Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to the Psychology Podcast, where we give
Speaker 1: you insights into the mind of brain, behavior and creativity.
Speaker 1: Each episode will feature a guest who will stimulate your
Speaker 1: mind and give you a greater understanding of yourself, others,
Speaker 1: and the world we live in. Hopefully we'll also provide
Speaker 1: a glimpse into human possibility. If you like what you
Speaker 1: hear today, please add a rating and review on iTunes.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening and enjoy the podcast. So today I'm
Speaker 1: delayed to have Prescott on the podcast. Catherine is an
Speaker 1: actor and photographer originally from London. Miss Prescott got our
Speaker 1: first big break when she was seventeen, playing Emily, a
Speaker 1: young lesbian with a homophobic twin sister, in the cult
Speaker 1: UK TV show Skins. A few years later, she moved
Speaker 1: to the US to play the lead role in the
Speaker 1: MTV teen drama Finding Carter, and has since appeared in
Speaker 1: various other projects, including To the Bone, Rain and twenty
Speaker 1: four Legacy. Miss Prescott is currently shooting her second season
Speaker 1: of AMC's The Sun and has a movie coming out
Speaker 1: on Netflix in April called Dude. After joining up with
Speaker 1: the Big Issue Foundation and Center Point in the UK
Speaker 1: for a photography exhibition and raised money for both organizations.
Speaker 1: She wanted to do something similar in the US, so
Speaker 1: she got in touch with Homeless Healthcare Los Angeles, but
Speaker 1: decided to do something a little different. Her film explores
Speaker 1: the cyclical nature of pain and isolation when it comes
Speaker 1: to addiction, while highlighting the devastating effect of the eipode
Speaker 1: that the opioid epidemic is having on America's youth. Miss
Speaker 1: Prescott has been surrounded by addiction throughout her life and
Speaker 1: people's reactions to it have always fascinated her. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for being on the podcast today, you for
Speaker 1: having me Hi, Well, Kat, what first DREI to acting? Well,
Speaker 1: I guess I've always wanted to do it. I've always
Speaker 1: been kind of fascinated by people, and I grew up
Speaker 1: watching films and I just remember always feeling really like,
Speaker 1: kind of comforted by them. And I was, you know,
Speaker 1: felt that there have been several films that I've watched
Speaker 1: that really changed my outlook on the world and of
Speaker 1: certain groups of people, And to this day still certain
Speaker 1: films continue to do that. And I just, you know,
Speaker 1: when I was younger, I thought that the actors were
Speaker 1: the ones telling the stories. As the only people that
Speaker 1: I could see, but obviously there's a whole team doing it,
Speaker 1: and so acting was the first thing that I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: I want to do that, Like how do I be
Speaker 1: a part of that? Yeah, And I guess I've always
Speaker 1: been interested in psychology as well, and I liked the
Speaker 1: way I sometimes overlapped, So yeah, that's great. So you
Speaker 1: know you did a photography exhibition with two organizations in
Speaker 1: the UK to raise awareness about the growing homeless population
Speaker 1: in London. How did that come about and what was
Speaker 1: the idea behind it? So I had done it. I
Speaker 1: had done that show in England, and I had a
Speaker 1: few years after that where I was acting in London
Speaker 1: as well as I'd gotten really into portrait photography and
Speaker 1: I was assisting photographers and I really wanted to do
Speaker 1: an exhibition and I couldn't really decide what I wanted
Speaker 1: to do it on. But I was a big fan
Speaker 1: of the Big Issue. So they basically it's a magazine
Speaker 1: that they homeless people or people who are insecurely housed
Speaker 1: by for I believe a pound and then they sell
Speaker 1: it for two pounds fifty each copy. It's actually a
Speaker 1: really good magazine if you're ever in London or anywhere
Speaker 1: in the UK and you no, it's really good and
Speaker 1: they I think, and it's just basically like micro financing
Speaker 1: for yet homeless people are instculary house people so that
Speaker 1: they don't have to beg and the Big Issue Foundation
Speaker 1: also helps them with services and trying to get them
Speaker 1: into housing and stuff, and so I had always been
Speaker 1: aware of the Big Issue. There's also the other organization
Speaker 1: was Centerpoint and they work with homeless youth in the UK.
Speaker 1: They house them for two years, I think up to
Speaker 1: two years, teach them various life skills and they you know,
Speaker 1: the idea is to like kind of stop the cycle
Speaker 1: like before it begins, kind of thing of homelessness. Anyway,
Speaker 1: So I at the time had this forum website and
Speaker 1: I got contacted by The Big Issue one day and
Speaker 1: they asked me to come meet with them because their
Speaker 1: website was getting a lot of traffic from my forum website. Anyway,
Speaker 1: So I met with Stephen Robertson and we talked about
Speaker 1: ideas and so we ended up joining up with Centerpoint
Speaker 1: and yeah, the Big Issue and doing this photography exhibition
Speaker 1: to raise money for both organizations. That's wonderful and you know,
Speaker 1: how did this exhibition tie it all into the short
Speaker 1: film you just released? Is their connection there? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean kind of. So basically the exhibition was exploring the
Speaker 1: role of like anonymity and homelessness. What happens when we
Speaker 1: like pass a homeless person on the street and are
Speaker 1: able to either you know what catches our attention on
Speaker 1: the street basically, and like stigmatized groups, I guess, and
Speaker 1: I think, just you know, like homelessness, often they suffer
Speaker 1: some stigma and get stigmatized a lot. So do people
Speaker 1: suffering from addiction. And I feel like the short kind
Speaker 1: of explores a stigmatized group as well. So like after
Speaker 1: I'd done the exhibition in the UK with the Big Issue,
Speaker 1: I'd come to the US to do a TV show
Speaker 1: and I wanted to do a similar exhibition for an
Speaker 1: organization here and we ended up making I think we
Speaker 1: ended up making about twelve pounds for both organizations in
Speaker 1: the UK. So I got in touch with Home Was
Speaker 1: Healthare Los Angeles to see if they wanted to do
Speaker 1: something similar, and they invited me to their downtown at
Speaker 1: Los Angeles Health and Wellness Center of a Needle Exchange,
Speaker 1: and they were showing me around, and I saw on
Speaker 1: the wall this map and it had all these pins
Speaker 1: stuck in it, and I was like, what is that?
Speaker 1: And they told me that every pin represented a life
Speaker 1: saved with the lock zone from an overdose, and I
Speaker 1: was like, wow, I'd never even heard of the oxone.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that there was an opioid epidemic, you know,
Speaker 1: even though I have had like personal experience with it
Speaker 1: in my family, I had no idea at the scale
Speaker 1: of it at all. And the more we kind of
Speaker 1: spoke about it, the more we kind of came to
Speaker 1: the conclusion that we wanted to do something that targeted
Speaker 1: young people and that spoke about the opioid epidemic in
Speaker 1: a way that maybe hasn't been done before. And so
Speaker 1: that's kind of how the short came about. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: why the opioid epidemic? Do you have any personal connections
Speaker 1: to that world? And sorry if that's too personal of
Speaker 1: a question, you know. So, my brother actually suffered with
Speaker 1: opioid addiction for a really long time. He's very open
Speaker 1: about it and thinks that people should speak more about it.
Speaker 1: But he was fifteen when he started getting back pain,
Speaker 1: and I think he had his first spinal fusion surgery
Speaker 1: at sixteen, you know, was being prescribed opioid left, right,
Speaker 1: and center. And he says not once, he says, you know,
Speaker 1: I should have been prescribed them. I was in pain.
Speaker 1: I don't you know, nothing against the people that prescribed
Speaker 1: them to me, except the fact that not once did
Speaker 1: anyone say to me, you know what, like these are
Speaker 1: going to be amazing, and you're going to like really
Speaker 1: want to keep taking them, and they're very addictive, so
Speaker 1: just be careful and we'll keep checking in with you.
Speaker 1: He said he was getting I think he'd got one
Speaker 1: hundred pills a month, and if he didn't take them,
Speaker 1: he would stop pile them. And then you know, he
Speaker 1: got addicted to the painkillers. He had his back operation,
Speaker 1: it didn't the bones didn't use, but for years they
Speaker 1: didn't know that the bones hadn't used. They thought he
Speaker 1: was supposed to get better. But yeah, he was fully addicted. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so he had a really terrible time with it. He was,
Speaker 1: you know, really like low. He was suicidal. He had
Speaker 1: to have two different surgeries they which ended up making
Speaker 1: him infertile from painkillers. He said he thought every night
Speaker 1: he was passing me out. Thought he was going to diet,
Speaker 1: and eventually he you know, wasn't sure what was he
Speaker 1: was taking for the pain, what he was because he
Speaker 1: was addicted, and he just I mean yeah, and he
Speaker 1: I mean, this was all before he was twenty, and
Speaker 1: so eventually he's you know, his back paying, you know,
Speaker 1: the surgery work in his back is better. But then
Speaker 1: coming off the opioids was like a whole other thing,
Speaker 1: the kind of classic story that I kept hearing about
Speaker 1: when I was looking into this and kind of doing
Speaker 1: some research before I did this film, and it's like,
Speaker 1: it's shocking how prevalent it is. Yeah, that must have
Speaker 1: been really difficult for you to personally watch and then
Speaker 1: kind of rehashing it again when he did the research
Speaker 1: for it and kind of seeing all these other cases,
Speaker 1: and I imagined for your research, you met with a
Speaker 1: lot of people who were addicted. Is that right? I
Speaker 1: travel a lot for work, and the year that I
Speaker 1: was writing the short, I got to travel a lot
Speaker 1: to a load of different states, and in every state
Speaker 1: that I went to, I met up with people in
Speaker 1: the or I tried to meet up with people in
Speaker 1: the harm reduction community. I met with, you know, people
Speaker 1: who had been through opiod addiction and saved by the
Speaker 1: lock zown. I actually met a boy who I became
Speaker 1: very good friends with, whose mum had saved him twice
Speaker 1: with Nolocson and was now clean, living in California and
Speaker 1: was doing really well, who ended up working on the
Speaker 1: film with us, as did my brother. That boy has
Speaker 1: since passed away since we shook the film because of
Speaker 1: complications from his years of addiction. But yeah, so I
Speaker 1: managed to meet a lot of people and talk to
Speaker 1: a lot of people, and I just continue to be
Speaker 1: shocked by the risk which is happening, and that no one,
Speaker 1: like so many people don't know about it, even though
Speaker 1: like lots of people know about it. So many people
Speaker 1: don't know about it, even like I didn't know about it,
Speaker 1: even though I had, you know, my brother had been
Speaker 1: through it, and a lot of the people who'd worked
Speaker 1: on the film they had someone you know, that had
Speaker 1: been through it, but still didn't know that it was
Speaker 1: an epidemic or that there was an overdose reversal drug.
Speaker 1: It's strange. It's like, you know, the shame and stigma
Speaker 1: around it, I think is kind of one of the
Speaker 1: things that's keeping it in the dark. Relatively, and you know,
Speaker 1: everyone's kind of hiding a tree in a forest, not
Speaker 1: realizing that they're standing in a forest, and there are
Speaker 1: all these people that are going through the same thing,
Speaker 1: but no one really knows where it is or what.
Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, well, so tell me some of the
Speaker 1: fruits of your research, Like, tell me some you can
Speaker 1: you rattle some statistics off about Yes, well, okay, so
Speaker 1: there is a you mean statistics generally or specific states?
Speaker 1: Oh wow, I mean whatever, whatever you have memorized, you give.
Speaker 1: So there is a nine eleven scale loss of lives
Speaker 1: every two point five or three weeks because of this.
Speaker 1: I thought it was one hundred and fifteen. I think
Speaker 1: it's one hundred and fifteen people die a day of
Speaker 1: overdoses from opioids, and one hundred and seventy five people
Speaker 1: are dying of like opioid and overdoses drug obdoses in
Speaker 1: general every day. America consumes eighty five percent of the
Speaker 1: world's opioids, but it only makes up for four percent
Speaker 1: of the world's population. So apparently one I found recent
Speaker 1: so overdose is now the leading cause of death for
Speaker 1: Americans under fifty, so above car crashes and gun crime. Combined,
Speaker 1: And what was the other one? I thought, Oh, I
Speaker 1: think in twenty sixteen alone, there were more deaths from overdoses.
Speaker 1: I hope I'm getting this right than all American casualties
Speaker 1: in the Iraq and Vietnam Wars combined. Some crazy stetific
Speaker 1: like it's absolutely like astronomic wife. I can't believe that
Speaker 1: it's now the number one killer of Americans under fifty.
Speaker 1: That was the one that always good. That is incredible.
Speaker 1: And are we talking mostly males? I don't know that,
Speaker 1: actually I think that, Yeah, I don't know. I think
Speaker 1: there is. I think there is. Trying to remember I
Speaker 1: think it's more male than female, but I don't. I
Speaker 1: mean it's females as well. So you said that a
Speaker 1: lot of people involved in the film had a connection.
Speaker 1: It's not all abulid epidemic, right. So my brother and
Speaker 1: the way who I met, whose mum had saved him
Speaker 1: twice from overdoses. Both of them helped me develop the
Speaker 1: script and worked on set, so I knew that they
Speaker 1: had previous experience. But pretty much everyone else that I
Speaker 1: you know, knew of on set who had you know,
Speaker 1: because I met with everyone first before we started shoot,
Speaker 1: And so many of them would go, oh, is that
Speaker 1: what's in blah blah blah, Like is that what's in percocet?
Speaker 1: Or is that what's in Like if I was in England,
Speaker 1: is that what's in neurofm plus? Because my husband takes
Speaker 1: a lot of that and I'm like worried about him.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, my steps and so takes a lot of that.
Speaker 1: Oh you know, like people people know like that. You know,
Speaker 1: people get hooked on pills, but it's just still shrouded
Speaker 1: in kind of you know, the people that I was
Speaker 1: speaking to one that were working on the film, they
Speaker 1: didn't know it was. It was still new, even though
Speaker 1: they had such you know, close personal ties to it.
Speaker 1: One of the boys who worked on it, he said,
Speaker 1: he's one of his family members, and you know, he
Speaker 1: had personal experience with this, and he didn't even know
Speaker 1: that and the lock one existed. I mean, that could
Speaker 1: be a really dangerous situation. What is a lockxone? So
Speaker 1: looxone is the overdose reversal drug. Okay, tell me more
Speaker 1: about that, Okay. So looxone is an overdose reversal drug.
Speaker 1: I think that it's an opioid antagonist and it basically
Speaker 1: like blocks opioids from your receptor. It like replaces the opioid.
Speaker 1: Correct me if I'm getting this wrong. I'm not like
Speaker 1: a doctor. But that blocks the opioid receptors in your brain.
Speaker 1: So if someone's having an overdose, you give them the
Speaker 1: loxone and they go into their the opioids are just
Speaker 1: as if they're not in their system anymore. So they're
Speaker 1: immediately in like cold turkey withdrawal. It saves their life,
Speaker 1: but they're you know, immediately, it's like a harrowing experience
Speaker 1: to be saved by it. You can get it. I
Speaker 1: think it comes in three different forms. You can get
Speaker 1: it as a nasal spray, intramuscular injection, or an autel injector,
Speaker 1: which is like a little thing kind of it's really
Speaker 1: strange but kind of cool. You open it and it talks.
Speaker 1: There's like a robot voice that tells you what you
Speaker 1: need to do next and how long you need to
Speaker 1: hold the needle in the person's leg and stuff. And yeah,
Speaker 1: it's completely safe, it's non addictive. You can use it
Speaker 1: on I think it's FDA approved. You can use it
Speaker 1: on people even if then even if you just suspect
Speaker 1: them of having an overdose. It's safe to use on
Speaker 1: them because if they aren't having an overdose, it won't
Speaker 1: do anything. Right, the fact that it's meeting resistance is
Speaker 1: kind of crazy. Can using this if you're addicted have
Speaker 1: psychological ramifications that are negative, like to just go called
Speaker 1: turkey all of a sudden when you're addicted to something
Speaker 1: like you said as a harrowing experience. So basically it
Speaker 1: will make you as if you have no opiens in
Speaker 1: your system. Where I believe each dose is about oh,
Speaker 1: I think it's half an hour, and then basically you
Speaker 1: have to get someone you know to a place where
Speaker 1: they can get either more on a lockton, or they're
Speaker 1: you know, in a hospital or something, or you keep
Speaker 1: giving it to them. Yeah, it's bad, but it doesn't
Speaker 1: do like damage as far as I'm aware, stinging psychological damage. Okay,
Speaker 1: So is that the film that I watched? Can you
Speaker 1: describe a little bit without you know, giving away the
Speaker 1: whole thing? But you know, for people who are listening
Speaker 1: to this that want to then watch the video on
Speaker 1: the show notes, can you talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: what they see in this video without giving it away?
Speaker 1: I mean you can give it away. Well, this isn't
Speaker 1: I guess this is not like a like a blockbuster
Speaker 1: movie with like a twist, right, I mean, you know what,
Speaker 1: you kind of know the ending is yeah. So basically,
Speaker 1: the film follows a young boy who we hint is
Speaker 1: you know, into sports or you know, this relatively clean
Speaker 1: cup young guy living in this relatively upscale house. He's
Speaker 1: narrating in voice so we watch him go through the
Speaker 1: kind of motions of his day and he's narrating in
Speaker 1: voice over the whole time as if he's addressing a
Speaker 1: past lover, and he's talking about, you know, he's heartbroken,
Speaker 1: he doesn't know who he is without this person, how
Speaker 1: much he misses them, and he feels lost, et cetera.
Speaker 1: And then slowly, as the day goes on, you watch
Speaker 1: him like struggling with whether or not to pick up
Speaker 1: the phone and call this person, and you think like,
Speaker 1: maybe this person's died, maybe this is a past love,
Speaker 1: like you're not really sure. And then eventually, as the
Speaker 1: day goes on, he gets to the kind of a
Speaker 1: word like a lower and lower place and is struggling
Speaker 1: more and more with the memories and ruminating and stuff.
Speaker 1: And then eventually he says, you know, like I just
Speaker 1: wanted to see you again or something, and he picks
Speaker 1: up the phone and starts texting, and then you see
Speaker 1: his friends arrive, and I'm just gonna I'm just gonna say.
Speaker 1: You see his friends arrive, you know a past lover.
Speaker 1: Clearly from the way they interact, they're not who he
Speaker 1: was talking about. And then you eventually see him using
Speaker 1: He says that he just wanted to see them again,
Speaker 1: and you end up seeing him using heroin, and then
Speaker 1: he says, you know, and it was everything I'd hoped,
Speaker 1: And then we realized that the whole time, or the ideas,
Speaker 1: you realize the whole time that he has been talking
Speaker 1: to Caroline rather than a past love, And the whole time,
Speaker 1: rather than watching a young boys struggling with heartbreak, we've
Speaker 1: been watching a young man kind of out of rehab,
Speaker 1: desperately trying not to relapse. Actually eventually he kind of
Speaker 1: an Eventually he does. So people who are highly addicted
Speaker 1: to heroin and watch that it might remind them of
Speaker 1: just how great it feels. Right, could a skeptical person
Speaker 1: like raise that question? I mean, skeptical people have definitely said,
Speaker 1: I mean, I see that point. I was an incredibly
Speaker 1: powerful video for me to watch as someone who's not
Speaker 1: addicted to heroin, but you can kind of relate to
Speaker 1: It's relatable even if you're not addicted to heroin, because
Speaker 1: there are things in all of our lives that I
Speaker 1: think even at the level of like a good juicy cheeseburger,
Speaker 1: you know, like I'm saying, like, there's a common humanity
Speaker 1: in this video that I feel like I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk to you about. Like it was just you know
Speaker 1: some of feedback you've gone about that, because you really
Speaker 1: really emotionally capture that moment at the end. It's so powerful.
Speaker 1: It's so powerful. Yeah, thank you. I mean, it's based
Speaker 1: on these letters that I was reading online. It was
Speaker 1: like an exercise that some people do while they're in
Speaker 1: rehab that I was reading. They write a letter to
Speaker 1: heroin as if it's like their past lover or friend.
Speaker 1: And also, you know, a couple of people that I
Speaker 1: know who've personally experienced it. Two of them separately said
Speaker 1: to me, you know, when I was like asking them
Speaker 1: to like describe it, they said, it's just the most
Speaker 1: intimate relationship I have ever had with anything in my
Speaker 1: whole life. And I get where the criticism is coming from.
Speaker 1: I will say that the film was written with people
Speaker 1: who have previous experience, and everyone I've shown it to,
Speaker 1: I mean maybe I say this now on here and
Speaker 1: everyone's like no, But everyone I show it to who
Speaker 1: has personal experience with this says like no, I don't
Speaker 1: find that triggering. It actually takes me, you know, It's
Speaker 1: like it's like being on a level and like it
Speaker 1: speaks to some things that I've wanted to put in
Speaker 1: words for a while but haven't been able to. But
Speaker 1: then other people, I mean, yeah, it's it's it's open
Speaker 1: to interpretation, I guess, and I do get where people
Speaker 1: are coming from that what you said about shared humanity.
Speaker 1: The reason we painted it like this past love was because,
Speaker 1: you know, just say no campaigns. I feel like this
Speaker 1: is not just say no campaign. It's supposed to, you know,
Speaker 1: shop with the reality of what is now a public
Speaker 1: health emergency, but it's still shrouded by stigma and shame,
Speaker 1: and we wanted to do something that shows like the
Speaker 1: real pain of addiction from the perspective of the person
Speaker 1: that's actually going through it, to try and kind of
Speaker 1: you know, we live in a society where there's a
Speaker 1: lot of like blame and shame to do with addiction.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like sometimes seen as a moral failing
Speaker 1: or a lack of will power or you know, like
Speaker 1: there's these connotations with it, and you know, we just
Speaker 1: wanted to do something that showed a human story behind this,
Speaker 1: behind all the like numbers, and especially with some of
Speaker 1: the pushback we were getting when we were talking about
Speaker 1: this film, when I was just kind of you know,
Speaker 1: developing it. When we were talking about in a lock Zone,
Speaker 1: is some people say that they think that heroin addicts
Speaker 1: access to a lock zone is enabling. I mean the
Speaker 1: alternative that that suggests is people like this boy in
Speaker 1: this film, you know, don't get a seance, and we
Speaker 1: not pump someone's stomach if they you know, it's just anyway.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I get where they're coming from. But it
Speaker 1: is more about kind of showing the shared humanity and
Speaker 1: trying to show it just in a different, different light. Well,
Speaker 1: the sort of twist, so to speak, is brilliant because
Speaker 1: you've brought the watch the viewer along the journey thinking
Speaker 1: really connecting with it, because I mean, there is research
Speaker 1: showing that when you look in the brain, people who
Speaker 1: are newly in love. Their brain looks indistinguishable from someone
Speaker 1: who is addicted to cocaine. So we're actually talking about
Speaker 1: potentially indistinguishable brain physiological reactions when you're love, you can
Speaker 1: be addicted to love. You know, it's interesting to think,
Speaker 1: you know about this sort of all the different ways
Speaker 1: in our life that we these deep primal drives can
Speaker 1: latch on to that Maya soliv It's was on the
Speaker 1: podcast talking about addiction, and I'll send you that podcast
Speaker 1: chat after this. You can think you'd find it really interesting.
Speaker 1: And she talked about how addiction is not like a
Speaker 1: one on one relationship with the stimulus, Like it's not
Speaker 1: like the first time you do it, you're addicted, boom.
Speaker 1: There's a psychological learning aspect here where you start to
Speaker 1: you know, the dopamine makes you really anticipate that you're
Speaker 1: going to receive a strong reward from doing this activity
Speaker 1: and then eventually builds these neural pathways that where you
Speaker 1: become you know, addiction doesn't mean you can't say no.
Speaker 1: It means that it just becomes harder and harder to
Speaker 1: say no, like like she said, if you put a gun.
Speaker 1: She was addicted at one point, but she's like, you
Speaker 1: put a gun in my head and said, don't take that.
Speaker 1: I could not take it. Yeah, you know, so it's
Speaker 1: really there's this really strong psychological aspect to it. And yeah, anyway,
Speaker 1: that's my kind of tangent saying that, I think that
Speaker 1: your connection there was really clever. Yeah, and we were
Speaker 1: really trying to highlight this like cyclical nature of like
Speaker 1: pain and isolation and when it comes to addiction. So
Speaker 1: like this boy is just I mean, the idea is
Speaker 1: he's out of rehab, but you know he's maybe he
Speaker 1: hasn't I don't know, maybe he doesn't have that support
Speaker 1: network that is there. Everyone's just happy that he's off
Speaker 1: the drug whatever whatever reason. He's lowly and he's going
Speaker 1: through this thing on his own. And do you know
Speaker 1: about the rat Park experiments? No, please illustate me. So
Speaker 1: I might be miss stating this, but rat Park basically
Speaker 1: the thing that you talked about, how you know, this
Speaker 1: idea that certain drugs are just so addictive that anyone
Speaker 1: who takes them is going to get addicted, you know,
Speaker 1: they take them enough kind of thing. They were based
Speaker 1: on this experiment with rats in which rats were given
Speaker 1: water with I think it's cocaine or heroin or like
Speaker 1: want of either, and put in a cage and given
Speaker 1: the option of like water with no drugs in it,
Speaker 1: or water with those drugs in it, or one of
Speaker 1: those two drugs in it, and the rats that had
Speaker 1: the option of taking the water with the drugs in
Speaker 1: it would keep going back to the drugs, keep going
Speaker 1: back to the drugs until they eventually died of malnutrition.
Speaker 1: And so that apparently formed the basis of this idea
Speaker 1: that you know, certain substances are just so addictive that
Speaker 1: if you try them, you just better not try them
Speaker 1: because you know you're going to get addicted kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Not that I'm saying you should try, you should try them,
Speaker 1: But then I forget who this guy did these experiments
Speaker 1: later called rat park. He didn't really understand why no
Speaker 1: one was taking into account the fact that the rats
Speaker 1: they did that original experiment on were in a cage
Speaker 1: on their own with nothing, no exercise wheel, no other rats.
Speaker 1: And so he designed this experiment called rat park, and
Speaker 1: the rats had access to exercise wheels, other rats like
Speaker 1: it was bigger it was, and the rats they didn't
Speaker 1: they did not go to the heroin water again they
Speaker 1: chose not to, and then he did it. There was
Speaker 1: another aspect of that experiment where I think he actually
Speaker 1: got rats purposefully addicted for like a lot of days.
Speaker 1: I forget how many. I think it was like fifty,
Speaker 1: oh fifty or something. He got these rats like very
Speaker 1: addicted to each drug, and then he put in a
Speaker 1: small cage with no other rats or whatever. Then he
Speaker 1: put them in rat park with all the exercise and
Speaker 1: the friends, and they slowly kind of tape it off
Speaker 1: their addiction and then stopped and then didn't use again.
Speaker 1: I just did air quotations. But so his conclusion was
Speaker 1: Johann Hari has a talk about a ted talk about this,
Speaker 1: but you know his conclusion is like, it's not your
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily the drug, it's you know, it's your cage. Well,
Speaker 1: that's really interesting. That's a cool metaphor. Thanks for explaining
Speaker 1: that to me. I was aware, of course, of the
Speaker 1: initial studies and sort of they helped confirm the difference
Speaker 1: between the wanting and liking system in their brain and
Speaker 1: how a lot of addiction is wanting it not but
Speaker 1: you don't even enjoy it necessarily at a certain points,
Speaker 1: you know, it's just like your body has learned this association.
Speaker 1: Something else that I found was interesting that Maya talked
Speaker 1: about on when she was on the show is how
Speaker 1: a lot of people when they're given pay medication the hospital,
Speaker 1: after they leave the hospital, you know, they actually are addicted,
Speaker 1: but they don't know it. And a lot of it
Speaker 1: is a psychological thing. If you and if you just
Speaker 1: tell them, okay, just go through these steps, you know,
Speaker 1: you might feel little bit uncomfortable. You don't see what
Speaker 1: it's about. You know, if you have to interpret that
Speaker 1: as addiction, you know, you might just have a feeling
Speaker 1: of like, oh I feel unsettled or I feel yeah.
Speaker 1: So there is just this in humans. There's this really
Speaker 1: interesting sort of thing that happens where we identify ourselves
Speaker 1: addicted and then shame and like you said, all this
Speaker 1: stuff comes along with it, which seems so unecessary, so unhelpful.
Speaker 1: M hm, yeah was that, yeah. Youngan Harry talks about
Speaker 1: this as well about there are human examples of people
Speaker 1: taking these really strong drugs and not immediately getting addicted
Speaker 1: to them. You know, they come out of hospital, like
Speaker 1: you said, and they go back to their loving family
Speaker 1: and they're not addicted. To morphine after that because they've
Speaker 1: had an operation. Yeah right, even though you know, like
Speaker 1: they are technically yeah, yeah, morphine is stronger than heroin,
Speaker 1: isn't it. I don't know, but I remember when I
Speaker 1: broke my arm, they put me on morphine and it
Speaker 1: was delightful. Yeah. Yeah, So what do you like? Hope
Speaker 1: people will take away most from this film? And you know,
Speaker 1: how does this film differ from other awareness projects about
Speaker 1: the opioid epidemic? How's this unique? So the film is
Speaker 1: kind of an alternative to I guess just say just
Speaker 1: say no type campaigns. I don't know if you saw
Speaker 1: when Trump declared the opioid epidemic A now, I think
Speaker 1: he said national Health emergency. I think I know what
Speaker 1: you're talking about. Yeah, he was talking about it and
Speaker 1: he said, you know, he has a He's never had
Speaker 1: a drink in his life. Apparently he never had a cigarette,
Speaker 1: and he said he had a it's because he had
Speaker 1: a brother who was an alcoholic. And he was saying,
Speaker 1: you know, he used to tell me again and again
Speaker 1: and again, don't have a drink, don't drink, don't drink,
Speaker 1: don't drink, and so I never drank. And I think
Speaker 1: we need to really focus on telling kids just not
Speaker 1: to do drugs, because once you don't do them, it's
Speaker 1: really easy not to do them. Basically was the gist,
Speaker 1: and that idea is the just say no aspect of it.
Speaker 1: Is like, for one, it's like, well, what happens about
Speaker 1: the people who were taking you know, legal medication that
Speaker 1: their doctors told them to take. How does that play
Speaker 1: into it? And I guess it's just more like did
Speaker 1: you see the Heroin campaign the twenty sixteen It came
Speaker 1: out during the Super Bowl. It was called thesth American Girl,
Speaker 1: and it basically showed the girl Yeah, and it just
Speaker 1: kind of you can tell someone just say no till
Speaker 1: you're blue in the face. But it doesn't really address addiction.
Speaker 1: Is it's not always like the cause. It becomes the
Speaker 1: cause of problems, but it's like the result of something else.
Speaker 1: But we've come to see it as like, right, you
Speaker 1: have all these problems because you're addicted to something, rather
Speaker 1: than well, why are you wanting to do those and
Speaker 1: those kind of drugs and what led you to this
Speaker 1: place where that was even kind of an option, and
Speaker 1: like figure that out before we just you know, condemn
Speaker 1: you for doing it full stop. Period. I really like that.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, Trump has other addictions. Come on, let's
Speaker 1: be honest. Well, it was not like he's addiction free.
Speaker 1: You said this thing, great thing about narcissism, about how
Speaker 1: I think you said you think it's like addiction to esteem. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, they're right, he's addicted to esteem exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's fine stigmatizing the things he's not addicted with. But
Speaker 1: he's not fine anyway stumatizing things he is of the
Speaker 1: highest order. But anyways, moving it past that for a second, Okay, good.
Speaker 1: So you want this film to start discussions discussion events
Speaker 1: to our listeners. Maybe some of them want to participate
Speaker 1: in some of these discussion events. Yeah, so we had
Speaker 1: this idea we want to We're we're talking with a
Speaker 1: couple of organizations and local community groups about using the
Speaker 1: video because the video is called is you know, either
Speaker 1: you have one reaction to it or you have the
Speaker 1: other reaction to it. And we think it's kind of
Speaker 1: interesting that those two that difference of perception is how
Speaker 1: and we think that kind of speaks to a greater,
Speaker 1: a great, sort of bigger issue that's surrounding opiated addiction.
Speaker 1: So we wanted to do a couple of forum or
Speaker 1: discussion type events where we use the video as a
Speaker 1: tool to open up a discussion about opioids and addiction
Speaker 1: and the nature of opiod addiction between potentially people that
Speaker 1: maybe see the film one way see it the other
Speaker 1: way and hope. I mean, we were thinking we would
Speaker 1: love to be able to have at these events some
Speaker 1: a young person with previous experience to come talk. And
Speaker 1: we'd also love to have a Locke's Own training session,
Speaker 1: especially if it's on campus. So we're trying to organize
Speaker 1: some of those really great. So again, give me as
Speaker 1: much information as you want to put up on the
Speaker 1: show notes. So what are you working on right now
Speaker 1: besides this? Do you have any plans to write a directing?
Speaker 1: There anything else you want to plug? I've never done
Speaker 1: that before on the Psychology podcast. I don't know what
Speaker 1: kind of Plus, Oh, I guess I'm doing. I'm filming
Speaker 1: a show right now called The Sun to Beyond AMC
Speaker 1: at some point I think in June, I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: And then yeah, I have that movie coming out but
Speaker 1: you already know about that. Yeah, And then but you
Speaker 1: also have something called tell Me about Dude. Oh, dude,
Speaker 1: is it. Let's not forget dude. It's a coming of
Speaker 1: age drama about three young women, one of who loses
Speaker 1: her brother and the other one was secretly dating, slash
Speaker 1: in love with, And so it's about how the two girls,
Speaker 1: one of them deals with grieving her you know, someone
Speaker 1: she was in love with but is unable to tell
Speaker 1: her best friend really about it for a while, and
Speaker 1: her and her friend is mourning her brother. And it's
Speaker 1: just about how those kind of that a kind of
Speaker 1: comes out, and that plays out between two best friends.
Speaker 1: That sounds interesting. I'm an avid Netflix watcher. I'm going
Speaker 1: to look out for that one for sure. April sometime April. Hey, look,
Speaker 1: I just want to thank you so much for coming
Speaker 1: on here on the Psychology Podcast. We're honored that you're
Speaker 1: a fan of the podcast, and you know, the podcast
Speaker 1: is a fan of yours and the work, the really
Speaker 1: important work that you're doing. So thank you, Oh, thanks
Speaker 1: so much for having me. Thanks for listening to the
Speaker 1: Psychology Podcast. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you
Speaker 1: like to react in some way to something you heard,
Speaker 1: I encourage you to join in the discussion at the
Speaker 1: Psychology Podcast dot com. That's the Psychology podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: Also please add a rating and review of the Psychology
Speaker 1: Podcast on iTunes. Thanks for being such a great supporter
Speaker 1: of the podcast, and tune in next time for more
Speaker 1: on the mind of brain, behavior and creativity.