn't work anymore.
Speaker 1: I would be on all the things that kept me
Speaker 1: from feeling the feelings I didn't want to feel, and
Speaker 1: I was still feeling them. It just wasn't an escape anymore.
Speaker 1: And I tried to get sober. Many times I would
Speaker 1: get two months, i'd get three months. This went on
Speaker 1: for a couple of years, and then I had this
Speaker 1: very unique experience where I was about to start a movie.
Speaker 1: I decided to take a vacation. I went down to
Speaker 1: Hawaii with a friend. I specifically went there because I knew,
Speaker 1: or I believe, they didn't have cocaine there. I found
Speaker 1: Chris Math instead, just a week of just terrible over consumption.
Speaker 1: By the time I flew home, I was so sick
Speaker 1: that I could barely get on the plane and I
Speaker 1: had to layover in San Francisco, and to get on
Speaker 1: the next plane I had I had to go to
Speaker 1: the bar and have four or five jack and cokes
Speaker 1: just to do it to get through the next flight.
Speaker 1: And I was in the corner of this bar because
Speaker 1: I had been in a a at that point, so
Speaker 1: I was just paranoid someone from A A was going
Speaker 1: to see me in this airport. And I was also
Speaker 1: starting a movie where I was going to make the
Speaker 1: most amount of money I've ever made in my life,
Speaker 1: an amount of money that I was positive would make
Speaker 1: me feel happy. And people had recognized me the whole
Speaker 1: time I was in Hawaii, and that was something else
Speaker 1: I had believed would make me feel happy. And on paper,
Speaker 1: I had everything I had set out to get when
Speaker 1: I moved to l A. And I was like just
Speaker 1: so miserable and suicidal that I thought, oh boy, you
Speaker 1: have all the things now, and you're the most miserable
Speaker 1: you've ever been, so something much bigger is broken. I
Speaker 1: consider that a huge, huge gift that I was so
Speaker 1: lucky and spoiled that I had those things, because I
Speaker 1: honestly don't know if I could have figured that out
Speaker 1: without those things, because for so many years I was
Speaker 1: telling myself it was those things that were missing in
Speaker 1: my life and that if I had those I would
Speaker 1: have real self esteem and like myself and and be joyful.
Speaker 1: And I just feel like it's such a blessing that
Speaker 1: I could get those things and feel suicidal, because it
Speaker 1: really made me confront that something much much bigger was
Speaker 1: going on. That was my last drink. That was sixteen
Speaker 1: and a half years ago. And then I was sober
Speaker 1: for sixteen years, and I raced motorcycles, I raced cars.
Speaker 1: I do a lot of stupid things to get malapproval,
Speaker 1: and I get hurt often, and I have surgeries often,
Speaker 1: And during quarantine I had two in a row. Um
Speaker 1: there was an off roading accident and there was a
Speaker 1: motorcycle accident. And through the course of being on opiates
Speaker 1: for I don't know, maybe you know, a solid month
Speaker 1: and a half out of a three month window. The
Speaker 1: second time when it when it was over, I was
Speaker 1: like this, No, this is not over. I'm going to
Speaker 1: keep going. So then I started obtaining them illegally. I
Speaker 1: came to this idea that I knew what unmanageability was.
Speaker 1: It was that trip to Hawaii where I'm in a
Speaker 1: car accident on day two of the trip. There's police involved.
Speaker 1: That to me represented powerlessness in unmanageability. The obiit thing
Speaker 1: was very misleading because I still was doing everything I'm
Speaker 1: supposed to do. I was still interviewing people and they
Speaker 1: were going it was going well. I was still playing
Speaker 1: with my kids on stop and putting them to bed
Speaker 1: and waking them up and doing all the dad stuff,
Speaker 1: and I just generally was cruising through life without any
Speaker 1: unmanageability other than the terrible aspect of opiates is that
Speaker 1: your tolerance just is going up daily. So my intakes
Speaker 1: going up daily just to stay at this level that
Speaker 1: I don't have to think about any emotions I have.
Speaker 1: And then it got to a level where it occurred
Speaker 1: to me, oh, you're extremely physically addicted to these and
Speaker 1: you're going to have a detox. And everything was secret
Speaker 1: still at that point, and I'm getting kind of visibly
Speaker 1: DETOXI to my loved ones, and I'm at that point
Speaker 1: line and saying, because I do I have, Sorry Edkarth right,
Speaker 1: So I'm saying, oh, I have. I'm having a really
Speaker 1: bad flare up and that's why I'm so And this
Speaker 1: goes on for a couple of days. And the one
Speaker 1: thing I got out of those sixteen years of being
Speaker 1: sobers I hadn't gasol at anyone. And I used to
Speaker 1: be able to do that like crazy when I was
Speaker 1: an addict. Before I could look at everyone and like
Speaker 1: to them and it was just um, I couldn't. I
Speaker 1: couldn't do it. I was make keen. People who loved
Speaker 1: me feel crazy because they knew something was going on
Speaker 1: and I was lying. And then I just eventually came
Speaker 1: clean to my wife and to Monica, my co host
Speaker 1: and best friend. Yeah, and then I had to go
Speaker 1: to my fucking meeting I've been going to for sixteen
Speaker 1: years and say, yeah, I took a cake last week
Speaker 1: and I was high, and it was terrible. Weirdly, it
Speaker 1: was terrible leading up to it because I had built
Speaker 1: this whole identity in my head around having sixteen years.
Speaker 1: I loved having sixteen years. I love talking about in
Speaker 1: the podcast. I love that people would message me and
Speaker 1: say a month three. I love being inspirational to people
Speaker 1: for sobriety. And it became I was I was holding
Speaker 1: on to that so much. I was deriving so much
Speaker 1: of my self esteem from that that I was really
Speaker 1: scared of not having that, and so I avoided losing
Speaker 1: that for a while for a couple of months, and
Speaker 1: then eventually I just the I couldn't do it and
Speaker 1: I and I had to telling myself, and then I
Speaker 1: felt very obligated for the people that have been inspired
Speaker 1: listening to me get sober that I got to share
Speaker 1: the fact that yes, sometimes man, sometimes it doesn't work out,
Speaker 1: and you know, the solution is just being honest and
Speaker 1: coming back. And how do you feel now today? Oh?
Speaker 1: My god, so good. One of the most basic tenants
Speaker 1: in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous is that addicts
Speaker 1: cannot afford to have resentments. We can't carry resentments. You know.
Speaker 1: I had to ask myself, how did that happen? Okay,
Speaker 1: I have clearly I have resentments, and I have things
Speaker 1: I need to confront and work out. And so this
Speaker 1: has been like a second chance to confront all those
Speaker 1: things that have been building up. And I have to
Speaker 1: say today, at least I feel better with six months
Speaker 1: than I had felt at fifteen years. How do you
Speaker 1: talk to your kids about addiction? Oh, I just like
Speaker 1: I'm talking to you. Yeah. They know that dad goes
Speaker 1: to an A A meeting every Tuesday and Thursday. They
Speaker 1: know I'm leaving. Where are you going? One of the
Speaker 1: cuter moments was I want to say, my oldest daughter
Speaker 1: was three, Macma, and my daughters really wanted to be
Speaker 1: with me twenty four hours a day, and she said,
Speaker 1: where are you going, and I said, I'm going to Hey,
Speaker 1: why do you Why do you have to go? I
Speaker 1: go because I'm an alcoholic and if I don't go there,
Speaker 1: then I'll drink and then I'll be a terrible dad.
Speaker 1: And she said, can I go? And I said, well, no,
Speaker 1: you got to be an alcoholic. And she goes, I'm
Speaker 1: going to be an alcoholic and I said, you know,
Speaker 1: you might become one. It's the odds are not in
Speaker 1: your favor, but but you're not there yet. And they knew.
Speaker 1: They knew, Like when they relapsed. We explained, well, Daddie
Speaker 1: was on these pills for surgery, and then Daddy was
Speaker 1: a bad boy and he started getting his own pills,
Speaker 1: and yeah, we tell them the whole thing. We're taking
Speaker 1: a quick break. Stay with us. We were talking about
Speaker 1: trauma earlier, and increasingly a number of doctors who study
Speaker 1: trauma or trying to raise awareness that we all have
Speaker 1: had a collective trauma during the pandemic and that we
Speaker 1: need to be cognizant of the way that trauma will
Speaker 1: haunt us, and that if we don't recognize it, name it,
Speaker 1: confront it, it will haunt us, possibly for the rest
Speaker 1: of our lives. And I think we have to be
Speaker 1: able to talk about that and to help others talk
Speaker 1: about that in the same way. I'm sure for all
Speaker 1: the people who have reached out to you to share
Speaker 1: their stories of sobriety, I'm sure you've also had a
Speaker 1: lot of people reach out to you to share that
Speaker 1: your candor has helped them be candid with their loved
Speaker 1: ones and ask for help. The tipping point that got
Speaker 1: me to be public about it was a really good
Speaker 1: friend of mine who happened to have the same sobriety
Speaker 1: date as myself and where the exact same age, and
Speaker 1: we do the exact same thing, so we're very very similar.
Speaker 1: And I told him, of course immediately and and I said,
Speaker 1: I don't really want to do it on the podcast,
Speaker 1: and here's why. And he said, he goes, Look, if
Speaker 1: you're getting self esteem from the number, that's silly. If
Speaker 1: you're getting self esteem because you think it's helpful to people,
Speaker 1: that's great. But if your goal then is actually to
Speaker 1: help people, it's so much more helpful that you relapsed.
Speaker 1: Then it is you being sixteen years sober and married
Speaker 1: to Kristen Bell. That's not incredibly relatable to some dude
Speaker 1: who's struggling but lying to the people you love just
Speaker 1: last month, that's pretty relatable. And are there other people
Speaker 1: who's honesty about their addiction journey has inspired you? Oh? God, ya.
Speaker 1: There's this guy I hadn't known really. He was a
Speaker 1: professional skateboarder and very famous for that, and then he
Speaker 1: he had a really popular radio show on Sirius, Jason Allis,
Speaker 1: and he fights mm A now. As someone that grew
Speaker 1: up without a dad who was desperate for all male approval,
Speaker 1: I did all those things. I skateboarded, then I wrote motorcycles,
Speaker 1: and I jumped things. Then I raced things. Anything that
Speaker 1: would check the you're a man box I pursued, and
Speaker 1: I was most impressed by guys who could do backflips
Speaker 1: on motorcycles and stuff. So I'm never going to be
Speaker 1: able to impress you. Basically, No, No, I have a
Speaker 1: whole another category for females. Don't worry. So I was.
Speaker 1: This was probably six years ago. Jason Ellis was a
Speaker 1: guest on Howard Stern and I was listening to the
Speaker 1: interview and Jason told the story of having been molested
Speaker 1: by his father all growing up and how complicated that
Speaker 1: was because he loves his dad so much still his
Speaker 1: dad had since passed away, but the openness and the
Speaker 1: willingness to share that story in the way that he did.
Speaker 1: I was listening to it and I had chills. I thought, well,
Speaker 1: this is the bravest thing I've witnessed in my life. This,
Speaker 1: This so exceeds doing backflips on a motorcycle or jumping
Speaker 1: through fire. This, like, what he's doing right here is
Speaker 1: everyone's greatest fear. Like, Look, how damaged I've become. That's
Speaker 1: the kind of heroic bravery I I am striving for
Speaker 1: to have to be able to do that. That's as
Speaker 1: badass as you can get. For me. We talk about
Speaker 1: in our family how important is to be brave and kind.
Speaker 1: I say to my kids, if you're brave and you're kind,
Speaker 1: you're going to be good. It's gonna work out, and
Speaker 1: I will feel like I've done my job. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: I can say from experience, I've gotten physical altercations in
Speaker 1: my wife's defense. And if I was plotting that, the
Speaker 1: amount of bravery that took for me, that was a four.
Speaker 1: And me telling her that I'm afraid she likes her
Speaker 1: career more than she likes me was a nine for me,
Speaker 1: that's so much harder for me to do than to
Speaker 1: fight a guy in her defense. Thinking again about addiction
Speaker 1: and the ways in which I think too often we
Speaker 1: cloak addiction in shame and in moralizing instead of in
Speaker 1: the real language of public health and harm reduction and
Speaker 1: treatment and solidarity. What do you think or what would
Speaker 1: you like to see change and how we talk about addiction,
Speaker 1: how we talk to kids about addiction, and how we
Speaker 1: treat addiction in our country. Well, first and foremost, just
Speaker 1: that no one is ashamed to say they're diabetic, no
Speaker 1: one's ashamed to say they've got a broken arm and
Speaker 1: a cast. In fact, it's awesome when you have a cast.
Speaker 1: In elementary school. I'll give my own example. I ink
Speaker 1: I grew up thinking people that were addicts didn't have
Speaker 1: will power, and I think I demonstrated great will power.
Speaker 1: I went to the groundlings while also going to U
Speaker 1: c l A, while also supporting myself, while also juggling
Speaker 1: a full blown addiction, Like I think I have tremendous
Speaker 1: will power and I'm tremendously responsible until you add one
Speaker 1: thing into my body alcohol and then it's anyone's guests
Speaker 1: where I'll end up in four days, like I don't
Speaker 1: feel shame about that. This is clearly the graph demonstrates
Speaker 1: who I am. And then this thing alcohol and drugs
Speaker 1: is this extreme. I don't want to call it a weakness,
Speaker 1: just an ability. I think the more people take it
Speaker 1: out of the realm of yeah, moral weakness or lack
Speaker 1: of will power, or shortsightedness or a headen any of
Speaker 1: those things, I just don't think that's realistic. One of
Speaker 1: my clearest memories as a little kid was when my
Speaker 1: my father told me that his brother had been arrested
Speaker 1: for selling cocaine to undercover cop and he went to prison.
Speaker 1: He had struggled with addiction throughout his life. And yet
Speaker 1: what I remember even more clearly it was my grandmother,
Speaker 1: whom I called Grandma Ginger, being inconsolable, sure, just being
Speaker 1: devastated of course that her younger son was going to prison,
Speaker 1: but even more so that he had been in so
Speaker 1: much pain and that she had been unable to help him.
Speaker 1: And even in the mid eighties in Arkansas, you know,
Speaker 1: my Grandma Ginger, who had been a nurse and nurse
Speaker 1: and nasticist, knew that prison wasn't going to help him
Speaker 1: overcome or recover from, or move forward from his addiction.
Speaker 1: So just the devastation that she felt of her failure
Speaker 1: as a mom, and also our social failure and the
Speaker 1: way that those had collided into her son's life. Of course,
Speaker 1: couldn't have articulated all that at five, but I just
Speaker 1: felt like, oh, this isn't right, this is wrong. There's
Speaker 1: just so much that's wrong. And now thirty five years later,
Speaker 1: we're still incarcerating people for low level drug use, whether
Speaker 1: kind of marijuana or cocaine or other substances, when we
Speaker 1: know that if we really wanted to help our country
Speaker 1: have less addiction, fewer people been prisoned to their addiction,
Speaker 1: we would be investing in treatment and prevention and support
Speaker 1: and not prisons and the continued criminalization of substance abuse. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and and you know, you also just cannot avoid
Speaker 1: the reality that it is also so disproportionately brought to
Speaker 1: bear on black folks than it is white folks, Black
Speaker 1: and Hispanics. It's so lopsided. Not only is it not
Speaker 1: helpful to the addicts, it's also uniquely punishing to people
Speaker 1: of color. Well, thank you for sharing your reactions and
Speaker 1: more decks, very very grateful. Thank you so much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a pleasure. You can hear more from Dax on
Speaker 1: his podcast Armchair Expert. This is a really challenging time
Speaker 1: for people struggling with substance use and addiction. Even while
Speaker 1: we're seeing signs of hope and treatment, public health departments
Speaker 1: are stretched to their breaking point, and loneliness, isolation, and
Speaker 1: anxiety are very much a constant for so many people,
Speaker 1: and as we were reminded in today's conversation, finding the help,
Speaker 1: support and community necessary for recovery can be daunting even
Speaker 1: in the best of times. One of the reasons I
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about addiction for the podcast is because
Speaker 1: this is an issue you that has touched so many
Speaker 1: of our lives, and yet it is something we still
Speaker 1: too often feel uncomfortable talking about. We all have a
Speaker 1: stake in changing the way we talk about and treat
Speaker 1: substance abuse and addiction and making it easier for people, families,
Speaker 1: and communities to heal. If you or someone you care
Speaker 1: about is struggling with addiction, please know that you are
Speaker 1: not alone. For help, please call the Substance Abuse and
Speaker 1: Mental Health Services Administration's free confidential hotline at one eight
Speaker 1: hundred six six to help. That's one eight hundred six
Speaker 1: six to four three five seven. Thanks for listening. In
Speaker 1: Fact is brought to you by I Heart Radio. We're
Speaker 1: produced by Erica Goodmanson, Lauren Peterson, Cathy Russo, Julie Subrian,
Speaker 1: and Justin Wright, with help from the Hidden Light team
Speaker 1: of Barry Lurry, Sarah Horowitz, Nikki Huggett, Emily Young and Humanity,
Speaker 1: with additional support from Lindsay Hoffman. Original music is by
Speaker 1: Justin Wright. If you liked this episode of In Fact,
Speaker 1: please make sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode,
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Speaker 1: If you really want to help us out, leave us
Speaker 1: a review on Apple Podcasts. Thanks again for listening, and
Speaker 1: see you next week.