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Blame Capitalism for Our Addiction Problems · Millennial Mental Health Channel

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The fact that if you murder someone in the streets, you go to prison
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for life, but if you kill a genisidal amount of people with pills that
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you're pushing on the American people, you have to pay a fine and you're
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good to God. This is Millennial Mental Health Channel. I'm doctor Justin Romano,
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a Child and Adolescent psychiatry fellow, and I'm Eddie Creo, a licensed
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clinical therapist. Our podcast is here because we wanted to start a much needed
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conversation about mental health. Our goal is to teach you as much as we
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can by sharing our own experiences and interviewing experts in the mental health field.
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We will discuss topics like mood disorders, psychotic disorders, substance use, personality
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disorders, and many more. Millennial Mental Health Channel buy Millennials for everyone.
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We hope you enjoyed today's episode. MMHC is a production of Spreaker from iHeartMedia.
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Ana. Welcome back to k MMHC, your choice for talk and mental
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hell. Now here's your host with the most empathy. That is Eddie Jose
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not his Zeus career. What would our AM station be like? What number?
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I got? No idea? Fourteen seventy am radio. Does it go
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that high? I think so. I never really listened to him. I'm
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not sure that was a good intro like that. I've been thinking about that
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one. I've been planning that one for the last two weeks. Yeah,
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it's been a while. Yeah, like practicing on my ride to work every
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morning. Be like, welcome to K and MHC. I love it.
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Well, before we do anything else, before we say anything else. Justin
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hasn't talked about this yet on the show, but he finished his fellowship,
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which I think is a huge deal. So congrats to doctor Justin. He's
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almost done with his exams or whatever the hell else you got to do as
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a medical doctor. If you're a lowly licensed therapist like myself, you just
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got to take one board exam and then do your licensure stuff and you're all
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good. But apparently as a doctor you've got to do like a bunch of
2:04
shit after already doing a bunch of shit. So he's almost there. Yeah,
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after four years of college, four years of medical school, three years
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of residency, and two years of fellowship, I'm like, finally done.
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You're really you're really making the idea of becoming a psychiatrist, just like super
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like, Oh, that's not too bad. Just what's the math on that?
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It is the thirteen years, thirteen years of post high school education.
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It's crazy, It's it's a long road. Justin what are we talking about
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today? We are talking about drug addiction, and not your typical drug addiction
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episode where we talk about the signs and symptoms of drug intoxication and withdrawal and
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what the different drugs are and what to look out for. We're kind of
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talking more about the social and societal factors for a drug diation. So we'll
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jump right into our mindfulness question and say, what are some of the judgments
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your mind jumps to when talking about people with addiction. Well, because of
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my extensive experience in the field and my high level of empathy, I'll just
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think about things that people will say about people who struggle with addiction. Maybe
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that they're like weak minded, they are addicts, Like people will call them
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like they won't use strength based language or person first language. The people they'll
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call people addicts, that they aren't able to work. I know, things
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like that, like they just they have no self control. I think people
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when they discuss those who struggle with drug addiction or substance use. They're very
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judgmental. They can be very judgmental, and they don't think about how a
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person got there in the first place. They're really quick to just judge them
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on where they're at presently without thinking about how they got there. I agree.
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I would say I think a very similar thing. A lot of times
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when you hear people talking about addiction in society, it's oh, it's their
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fault, it's an individual's problem. It's it's not necessarily society's problem. It's
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all that individual. They made the choices, they made the mistakes. So
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that's what we're going to hopefully try and change your mind about today. Yeah,
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nothing too Like a lot of people will say, like to just get
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help or like go go to rehab, Like it's not that easy, right,
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Like it's I think Portland has a Portland area has a decent amount of
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substance use. Actually, you know what, now that I say it a
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lot, it doesn't have a decent not because they're not dude enough, just
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because the need is so high, but they've had maybe a higher number of
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substance use supports that we could probably draw from. But still it's just it's
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still not enough. It's not that easy to get help like that. Agreed.
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Yeah, in Portland's actually probably one of the best in the country in
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terms of actual resources, and it's still not nearly enough. There is a
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thing that talked has talked about where like Oregon is like last in terms of
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like mental health treatment. But I don't know what. I don't actually anytimes
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anybody brings that up. I never asked to like read like based off of
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what is it based off of? Like availability resources, Is it based off
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of clinicians, practitioners, Like what is it actually based off of? So
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someone might actually say we're the worst. But I guess just like this experience
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wise or like firsthand knowledge, it seems like there's I don't know, I
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don't actually know what I'm trying to say. It seems like there's stuff out
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there I don't I guess I don't know what I would compare it to,
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Like if if we're last, what does first place look like? You know
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what I mean? Like is the is the margins or they are they raise
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your thin or they are there big gaps in between each state? I don't
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know. Yeah, something to think about. I should look into that.
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So either their best or their last. You know, there's there's you tune
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in decay MMHC for non black and white answers. I mean pretty much our
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favorite answer is it depends. So that's right. We wanted to talk about
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this topic because I actually just got off a rotation at an adolescent drug treatment
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center and it was a really eye opening experience for me. I really enjoyed
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working with a lot of those kids. It was a residential treatment center,
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and it taught me so much, And just the patients really taught me so
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much, primarily just about what their lives were like and the type of kid
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that gets into drugs to the point where they need to go to a drug
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treatment center. And so many of them had just such significant trauma histories that
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contributed to the substance use, and a lot of them had family issues or
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family substance issues that perpetuated into that next generation. So it really helped me
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understand that it's not just kids being like I want to do drugs. It's
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like, Okay, I've been through some really horrible things in my life.
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I'm looking for something to help try and get these thoughts out of my head,
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and drugs seem to be the only thing doing it because a lot of
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those kids also didn't really have any trusted adults that could help them get through
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that issue. Idea of trusted adults, it's such a huge like like we
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don't I don't want to say we don't think about it enough, but it's
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just the like recently, the CDC, we we've talked about it, cd
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SEE coming out with the report that just overall child and team mental health is
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on the decline. And I was reading through it and one of the things
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that it said was like a huge protective factor for kids was school connectedness,
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connectedness to just their their community of the school, connectedness to adults in the
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school. I know, for us at my work, like we do.
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I shouldn't say we, the counselors will do, because I don't have a
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part of it. That's why I don't want to say we, but the
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counselors will do. One of our counselors does au. We'll get like a
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survey and we'll send it out every every school year at the start and in
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the counseling center. Survey it asked specifically like do you feel like you have
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a trusted adult in the school, and then actors says yes or no.
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Then they asked specifically like who are they trusted adults? And I know I've
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I've used the answers to that to see like what kids feel like I can
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I'm a trusted adult for them? And how can I continue to work on
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those relationships and then what can I do better so that maybe more kids can
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feel like I can be a trusted adult, right, Like I'm not like
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the school counselors where they get a specific part of the alphabet where like this,
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these are like I am assigned to you, right. I joke around
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and say, like you know, the counselors say, oh, you know
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on freshman orientation day, they're like, oh, my alphabets this to this
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and this to this, And then when it is my turn to introduce myself,
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I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm a alphabet eight to Z.
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Like I get all the kids, I work with all of them. So
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it's like trying to use that information because we know how important it is to
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have a trusted adult to be connected to school huge protective factors for kids for
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things like developing simmos of depression and anxiety, for helping to stop kids not
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turn to substances when they are struggling. You are so right, Thank you
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for that, because it's such a big point. And that's one thing I
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learned, especially from my perspective of privilege. I come from a family with
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two parents who are still married and who are both very responsible. My parents
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who are very I mean they're both college educated, both four year graduate degree,
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and a lot of kids don't have that. They don't have a parent
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who is loving, respecting, understanding, listening. So it helps me understand
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that, Yeah, that trusted adult is so important. So on this episode
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today, we want to not focus on necessarily the individual aspects of drug use,
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but more of the societal factors. Yes, it is important to have
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personal responsibility if you do have a drug addiction and you want to overcome it.
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But yeah, we want to focus on the societal stuff of why people
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turn to drugs in the first place. And our goal is to try and
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help you see why so many people are struggling with addiction in our society,
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in the US and in the world. So give me a story, Eddie,
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how do you like in the context of like looking at over maybe like
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societal themes and yeah, just things in our probably our culture around substance used.
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Um, there's the thing I've thought about over the last few years,
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specifically, you know, our mutual friend Ryan, Like I spent a lot
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of time with him. We live so close together, and we talk a
10:09
decent amount of just about like drinking, like at our age, like if
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if that's something that we want to do anymore, or even like partaken.
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He sent me like a Twitter thread like a few months ago about a guy
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who basically just had this this long thread of tweets just talking about how alcohol
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use is just so normalized in our in our culture, in our society that
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for him, when he started to step away from from drinking, that it
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felt weird at first and it felt like I'm doing something wrong, But then
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to see on the other side, like, okay, once I've had an
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extended period of time without drinking, just seeing how much there was improvements for
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him, and he couldn't remember if there were some of that drank a lot.
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But I know for me personally, like I've pretty much stopped drinking for
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the most part since about like December of last year. Here and there I'll
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drink, like when we went on our trip to Japan, I rank and
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recently went to the career's factory Like that was fun. Like I drank a
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little bit hat too, it's from the source. But other than that,
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like really since since uh since Christmas Day of twenty twenty two, like I
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really haven't drank that much. There was a point in time and a few
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years ago, maybe more than a few years ago, where I was thinking,
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like we were in grad school, I mean you were there for part
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of it, justin like we would go out and party and have a good
11:22
time and drink too much, and it just felt like a regular part of
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our life and that that was just what people our age would do. And
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I remember thinking, maybe a little bit after I graduated, thinking like how
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am I going to keep doing this? Like how am I gonna like drink
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a lot on the weekend and like function, like it's gonna get a lot
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harder, and am I am I still gonna want to do these things?
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Like I don't know, so I know from for me, there was a
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little part where I was actually like worried, like am I gonna have to
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keep up with people and keep up with friends as I get older about like
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drinking this much? Am I gonna am I gonna lose friends because I don't
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want to drink anymore? And I think those those concerns were realistic only because
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I didn't know any better, but not realistic in the sense of, like
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my friends would not want to be my friends anymore because I didn't drink.
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And I think that just speaks to like how a normalized drinking is in our
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culture in a society. Binge drinking as a college student is like pretty much
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the norm. There's the on TikTok, there's like the it's called a borg.
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Have you heard of those? So a lot of college kids. I
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don't sudn't say a lot, but I've seen college kids drink this day.
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I sound old when I say that they'll drink. They'll get like a gallon
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of water and then they will like dump out half of it or part of
12:37
it and then fill it back up with like tequila or vodka, and then
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they'll put like two liquid ivs and then like some water flavor enhancer and then
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just drink that because it's like, you know, help keep you hydrated while
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you drink. And BORG stands for like black outrage gallon. But yeah,
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it's just it's drinking. Is just like such a normal thing in our society,
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and there's nothing bad about engaging here and there and in moderation. But
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yeah, I guess to wrap up my point, just where I was at
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with alcohol, especially you know, in last part of undergrad and grad school,
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moving into adulthood, and where I'm at now, where I'm just basically
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like, it's just to me, it's not worth it. I feel like
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I get hangovers super easy now. I don't like to sleep have a shitty
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night's sleep after I drink. Like, yeah, my perspective has changed a
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lot, but I know it was my perspective was influenced because of our societal
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norms around drinking. Yeah, and thanks for Sharon, and I'll agree.
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Yeah, it seems like when I talk to the older generation, like my
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parents and their friends, they tell me, you, guys, your generation
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drinks a lot. Do you drink a lot more than weird? Yah?
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I find that so fascinating that it really has become so much more normalized.
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And a lot of it is corporate and societal pressures of oh, you should
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go out and drink for brunch, you should day drink, you should There's
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so much pressure from all these companies trying to make you drink all their products
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to drink more and more and more and more and more. It's a little
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scary, and I worry about our generation and our dependency on drinking because I
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think it, in a lot of ways is our main coping mechanism for dealing
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with stress, and that's not necessarily the healthiest thing in the world. But
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in terms of story time, I think I've touched on it a little bit
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in the past. But when I was nineteen, I went through a pretty
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bad breakup where I was actually living with my girlfriend and even looking for a
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wedding rings at the time, but it ended abruptly, and one of my
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main mechanisms for coping with it was smoking a lot of marijuana. I had
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a friend who I was hanging out with a lot who did it frequently,
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and I fell into that trap. It was a way to deal with that
14:56
pain. I was looking for an escape and I found it in a substance.
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And luckily I've got all the support in the world from my friends and
15:05
family. I had other coping mechanisms that I could use too that also helped
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me get through that time, so it never really became a big problem in
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my life. It never really got in the way of my career, my
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relationships, and I believe that it didn't become a problem because I had all
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that support from friends and family. But I could easily see how something like
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that, a big life event, can lead to addiction. If you don't
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have that support, if you don't have that other coping mechanisms, if that
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is your only way of coping, how you can really fall into that trap.
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I was thinking about it as you were sharing. You're in nineteen,
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and I think about like the kids that I see on a daily basis,
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even at nineteen, like your friend with lobe, isn't there for you to
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understand like the Yep, I'm going to smoke because I feel bad, and
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when I smoke, I feel better. Really, it's not that at all.
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It's just when you smoke or we engage in whatever, you're just numb
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now and you can't have any real thoughts to deal with it in the moment,
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and then you just deal with it later and then you do it again.
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And yeah, I mean, why wouldn't our kids think that this is
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a helpful thing to do if they just don't know any better. Bingo and
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that's that's what they say when I talk to them. A lot of the
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kids at the drug treatment center, they're like, I feel bad this.
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You know, smoking helps me feel better, so why wouldn't I do it?
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And it's like, you give me medicine for depression and anxiety, isn't
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that the same thing? And it's like, that's decent logic. It's very
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similar. Yeah, but it's it's a little bit different because the medicines we
16:30
give you aren't typically intoxicans. And so that's that's that's generally my response back
16:37
to them. But yeah, their their logic is there. They're looking for
16:40
something that's going to make them feel a little better in the moment. Kids
16:42
are not dumb. Yeah, the kids teams like these, they know what
16:47
they're talking about. Like they they've been saying some shit sometimes, but they're
16:49
not dumb. They can put they can string together thoughts. Yeah, and
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reason cuts to the core of you. You're like, oh, you know
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what, that's a great point. Yeah, Stats and facts for you today.
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So remember there are about three hundred and thirty million people in the United
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States of America just to give you a scope of some of these, but
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according to Health and Human Services dot Gov in twenty twenty one, sixty one
17:15
point two million people, So that's about twenty one percent of the population used
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illicit substances. Nine point two million misused opioids, so using them more than
17:26
prescribed or using them to get high intoxicated. Forty six point three million Americans
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met criteria for a substance used disorder based on DSM five criteria. That's so
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many, forty six point three million Americans had a diagnosable substance use disorder.
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That really struck Yeah. Well, and then think about how many can meet
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the criteria, and then how many are getting treatment. It's not forty six
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point three millions, Yes, which brings us to our next stat ninety four
17:56
percent of people with a substance used to disorder did not get treatment. That
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is mind blowing to me. Nine So I think a big part of that
18:07
is the societal stigma around drug use. It's seen as not a mental health
18:12
problem, it's seen as an individual problem, as a character problem. And
18:17
so that's why we wanted to have this episode to Day to maybe try and
18:19
shift that focus in a little bit in some people. I think to the
18:23
barrier to treatment is really hard to like, I know, we've talked about
18:26
insurance a lot here, so like how much insurance will cover substance use treatment.
18:32
That's a big issue if you look at like, I'm someone who definitely
18:36
like if I was homesick, i'd be watching, like we've talked about it,
18:40
like the More Show and stuff like that. But in between they'd have
18:42
the commercials related to like getting treatment, and you end up looking up these
18:48
places and they're like tens of thousands of dollars for treatment. It's like who's
18:52
got cash or burn like that. There's that one commercial I can't remember what
18:56
it was called, but it's like the guys that they're interviewing is like the
19:00
owner or like someone high up in the company, and he's like, so,
19:03
like, displace works. I should know. I was an attic for
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ten years now. I'm not like that. Who's that going to convince?
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It does, though, it does convince people, Like if that commercial hits
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a million people and only two people think, oh, you know, I
19:21
could help me, and those two people spend twenty thousand dollars at that place,
19:25
that place makes a profit. That's true. Who was it? I
19:29
don't think I ever watched it, but is it John Oliver. That's a
19:33
guy, right that's famous and does the talk show. So yeah, I
19:36
think he did a thing on substances treatment, right, didn't he do like
19:40
an episode on it? And he kind of just shit on him? Yeah?
19:42
Do you remember, like what was the key points of that? Key
19:45
points where that there are a ton of these programs. A lot of them
19:48
are not really federally regulated and just kind of do whatever they want. They
19:55
base their treatment on stuff maybe that worked for other people in the past,
19:57
but they're not necessarily evidence base. A lot of them don't really want you
20:02
to get better so that you can keep coming back and paying for their programs.
20:07
So it's it's an industry that is rife with a lot of corruption and
20:10
corporate greed. Yeah. And you know, if you think about it too,
20:15
if if they don't take insurance and it's all private pay, they don't
20:18
have to use evidence based stuff, right, Like they don't have to report
20:22
back to anybody to be like hey, like we use blah blah blah patient.
20:26
And this writer discussed like they don't have to do any of that.
20:29
They can just like do whatever they want down. Yeah, I remember.
20:33
Now it's coming back to me, I don't. I never watched it,
20:36
but it was definitely Maybe I'll watch it today after this. Yeah, hold
20:38
me accountable if I don't watch it yet, I'll send you a text.
20:44
Perfect To the point that Justin was saying earlier, the way we look at
20:48
drug addiction as a society is really important. We have largely been told that
20:52
drug addiction is a problem with a person's character or individual choices, their values.
20:57
They're a bad person if they gauge in drug addiction. All things that
21:02
are just not true. We've also been told that drug use is largely a
21:04
criminal problem and not a mental health problem, which is why one in five
21:08
people that are incarcerated in America are there for a drug charge, according to
21:14
the Prison Policy Initiative. But it's also important to know that not all countries
21:18
treat drug use the way that we do in the US. So, for
21:19
example, Portugal in the year two thousand, they decriminalize all illicit substances.
21:26
That has happened. I always feel like I misspeak on this, but that's
21:29
happened here in Oregon too, where they've like decriminalized I don't know if it's
21:33
all, but like they've decriminalized sub and the thing that's come up with that
21:37
is a lot of people are now saying like, well, everything's legal now,
21:41
you can do whatever. That's why we have all these this and that,
21:44
and that's you know, but like that's not necessarily the case, and
21:47
people are just are not really understanding what does it mean when substance use or
21:52
certain substances are decriminalized. So I could try to describe it, and I'll
21:56
probably butcher it, but I know someone who could do a good job I
21:59
describe in it. So I want to pass it off to my friend over
22:02
here Justice, so you can tell us. I think you make a great
22:04
point though, if you decriminalize it, if you decriminalize heroin tomorrow. It's
22:08
not like I'm going to be like, oh, yes, finally it's my
22:11
chance to go do some heroin and kids, I'm just trying to that.
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It's like we were saying earlier, Kids aren't dumb. Kids are smart.
22:22
They know that there are risks associated with these things, and a lot of
22:26
kids they know that if even if these things are legal, they're not just
22:29
going to jump on the bandwagon and be like, oh yeah, I gotta
22:32
go try a math, I gotta go try a heroin. Decriminalization doesn't mean
22:36
legalization necessarily, So a lot of these places that have decriminalized it, you
22:40
can still pay fines if you're caught with it. That you can't deal it.
22:42
You can't make these drugs and sell them on mass quantities, and a
22:48
lot of times if you're caught with them, especially in Portugal, if you
22:51
get caught with these drugs, they offer you like drug treatment, health and
22:56
programs, which is I think the way you should be doing it. And
23:00
that's more of a public health approach, not a criminal approach. You don't
23:03
just throw someone in prison so that when they get out they go right back
23:07
to doing the same drugs again and there's zero rehabilitation that happens in prison.
23:11
And then I really tried to find there's a lot of mixed messages about what
23:17
happened in Portugal, because we have twenty three years of research. After this
23:21
happened in the year two thousand. You know, some sources say, oh,
23:23
it is the most amazing thing that ever happened. Some say, oh,
23:26
it was the worst thing that ever happened. But I looked on the
23:30
United Nations website, which I felt was probably one of the more neutral sources,
23:34
and some of the objective facts are that drug drug use rates in Portugal
23:41
are now below the European Union average, so they have less drug use in
23:47
other countries that have it criminalized. Drug use declined in young people aged fifteen
23:53
to twenty four years old, and problematic drug use like IVY drug use went
23:57
down. There were other statistics, and they're kind of nebulous that maybe some
24:03
certain things got worse, but it seems like overall things got better in Portugal
24:07
because of the decriminalization of drugs there. And yeah, I'm curious to see
24:12
what happens in Oregon in terms of what actually happens to the drug use population,
24:18
because I know in Portland there's there's a lot of heroin, there's a
24:21
lot of math, there's a lot of drug use. I'm curious too,
24:23
because I think people are so quick to like, oh, no one gets
24:26
in trouble anymore, Like that's not true, Like the people get in trouble
24:32
all the time. Like it's not like I'm trying to be neutral. I'm
24:37
trying to be good. Hold on, let me gather my thoughts. I
24:40
appreciate your second. There's like there's just like a certain grouping of thought,
24:48
of group think that just assumes because like now people are being put first,
24:53
that that means people are just going to take advantage of everything. Like why
24:56
why why are we always assuming that we are some people always assuming that because
25:02
things are changed in a certain direction or more lenience is given, that people
25:06
are just inherently going to take advantage of it. When I gave a training
25:10
a couple weeks ago to classify staff in our district, you know, I
25:12
shared this ted talk that a student actually from our school district gave a few
25:18
years ago, and she talked about the importance of mental health days in school,
25:22
and she shared how she was actually part of the group of people that
25:26
helped put legislation through that now makes like mental health days legal in Oregon.
25:30
And a lot of people's first reaction is, well, kids are just going
25:33
to take advantage of it? Are they? Maybe take ten kids, maybe
25:37
one of them does, who cares? Nine kids got an opportunity to take
25:41
a mental health day that they needed and they didn't get penalized for it.
25:45
Like, I don't know. I think I'm a little off topic with the
25:48
mental health days and kids in school, but I think the basic point I'm
25:52
trying to make is still there that like, unfortunately what ends up happening when
25:56
we try to be more lenient with people, we try to maybe shift away
26:00
from being Is it punitive? Is that the right word to use when we
26:03
shift away from from like punishing or shift away from having consequences that we're just
26:08
immediately saying like, Okay, go ahead, it's you know, free,
26:11
willy nilly, do whatever the hell you want. Well, that's not the
26:15
case at all. We're trying to shift the way that things have been done
26:18
because obviously they're not working. If the way things have been done forever have
26:22
been working had been working, we wouldn't have whatever issues that there are out
26:26
there, right, Like things would be different. But they're not. So
26:29
it's like we got to try something drastically different to see if we get a
26:33
better result. Oh, I think you made a great point. It's like,
26:34
how is our system working for us? Maybe we should rethink this.
26:47
But Hardy, it's time to play our favorite game, which I like to
26:51
call which country is the worst, when we try to decide which country has
26:56
the worst drug use in the entire world. So, Eddie, without looking
27:00
at the show notes, here, our little script, Which country do you
27:04
think as the worst drug use in the entire world? I can't even pretend
27:11
to be like, uh, it's is it the US? Ding ding ding
27:17
ding ding ding ding? Yes? Is the United States of America has the
27:22
worst drug addiction problems in the entire world, with a total of six point
27:26
seven life years of productivity per person lost due to substance addiction. So we
27:32
got a problem with this in this country. And I think that's a statistic
27:34
we're not talking about too much. And this is according to the World Population
27:40
Review dot com. Yeah, the United States is really struggling, I think,
27:45
just to give you a perspective, it's the US. And then the
27:48
next nine are Estonia, Scotland, Belarus, Mongolia, Kanada, Greenland,
27:53
Russia, Kazakhstan, and the United Arab Emirates. So just to give you
27:57
an idea of some of the countries that have the worst substance use in the
28:00
world. And yeah, America is number one. Boo, yeah, America,
28:04
we won. We did it. All I saw, that's right,
28:07
all I saw is we're number one. Baby US. Yesterday it was the
28:11
fourth July. Yeah, we're celebrating. Let me tell you. I'll tell
28:17
you what sorry, So, how our societal views and there are capitalism contributes
28:25
to the drug problem is really important. I'm going to name the title after
28:29
this episode, something along the lines of like how capitalism creates drug use or
28:33
something like that. You know, I still got to work with kinks out
28:36
of them. Oh yeah, but there are in this country we are seeing,
28:41
or we are told to see, drug use as an individualized problem,
28:45
and a lot of times it is a societal and capitalist problem. So drug
28:52
companies pushed a lot of lies about the dangers of opioid use and made billions
28:57
and billions of dollars getting people addicted to their pills. So, according to
29:02
a twenty twenty two article from NPR, the Sackler family, who owns Perdue
29:07
Pharma, the makers of OxyContin, made over ten billion dollars on the opioid
29:15
epidemic. And remember, at the peak of the opioid epidemic in twenty twenty
29:18
one, one hundred and six thousand people died from opioid overdoses in one year
29:25
and that's just what was reported. So the Sacklers literally made a killing on
29:32
selling drug addiction. And that's just sickening to me, you know, it's
29:36
been interesting listening to bits and pieces over like the last couple of years of
29:42
updates on the Sackler family and then like getting in trouble kind of but like
29:47
not really getting in trouble. But I think the last update I've heard on
29:51
it, and this is probably like a month ish ago, month and a
29:52
half ago, is basically that like none of the living Sackler people are really
29:59
going to get an any and they're pretty much just gonna like to get a
30:03
slap on the wrist of just knowing that, like they're shitty people and like
30:07
that's kind of it, and they're just gonna like pay out some people and
30:11
it's really not a lot, and it's really it really sucks, and it's
30:14
it's I mean, that's it's kind of why we're at where we're at today
30:17
with things like opiods, with things like fentanyl. People get addicted to to
30:21
opiods. They need something maybe a little stronger. It's not working for them
30:25
anymore. You go through the to this is synthetic? Is that the word
30:29
I want? Like the man made scientifically made stuff. Yeah. The fact
30:33
that if you murder someone in the streets, you go to prison for life
30:37
but if you kill a genocidal amount of people with pills that you're pushing on
30:42
the American people, you have to pay a fine and you're good to God.
30:49
Yeah, and the fine is like not even a dent in their wealth,
30:52
Like it's key nuts. Anyway. Another point is that the prison industrial
30:57
complex wanting more people in prison, lobbying for harsher drug penalties. I think
31:00
this goes back to what I was saying earlier too, of just like people
31:03
expecting that if you have an issue that is detrimental to me or it looks
31:10
negative to me, that you deserve a punishment. According to prison legal news
31:14
dot org, the private prison industry has given over six million dollars to political
31:18
political campaigns of state politicians since the year two thousand and This is primarily through
31:23
political action committees. It's definitely interesting to see or to hear about how many
31:30
politicians have like private prisons like in their pockets. The fact that an industry
31:37
can donate to someone's campaign and change their policies when they're elected is just wild
31:45
to me that we let that happen in this country. Like, you don't
31:47
see how that is just going to breed corruption. It just blows my mind
31:52
that we let this happen. It happens right under our noses all the time.
31:56
Another point that we wanted to make is that in general, workers are
31:59
just pushed too hard and not really paid enough to provide for their basic needs.
32:04
The wealth gap in this country has increased tremendously, particularly since the nineteen
32:08
seventies after we started getting rid of unions, which really helped protect people and
32:13
their livelihoods. So the wealthy are getting a lot more prosperity and the middle
32:19
class is pretty much dying. Even though that since the seventies, our economy
32:23
has grown tremendously. We are the richest country in the history of the world,
32:30
and still we have a child poverty rate that is twice that of other
32:35
industrial countries. It's like, why, why is that? Why do we
32:40
let all these people just break in the money at the top while a lot
32:45
of people at bottom are truly suffering. I think the Great Resignation what happened
32:50
during the middle of COVID when people are quitting their jobs, was a big
32:53
clue that people were just sick and tired of being overworked. The emphasis in
32:59
this country on productivity is just kind of unhealthy. We value work and productivity
33:06
above all else, and other people's mental health really struggles and suffers because of
33:10
this. And we found some papers that showed that one of the main reasons
33:15
people used methamphetamine was actually because they wanted more energy and productivity, which I
33:21
actually encountered a decent amount in adult psychiatry. I've met a decent amount of
33:25
people that would just recreationally use math. Would be like I needed to get
33:30
a lot of stuff done, I didn't have a lot of time to do
33:31
it, so I would use a little bit of meth and crank out a
33:34
bunch of work all night and bought a being bought a boom functional drunk addiction.
33:38
There was actually I watched it Drugs Inc. Episode years ago about math
33:43
specifically, and they said someone in the because they were going to different parts
33:47
of the country, one of the people or a couple of the people that
33:51
are being interviewed were from the Bay Area. And honestly, I'm pretty sure
33:55
one of the people who was like being interviewed, who was at that time
33:59
homeless, was like not far from where I lived, Like they were in
34:02
Milpitas, Like I could I recognize like the buildings in the back, but
34:07
they specifically said if meth was more widely accepted, you would hear about way
34:14
more tech bros or techy's that use meth recreationally or I guess for productivity reasons
34:22
because of how much they need to like get a bunch of work done and
34:25
work all night and like meet these crazy deadlines that tech companies have. So
34:30
I mean, yeah, cocaine is definitely a stimulant that people will talk about
34:32
and actually probably more correlate with like being rich and being successful, whereas meth
34:38
is not like that at all. But it sounds like a lot of people
34:42
actually do use meth to for similar, similar reasons. And we bring up
34:46
these issues because we want as mental health professionals, we want to help people,
34:52
and we our country overall is pretty sick. Our mental health is getting
34:57
a lot worse. Where worked, it feels psych a lot of times.
35:00
The systems in place that are here to protect us aren't really protecting us.
35:05
So I think overall we got to rethink some of these structures, rethink some
35:09
of these systems, because our mental health is just declining, and I really
35:15
hope we can turn it around within our lifetimes. But unfortunately there's a lot
35:19
of inertia first pushing us in this same direction. Moving to discussion questions.
35:23
The first one justin you talked a little bit about your recent rotation in a
35:28
residential substance use program, But in the patients you've worked with, why do
35:32
you see people getting addicted to drugs? How does this all come about?
35:37
So many reasons, I'd say, like, if there's one reason that I
35:39
could pinpoint probably has the most is childhood trauma aces adverse childhood events. A
35:47
lot of kids go through some really really horrible things in this world, and
35:52
they don't really have any coping mechanisms to deal with it, especially if their
35:55
parents are also struggling with substance use, and parents don't really have any help
36:00
the coping mechanisms and ways to model appropriate behavior to these kids, so a
36:06
lot of them turn to drugs to just man, if you've been physically abused
36:09
and you just want these thoughts out of your head, why wouldn't you drink?
36:13
Why wouldn't you try and drown them out? Trauma ends up being like
36:15
one of the number one things that is a precursor to a lot of the
36:21
mental health disorders that we talk about. In the training that I did recently
36:24
with the staff, just kind of trying to reinforce the importance of understanding and
36:30
being open to the idea that unfortunately a lot of our kids have been through
36:35
some messed up things and there's a reason why the issues that they're having are
36:38
there in the first place. If you want to hear a little more just
36:43
about trauma informed care, we did an episode on that. I think it
36:47
was pretty good, so feel free to check it out. It's just really
36:51
trauma informed care. The idea of just being open and receptive to the negative
36:55
experiences that our clients and patients might might have been impacted by can really just
37:00
help shape how we treat the people that we work with. Our last discussion
37:06
question for the day, because we'll wrap it up pretty quick here is Yeah,
37:08
how are the resources in your area? Do you find it's hard to
37:12
get people connected to substance use stuff? What are people's reactions to trying to
37:15
get there? I mean, I've gone back and forth. I think just
37:19
in this episode of Where are We, I think I think there's more clinicians.
37:23
I think there's more practitioners. I think getting people connected. We talked
37:27
about it. I think in the last episode, maybe the episode before that
37:31
episode before that, where just getting people connected can be really hard because it
37:36
is intimidating. It is scary. For someone like me who has an idea
37:40
of the system, maybe it doesn't seem as hard or intimidating. But for
37:45
someone who's just like told, hey, you need help, or hey your
37:47
kid needs help, go find them help, that could be really hard and
37:51
intimidating. So I think the correct endswer is probably there's just not enough.
37:55
I don't have a good idea off the top of my head to fix that.
37:59
But the biggest thing I can control is just trying to get as many
38:02
help and resources available to the kids and teens that I come in contact with,
38:07
you know, on my work, you know, similar to what you're
38:08
doing. Justin are just like having these ideas in mind and being trying to
38:13
be able to bridge some of those gaps as best possible. And then from
38:16
my perspective, I know, I just moved away from Omaha, the Nebraska
38:21
area, but where I did my residency and fellowship training, Yeah, there
38:25
was one child and adolescent in patient treatment drug program one and it serviced pretty
38:34
much the entire eastern half of Nebraska, any other were twenty beds. That's
38:39
it for all these kids to have all these problems, and they were so
38:44
inundated with referrals that they had to change it to you had to be court
38:49
ordered to go there. That was the only way you could actually get in.
38:52
So I would have parents coming up to me of some of my patients
38:55
being like, I need to get my kid treatment if there, if they're
39:00
outpatient, they're just going to keep using. They need to be somewhere where
39:02
they have to stay. And I literally had to tell them there is nothing
39:08
unless your child gets into major legal trouble first, there is nothing in the
39:14
area. And even for adults, it was really hard to get them into
39:19
drug treatment or drug and alcohol treatment programs. It was literally I hated having
39:22
this conversation because the conversation has to start with do you have insurance? Because
39:28
there was one program in Omaha that would take people without insurance, and of
39:32
course they were packed all the time. So you can see why ninety four
39:39
percent of the people with substance use disorders never get help because the resources sunk,
39:45
they're overcrowded, they're overpopulated, and there's so much societal stigma saying you
39:49
should figure this out because it's your fault, it's your problem, and you
39:53
don't need anyone's help. You need to figure it out on your own.
39:57
That a lot, I know, yeah, kind of things. Well,
40:00
we will wrap up with some celebrities. Robert Downey Jr. To start out
40:06
with. He was Iron Man at one point in his life, who's addicted
40:10
to alcohol, cocaine, and heroin. And according to web md, he
40:14
started using drugs at eight years old, which is pretty wild. That is
40:19
very early. Some good quotes that he had. This is according to a
40:22
Z quotes. I love this quote. I don't drink these days. I'm
40:27
allergic to alcohol and narcotics. I break out in handcuffs. That's pretty funny.
40:32
That's good. Next up we have the Weekend the Musical Artists. His
40:38
name his actual name is able Test Fay. He's used in the past ketamine,
40:45
cocaine, MDMA, mushrooms, and cough syrup. He moved out of
40:49
his mother's house and in Toronto to live with a friend when they were younger,
40:52
and they would steal from supermarkets to buy drugs and alcohol. He has
40:55
stated that sometimes he will use drugs to help overcome writers block. I know
41:00
that's like a I feel like that's a pretty well known thing as far as
41:04
people who were fans of the Weekend, like, oh, this is like
41:07
different types of music will come out and be like, oh, he must
41:09
have been like under the influence when he was doing this, or you know,
41:13
oh, the Weekend's back or he's back to where he's at, and
41:15
like that kind of sucks because I feel like there's almost a pressure on him
41:17
to like come out with certain types of music, which then in turn means
41:22
he needs to be high to make certain kinds of music, and I think
41:24
that's that's got to be a lot of shitty pressure to be under. When
41:28
he was asked if he ever got sought out treatment, he said, no,
41:30
definitely not. I think that's more when you're privileged, you know,
41:35
going to a therapist to something you do when you're growing up as a street
41:37
kid in Toronto, and then he finished with sorry, bro. Yeah.
41:43
I thought that was a good line because he really explained the stigma right there.
41:46
You don't get treatment unless you're privileged, and that sucks. It sucks,
41:51
and I think a lot of young people feel that way. Oh yeah,
41:53
even along the lines of drugs and creativity. I was just talking with
41:58
my brother and he was like, yeah, I went through a big red
42:00
hot Chili Pepper's phase. Yeah, but I only really liked their stuff when
42:02
the lead singer was doing a bunch of heroin. Yeah. I don't blame
42:07
you, it's I think a lot of artists use drugs to try and explore
42:14
those different depths of their of their lives and personalities. And last, but
42:19
certainly not least. I know we spoke about her on the show a couple
42:22
of months ago, but Hayden Panetier. She was the actor that was super
42:25
popular on the hit show Heroes in the early two thousands, but open quote
42:30
fell off the face of the earth, largely because of her addiction problems.
42:35
She was in an abusive relationship, which also contributed to her career kind of
42:39
stopping abruptly. She became addicted to alcohol and to opioids thank you Sackler family,
42:45
and she first used drugs at fifteen. She was told that they were
42:50
peppie pills, which actually sounds really similar to Judy Garland who did Wizard of
42:54
Oz. She was pretty much given a lot of amphetamines while filming of Oz
42:59
to make sure she work crazy hours. And in twenty eighteen, Hayden Pannetier
43:04
came out and said that she was admitted to the hospital with jaundice and was
43:07
told that if she did not get her alcohol and addiction issues under control,
43:12
her liver was going to give out. So she checked into rehab for eight
43:15
months. And she had a really quote, overly good quote that said,
43:19
like I was on top of the world and I ruined it. So you
43:22
can see how she internalized the societal view of it was her fault. It
43:27
wasn't the industry's fault who spit her up and chew her out. It wasn't
43:30
the Sackler family's fault for pumping all these pills under the American people. She
43:36
felt like it was her fault. Yeah, you know, I just made
43:38
the connection that she was in and remember the Titans. She was. She
43:43
was a little she was a really tiny young girl. She was the little
43:45
girl. Yeah yeah, oh man, So that makes me think too,
43:50
how I just finished Jeanette mccurtey's book, the one that I'm Glad my Mom
43:55
died, and just how like I've heard a lot of like child actors of
44:01
like how messed up. It can be, especially if you have like overbearing
44:06
parents. But there's got to be something out there where, like the chances
44:12
that something bad happens, or like your life being messed up a little bit
44:17
because of like childhood acting, it's got to be pretty high the rates of
44:22
just drug addiction or whatever other issue. Yeah, sorry, random connection now
44:28
that i'm thinking about it. Really good book though. If you haven't ready
44:30
yet reading Genetic Curney story, well, thank you all for listening. We
44:36
hope that we can at least help shift you're thinking in some way, shape
44:38
or form. When it comes to substitute addiction. It's not the individual issue
44:44
that I think society makes it out to be. It's not someone's it's not
44:46
all of someone's fault if they're struggling. There's a lot more that goes into
44:51
it. So we hope that we can at least help shift your thinking at
44:53
least give you some new ideas to think about. You don't have to change
44:55
your thinking just because we said something. As we wrap up today, we
45:00
want to remind you you can find all of our episodes, even the first
45:04
ones, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts.
45:08
If you use Apple Podcasts, feel free to leave us a five star review
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45:21
MHC on Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. Thank you all for
45:24
listening. We'll see you at the next episode and as always, take care
45:29
of our mentals.