Speaker 1: Up next, Out Loud with Gianno called Well, part of
Speaker 1: the beginning with school such Welcome back to Outllowed with
Speaker 1: Gianno Calledwell. My guess is Dr Drew Pinsky, a long
Speaker 1: time doctor, author, radio and TV personality and public intellectual.
Speaker 1: We discussed this background in medicine, the response to the
Speaker 1: continuing COVID pandemic, how childhood traumas affect our adult relationships
Speaker 1: and response to hardships, as well as the outcome to
Speaker 1: the election. That is to say, you'll learn a lot
Speaker 1: from this conversation. Let's go Welcome to Outlow with Giano
Speaker 1: called Bow, Dr and Drew is such an honor to
Speaker 1: be on with you. You have a long career of
Speaker 1: certainly only a lot that I can learn from as
Speaker 1: uh someone who has a podcast here, and I just
Speaker 1: want to thank you for assuring sharing your expertise with
Speaker 1: my audience. Thank you for coming on Outlowed with Gianna
Speaker 1: called Well, Thank you, thank you for having me absolutely
Speaker 1: so many of our listeners have probably listened to you
Speaker 1: for a very very long time. You've been on television
Speaker 1: and a radio since nine eighties. How would you say
Speaker 1: the viewers attitudes and habits have changed since then? When
Speaker 1: it comes to consumption of help related news and information. Well,
Speaker 1: it's a massive topic. I mean, it's it's it's literally
Speaker 1: a different world. I mean, I can't even tell you
Speaker 1: how different it is. Let let me just just talk
Speaker 1: for a second about how we seem to approach just
Speaker 1: let's say this current pandemic. I mean, I was very
Speaker 1: The reason I got involved in radio was HIV and AIDS,
Speaker 1: which at the time I got involved in radio, we
Speaker 1: just had stopped calling GRIDS get related to testinal disease syndrome.
Speaker 1: We're just starting to call it AIDS. We didn't have
Speaker 1: a causative organism yet. And one Anthony Fauci was encouraging
Speaker 1: us young doctors to get out there and educate because
Speaker 1: he kept saying, they're gonna be two million dead, two
Speaker 1: million dead. We're gonna have two million deaths if you
Speaker 1: don't get out there and change people's behavior. And we
Speaker 1: ended up with a hundred seventy five thousand at that
Speaker 1: same time interval, and uh, it really motivated me to
Speaker 1: go out and and talk to people. Now, we didn't
Speaker 1: at that time, go if you have sex with somebody,
Speaker 1: you're going to murder them. You're a murderer. How we
Speaker 1: do that now? If you if you go around without
Speaker 1: a mask, you're murdering grandma. That is insane. That is
Speaker 1: the worst possible health messaging I've ever heard. And yet
Speaker 1: we seem to have adopted that as axiomatic. Now. So
Speaker 1: there's that issue, this sort of hysteria with which we're
Speaker 1: approaching everything. Then we have, of course, the Internet that
Speaker 1: kind of made love lines sort of obsolete because people
Speaker 1: had all the information at their fingertips. Why do they
Speaker 1: need be? And yet what I'm finding is they're just
Speaker 1: as confused as ever. They just the the is such
Speaker 1: a vast gap between information and knowledge. People don't understand
Speaker 1: how to apply information, how to assess information, how to
Speaker 1: consolidate it into a landscape of other information. They just
Speaker 1: look at facts as well, they look at things presented
Speaker 1: as acts by the Internet, and they just don't know
Speaker 1: what to do with it. People are as in weird ways,
Speaker 1: as confused as ever as ever. Yet they kind of
Speaker 1: know the words, they just don't know what to do
Speaker 1: with them. Yeah, and I completely agree with that assessment.
Speaker 1: And I'll also say, uh to COVID, you talk about
Speaker 1: Dr Anthony Fauci and a lot of the things that
Speaker 1: was said earlier on seemed to be incorrect, and attitudes
Speaker 1: around some of the the preventative measures have kind of changed.
Speaker 1: You look at the CDC measures saying, hey, you wouldn't
Speaker 1: necessarily have to quarantine for fourteen days, maybe we take
Speaker 1: it down the seven. I remember initially they were saying,
Speaker 1: you know, mass would make a difference. Now seemingly they
Speaker 1: make a lot of difference. But you've also you made
Speaker 1: comments before that you you've said that, uh, perhaps you
Speaker 1: shouldn't have said when it comes to COVID, what were
Speaker 1: what I what I apologize for. In fact, I kind
Speaker 1: of got it right, But what I apologize for was
Speaker 1: not appreciating how brutal it is in the very at
Speaker 1: risk populations. And I've seen a out of COVID now
Speaker 1: and and in certain situations it's it's brutal, But for
Speaker 1: the most part, for the of people who contract COVID,
Speaker 1: it's the flu. And that's kind of what I was
Speaker 1: saying that we were I could see the panic coming.
Speaker 1: I could see the way the press was framing this
Speaker 1: thing before it ever hit these shores. They were using
Speaker 1: words to describe what was going on in Italy, which
Speaker 1: was frankly a mismanaged situation. They were using staggering, grim, cataclysmic. Well,
Speaker 1: well now we're, you know, many hundreds thousands of cases later.
Speaker 1: What words are you going to use now, guys? I
Speaker 1: mean just the excesses in what they how they reported things,
Speaker 1: And so it became impossible for anyone to know are
Speaker 1: we are we in trouble? Is there are there a
Speaker 1: lot of cases? There are there a few cases? Is
Speaker 1: everyone getting really sick? Are there enough hospital bets? It's
Speaker 1: just I was on the news two nights ago and
Speaker 1: they were reporting a hospital it was overflowing. They have
Speaker 1: to take a closet and turn it into an ICU.
Speaker 1: So I went in and found what was going on.
Speaker 1: They had a neonatal I see you. They weren't using
Speaker 1: anymore that they stored things in for a short while
Speaker 1: that they reopened as an adult. I see you, perfectly reasonable,
Speaker 1: perfectly normal procedure. And of of again, the headline was
Speaker 1: I see you overflowing. What percentage of the I c
Speaker 1: you beds do you imagine with that headline were filled
Speaker 1: with COVID cases? It was other things, and those other
Speaker 1: things are typically illnesses. First of all, this time of year,
Speaker 1: we always get i CEU surges and people are delaying
Speaker 1: coming to the hospital because of the horrible panic porn
Speaker 1: that the press is creating. Wow, and people are being
Speaker 1: disenfranchise who have legitimate and serious health situations because I
Speaker 1: know a lot of hospitals and doctors said hey, we
Speaker 1: can't do your surgery because of COVID, or don't come
Speaker 1: in for this situation because of COVID and UM. It
Speaker 1: seems like they realized that was a bad strategy because
Speaker 1: now they are They're not They're trying not to stop
Speaker 1: doing what hospitals do. They're trying to continue their usual
Speaker 1: they're they're obviously not doing elective stuff, but the they're
Speaker 1: trying to preserve beds where they can, but they're trying
Speaker 1: to function. Healthcare was trying to function and most of
Speaker 1: the beds are filled with usual fair non non COVID.
Speaker 1: COVID is just adding a stress to the system, which
Speaker 1: is what happened in pandemics. Happened in two thousand and
Speaker 1: ten with the H one N one pandemic, and yet
Speaker 1: no one was even aware that happened. Yeah, and that's
Speaker 1: so interesting that this pandemic has impacted at least COVID
Speaker 1: has impacted African Americans at such an extreme rate. And
Speaker 1: I was on the let me let me tell you
Speaker 1: something interesting. Uh, this is what this is. I'm really
Speaker 1: very upset about this, and you need to help me
Speaker 1: with this. Because there are nine percent of the population
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles are African American, and yet they're only
Speaker 1: getting seven percent of the COVID cases in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: African Americans are doing better than every one else, and
Speaker 1: Hispanics are doing vastly more poorly. Why Why isn't the
Speaker 1: Public Health Department going in and figuring out what's going
Speaker 1: right in the African American community and what's going wrong
Speaker 1: in the Hispanic and rather than using a sledge hammer
Speaker 1: and shutting down all of southern California, use a damn scalpel.
Speaker 1: And I've been saying this lately. I mean, what if
Speaker 1: when there was a typhoid outbreak in Manhattan at the
Speaker 1: turn of the century, they shut down Manhattan. No, the
Speaker 1: public Health Department went in and followed the cases, and
Speaker 1: they found typhoid mary. They extracted typhoid mary, and the
Speaker 1: outbreak stopped. That's how public health is done. What happened
Speaker 1: to our public health officials. It's the weirdest thing. Well,
Speaker 1: I think the public health officials in in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: They're shutting down indoor and outdoor nining and then going
Speaker 1: out to nine. So I mean, what they're doing, and
Speaker 1: now they're now they're being called the court because this
Speaker 1: is capricious, no evidence. The scariest thing I hear them
Speaker 1: saying is what we have to do something. When I
Speaker 1: was training residents, and I taught internal medicine for several years.
Speaker 1: When I was training residents, I would always tell them,
Speaker 1: just give me your reasoning, make your decision. I won't
Speaker 1: fault you just as long as you have an evidence.
Speaker 1: You show me the literature, the published literature that backs
Speaker 1: up your decision. I don't care if I think it's wrong,
Speaker 1: I'll I will defend your decision. But if you a
Speaker 1: don't know what to do, if you've made a mistake,
Speaker 1: you don't have a backup plant or be say I
Speaker 1: just did it because I had to do something, I
Speaker 1: swear to God I will I'll get your license. That
Speaker 1: is that is the do no harm is our first
Speaker 1: credo in medicine. And again public health officiers are saying,
Speaker 1: we just had to do something. That is how you
Speaker 1: kill people. So I'm deeply concerned with the functioning of
Speaker 1: our public health departments. I don't understand what happened to them.
Speaker 1: They've abandoned what we knew know to be effective public
Speaker 1: health messaging. They're using a sledge hammer as opposed to
Speaker 1: a scalpel, which is, you know, again, look at where
Speaker 1: the outbreaks are coming from and shut it down where
Speaker 1: they're emanating, and then find out what you're doing right
Speaker 1: in places where it's going well. And then this idea
Speaker 1: of no risk reward analysis and just doing something just
Speaker 1: to do something is horrific. It's horrific. That's how you
Speaker 1: hurt people. So you would argue that the public health
Speaker 1: officials that are in charge of places like Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: Chicago and some of these other places where you see
Speaker 1: cases skyrocketing, they're they're failing the citizens and the residents
Speaker 1: of those areas. I don't know. I don't know what
Speaker 1: they're doing. I don't understand what they're doing. I I
Speaker 1: know that they've got problems and they need to intervene.
Speaker 1: I understand that. Why don't they even talk about how
Speaker 1: well it's going in the African American community, why don't
Speaker 1: they even talk about what's going on in the Hispanic
Speaker 1: community and try to figure out why why that's going
Speaker 1: so badly? What is wrong with them? That's what you
Speaker 1: do in public health, and why are they not really
Speaker 1: focused on a expanding hospital capacity? That's their job? And
Speaker 1: then be vaccine distribution. So far, vaccine distribution has been
Speaker 1: a complete disaster. When when I end with you, I'm
Speaker 1: calling my hospital and I'm gonna call the staff department
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna find out what is going on with
Speaker 1: their vaccine distribution because thus far they've sent us some
Speaker 1: some guidance saying, well, we have a tier system, but
Speaker 1: we really don't know how much vaccine we're gonna get.
Speaker 1: We made us rely on a lottery, a lottery for
Speaker 1: people that are working in the ICU with COVID patients.
Speaker 1: This is insane department, absolutely, and I want to discuss
Speaker 1: that further. But let's take a quick break first. Let's
Speaker 1: stay with us. And you know and you you you
Speaker 1: mentioned Los Angeles, the numbers in Los Angeles, but it's
Speaker 1: been reported in terms of African Americans, but it's been
Speaker 1: reported nationally. The African Americans hadn't done as well. When
Speaker 1: it comes to COVID. In fact, they had a whole
Speaker 1: I've had a whole debate which I encourage people to
Speaker 1: go over to my Instagram at Giano Caldwell. I was
Speaker 1: on air on election Day out of Chicago. I was
Speaker 1: on one of the Fox affiliates. In this journalists tried
Speaker 1: to attack me when I said, hey, you know, folks
Speaker 1: should just research both candidates, and I mentioned some of
Speaker 1: the very good things that President Donald Trump has done
Speaker 1: for the African American community. And I didn't know if
Speaker 1: he thought he was talking to someone who was an
Speaker 1: empty suit or couldn't think for themselves. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: what is what his goal was, but he tried to
Speaker 1: hit me with the fact that African Americans nationally hadn't
Speaker 1: done as well when it comes to COVID, and he
Speaker 1: tried he tried to pend that on Donald Trump. Now,
Speaker 1: my response is underlying health conditions that exist within the
Speaker 1: African American community which makes them more susceptible to the
Speaker 1: issue of COVID. Can you speak to that a little
Speaker 1: bit and that that kind of shut them up, but
Speaker 1: still in for people to understand. Right, So, so you're
Speaker 1: talking about diabetes and obesity, right, that's one of them. Rather, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, and hypertension and and and those are the
Speaker 1: things that really, you know, when people go a hight
Speaker 1: risk for COVID. Here's what makes get risk for COVID
Speaker 1: advanced age, obesity, metabolic syndrome which includes diabetes and so resistance,
Speaker 1: and antiphosphilipid center. The people that really do badly have
Speaker 1: antiphosphilipid syndrome. And and that's it. Oh yes, However, I
Speaker 1: just read a study that said that African Americans when
Speaker 1: they get sick, do better than other other races. So
Speaker 1: for a while there I was hearing they were doing
Speaker 1: more poorly in terms of adverse outcomes. Now here's a
Speaker 1: study that says they do better. They're more likely to
Speaker 1: get it nationally, but apparently more likely to do well.
Speaker 1: But yes, those do well when they get COVID to
Speaker 1: recompense what's like to die, I really was their endpoint.
Speaker 1: But but again I don't know, that's one study. You know,
Speaker 1: I just surprised me that that was a study that
Speaker 1: showed up. But but b that as it may. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, and people look at ibet is, obesity and
Speaker 1: and hypertension in African Americans. They go, this is uh,
Speaker 1: this is exposing some sort of something, and you can
Speaker 1: put a label to it, like systemic racism in our
Speaker 1: healthcare delivery system, and uh yeah, yeah, it's exposing something.
Speaker 1: We should be doing something about that. But you think
Speaker 1: that systematic racism that black folks are, you don't know
Speaker 1: what to call these things until I understand what's going on, right,
Speaker 1: someone's got to go in and study what is going
Speaker 1: on now if it is all dietary, and then we
Speaker 1: can got to analyze why are people making these dietary choices?
Speaker 1: Is it economic? Is it people are marketing to African Americans?
Speaker 1: I would argue taking advantage of through marketing strategies for
Speaker 1: high fat, high corn syrup, high sugar. That's that's that's
Speaker 1: that's I could put racism in that category. That seems
Speaker 1: wrong to me. But I don't know if that's what's
Speaker 1: causing it. I don't know. We have to go look
Speaker 1: at somebody's got to study it. Yeah, you know. I
Speaker 1: tend to to push back a bit when people say
Speaker 1: that it's just systemic racism. When you have the responsibility
Speaker 1: of taking care of your own body, working out, eating right, exercising,
Speaker 1: now there's an argument to be made in terms of
Speaker 1: there being the food deserts in particular communities, poor communities,
Speaker 1: marginalized communities, black communities. Okay, that's that's a conversation or
Speaker 1: you know what. By the way, so you know what
Speaker 1: what you're getting at though, and it's what I'm getting
Speaker 1: at two, which is I don't know quite what people
Speaker 1: mean when they say systemic racism. I'd like to be
Speaker 1: more more accurate, more specific, And then once we zero
Speaker 1: in on a pinpoint exactly what the issue is, then
Speaker 1: stand back and ask ourselves, is, hey, is that racism?
Speaker 1: Is there racism involved in this? And how would we
Speaker 1: understand that? And I there's at least not you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes not being sensitive to certain communities needs is if
Speaker 1: you want to call that racism, I'm okay with that. Okay. Now,
Speaker 1: my my intrigue on that matter is I believe that
Speaker 1: people apply racism too far too much things that are
Speaker 1: clearly not racist. People have say the trees, races, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just all kinds of things, and we've not to
Speaker 1: find our terms right. We don't know what we're talking
Speaker 1: about anymore. That's what bothers me. I'm a scientist. So
Speaker 1: you've gotta be very precise with what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: And some people think you're talking about one thing, other
Speaker 1: people think you're talking about another. So now it's gobbledygoop.
Speaker 1: Just agree with that. So we we got to be
Speaker 1: very careful, and I think people um had to be
Speaker 1: very careful because I no, there's a lot of desire
Speaker 1: to please the social justice warriors out there, and I'm
Speaker 1: all for social justice. Let me be clear, I think
Speaker 1: racism does exist and it's something that has to be
Speaker 1: stomped out. But at the same time, I've seen politically
Speaker 1: democrats use the label for the benefit of their elections,
Speaker 1: and that's what's um. I think just just horrific, a
Speaker 1: bludgeon or a political tool, and I would argue you're
Speaker 1: being used when when politicians do that. I got a question.
Speaker 1: You gotta help me with the term white supremacy. That's
Speaker 1: another term that's very non specific these days, and I
Speaker 1: find people are meaning different things. My sense of that
Speaker 1: got sort of the scales fell from my eyes when
Speaker 1: I read Frederick Douglas's biography, and in the opening of
Speaker 1: that biography he gives a speech and I can't I
Speaker 1: get chills when I think about what an incredible human
Speaker 1: being that man was, and if we don't we don't
Speaker 1: we don't teach him enough, humbly. And he was sort
Speaker 1: of was asked to to give a consecration of this
Speaker 1: essentially freeing slave monument in Washington. He and he got
Speaker 1: up and goes, first of all this you know, he
Speaker 1: just said, like, this is not a this is not
Speaker 1: our monument. This is this is from a different perspective.
Speaker 1: This is a perspective of the white person. And you're
Speaker 1: You're Lincoln, whom you love and who I adore. By
Speaker 1: the way, I'm a dig Lincoln a file. He went,
Speaker 1: he was a white supremacist. And I just thought I
Speaker 1: would It's straight like they cut through me like like
Speaker 1: some sort of knife. I was like, what's my my
Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln? And then I started thinking about it. I go, oh,
Speaker 1: I see what he means. He's talking about Eurocentric perspective
Speaker 1: on life and that and that the he's asking for
Speaker 1: a more empathic, attuned look from other people's perspective who
Speaker 1: are in a mominary group. And and it's stays, I
Speaker 1: am fine with that assessment of white supremacy, but I
Speaker 1: don't think people need mean that when they use it anymore,
Speaker 1: tell me help me. You know, when it comes to
Speaker 1: a lot of the founders, when we think you think
Speaker 1: about Abraham Lincoln who freed the slaves, you think about
Speaker 1: George Washington, who owned slaves. When you think about Thomas
Speaker 1: Jefferson's and a lot of these individuals who helped to
Speaker 1: found our country, helped to put our country on a
Speaker 1: particular footing. It for me, I recognized the fact that
Speaker 1: these were imperfect men, and I also recognized the fact
Speaker 1: that what they did in terms of owning slaves and
Speaker 1: the culture of that moment was absolutely wrong, full stop.
Speaker 1: And the next question then comes, can you separate the
Speaker 1: bad that people have done from the good and can
Speaker 1: you look at those as in two different lenses? You
Speaker 1: look at Okay, this is positive, Lincoln free the slaves
Speaker 1: or whatever have you. Can you look at that? And
Speaker 1: I would argue that you can, And I would say
Speaker 1: I admire Heidegarian philosophy. And let's be clear, he was
Speaker 1: a Nazi, you know, and yet his philosophy is has
Speaker 1: changed the Western lexicon, the continental European lexicon. And I
Speaker 1: think we can we can separate, you know, the horrible
Speaker 1: choices that people make in a historical context from their
Speaker 1: particularly they're written philosophies. And let me say this because
Speaker 1: I'm before people start calling us both out on this
Speaker 1: conversation on social media, the media, or whatever the case is.
Speaker 1: I want to I want to improve my position. I
Speaker 1: want to I want to make it better, and I
Speaker 1: think I think that's appropriate. I think there's people who
Speaker 1: were clearly racist, and that's that was their whole point.
Speaker 1: They wanted to profit off the work and the back
Speaker 1: of men who should have been freed and we're stolen
Speaker 1: from their own country. That those are people who who
Speaker 1: that was their only incentive. They wanted to profit. And
Speaker 1: then there were people who did some good things. But
Speaker 1: I also argue, if we're bringing it to common day,
Speaker 1: I think Democrats, who oftentimes apply racist labels too pretty
Speaker 1: much everything that favors them at that moment. I think
Speaker 1: about somebody like Joe Biden who sponsored and pushed forth
Speaker 1: their Institutetionarly Races ninety four crime bill, and Democrats clearly
Speaker 1: see that as a fault, but they're willing to accept
Speaker 1: him in spite of so if they can separate, certainly
Speaker 1: there's other areas that can be separated. But I just
Speaker 1: find it to be such a major hypocrisy when it
Speaker 1: comes to Republicans who do things wrong. And if you
Speaker 1: notice Republicans who often they say something racist, they do
Speaker 1: something racist, oftentimes the party looks to expel those folks
Speaker 1: versus people like, um, what the Virginia governor, uh, Governor
Speaker 1: Northam who's still in office, and he has a very
Speaker 1: questionable history when it comes to race. So these are
Speaker 1: one of those things where people play political games versus
Speaker 1: just calling things out for what they should be. And
Speaker 1: I think that's that's an issue that that happens in
Speaker 1: this country. It's okay, well, I'm not gonna call out
Speaker 1: my side because I don't want to get my side
Speaker 1: in trouble, but I'm willing to call out the other side.
Speaker 1: That is deep hypocrisy and that needs to end in
Speaker 1: this country full stop. H Now, my question for you
Speaker 1: because you, I mean, you have such a prolific career,
Speaker 1: uh in terms of just medicine, as you mentioned you
Speaker 1: were in turnings or you are one, You've been a doctor,
Speaker 1: You've the love Line was started in nine four and
Speaker 1: ended in twos sixteen, and your your syndicated radio talk
Speaker 1: show Dr Drew and call on hl n UM Life
Speaker 1: Changes on the CW. We go to Celebrity Rehab with
Speaker 1: Dr Drew, Sex Rehab with Dr Drew, which I'm sure
Speaker 1: was quite an interesting experience, and the list goes on
Speaker 1: and all your master at media and being able to
Speaker 1: disseminate a message of a high caliber and do it
Speaker 1: in a simplistic way that people can understand. What sparked
Speaker 1: your interest in Madison? Madison to begin with medicine? I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: you know, I come from a medical family, and it
Speaker 1: was always sort of assumed, Oh, you're gonna be like
Speaker 1: your dad, blah blah blah. And then when I got
Speaker 1: to college, I was like, well, I'm not up for this.
Speaker 1: I don't want to do this. And I kind of
Speaker 1: fished around for about it a couple of years, and
Speaker 1: then I came back. I thought, you know, I really
Speaker 1: missed the sciences, and just the idea of going back
Speaker 1: into some sort of more rigorous training kind of made
Speaker 1: me feel better. And so I started going down that path.
Speaker 1: And I was just telling my son this morning that
Speaker 1: I would walk out in the parking lot. I remember
Speaker 1: every day after anatomy lab at the end of my
Speaker 1: first year, you know, each day at the end of
Speaker 1: first year classes and I would just get my car
Speaker 1: and just go, oh my god, I'm so glad I'm
Speaker 1: doing this. It is so exciting that such important material
Speaker 1: I cannot wait to get into the wards. It just
Speaker 1: it just was in me and so I because it
Speaker 1: was more of a calling and and it was a
Speaker 1: deep interest as a scientist too. Um. It's something that
Speaker 1: I'm just really grateful I did, and it was something
Speaker 1: I did essentially overdid for about twenty fifteen years. I
Speaker 1: sort of crammed three careers into one where I was
Speaker 1: running medical services in a psychiatric hospital. I was doing
Speaker 1: inpatient and outpatient general medicine, and then ended up running
Speaker 1: addiction services for a large psychiatric hospital. And that was
Speaker 1: a lot. That was a lot, and and it gave
Speaker 1: me a perspective on the human experien arians in medicine
Speaker 1: that almost nobody gets anymore. So I've been spending the
Speaker 1: last few years trying to just give that back because
Speaker 1: I just like, no one has this perspective that I have.
Speaker 1: And and you oftentimes dealt with those who were battling
Speaker 1: with addiction, but you also under understanding from a much
Speaker 1: different lens. And I say that because from the age
Speaker 1: of about eight years old into my twenties, my mom
Speaker 1: was addicted to crack, cocaine and other drunks. And for me,
Speaker 1: even though I'm now thirty three, December twenty seven, i'll
Speaker 1: be thirty four years old, it's still something that I
Speaker 1: deal with the issues of my mom abandoning me and
Speaker 1: my other siblings as a as a youngster, and she
Speaker 1: gave custody of me and my siblings to her mother.
Speaker 1: At the time, she was a private duty nurse. And
Speaker 1: then she pulls out the garage one day she gets
Speaker 1: hit by a drunk driver, injured her back, and she
Speaker 1: can no longer work. So we lived that must have
Speaker 1: sent her down an obiit pass well, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: that that was my grand That was my grandmother. So
Speaker 1: my mother gave her custody of me and my siblings
Speaker 1: to my grandmother, and my grandmother was doing fine at
Speaker 1: that at one point, but then she got into a
Speaker 1: car accident to a drunk driver hit her and she
Speaker 1: could no longer work. So what it ultimately did is
Speaker 1: set us on a path of poverty and government assistance.
Speaker 1: And as one who has had to deal with this
Speaker 1: issue because I had, like an absent mom had for
Speaker 1: many years. It would be times where I would see
Speaker 1: her for one day, she would pop up on us
Speaker 1: for a day, maybe she'll stick around for two and
Speaker 1: then she'll be gone for nine months, a year or
Speaker 1: even more than that. And it was such a horrific
Speaker 1: experience for us, and it remains for a lot of
Speaker 1: my siblings that way, because they feel as though, although
Speaker 1: we're pretty much all adults now except for maybe one
Speaker 1: or two of my siblings, is nine of us, she
Speaker 1: had a bunch of bunch of kids. It feels like
Speaker 1: a lot of us are still dealing with the emotional
Speaker 1: trauma of abandonment, not having an active mother present. And
Speaker 1: then some of them kind of got off into drugs
Speaker 1: themselves and and and crime. Not to the degree that
Speaker 1: she did in terms of the drugs, but it's still
Speaker 1: one that harms um our family to this day, and
Speaker 1: it's one in which I've I've already began counseling a
Speaker 1: long time ago to kind of move on from that,
Speaker 1: because it impacted my relationships with women, being in a relationship, dating,
Speaker 1: all those different things, and you know, some of my
Speaker 1: other stories, Um, you know some of my other stories.
Speaker 1: So it just and it compounds all of those different things,
Speaker 1: and it's like, how do you deal with families that
Speaker 1: are dealing with those issues that the epidemic of. Um,
Speaker 1: these are massive, massive topics. So so let's just first
Speaker 1: deal with your romantic misadventures. When you have a traumatic
Speaker 1: relationship with a parent, it it sets a kind of
Speaker 1: an attachment and what some people call a love map
Speaker 1: that makes you incredibly attracted to people and places even
Speaker 1: though they don't look like it to you emotionally. On
Speaker 1: some level, you know are constructed and are just like
Speaker 1: mom in some fashion, you'll be super attracted to people
Speaker 1: with those qualities, like just for instance, sort of the
Speaker 1: the common trope of you know, a young lady with
Speaker 1: an abandoning father is magically attracted to guys that abandoned her,
Speaker 1: and we just and it's called a traumatic reenactment traumas
Speaker 1: of childhood. We reenact, particularly in our romantic relationships, but
Speaker 1: no one ever examines really how they get set up.
Speaker 1: It really gets set up through attractions where we become variant.
Speaker 1: You mentioned that sex addiction show I did, and that's
Speaker 1: what that was all about. People that had a high
Speaker 1: degree of trauma and childhood then re enacting the trauma
Speaker 1: over and over and over again in their adult life
Speaker 1: and not understanding the sort of pathways that we're setting
Speaker 1: it up. So that's one of the manifestations of childhood
Speaker 1: trauma uma. The other is, you know, physical abuse, abandonment.
Speaker 1: All that stuff changes the wiring of our nervous system.
Speaker 1: It makes us to have difficulty in regulating our emotions.
Speaker 1: If you then also have the genetic potential for addiction,
Speaker 1: and let's be fair, addiction is a genetic disorder accounted
Speaker 1: for on the basis of genetics. On the basis of
Speaker 1: genetics alone, but if you have trauma and the genetic potential,
Speaker 1: that's rocket fuel for addiction. That that's how you because
Speaker 1: people are unregulated, have to reach outside of themselves to regulate,
Speaker 1: and then you trigger addiction. They have two problems, trauma
Speaker 1: and addiction. And then the third issue you're bringing up,
Speaker 1: which is the more profound one, not that these other
Speaker 1: things aren't profound too, but this is the really profound
Speaker 1: thing that we struggle with, which is the intergenerational transmission
Speaker 1: of trauma, which is something that unfortunately is sort of ignored,
Speaker 1: really ignored by politicians, and something that we have to
Speaker 1: come to terms with in this country because it's having
Speaker 1: it's really the reason we're in all the mess we're
Speaker 1: in right now. So per your analysis, right now, I'm
Speaker 1: attracted to, or rather it's some way shape or form
Speaker 1: could be attracted to women who in some way reminds
Speaker 1: me of my mother. So not remind you of your mother,
Speaker 1: but but is put that the the romantic entanglement is
Speaker 1: put together in such a way that those old mechanisms
Speaker 1: are reactuated. So that's what happens in therapy. What happens
Speaker 1: in therapy is you, over time will form a healthy
Speaker 1: attachment to the therapist and then helpfully now go out
Speaker 1: in the world and use those sorts of attachments as
Speaker 1: your templates for romantic choices. As it is now what
Speaker 1: people with trauma and abandonment use. They use intensity. They
Speaker 1: confuse intensity for love, and intensity is the problem you
Speaker 1: have to avoid, well, not avoid, but you have to
Speaker 1: recognize intensity. We always tell trauma survivors that are making
Speaker 1: recurrent romantic choices that are end up being traumatic enactments.
Speaker 1: Think butterflies, not lightning bolts. Butterflies not lightning bolts, and
Speaker 1: you won't be able to do that if you've not
Speaker 1: had therapy, you'll you'll keep making the same choice. Therapy
Speaker 1: again disentangles that and brings your attachment into the therapist
Speaker 1: that that rewires the templates in your head. Let's put
Speaker 1: it that way. Huh. I never thought about it that way.
Speaker 1: Let's continue from there in a moment right after we
Speaker 1: take a quick break. When you say that, I think
Speaker 1: about a scenario that took place in my life some
Speaker 1: years ago, and you you know about this personally. So
Speaker 1: about seven years ago, almost eight years ago, I've been single,
Speaker 1: and I've been single because I had fell in love
Speaker 1: with a young lady who was outstandingly beautiful. She seemingly
Speaker 1: was very into God and church. And it's been a
Speaker 1: great deal of time together because I want a woman
Speaker 1: that to believe her Christian and she was very hungry
Speaker 1: to improve herself, and we spent a great deal of
Speaker 1: time together, and things just begin to feel very unsettled,
Speaker 1: and I couldn't figure out what was going on why
Speaker 1: it felt so unsettled. So I ended up getting onto
Speaker 1: a smartphone somehow and and being able to see the
Speaker 1: contents of it while I was away on a business trip,
Speaker 1: and what I discovered is this woman was a secret
Speaker 1: escort and she was dealing with some of the most
Speaker 1: powerful people in the country. And as you can imagine,
Speaker 1: I was completely and totally heartbroken. I couldn't trust anyone.
Speaker 1: I couldn't trust any woman. But in that case, I
Speaker 1: just couldn't figure out what to do until I went
Speaker 1: to counseling and things became better, because at one point
Speaker 1: it seemed like I was just kind of pushing all
Speaker 1: the attention away for me, you know, women who wanted
Speaker 1: to date me and women that I was actually I
Speaker 1: found attractive, but I was kind of pushing it away,
Speaker 1: and I began to feel and think, was I commitment? Folk?
Speaker 1: I come to the realization that I'm not a commitment folbe,
Speaker 1: but the very real possibility of me becoming one, I think,
Speaker 1: was present. Well, what what happens again, This is sort
Speaker 1: of the typical pattern is that people with that I
Speaker 1: mean first starts of all, you you avoiding intimacy at
Speaker 1: that point with sort of a self preservation movement as
Speaker 1: a reasonable thing. But what happens is the typical pattern
Speaker 1: is that people will sabotage real relationships or just not
Speaker 1: be interested in them and have lightning bolts for these
Speaker 1: people that they shouldn't be involved with, and then get
Speaker 1: re traumatized by them, re traumatized and you you see
Speaker 1: that and relationships, romantic and other relationships. The love line was,
Speaker 1: the love line was, every call was, you know, pointing
Speaker 1: out these patterns to people. So so the recommendation from
Speaker 1: you for people who have dealt with those very dramatic
Speaker 1: situations is to go get with the therapists and you
Speaker 1: can be here. Recommendation is to take yourself by the
Speaker 1: hand and see if you what it's like to get
Speaker 1: involved with somebody that you don't have an intense attraction for,
Speaker 1: that you just have sort of a mild attraction for
Speaker 1: again butterflies, not lightning bolts, and see what that relationship
Speaker 1: feels like. And if you sabotage it or get bored
Speaker 1: with it or pull away from it, you have your answer,
Speaker 1: because then that's that could have been a relationship that
Speaker 1: you are sabotaging and you can't tolerate. You have an
Speaker 1: intimacy disorder at that point, and that needs to be treated.
Speaker 1: It can be treated quite readily, intimacy. But here's the thing.
Speaker 1: You said, just a mild attraction to aren't we all
Speaker 1: looking for the best looking person and as the best
Speaker 1: qualities we can be attracted to, not necessarily I mean,
Speaker 1: and by the way, that means very different things to
Speaker 1: different people, And so you know it's you'd be surprised
Speaker 1: as you do this work what you're attracted to changes markedly.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us about one of these cases you experienced.
Speaker 1: It was a tough case and you you ended up
Speaker 1: getting the person on the right track? Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: one that thing people can can watch is um we
Speaker 1: in the Sex of It and show. It's funny that
Speaker 1: we're talking about. That show was just one of the
Speaker 1: shows we did. But we treated a porn star. Her
Speaker 1: name in the porn industry was Penny Flame we knew,
Speaker 1: or Jennifer Ketchum. And what you will see is and
Speaker 1: she came in. She had no intention of getting treatment.
Speaker 1: It turned out she had a she had all kinds
Speaker 1: of stuff going on and she didn't really realize any
Speaker 1: of it. But we got through to her right away
Speaker 1: by calling her Jennifer Jenny. No one had called and
Speaker 1: they've been calling her Penny for the last ten years.
Speaker 1: And this was a pseudo self that she was living
Speaker 1: in and we just cut through that and said, no,
Speaker 1: I want to I want to use know Jennifer, and
Speaker 1: she started dropping some of the bullshit and you will
Speaker 1: see her go through the process of really sex addiction
Speaker 1: treatment at that point, but ultimately stayed with therapy for
Speaker 1: quite some time after we did the acute treatment, realized
Speaker 1: she had a cocaine and cannabis problem also, and got
Speaker 1: into recovery from that. And now she is a really
Speaker 1: talented social worker married with a yeah social worker, yeah,
Speaker 1: how her therapist, she's a therapist, and she has a
Speaker 1: child that she has a stable relationship with somebody she loves.
Speaker 1: And she had severe intimacy problems, severe and lots of
Speaker 1: similar trauma as to what you're describing. Lots of stuff
Speaker 1: with the dad with cocaine and the mom abandoning the
Speaker 1: kids and the whole thing. Usual stuff. These are these
Speaker 1: are common stories that we have to get much more
Speaker 1: realistic about their impact. And how long did it take
Speaker 1: for her to to get on track to to that degree?
Speaker 1: It was the years? Was it years? I mean it
Speaker 1: was years, but it wasn't decades. I mean at end
Speaker 1: of a decade, she was a social worker, you know,
Speaker 1: and she I'd say, I'd say five to seven years.
Speaker 1: She was well in hand. She was well in hand. Wow, Okay,
Speaker 1: well switching gears because I know you you. You have
Speaker 1: to get out of here shortly. The show wouldn't be
Speaker 1: complete without at least gazing the field of politics. What
Speaker 1: is your impression of the outcome of the election in
Speaker 1: the current state of things? I am my my My
Speaker 1: fundamental position when I just examine my feelings are that
Speaker 1: I'm I'm tired. I'm just so tired of the weird
Speaker 1: negativity and the Trump derangement syndrome. And I'm just so tired.
Speaker 1: I'm tired. Mr Trump makes me tired to some of
Speaker 1: the things he's played. You're not the only one, but
Speaker 1: so so. I'm happy to see things settled down. How
Speaker 1: they settle down. I almost don't have a I don't
Speaker 1: have an opinion. I'm just glad they're settling down. We've
Speaker 1: exposed some things about ourselves in the process of all this,
Speaker 1: and we did take a very good look at ourselves.
Speaker 1: We've been behaving like the mobs during the French Revolution.
Speaker 1: There's a certain I'm going to reread I just got
Speaker 1: out of affect them in the room where I'm gonna
Speaker 1: pull the book out right now, Notes from the Underground
Speaker 1: by Dostoevsky. Because everyone has become like that main character
Speaker 1: in that, in that, in that, in that novel, and
Speaker 1: I'm wondering what that means. We have to start, you know,
Speaker 1: this is pertinent to this conversation. We have to become empathic.
Speaker 1: We have to stop acting out envy. We we have
Speaker 1: to change because it's we're behaving like the mobs during
Speaker 1: the French Revolution and pulling out the guillotines for every
Speaker 1: little thing that it's ridiculous. And so we'll see and
Speaker 1: you think the Trump the arrangement syndrome, that's that. And
Speaker 1: I was going to ask you about that, but that's
Speaker 1: like a a real thing for It's not a ds
Speaker 1: M five, you know category, but a boy. You sure
Speaker 1: see it everywhere. And because I don't have it, I
Speaker 1: don't have any. I'm a very middle of the road
Speaker 1: moderate if if anything, I lean libertarian. But I see
Speaker 1: the craziness on both sides, and so it's really easy
Speaker 1: for me to call it out because I see it,
Speaker 1: I see it operating. It's like you're this is any
Speaker 1: and these it's it's what we used to call neuroticism.
Speaker 1: We have to we have to we have to get
Speaker 1: much more critical in our thoughts. We have to recognize
Speaker 1: envy where it's corrosive. We have to be more empathic,
Speaker 1: and we have to be more thoughtful and not so hysterical.
Speaker 1: I mean, look with the COVID thing is another part
Speaker 1: of that. We started talking about that. That's another that's
Speaker 1: another derangement syndrome that we have. And uh, it needs
Speaker 1: to change. We need to change. We need to get
Speaker 1: ahold of ourselves and we need to you know, go
Speaker 1: back to the golden rule, go back to communities, go
Speaker 1: back to our family and relationships and all the good
Speaker 1: stuff you and I were talking about. You know, we
Speaker 1: need to function better in our relationships. And if we
Speaker 1: have trauma and it's been delivered to it. I've had
Speaker 1: trauma for my parents. You know, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: intergenerational trauma. You know, my family escaped the Ukrainian genocide,
Speaker 1: and uh, and that stuff gets transmitted to you. It
Speaker 1: just gets through to you and you have to be
Speaker 1: aware of it and you have to deal with it.
Speaker 1: And on a final note from Dr Drew, have more
Speaker 1: empathy and I appreciate that. And for folks who may
Speaker 1: be interested in knowing my mom is doing well. She's
Speaker 1: no longer on drugs and she now works in the
Speaker 1: in the health care field caring for people who were
Speaker 1: in similar situation. Is like her. But at the same
Speaker 1: time the kind of people that I keeps me working
Speaker 1: every day. These recoveries are miraculous, but you have to
Speaker 1: recover too. She was very sick when you were a child,
Speaker 1: and that illness not your mom, the illness had an
Speaker 1: impact on you. Well. I look forward to doing counseling
Speaker 1: sessions with you, doctor we end up writing together. As
Speaker 1: we've just I'll pull the curtain back a little bit.
Speaker 1: We've talked a little bit about. Trust me, those are
Speaker 1: extremely emotional and very therapeutic sessions when we really get
Speaker 1: deep into writing the writing process. Listen, I'm all game,
Speaker 1: and I want to thank you so much for coming
Speaker 1: on out loud with Gianno Caswell. And we certainly appreciate
Speaker 1: your very logical and research based opinion. No conspiracy theories here.
Speaker 1: So for folks who may want to listen to this,
Speaker 1: you know you've got folks. We got democrats that listen
Speaker 1: in some left wing publications. They love to drum up
Speaker 1: some some hates. So for those who are listening this
Speaker 1: fave base I am or something I said, here's my approach.
Speaker 1: If I stepped on a landmine somewhere, please help me
Speaker 1: do a better job. I want to do better. And
Speaker 1: if if my mind needs to be changed about something,
Speaker 1: I want my mind to be changed. I don't want
Speaker 1: to sit in a silo and here an echo. I
Speaker 1: would love to grow and expand my view of things.
Speaker 1: So please, if anybody takes issue with any of these
Speaker 1: things I love, but but don't don't use envy and
Speaker 1: aggression as a way of feeding back. Just give me
Speaker 1: the feedback and that will change my mind. You know,
Speaker 1: we say to our kids, I can't hear you when
Speaker 1: you talk like that. It's hard to hear people when
Speaker 1: they're being aggressive and envious. Just just just tell me
Speaker 1: how I can do a better job, and I'm all
Speaker 1: for it. Dr Drew. Everyone is when we have the collapse.
Speaker 1: We don't have the radio technology. But I want to
Speaker 1: thank you for coming to out low with Gianno called
Speaker 1: Will has certainly been a pleasure. Dr Drew privileges mine
Speaker 1: will talk. So thank you to Dr Drew for a
Speaker 1: great interview. If you're enjoying the show, please leave us
Speaker 1: a review and rate us with five stars on Apple Podcast.
Speaker 1: If you have any questions for me, please email me
Speaker 1: at out Loud at ginger Street sixty dot com and
Speaker 1: I'll try to answer them in our future episodes. You
Speaker 1: can also follow me on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and parlor
Speaker 1: at Giano Caldwell. And if you're interested in learning more
Speaker 1: about my story, please pick up a copy of my
Speaker 1: best selling book title Taken for Granted, How Conservatism Can
Speaker 1: Win back to Americans that liberalism failed. Special things to
Speaker 1: our producers Stephen Calabria, researcher Aaron Klingman, and executive producers
Speaker 1: Debbie Myers and of course speaker New Gingridge all part
Speaker 1: of the Gingridge three sixty Network, part of the gainer
Speaker 1: Street sixty Network