Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
Speaker 1: from House toff works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast on Josh Clark. There's Charles w Chuck Tryan Bryant,
Speaker 1: Chucky Chuckles, Chuck's Chuck Star whatever, Chutrean's new. I had
Speaker 1: a I had something that I was working on in
Speaker 1: my head, but it got pushed up by the eight
Speaker 1: million other things that I have to keep in my
Speaker 1: working memory. Another Nicknamer. There's a good one too. I
Speaker 1: think it was gonna it was really gonna knock everyone's
Speaker 1: socks off. Chuckolate. No, l Yeah, she's getting she's getting
Speaker 1: a lot freer with the last these days. Huh. Either
Speaker 1: or she's moving her chair closer and closer, or she's
Speaker 1: on L O L cats right now or just not
Speaker 1: she's name listening? Yeah, um, Chuck, Yes, we're talking about
Speaker 1: addiction today. That's right. Do you remember in the Science
Speaker 1: Phasing Out Sleep podcast, which strangely enough comes out today
Speaker 1: on the day we're recording it, but this will be
Speaker 1: released like five weeks later, you talked about recording this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we talked about doing addiction and lo and behold here
Speaker 1: it is so really if you think about it, we
Speaker 1: are on track in real time, but in podcast released
Speaker 1: publishing time, it seems like there's a big lag. But
Speaker 1: we're giving people what they want, right, that's right, addiction
Speaker 1: or what we want. Did you like this article? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Did you know that there are many stories about addiction
Speaker 1: in our society today? Yeah? When this is like the
Speaker 1: most rigid article of mine you've ever read? Oh you
Speaker 1: wrote this? Yes, I'm just kidding, dude. It was. Um.
Speaker 1: I went back when I read it. I was like,
Speaker 1: it was very scientific sounding, like you. It could have
Speaker 1: been on the National Institutes of Health website, and it
Speaker 1: was very bland. And there was one thing I remember
Speaker 1: going back reading, I didn't pull the trigger on Um,
Speaker 1: we're talking about addiction and researching it, uh, compared to
Speaker 1: our views of addiction, like even twenty thirty years ago,
Speaker 1: like in the eighties. God, can you believe that was
Speaker 1: like thirty years ago? Night? Um, that whole Nancy Reagan
Speaker 1: just Say No campaign scared the Bejesus out of a
Speaker 1: lot of people, but it also had a very negative
Speaker 1: impact as well, and that it's so grossly overexaggerated the
Speaker 1: effects and the addictiveness of drugs, that for kids who
Speaker 1: were I guess gutsy enough to go ahead and try
Speaker 1: the drugs that they've been warned against. Once they tried
Speaker 1: them and found out that they weren't you know, they
Speaker 1: didn't turn into like a donkey, uh as Nancy Reagan
Speaker 1: told them they would. Then UM, they were like, well,
Speaker 1: I wonder what other drugs are gonna do? You know,
Speaker 1: they get a little more bold and courageous. So what
Speaker 1: are you saying that they just say No to drugs
Speaker 1: campaign may have had the reverse effect on people who
Speaker 1: actually tried drugs. They and it's not just me saying that,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of there's a lot of consensus in
Speaker 1: the addiction UM field, which is you know, multidiscipline UM
Speaker 1: that this just say no campaign or any campaign that
Speaker 1: overexaggerates the effects of drugs and deviates from a straight
Speaker 1: science based reporting of what uh addictive substances can do
Speaker 1: to you UM can have a negative impact. Well, you
Speaker 1: you think we would have learned our lesson from refer
Speaker 1: madness back in the day. You would definitely think so,
Speaker 1: you know, that whole dope fine thing Chuck. It's funny
Speaker 1: that you bring up refer madness and the dope fine thing,
Speaker 1: because that was the way for a period that people
Speaker 1: looked at addicts. It was a major character flaw, right,
Speaker 1: But before that it was just no big deal. Well,
Speaker 1: there was no such thing as addiction up until like
Speaker 1: the late eighteenth century. It was called how Things are Exactly?
Speaker 1: Did you see that little thing I sent you about
Speaker 1: the the funeral of a Boston minister's wife in sixteen
Speaker 1: seventy year? I didn't get a chance to read it,
Speaker 1: was it. So there's this really cool paper if you
Speaker 1: ever have some time to kill, which you know you
Speaker 1: never ever ever do. But it's a thirty two pager
Speaker 1: by a guy named Harry g. Levine called The Discovery
Speaker 1: of Addiction colon Changing Conceptions of Habitual Drunkenness in America.
Speaker 1: It sounds really boring. I think it's like ninety eight.
Speaker 1: But um this guy is tracing the history of addiction
Speaker 1: and he's saying, like, prior to the eighteenth century, the
Speaker 1: end of the eighteenth century, there was no such thing
Speaker 1: like people drank because they wanted to get drunk, right. Um,
Speaker 1: So in sixteen seventy eight, people in America drank their
Speaker 1: faces off Chuck e. G. At the funeral of a
Speaker 1: Boston minister's wife, mourners consumed fifty one and a half
Speaker 1: gallons of wine. And think how many could there be.
Speaker 1: It's sixteen seventy eight in Boston. It's like fifty people
Speaker 1: who aren't like Native American in in the continental United
Speaker 1: States or what would become Well, maybe there were fifty
Speaker 1: one and a half people and they drank he so uh.
Speaker 1: And then at the ordination not a funeral, an ordination
Speaker 1: of Reverend Edwin Jackson of Woburn, Massachusetts, guests drink six
Speaker 1: and a half barrels of cider, twenty five gallons of wine,
Speaker 1: two gallons of brandy, and four gallons of rome. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that was just for the guy becoming a minister.
Speaker 1: You know, our Boston listeners right now, we're like that's right.
Speaker 1: They're like, well, that's wicked awesome. So and then in
Speaker 1: the eighteenth century there was everybody's just drink and drink
Speaker 1: and drinking for fun. Then the eighteenth century some people
Speaker 1: are like, you know what, I kind of have to
Speaker 1: have four gallons of brandy help me. And then we
Speaker 1: started to get this idea that there was such thing
Speaker 1: as addiction, but it wasn't the person. It was on
Speaker 1: the substance, right, Yeah, it's the absinthe or the opium.
Speaker 1: You know, those were like the drugs of choice back
Speaker 1: in the day. That's the problem. Those things are evil
Speaker 1: and they're bad, right And um, Actually, opium addiction was
Speaker 1: so widespread. Did you see that little sidebar at not
Speaker 1: opium addiction. Opium was everywhere, right, like you could get
Speaker 1: it in any kind of tincture, tonic for any kind
Speaker 1: of malady whatsoever. Um. And so many middle aged women
Speaker 1: became hooked on morphine and opium that it was seen
Speaker 1: in the late nineteenth century as a woman's problem p
Speaker 1: MS or menopause. Interesting, that's how people viewed addiction for
Speaker 1: a while. But it went from the substance to the person.
Speaker 1: The character flawed, the dope fiend. Right. I thought it
Speaker 1: went from the person to the substance. No, it went
Speaker 1: from this I'm sorry, the substance to the person. So
Speaker 1: it went from it's the problem of the substance to
Speaker 1: the problem of the person. It's a character flaw, their
Speaker 1: dope fiend. And then finally we arrive at the idea
Speaker 1: that addiction is um a disease, a chronic disease, and
Speaker 1: the person who is addicted is a sufferer, not a fiend.
Speaker 1: That's where we are now for the most part. But
Speaker 1: we still don't fully understand addiction. We have a pretty
Speaker 1: good view of it, right, I feel like a lot
Speaker 1: of things with the human body we explained, we always
Speaker 1: lead in with like they sort of know, but they
Speaker 1: sort of don't. Well, it's that it's that point where
Speaker 1: all the pieces are on the table, we just haven't
Speaker 1: put them all together. Remember, do you know why, Josh? Why?
Speaker 1: Because the human body is a miracle. It's a big,
Speaker 1: mysterious miracle. I mean when you think about it, really
Speaker 1: about all the things going on in the brain and
Speaker 1: the body, and the fact that you know it's wrapped
Speaker 1: up in bones and skin. That sounds like intelligent design
Speaker 1: to me. Well, there you have it. Have Do you
Speaker 1: remember your theory of what happened to the Neanderthals? Uh?
Speaker 1: Didn't they say they froze? I got thirsty. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: got hot and thirsty and they died. Alright, Chuck, I
Speaker 1: stand by that. So the whole point of addiction is
Speaker 1: it hijacks the brains reward system, right, Yeah, the limbic system,
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what it does. Josh. When you are
Speaker 1: you know, born, and you're a human being, you learned
Speaker 1: very quickly that you know you have to survive by
Speaker 1: eating and sleeping and taking care of yourself. And that's
Speaker 1: because it triggers the limbic system into shooting a little
Speaker 1: dopamine out and your body says, hey, I like that,
Speaker 1: I need to do that again. And that's what drugs do,
Speaker 1: except they do it two to ten times as much,
Speaker 1: and it's it's fault. It's fake. Dopa means like the
Speaker 1: doggy treat of anything with the brain. Yeah, So if
Speaker 1: you can get ten doggie treats yeah, immediately instead of
Speaker 1: the one, then you take it. And then your brain says, boy,
Speaker 1: this is great. I could get used to this. And
Speaker 1: it does, right, And since we learn, we're pretty much
Speaker 1: hardwired to learn from that release of dopamine to repeat
Speaker 1: that behavior like reproduce or exercise or eat. Um. We
Speaker 1: if we're getting ten times that amount, we pick it
Speaker 1: up even quicker, like, Okay, well this crack cocaine makes
Speaker 1: me feel really good, so I'm gonna try that. We
Speaker 1: need it more and when it goes away, it makes
Speaker 1: things a lot worse than just um sleepy because I
Speaker 1: didn't get enough sleep. Well, we should say also that UM.
Speaker 1: The current view of addiction, the brain disease model, right,
Speaker 1: UM states that just because you try something doesn't mean
Speaker 1: you're going to become addicted. The process or addiction is
Speaker 1: a process, and a person goes from a user, crosses
Speaker 1: a threshold at some point, uh, and becomes an addict.
Speaker 1: So a user and an addict, they're not synonymous. They
Speaker 1: exist on two different parts of the spectrum of addiction
Speaker 1: or spectrum of substance use interviews. Right used to be
Speaker 1: assess that those are the two different words. Right, So, uh,
Speaker 1: well you summed up the UM. I guess the way
Speaker 1: that addiction works pretty succinctly chucked. Well, it becomes physically addictive. Basically,
Speaker 1: you develop a dependency on this shot of dopamine, this
Speaker 1: huge shot of dopamine, and your body needs it all
Speaker 1: of a sudden sudden, and you you know, you lose control. Right,
Speaker 1: And we should say that UM drugs generally, like all
Speaker 1: drugs of addiction, UM hijack the reward system. We talked
Speaker 1: about other drugs. I can't remember in some other podcasts
Speaker 1: that don't necessarily work the dopamine. Therefore, if they don't
Speaker 1: necessarily produce addictive properties, right, Um, but those that do
Speaker 1: hijack dopamine transmitters, they either stimulate dopaminees release and or
Speaker 1: they bind to dopamine receptors and prevent its reuptake. Right,
Speaker 1: So you've got a bunch of dopamine release and you've
Speaker 1: got a bunch of its staying in between your synapses longer,
Speaker 1: and then, like you said, you become dependent on that.
Speaker 1: You want that feeling, Well, your brain does without even
Speaker 1: if you don't even know this is going on, your
Speaker 1: brain is saying to your body, you need to go
Speaker 1: out and get more of that because that was really awesome. Right,
Speaker 1: Because your reward system is uh, it's it's there to
Speaker 1: motivate us to do stuff or to or to do stuff.
Speaker 1: That's the reward system. So yeah, like you said, um,
Speaker 1: your your priorities become prioritized and drugs get to be
Speaker 1: four or whatever that substance or behavior is. Right. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: you always hear um. Like the hardcore abusers of heroin
Speaker 1: or cocaine, it literally they say it overtakes your life.
Speaker 1: To where your job is to every day get the
Speaker 1: money that you can find the draw and find the
Speaker 1: drugs so you can use the drugs. It's a full
Speaker 1: time deal. And so you've got you've got the hangover withdrawal.
Speaker 1: That's where your dopamine UM. Basically your brains like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I've sense that something artificial is going on, so I'm
Speaker 1: going to stop producing as much and you're gonna have
Speaker 1: to go through a horrible little period. That's the withdrawal
Speaker 1: or hangover. Right. Then you've got physical dependency and at
Speaker 1: at about this point you've crossed over into addictive. Being
Speaker 1: an addict, you're not a user anymore. Once you have
Speaker 1: physical dependency UM. And that's where because your brain is
Speaker 1: not producing that dopamine naturally any longer, and you write
Speaker 1: the withdrawal or the hangover so bad that you can't
Speaker 1: stand it, you will do more. And at that point
Speaker 1: you're like Crusty the clown with moon rocks. You're just
Speaker 1: getting back to normal, you know. Now you're physically dependent.
Speaker 1: That's like, that's the key. I'm not sure if that's
Speaker 1: getting through to all, because I can picture people out
Speaker 1: there looking concerned and bewildered. Right now, your brain actually
Speaker 1: stops producing dopamine if it's getting it, you know, an
Speaker 1: unnatural way, because you know, I don't even make it anymore,
Speaker 1: but there's enough of it out there floating around, all right.
Speaker 1: It's just so messed up. You're literally tricking your brain
Speaker 1: into doing something that it should be doing naturally. Right,
Speaker 1: And that's why with a lot of drugs, getting high,
Speaker 1: getting that high, Uh, it's harder and harder, and harder
Speaker 1: and harder, sure well or easier. There's that flip side
Speaker 1: to which I thought was interesting. It is, and I
Speaker 1: don't fully understand it. I don't. I don't feel bad
Speaker 1: because I don't think science fully understands it either. But
Speaker 1: that's two symptoms of physical addiction. Um. Either you need
Speaker 1: more to get high, or you need far less than
Speaker 1: you ever did before. I would think if you're an attitude,
Speaker 1: you'd want to use the second one. You'd be like, man,
Speaker 1: I can get high of two dollars worth the heroin
Speaker 1: like I used to need. Unfortunately, don't get that choice though,
Speaker 1: UM now because of this, because your brain has been
Speaker 1: basically hijacked by this drug, and I hate I guess
Speaker 1: we probably shouldn't anthropomorphize drugs, not actually hijacking anything, but
Speaker 1: because your brain's reward system has been reprioritized to serve
Speaker 1: this drug. Um, the whole point of treating addiction. And
Speaker 1: I actually wrote a companion article on this how rehab works.
Speaker 1: That's pretty interesting. Um, was that based on your experience
Speaker 1: and rehab? Uh? No, no, no, not true. Um, the
Speaker 1: point of treating addiction is in most cases to just
Speaker 1: completely discontinue use, which is called abstinence. Right, Yeah, for
Speaker 1: most all addiction. Abstinence is the way to go for
Speaker 1: of course, like eating addictions and stuff like that. Right.
Speaker 1: And sex addiction. Yeah, they don't want you to never
Speaker 1: have sex again. No, because I have a problem with
Speaker 1: sex addiction. Okay, I have a problem, But I have
Speaker 1: a problem with everyone saying all these athletes are sex
Speaker 1: addicts because they cheat their wise. Oh yeah, I would
Speaker 1: think that's probably the most exploited addiction of Sure, Josh,
Speaker 1: we're talking about addiction. What are some of these symptoms
Speaker 1: of addiction? How do you know if you're an addict? Well,
Speaker 1: there's two types that there's physical and behavioral. And I
Speaker 1: should say those two types are specific to substances of abuse, right,
Speaker 1: you can have and or physical or behavioral if you're
Speaker 1: doing like coke or heroin or drinking with behavior behavioral
Speaker 1: addictions behaviors, it's just behavioral. But that doesn't mean it's
Speaker 1: any less addictive. That doesn't any less addictive or harmful
Speaker 1: to you, know your life. Right, But we said one
Speaker 1: of the one of the physical symptoms is that you
Speaker 1: either need more or less of the drug. Right, that's right. Um,
Speaker 1: that's a physical symptoms. Then there's a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: that you could easily guess, um, trouble sleeping, sweating, hand
Speaker 1: amer's nausea, physical agitation, that's if you don't have the
Speaker 1: substance in your body. Right, those are the withdrawal. Basically,
Speaker 1: your body's telling you, like, go do more because we
Speaker 1: don't feel good right now. And you get that from
Speaker 1: everything from alcohol to uh cigarettes to caffeine. Caffeine headaches
Speaker 1: are supposed to be pretty bad, right. I've heard, like,
Speaker 1: I've heard people that try to kick diet coke. It
Speaker 1: can be pretty awful. I've um, I've had caffeine headaches before.
Speaker 1: They're not that bad, but I have heard of people
Speaker 1: who really suffer from them. Yeah. Um, so the physical,
Speaker 1: the physical stuff. Really it's using more or less or
Speaker 1: just using to get back to normal. That's physical addiction.
Speaker 1: And then you know, anything that that happens to your
Speaker 1: body as a result of using your abusing a drug,
Speaker 1: that's physical behavioral, which is also called psychological symptoms. UM
Speaker 1: is the stuff that happens to your life basically, Well,
Speaker 1: it's um. You may have tried to quit doing whatever
Speaker 1: this behavior is, whether it's gambling or overeating or sex,
Speaker 1: and uh, you're not able to. So that's one of
Speaker 1: the traits. So you're not gonna have much success there,
Speaker 1: or maybe you spend more time doing it where to
Speaker 1: the point where it's like you know, you might lose
Speaker 1: your job or go broke or something like that. Those
Speaker 1: are all behavioral traits. What else, well, you um, basically,
Speaker 1: you're still using this stuff even though you know it's
Speaker 1: having a harmful impact on you or your life for others.
Speaker 1: Or you might stop doing stuff that's good for you,
Speaker 1: Like it used to be a jogger, but then my
Speaker 1: sex addiction became so great. Don't even jog anymore. Now,
Speaker 1: just have sex all the time and play professional football.
Speaker 1: Um and chuck. Because of this, this brain disease model
Speaker 1: that we talked about, because these of these symptoms um.
Speaker 1: The view of addiction as it stands today, the most
Speaker 1: widely held model is the brain disease model, and the
Speaker 1: basis of that is that addiction is a chronic disease. Right,
Speaker 1: So as such, just like say asthma or tuberculosis or whatever,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have flare ups relapse, right, Yeah, it's relapse
Speaker 1: with addiction. And so if you go into treatment, you
Speaker 1: need to have like booster sessions as well. After you're
Speaker 1: cured or clean or whatever. Well, yeah, that's just the
Speaker 1: sort of the basis of a right. You still gotta
Speaker 1: go those meetings, right, which is why I think it's
Speaker 1: so radically successful. And the LSD and the coffee, right,
Speaker 1: that should be out by now, I think otherwise people
Speaker 1: can go what I need to get to A I
Speaker 1: had a a a joke, but I'm not gonna tell it.
Speaker 1: That's a good chuck. We've both grown up so much,
Speaker 1: haven't we, Yes, in the past thirty minutes. Uh, what
Speaker 1: else we got here, josh Um Behavioral psychologists, they used
Speaker 1: to think that, I thought this was really interesting. They
Speaker 1: sort of understand addiction a little bit, but they used
Speaker 1: to think that if you just tried drugs in the
Speaker 1: first place, drugs or alcohol or any kind of addictive substance,
Speaker 1: then there was just something wrong with you. But there's
Speaker 1: actually genetic basis for even that, not even whether or
Speaker 1: not you get addicted, but whether you try it to
Speaker 1: begin with. Well, yeah, it's not just that, Like genetics
Speaker 1: is one of a number of risk factors. There's also
Speaker 1: like your susceptibility to peer pressure, your feelings of self
Speaker 1: worth at that moment or at that period in your life. Um,
Speaker 1: there are like if you have anxiety or depression that's
Speaker 1: been shown to increase the likelihood that you're going to
Speaker 1: try drugs. Um. So it's not just like a kid's
Speaker 1: like I'll try this, let's see what happens. Uh That
Speaker 1: that's how they used to see it. Now they see
Speaker 1: it as like, no, there's some there's some other uh
Speaker 1: comorbid factors going on. It's both nature and nurture. So,
Speaker 1: like a good example would be like, um, if you
Speaker 1: start having sex to increase your sense of self worth,
Speaker 1: that could lead to a sex addiction. That that low
Speaker 1: self esteem would be a risk factor that led you
Speaker 1: into your sexy right or if you're depressed and you
Speaker 1: just self medicate, right, or if you try drugs and
Speaker 1: you're like, wow, I really really like these, that's another
Speaker 1: one for sure. Right. So we were talking about UM
Speaker 1: physical and behavioral symptoms, right, UM again, under the current
Speaker 1: brain disease model of addiction, UM, the the basically the
Speaker 1: double whammy is UM psychological dependence, right, because it has
Speaker 1: not only an effect on the person, it has effect
Speaker 1: on the society as well. So like the person's life
Speaker 1: can be ruined by addiction, but they may also commit
Speaker 1: crime to feed their addiction, or their break up their
Speaker 1: family on a personal level, or both, or commit violence
Speaker 1: the worst, the worst one is psychological or behavioral, which
Speaker 1: makes both substances of abuse and compulsive behaviors addictive behaviors
Speaker 1: UM equally bad. Well yeah, and what that means is
Speaker 1: is you can't say you can't be one of these hardliners.
Speaker 1: It just says, you know, if someone wants to go
Speaker 1: out and kill themselves on dope, then that's their business, right. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: because there's a lot of other things going on. It's
Speaker 1: a great argument against it, but their impacts. Right, But
Speaker 1: it's prohibition. The answer, It certainly wasn't what alcohol was
Speaker 1: it's not work. You know why, because no one stopped drinking.
Speaker 1: Profiction didn't really go over too well. So, Chuck, you
Speaker 1: want to talk about some specific drugs and behaviors that
Speaker 1: people get addicted to. You. Yeah, we've talked about meth
Speaker 1: a little bit and what a stupid thing that is
Speaker 1: to try. Right, What what was that in our big
Speaker 1: anti meth rant I think it was when we did
Speaker 1: the meth Labs crime scene clean up. Meth ampheta means um,
Speaker 1: the good news is the US is going down. It
Speaker 1: looks like yeah, which surprises me. I would have thought
Speaker 1: it would be steady or still going up. Well, maybe
Speaker 1: people aren't starting to realize that. It's not very smart.
Speaker 1: But they actually study brain patterns Josh of long term
Speaker 1: meth users, and they they found that up to of
Speaker 1: their dopamine producing cells were damaged or just shot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you literally, I mean, I don't know if they
Speaker 1: can regenerate you. That remains to be seen. Remember there's
Speaker 1: that whole study on m D m A that got
Speaker 1: it out law in the first place, about serotonin levels
Speaker 1: being able to regenerate. I don't know. I don't I
Speaker 1: don't think anybody knows yet. If we're capable of doing that,
Speaker 1: We've not been studying it long enough. I think, just
Speaker 1: let's get some stats going to while we're doing these.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I was gonna say, Um, what's what's um
Speaker 1: encouraging about meth prevalence is that it's cut in half. Uh,
Speaker 1: people who have used it in the past month. UM
Speaker 1: has gone down from seven one thousand and two thousand
Speaker 1: six and this is in the US to thousand and
Speaker 1: two thousand eight. That's half of what it was. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's great, that's significant in two years that kind of dropped.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I would say that the anti meth campaigns
Speaker 1: are working, but they're all dying. Yeah, which is possible. Uh,
Speaker 1: what's next. Prescription drugs? Now, those are on the rise. Yeah.
Speaker 1: They're probably the most abused drug in the United States
Speaker 1: because everybody's on them. There's a huge problem with the
Speaker 1: elderly population basically getting hooked on meds. There's a huge
Speaker 1: problem with the adolescent population basically getting hooked on their
Speaker 1: grandparents meds. UM, and there's been a fourfold increase in
Speaker 1: people checking into rehab who are on prescription medications uh
Speaker 1: within the century, within the first decade, four four times
Speaker 1: as many as there were before UM and in right,
Speaker 1: two point two percent of people seeking treatment for any
Speaker 1: kind of drugs were on prescription drugs, Josh. Also with
Speaker 1: the scripts as I like to call them, prescription drugs.
Speaker 1: Two point two percent of people seeking treatment UM reported
Speaker 1: of using the pain releavers, and in two thousand eight,
Speaker 1: ten years later, ten reported abuse. Right, And that's just
Speaker 1: among people who are seeking treatment. I mean, I can
Speaker 1: supposedly need it. Yeah. I think one of the reasons
Speaker 1: why prescription drugs are so abused is because they're legal
Speaker 1: technically and they're socially accepted in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, totally. You know, people don't look at him
Speaker 1: as like a blanket drug. They look at him as
Speaker 1: all these different little drugs, you know. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: Robert Downey Jr. Used heroin, so he was, you know,
Speaker 1: this lawless scoundrel. But Chandler being gets hooked on back
Speaker 1: pills because he had a bad back, and it's yeah,
Speaker 1: it's sort of dismissed. Yeah, you know, Jodie Foster said
Speaker 1: she would never work with Robert Downey Jr. Again after
Speaker 1: UM home for the holidays. Was he messed up during that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was right in the middle of it. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a good movie. That's a shame, is it? I never thought. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's it's good. It's a Thanksgiving movie. You should run
Speaker 1: it for Thanksgiving. Speaking of heroin, right, Yes, um, apparently
Speaker 1: is a lot more specially acceptable than it was before.
Speaker 1: But it's still pretty much like a junkie is a
Speaker 1: junkie in the US, nobody's like, oh, it's just a junkie.
Speaker 1: It's like he's a junkie. That's kind of a huge deal. Well,
Speaker 1: the twenty they say that of people who try heroin
Speaker 1: become dependent on it, so that's pretty substantial. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: about a quarter. But at the same time, it's surprising
Speaker 1: though if you were raised in the eighties, because you
Speaker 1: would think that a hundred and eight percent of people
Speaker 1: who try heroin become hooked on it. Yeah. I remember
Speaker 1: the one big one that they used to say is
Speaker 1: you if you try heroin just once, you're physically addicted
Speaker 1: to it. Yeah, that was one of the big campaigns.
Speaker 1: Same with crack. They said the same thing about crackers.
Speaker 1: You try one time and you're addicted. Um. The in
Speaker 1: the US there's actually been something of an increase from
Speaker 1: two thousand seven to two thousand eight, according to the
Speaker 1: National Survey and Drug Use in Health UM from a
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty three thousand people aged twelve and o
Speaker 1: older in the US who said that they've used heroin
Speaker 1: in the past month to UH two d and thirteen
Speaker 1: thousand and two thousand eight, So there has been I
Speaker 1: guess that is substantial, especially if you look at the
Speaker 1: population of heroin users that tiny amount, that's kind of yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a big increase. Actually, now I think about it,
Speaker 1: you got cocaine and crack Josh. From two thousand two
Speaker 1: to two thousand eight, rates of past month cocaine use
Speaker 1: among kids declined from point six to point four percent,
Speaker 1: which is good, and it also dropped among young adults
Speaker 1: eighteen to twenty five, So it seems like those drugs
Speaker 1: are sort of on the wane a little bit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And and again, if you look at myth prescription drugs,
Speaker 1: will pain killers, especially heroin, coke, crack, All of these
Speaker 1: um have an effect of targeting your reward center, producing
Speaker 1: that high, and you're learning to repeat this behavior right again.
Speaker 1: This can also happen very strongly among compulsive behaviors like
Speaker 1: sex addiction and Chuck, before you go off on sex addiction,
Speaker 1: let's say that, Um, according to the National Association of
Speaker 1: Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity, Uh, the n A s a C. Obviously, Um,
Speaker 1: there's about three to six percent of the American population
Speaker 1: that suffers from sex addiction, right from Yeah, which is
Speaker 1: the real compulsive behavior that's diagnosed. So chuck, sex addiction, Go, well,
Speaker 1: I don't clearly that there is such a thing, but
Speaker 1: it's just so overused. Like you said, you know, Jesse
Speaker 1: James is a sex addict. It's just these are men
Speaker 1: of privilege, is what it is. Tiger Woods, Jesse James,
Speaker 1: Brett Farve. They're guys that are in the position that
Speaker 1: they can have sex with whoever they want, whenever they want,
Speaker 1: and a lot of guys will take the opportunity to
Speaker 1: do it. Doesn't mean they're sex addicts. And like you
Speaker 1: said earlier, or we may have even cut it out,
Speaker 1: I think the bad thing that it does is that
Speaker 1: it gives them sort of a free pass because they're
Speaker 1: just helpless to it. Yeah, yeah, it is really, I
Speaker 1: mean basically it's uh, it seems like a defense for
Speaker 1: poor character and like, yeah, exactly unless all these guys
Speaker 1: are in that three to six p right. And again,
Speaker 1: I think I'm sure that there is like an actual
Speaker 1: sexual addiction, right. Vigo Mortenson had it in twenty eight
Speaker 1: days for three to six percent of the people, right. So,
Speaker 1: But and that's sad that there's probably a lot of
Speaker 1: people out there who need help or who actually are
Speaker 1: sex addics, and people just don't believe them because it's
Speaker 1: like you're full of it. I don't believe Brett Farve either,
Speaker 1: and as Brett Farve is. But and the other thing
Speaker 1: with sex addiction too that we should point out is that,
Speaker 1: like many addictions, it's not even about the sex anymore.
Speaker 1: And apparently once you are a sex addic, you're not
Speaker 1: even getting the enjoyment out of it anymore. Yeah, which sucks,
Speaker 1: I would say. So, so I think, like we said
Speaker 1: that the point of sex treatment sex addiction treat mint
Speaker 1: uh is to restore the person back to a point
Speaker 1: where they can enjoy sex without being addicted to it.
Speaker 1: So it's not abstinence, it's having a healthy sex life. Right.
Speaker 1: And the same goes with binge eating disorders, which is
Speaker 1: about one to three percent of people have a bene
Speaker 1: eating in the general population. If you're obese or you
Speaker 1: seek weight loss treatment or help with eating. The population
Speaker 1: is far higher. About a quarter of people who are
Speaker 1: obese and seek professional help for it have binge eating disorder.
Speaker 1: And it's pretty much what it sounds like. It's like
Speaker 1: binging and purging, which is bulimia, but without the purging part,
Speaker 1: right right, binging and binging? Yes, and Uh. Gambling, Josh,
Speaker 1: is another compulsive behavior that I think has risen since
Speaker 1: Internet gambling has become more accessible. And another name for
Speaker 1: gambling compulsion is ludamania. Really ludamania. Yeah. Interesting. Fifteen million
Speaker 1: people they say display some sign of gambling addiction? Is
Speaker 1: that in the US? I guess yeah. Um, I think
Speaker 1: in this article originally I had like eighteen million or
Speaker 1: something like that. No, two million, So I guess it's
Speaker 1: gone up because it was a recent stat that I
Speaker 1: looked up today that you just read. Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: actually looked up one day that said two point five
Speaker 1: million people are gambling addicts. So there may be a
Speaker 1: variation between a gambling addict and people who display some
Speaker 1: sign of gambling addictions. I guess so, alcohol, Josh, we
Speaker 1: haven't even talked about that yet. Uh. No, we haven't.
Speaker 1: I got some stats for you, and these are staggering
Speaker 1: because alcohol is the one. I mean, most of these
Speaker 1: other things we talked about, aside from the prescription drugs,
Speaker 1: are illicit drugs that you have to you know, get illegally.
Speaker 1: But alcohol is the one that you can buy at
Speaker 1: the corner store, and not surprisingly, it's the biggest problem. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm glad you found this too, because I had trouble
Speaker 1: finding some stats. So lay them, mom me stringing. Oh,
Speaker 1: forty of us adults have had someone related to them
Speaker 1: who was presently or was an alcoholic. That crazy. It
Speaker 1: sounds a lot like the kid who says that you
Speaker 1: wouldn't know his girlfriend because he met her at camp
Speaker 1: and she lives in Canada. That sounds like that kind
Speaker 1: of staff, does it? Three million U S citizens older
Speaker 1: than sixty abuse of alcohol are require it to function normally,
Speaker 1: and that's going up. Um. You mentioned that your grandparents
Speaker 1: prescription drugs. Grandparents are like the baby boomers now, so
Speaker 1: as the baby baby boomers have aged into quote unquote
Speaker 1: the elderly range, a lot of them are still alcoholics
Speaker 1: and pill addics, and you know, more so than their
Speaker 1: parents generation was or were ye, what else you got
Speaker 1: any more on alcohol? Yeah, I have a couple of
Speaker 1: I mean, you've got a bunch of good ones from
Speaker 1: seeing which ones are good. Um, men are three times
Speaker 1: more likely to be alcoholics and women. Wow, did you
Speaker 1: know that? It's kind of surprising. And if you are
Speaker 1: happily married you only have an eight point nine percent chance,
Speaker 1: whereas if you are single or have a bad marriage,
Speaker 1: you're thirty more likely to become an alcoholic. I can
Speaker 1: see that, especially if men are three times more likely
Speaker 1: to be an alcoholic. I could see somebody's wife saying, like,
Speaker 1: you need to stop drinking as much exactly. And I've
Speaker 1: got one more, really sad one. Um, five hundred thousand
Speaker 1: children age nine to twelve are alcoholics in this country.
Speaker 1: They called them the party kids. That really so sad.
Speaker 1: I always forget about Drew Barrymore. Remember her little She
Speaker 1: was an outlier? You think so? Yes, she was. She
Speaker 1: was again Nancy Reagan eighties. She was the poster child
Speaker 1: for Nancy Reagan's just Say No Campa. But she was
Speaker 1: drinking and doing cocaine. Yeah, and she was like the
Speaker 1: only kid who was in America who was doing those things. Okay,
Speaker 1: I thought you meant that, and it was like eight
Speaker 1: Actually I think that she was doing coking. I thought
Speaker 1: you meant that her story was exaggerated. No, I'm just
Speaker 1: saying like like like on a graph, she's like way
Speaker 1: out here. Yeah, well you always for it about that
Speaker 1: now though, with her, because that was so she's definitely
Speaker 1: cleaned up. Well, she's cleaned up, and I think she
Speaker 1: can go out and have a good time now, I don't.
Speaker 1: I think she had her demons when she was a
Speaker 1: little kid, which I can't imagine being a kid and
Speaker 1: being an alcoholic, you know. You know. That's the second podcast,
Speaker 1: and i'd say this month that she's come up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: roller derbian this one. UM, so Chuck, you have a
Speaker 1: pill addiction one of the Oh, we should also say that, Um,
Speaker 1: physicians tend to see alcohol withdrawal as far more dangerous
Speaker 1: physically than even heroin withdrawal because of the symptoms it produces. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they have pills. You we'll talk about well she talk
Speaker 1: about this now, the pills. Yeah. I was gonna say that,
Speaker 1: if you have a pill addiction, what's the best way
Speaker 1: to treat that with more pills? That's the human answer
Speaker 1: to things. Let's throw a pill at it, and there
Speaker 1: we actually have come up with some pills to treat
Speaker 1: addictive behavior. Yeah right, well, I know. They have one
Speaker 1: um called the sulfur Um and it's sold under the
Speaker 1: name ant Abus, and that's the one they give you
Speaker 1: for alcohol that basically, you take this pill and you
Speaker 1: drink even a little bit, and it makes you feel awful, Yeah,
Speaker 1: like you you Basically it does the opposite of your
Speaker 1: reward circuit, punishes you, and you learn the hard way
Speaker 1: not to drink anymore. And apparently you don't get used
Speaker 1: to that. So it's not like you can be on
Speaker 1: this bill and just kind of fight through it. It
Speaker 1: doesn't work that way. There's another one called the now
Speaker 1: trek Zone. I found that one too, and that one's
Speaker 1: used to treat alcoholism as well. But basically it's just
Speaker 1: it's an opioid an antagonist, which means that it doesn't
Speaker 1: allow alcohol to give you that inflated sense of self
Speaker 1: worth like a gun, does you know? Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: most of those. I think most of those are effect
Speaker 1: the opiate receptors, right, yeah, but strangely so, then there's
Speaker 1: also now maphine that's an opioid antagonist. Just like now
Speaker 1: trek zone. So they should both be able to treat alcoholism.
Speaker 1: But strangely, now trek zone has shown most miss and
Speaker 1: treating alcoholism. Now amphine has been shown has shown the
Speaker 1: most promise in treating gambling addictions, even though they're the
Speaker 1: same type of drug. Do you know what else they
Speaker 1: use that for? What? Shopoholics? Yeah? And I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean I guess that. I think it just cuts
Speaker 1: down the thrill, right, yeah, I guess so any sort
Speaker 1: of compulsive behavior like that, it looks like it might
Speaker 1: target interesting. It is interesting, and then of course you
Speaker 1: can just go after the genes, right, Yeah, they're they're
Speaker 1: coming a long way and targeting genes. And what they
Speaker 1: don't think at this point is that there's like a
Speaker 1: single gene that they can find. They think it's probably
Speaker 1: a combination of genes. And it's probably also largely epigenetic
Speaker 1: as well too. Yeah, well you should explain what that
Speaker 1: means again, just in case people didn't listen to that one.
Speaker 1: How could they not have if you didn't go listen
Speaker 1: to can your grandfather's diet short in your life? Basically? Um,
Speaker 1: we've found through epigenetics that it's what makes us us.
Speaker 1: Isn't just our parents um genes kind genetic contribution. We
Speaker 1: can actually affect the way our genes work, turning them
Speaker 1: on and off and amplifying them and um lowering their
Speaker 1: their their frequency by the stuff we do, including drugs, drinking,
Speaker 1: the way we eat, pretty much everything has an effect. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the other thing too you pointed out, which I
Speaker 1: thought was really interesting, is not only are their gene
Speaker 1: combinations that make you more susceptible to this, If you're
Speaker 1: not susceptible to it, it's not like you just are
Speaker 1: lacking those genes, are actually genes that make you less
Speaker 1: susceptible to addiction. Right, So, like the A L D
Speaker 1: H two gene um, people who have two copies of
Speaker 1: this gene um don't don't become alcoholics as easily as
Speaker 1: people who have just one or don't have it at all.
Speaker 1: Isn't that weird? That is very weird. And if you
Speaker 1: have low neuropeptide y, which is a hormone, well, if
Speaker 1: you're a mouse, I should say, you're you're probably not
Speaker 1: gonna want the booze as much as your fellow Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I did find another interesting one too about relapse rates.
Speaker 1: They've even kind of pegged it down to that level.
Speaker 1: They found that um a variant of the opioid receptor
Speaker 1: gene A s P forty, you have a lower rate
Speaker 1: of relapse with alcoholism if you have the A s
Speaker 1: N forty by so even if you try to quit,
Speaker 1: certain genes will say you're more likely to relapse than others.
Speaker 1: So just give up. Yeah, exactly. Speaking of relapse, there
Speaker 1: was some interesting tibet tibit to bat interesting tibet that
Speaker 1: we left out about heroin relapse. In two thousand and four.
Speaker 1: Get this, The entrance rate for heroin treatment right in
Speaker 1: the US for the fifth time was higher than the
Speaker 1: entrance for heroin treatment for the first time. I believe
Speaker 1: that isn't that crazy? Yeah, that's it's really heart to kick.
Speaker 1: I guess I would think so. But try to try again.
Speaker 1: Or go watch train Spotting and never try it in
Speaker 1: the first place, yes, Or or watch Sister Act two
Speaker 1: while you're high on heroin and I'll bet that does
Speaker 1: the same thing. That's a similar fact of trainspining. Ill
Speaker 1: bet it's horrific. Back in the habit. Yeah, if you
Speaker 1: want to know more about drugs and addiction, in general. UM,
Speaker 1: we strongly recommend you read this strangely um prim article
Speaker 1: in your career. It's pretty early back then too. It's
Speaker 1: called how Addiction Works. You can find it by typing
Speaker 1: that into the handy search bar how stiff works dot com.
Speaker 1: And while you're doing that, UM, try rehab too interesting one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well we should tackle at some point too. Maybe we will.
Speaker 1: Something happened to me throughout this podcast. Since I said
Speaker 1: handy search bar, that means, of course it's time for
Speaker 1: listener mail. That was the brakes being apply because we
Speaker 1: have we have a small bit of administrative detail here
Speaker 1: Josh at the onset to plug our our new app
Speaker 1: for the iPhone that's coming soon. I'm very very excited
Speaker 1: about this. I'm playing with it right now because I
Speaker 1: was lucky enough to get a beta version because I
Speaker 1: work here, and you can access all of our podcast
Speaker 1: video and audio. You can when you click on our
Speaker 1: big dumb faces, you can access every single episode we've
Speaker 1: ever done. Listen to it right there. The new episodes
Speaker 1: pop up automatically. Uh. You can go to our blog
Speaker 1: through there, you can go to Facebook and Twitter. Through there,
Speaker 1: you can watch our video podcast from our our stuff
Speaker 1: they don't want you to know and cool stuff on
Speaker 1: the planet. Or you can just go back and stare
Speaker 1: at our faces all day too. You can do that
Speaker 1: if you want. It's also got a huge, huge repository
Speaker 1: of articles from the website how Stuffworks dot com. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they're broken down and um their chapters as well.
Speaker 1: They're it's really easy to now the gate like we
Speaker 1: created a new way to access the site and all
Speaker 1: of the related content for the iPhone, like for a
Speaker 1: mobile system. Yeah. They I mean they they did an
Speaker 1: awesome job with the design. I was like, I don't
Speaker 1: I wouldn't sure at first, but it looks really really
Speaker 1: awesome and it's like you said, it's easy to work
Speaker 1: and free. Yes, I'm very excited. I can finally go
Speaker 1: to sleep when this thing finally comes out. So looking
Speaker 1: forward to it. And no more excuses about not being
Speaker 1: able to listen to our show, because if you get
Speaker 1: the app, you will always be able to listen to
Speaker 1: the show exactly. So you can just to enter the
Speaker 1: app store on your iPhone or go into it the
Speaker 1: iTunes and download the House Stuff Works iPhone app free
Speaker 1: of charge. Got us now back to our regularly scheduled
Speaker 1: program right then, I'm gonna call this an update from
Speaker 1: Sarah the amazing thirteen year old fans Awesome. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: saw that yesterday. You know. My goal is to eventually
Speaker 1: do this podcast through graduation for Sarah, and we just
Speaker 1: have updates from her from the age of eleven to eighteen.
Speaker 1: That's Michael, I wrote her back. They did Jerry, did you?
Speaker 1: She did not? It's all right. This is from Sarah. Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: Chucker's Josh, Jerry and Frank the Chair. I haven't chatted
Speaker 1: with you in a while, so I'm gonna tell y'all
Speaker 1: what's been going on in my world. School started about
Speaker 1: two months ago, and believe it or not, I actually
Speaker 1: like it. Since I'm in the eighth grade now, I
Speaker 1: feel like no one looks down to me. They didn't
Speaker 1: really anyway, since I'm five ft eight, she's okay, crazy,
Speaker 1: she's eight, She's like almost as all as I am. Uh.
Speaker 1: This school year will be full of fine arts, which
Speaker 1: are my favorite enquired drama. We have been working on
Speaker 1: Susical Jr. Which is a musical based work. Uh musical
Speaker 1: based on the works of Dr Seuss. I'm having a
Speaker 1: ball in that class. I get the act, sing and
Speaker 1: dance three of my favorite things. By the way, y'all
Speaker 1: are my favorites. Uh, y'all are on my favorite list too.
Speaker 1: In honor of this unique musical, I was wondering if
Speaker 1: you guys and gal would consider doing a podcast on theater. Guys,
Speaker 1: we a a doctor Dr Seuss, So I when I
Speaker 1: wrote it back, I was like, I'll have to run
Speaker 1: this boy Chuck see what he thinks about it. But
Speaker 1: I'm totally down with that. Well, we covered him on
Speaker 1: the webcast, I know, and he was just I mean,
Speaker 1: I love I loved him anyway, but once he really
Speaker 1: got into his history, he was pretty awesome. So you
Speaker 1: want to Yeah, let's do it for sure. Uh. In school,
Speaker 1: we have a cooking class. In our first class, we
Speaker 1: made a meal. We have about ten students in this class,
Speaker 1: so we split off into three groups. One group, not mine,
Speaker 1: was assigned to make cookies. They made the batter, but
Speaker 1: messed up and put a quarter cups of salt in
Speaker 1: the cookies instead of a teaspoon of salt. That's so crazy.
Speaker 1: The girls baked the cookies and when the teacher tried them,
Speaker 1: she came up with a brilliant idea we should give
Speaker 1: them to the eighth grade boys. Let's just say the
Speaker 1: look on their faces was really hard to describe. It
Speaker 1: was hilarious watching the boys run to the water fountain.
Speaker 1: I can't think of anything else to say. Thanks for
Speaker 1: reading from Sarah, the now amazing thirteen year old fans
Speaker 1: who started out as the amazing eleven year old fan. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that means I'm almost the amazing forty year old podcaster.
Speaker 1: So I'm reading this book called the Consumer republic Um,
Speaker 1: and I just found out did you know that home
Speaker 1: at classes are the earnest result of the consumer empowerment
Speaker 1: movement of the depression? Really? Yeah? Did you take commack? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: me too. It was one of my favorite classes. Actually,
Speaker 1: it's like, wow, this classroom looks like a house. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I like that, and we kind of just get to
Speaker 1: cut up and make cookies and eat them exactly. Did
Speaker 1: you take shop? I took that one too. I was
Speaker 1: much more intimidated in that class. Like wood shop. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we didn't have Some schools have a car shop. We
Speaker 1: never had that de chol in that we had when
Speaker 1: I never took it. Auto shop. Yeah, those kids could
Speaker 1: take a car apart and put it back together. I
Speaker 1: wish I would have ye. I wonder how much more
Speaker 1: I would have liked shop. Had I been as comfortable
Speaker 1: then as I am now around people missing a finger,
Speaker 1: I could have been a changed person. I got nothing else. Well,
Speaker 1: if you have a story about losing a finger, we
Speaker 1: want to hear it. It better be for real, though,
Speaker 1: none of this loop Vegas stuff. Uh wrap it up
Speaker 1: in an email and ship it post haste to stuff
Speaker 1: podcast at how stuff works dot com. For more on
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check out
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