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Addiction: Why you can't kick SYSK · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
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Speaker 1: from House toff works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast on Josh Clark. There's Charles w Chuck Tryan Bryant,
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Speaker 1: Chucky Chuckles, Chuck's Chuck Star whatever, Chutrean's new. I had
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Speaker 1: a I had something that I was working on in
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Speaker 1: my head, but it got pushed up by the eight
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Speaker 1: million other things that I have to keep in my
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Speaker 1: working memory. Another Nicknamer. There's a good one too. I
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Speaker 1: think it was gonna it was really gonna knock everyone's
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Speaker 1: socks off. Chuckolate. No, l Yeah, she's getting she's getting
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Speaker 1: a lot freer with the last these days. Huh. Either
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Speaker 1: or she's moving her chair closer and closer, or she's
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Speaker 1: on L O L cats right now or just not
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Speaker 1: she's name listening? Yeah, um, Chuck, Yes, we're talking about
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Speaker 1: addiction today. That's right. Do you remember in the Science
1:02
Speaker 1: Phasing Out Sleep podcast, which strangely enough comes out today
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Speaker 1: on the day we're recording it, but this will be
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Speaker 1: released like five weeks later, you talked about recording this. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: we talked about doing addiction and lo and behold here
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Speaker 1: it is so really if you think about it, we
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Speaker 1: are on track in real time, but in podcast released
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Speaker 1: publishing time, it seems like there's a big lag. But
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Speaker 1: we're giving people what they want, right, that's right, addiction
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Speaker 1: or what we want. Did you like this article? Yeah?
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Speaker 1: Did you know that there are many stories about addiction
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Speaker 1: in our society today? Yeah? When this is like the
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Speaker 1: most rigid article of mine you've ever read? Oh you
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Speaker 1: wrote this? Yes, I'm just kidding, dude. It was. Um.
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Speaker 1: I went back when I read it. I was like,
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Speaker 1: it was very scientific sounding, like you. It could have
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Speaker 1: been on the National Institutes of Health website, and it
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Speaker 1: was very bland. And there was one thing I remember
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Speaker 1: going back reading, I didn't pull the trigger on Um,
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Speaker 1: we're talking about addiction and researching it, uh, compared to
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Speaker 1: our views of addiction, like even twenty thirty years ago,
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Speaker 1: like in the eighties. God, can you believe that was
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Speaker 1: like thirty years ago? Night? Um, that whole Nancy Reagan
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Speaker 1: just Say No campaign scared the Bejesus out of a
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Speaker 1: lot of people, but it also had a very negative
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Speaker 1: impact as well, and that it's so grossly overexaggerated the
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Speaker 1: effects and the addictiveness of drugs, that for kids who
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Speaker 1: were I guess gutsy enough to go ahead and try
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Speaker 1: the drugs that they've been warned against. Once they tried
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Speaker 1: them and found out that they weren't you know, they
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Speaker 1: didn't turn into like a donkey, uh as Nancy Reagan
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Speaker 1: told them they would. Then UM, they were like, well,
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Speaker 1: I wonder what other drugs are gonna do? You know,
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Speaker 1: they get a little more bold and courageous. So what
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Speaker 1: are you saying that they just say No to drugs
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Speaker 1: campaign may have had the reverse effect on people who
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Speaker 1: actually tried drugs. They and it's not just me saying that,
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Speaker 1: there's a lot of there's a lot of consensus in
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Speaker 1: the addiction UM field, which is you know, multidiscipline UM
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Speaker 1: that this just say no campaign or any campaign that
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Speaker 1: overexaggerates the effects of drugs and deviates from a straight
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Speaker 1: science based reporting of what uh addictive substances can do
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Speaker 1: to you UM can have a negative impact. Well, you
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Speaker 1: you think we would have learned our lesson from refer
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Speaker 1: madness back in the day. You would definitely think so,
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Speaker 1: you know, that whole dope fine thing Chuck. It's funny
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Speaker 1: that you bring up refer madness and the dope fine thing,
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Speaker 1: because that was the way for a period that people
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Speaker 1: looked at addicts. It was a major character flaw, right,
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Speaker 1: But before that it was just no big deal. Well,
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Speaker 1: there was no such thing as addiction up until like
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Speaker 1: the late eighteenth century. It was called how Things are Exactly?
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Speaker 1: Did you see that little thing I sent you about
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Speaker 1: the the funeral of a Boston minister's wife in sixteen
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Speaker 1: seventy year? I didn't get a chance to read it,
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Speaker 1: was it. So there's this really cool paper if you
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Speaker 1: ever have some time to kill, which you know you
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Speaker 1: never ever ever do. But it's a thirty two pager
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Speaker 1: by a guy named Harry g. Levine called The Discovery
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Speaker 1: of Addiction colon Changing Conceptions of Habitual Drunkenness in America.
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Speaker 1: It sounds really boring. I think it's like ninety eight.
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Speaker 1: But um this guy is tracing the history of addiction
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Speaker 1: and he's saying, like, prior to the eighteenth century, the
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Speaker 1: end of the eighteenth century, there was no such thing
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Speaker 1: like people drank because they wanted to get drunk, right. Um,
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Speaker 1: So in sixteen seventy eight, people in America drank their
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Speaker 1: faces off Chuck e. G. At the funeral of a
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Speaker 1: Boston minister's wife, mourners consumed fifty one and a half
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Speaker 1: gallons of wine. And think how many could there be.
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Speaker 1: It's sixteen seventy eight in Boston. It's like fifty people
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Speaker 1: who aren't like Native American in in the continental United
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Speaker 1: States or what would become Well, maybe there were fifty
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Speaker 1: one and a half people and they drank he so uh.
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Speaker 1: And then at the ordination not a funeral, an ordination
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Speaker 1: of Reverend Edwin Jackson of Woburn, Massachusetts, guests drink six
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Speaker 1: and a half barrels of cider, twenty five gallons of wine,
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Speaker 1: two gallons of brandy, and four gallons of rome. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: and that was just for the guy becoming a minister.
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Speaker 1: You know, our Boston listeners right now, we're like that's right.
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Speaker 1: They're like, well, that's wicked awesome. So and then in
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Speaker 1: the eighteenth century there was everybody's just drink and drink
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Speaker 1: and drinking for fun. Then the eighteenth century some people
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Speaker 1: are like, you know what, I kind of have to
5:34
Speaker 1: have four gallons of brandy help me. And then we
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Speaker 1: started to get this idea that there was such thing
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Speaker 1: as addiction, but it wasn't the person. It was on
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Speaker 1: the substance, right, Yeah, it's the absinthe or the opium.
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Speaker 1: You know, those were like the drugs of choice back
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Speaker 1: in the day. That's the problem. Those things are evil
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Speaker 1: and they're bad, right And um, Actually, opium addiction was
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Speaker 1: so widespread. Did you see that little sidebar at not
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Speaker 1: opium addiction. Opium was everywhere, right, like you could get
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Speaker 1: it in any kind of tincture, tonic for any kind
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Speaker 1: of malady whatsoever. Um. And so many middle aged women
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Speaker 1: became hooked on morphine and opium that it was seen
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Speaker 1: in the late nineteenth century as a woman's problem p
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Speaker 1: MS or menopause. Interesting, that's how people viewed addiction for
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Speaker 1: a while. But it went from the substance to the person.
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Speaker 1: The character flawed, the dope fiend. Right. I thought it
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Speaker 1: went from the person to the substance. No, it went
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Speaker 1: from this I'm sorry, the substance to the person. So
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Speaker 1: it went from it's the problem of the substance to
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Speaker 1: the problem of the person. It's a character flaw, their
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Speaker 1: dope fiend. And then finally we arrive at the idea
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Speaker 1: that addiction is um a disease, a chronic disease, and
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Speaker 1: the person who is addicted is a sufferer, not a fiend.
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Speaker 1: That's where we are now for the most part. But
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Speaker 1: we still don't fully understand addiction. We have a pretty
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Speaker 1: good view of it, right, I feel like a lot
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Speaker 1: of things with the human body we explained, we always
7:03
Speaker 1: lead in with like they sort of know, but they
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Speaker 1: sort of don't. Well, it's that it's that point where
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Speaker 1: all the pieces are on the table, we just haven't
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Speaker 1: put them all together. Remember, do you know why, Josh? Why?
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Speaker 1: Because the human body is a miracle. It's a big,
7:16
Speaker 1: mysterious miracle. I mean when you think about it, really
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Speaker 1: about all the things going on in the brain and
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Speaker 1: the body, and the fact that you know it's wrapped
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Speaker 1: up in bones and skin. That sounds like intelligent design
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Speaker 1: to me. Well, there you have it. Have Do you
7:30
Speaker 1: remember your theory of what happened to the Neanderthals? Uh?
7:33
Speaker 1: Didn't they say they froze? I got thirsty. Yeah, they
7:36
Speaker 1: got hot and thirsty and they died. Alright, Chuck, I
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Speaker 1: stand by that. So the whole point of addiction is
7:44
Speaker 1: it hijacks the brains reward system, right, Yeah, the limbic system,
7:49
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what it does. Josh. When you are
7:53
Speaker 1: you know, born, and you're a human being, you learned
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Speaker 1: very quickly that you know you have to survive by
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Speaker 1: eating and sleeping and taking care of yourself. And that's
8:02
Speaker 1: because it triggers the limbic system into shooting a little
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Speaker 1: dopamine out and your body says, hey, I like that,
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Speaker 1: I need to do that again. And that's what drugs do,
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Speaker 1: except they do it two to ten times as much,
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Speaker 1: and it's it's fault. It's fake. Dopa means like the
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Speaker 1: doggy treat of anything with the brain. Yeah, So if
8:21
Speaker 1: you can get ten doggie treats yeah, immediately instead of
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Speaker 1: the one, then you take it. And then your brain says, boy,
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Speaker 1: this is great. I could get used to this. And
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Speaker 1: it does, right, And since we learn, we're pretty much
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Speaker 1: hardwired to learn from that release of dopamine to repeat
8:38
Speaker 1: that behavior like reproduce or exercise or eat. Um. We
8:43
Speaker 1: if we're getting ten times that amount, we pick it
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Speaker 1: up even quicker, like, Okay, well this crack cocaine makes
8:49
Speaker 1: me feel really good, so I'm gonna try that. We
8:52
Speaker 1: need it more and when it goes away, it makes
8:54
Speaker 1: things a lot worse than just um sleepy because I
8:57
Speaker 1: didn't get enough sleep. Well, we should say also that UM.
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Speaker 1: The current view of addiction, the brain disease model, right,
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Speaker 1: UM states that just because you try something doesn't mean
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Speaker 1: you're going to become addicted. The process or addiction is
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Speaker 1: a process, and a person goes from a user, crosses
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Speaker 1: a threshold at some point, uh, and becomes an addict.
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Speaker 1: So a user and an addict, they're not synonymous. They
9:24
Speaker 1: exist on two different parts of the spectrum of addiction
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Speaker 1: or spectrum of substance use interviews. Right used to be
9:30
Speaker 1: assess that those are the two different words. Right, So, uh,
9:33
Speaker 1: well you summed up the UM. I guess the way
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Speaker 1: that addiction works pretty succinctly chucked. Well, it becomes physically addictive. Basically,
9:42
Speaker 1: you develop a dependency on this shot of dopamine, this
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Speaker 1: huge shot of dopamine, and your body needs it all
9:49
Speaker 1: of a sudden sudden, and you you know, you lose control. Right,
9:51
Speaker 1: And we should say that UM drugs generally, like all
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Speaker 1: drugs of addiction, UM hijack the reward system. We talked
10:00
Speaker 1: about other drugs. I can't remember in some other podcasts
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Speaker 1: that don't necessarily work the dopamine. Therefore, if they don't
10:08
Speaker 1: necessarily produce addictive properties, right, Um, but those that do
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Speaker 1: hijack dopamine transmitters, they either stimulate dopaminees release and or
10:20
Speaker 1: they bind to dopamine receptors and prevent its reuptake. Right,
10:26
Speaker 1: So you've got a bunch of dopamine release and you've
10:28
Speaker 1: got a bunch of its staying in between your synapses longer,
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Speaker 1: and then, like you said, you become dependent on that.
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Speaker 1: You want that feeling, Well, your brain does without even
10:39
Speaker 1: if you don't even know this is going on, your
10:42
Speaker 1: brain is saying to your body, you need to go
10:44
Speaker 1: out and get more of that because that was really awesome. Right,
10:47
Speaker 1: Because your reward system is uh, it's it's there to
10:51
Speaker 1: motivate us to do stuff or to or to do stuff.
10:54
Speaker 1: That's the reward system. So yeah, like you said, um,
10:57
Speaker 1: your your priorities become prioritized and drugs get to be
11:02
Speaker 1: four or whatever that substance or behavior is. Right. Well, yeah,
11:05
Speaker 1: you always hear um. Like the hardcore abusers of heroin
11:11
Speaker 1: or cocaine, it literally they say it overtakes your life.
11:15
Speaker 1: To where your job is to every day get the
11:18
Speaker 1: money that you can find the draw and find the
11:20
Speaker 1: drugs so you can use the drugs. It's a full
11:22
Speaker 1: time deal. And so you've got you've got the hangover withdrawal.
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Speaker 1: That's where your dopamine UM. Basically your brains like, Okay,
11:31
Speaker 1: I've sense that something artificial is going on, so I'm
11:33
Speaker 1: going to stop producing as much and you're gonna have
11:36
Speaker 1: to go through a horrible little period. That's the withdrawal
11:39
Speaker 1: or hangover. Right. Then you've got physical dependency and at
11:42
Speaker 1: at about this point you've crossed over into addictive. Being
11:47
Speaker 1: an addict, you're not a user anymore. Once you have
11:49
Speaker 1: physical dependency UM. And that's where because your brain is
11:54
Speaker 1: not producing that dopamine naturally any longer, and you write
11:57
Speaker 1: the withdrawal or the hangover so bad that you can't
12:00
Speaker 1: stand it, you will do more. And at that point
12:03
Speaker 1: you're like Crusty the clown with moon rocks. You're just
12:05
Speaker 1: getting back to normal, you know. Now you're physically dependent.
12:09
Speaker 1: That's like, that's the key. I'm not sure if that's
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Speaker 1: getting through to all, because I can picture people out
12:14
Speaker 1: there looking concerned and bewildered. Right now, your brain actually
12:17
Speaker 1: stops producing dopamine if it's getting it, you know, an
12:21
Speaker 1: unnatural way, because you know, I don't even make it anymore,
12:25
Speaker 1: but there's enough of it out there floating around, all right.
12:27
Speaker 1: It's just so messed up. You're literally tricking your brain
12:29
Speaker 1: into doing something that it should be doing naturally. Right,
12:31
Speaker 1: And that's why with a lot of drugs, getting high,
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Speaker 1: getting that high, Uh, it's harder and harder, and harder
12:37
Speaker 1: and harder, sure well or easier. There's that flip side
12:40
Speaker 1: to which I thought was interesting. It is, and I
12:42
Speaker 1: don't fully understand it. I don't. I don't feel bad
12:44
Speaker 1: because I don't think science fully understands it either. But
12:46
Speaker 1: that's two symptoms of physical addiction. Um. Either you need
12:50
Speaker 1: more to get high, or you need far less than
12:53
Speaker 1: you ever did before. I would think if you're an attitude,
12:56
Speaker 1: you'd want to use the second one. You'd be like, man,
12:59
Speaker 1: I can get high of two dollars worth the heroin
13:02
Speaker 1: like I used to need. Unfortunately, don't get that choice though,
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Speaker 1: UM now because of this, because your brain has been
13:08
Speaker 1: basically hijacked by this drug, and I hate I guess
13:12
Speaker 1: we probably shouldn't anthropomorphize drugs, not actually hijacking anything, but
13:17
Speaker 1: because your brain's reward system has been reprioritized to serve
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Speaker 1: this drug. Um, the whole point of treating addiction. And
13:28
Speaker 1: I actually wrote a companion article on this how rehab works.
13:31
Speaker 1: That's pretty interesting. Um, was that based on your experience
13:33
Speaker 1: and rehab? Uh? No, no, no, not true. Um, the
13:39
Speaker 1: point of treating addiction is in most cases to just
13:42
Speaker 1: completely discontinue use, which is called abstinence. Right, Yeah, for
13:46
Speaker 1: most all addiction. Abstinence is the way to go for
13:49
Speaker 1: of course, like eating addictions and stuff like that. Right.
13:51
Speaker 1: And sex addiction. Yeah, they don't want you to never
13:54
Speaker 1: have sex again. No, because I have a problem with
13:57
Speaker 1: sex addiction. Okay, I have a problem, But I have
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Speaker 1: a problem with everyone saying all these athletes are sex
14:02
Speaker 1: addicts because they cheat their wise. Oh yeah, I would
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Speaker 1: think that's probably the most exploited addiction of Sure, Josh,
14:09
Speaker 1: we're talking about addiction. What are some of these symptoms
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Speaker 1: of addiction? How do you know if you're an addict? Well,
14:15
Speaker 1: there's two types that there's physical and behavioral. And I
14:19
Speaker 1: should say those two types are specific to substances of abuse, right,
14:24
Speaker 1: you can have and or physical or behavioral if you're
14:28
Speaker 1: doing like coke or heroin or drinking with behavior behavioral
14:34
Speaker 1: addictions behaviors, it's just behavioral. But that doesn't mean it's
14:38
Speaker 1: any less addictive. That doesn't any less addictive or harmful
14:42
Speaker 1: to you, know your life. Right, But we said one
14:45
Speaker 1: of the one of the physical symptoms is that you
14:48
Speaker 1: either need more or less of the drug. Right, that's right. Um,
14:52
Speaker 1: that's a physical symptoms. Then there's a lot of stuff
14:54
Speaker 1: that you could easily guess, um, trouble sleeping, sweating, hand
15:00
Speaker 1: amer's nausea, physical agitation, that's if you don't have the
15:04
Speaker 1: substance in your body. Right, those are the withdrawal. Basically,
15:07
Speaker 1: your body's telling you, like, go do more because we
15:10
Speaker 1: don't feel good right now. And you get that from
15:12
Speaker 1: everything from alcohol to uh cigarettes to caffeine. Caffeine headaches
15:18
Speaker 1: are supposed to be pretty bad, right. I've heard, like,
15:21
Speaker 1: I've heard people that try to kick diet coke. It
15:23
Speaker 1: can be pretty awful. I've um, I've had caffeine headaches before.
15:27
Speaker 1: They're not that bad, but I have heard of people
15:30
Speaker 1: who really suffer from them. Yeah. Um, so the physical,
15:34
Speaker 1: the physical stuff. Really it's using more or less or
15:38
Speaker 1: just using to get back to normal. That's physical addiction.
15:42
Speaker 1: And then you know, anything that that happens to your
15:45
Speaker 1: body as a result of using your abusing a drug,
15:49
Speaker 1: that's physical behavioral, which is also called psychological symptoms. UM
15:53
Speaker 1: is the stuff that happens to your life basically, Well,
15:58
Speaker 1: it's um. You may have tried to quit doing whatever
16:02
Speaker 1: this behavior is, whether it's gambling or overeating or sex,
16:05
Speaker 1: and uh, you're not able to. So that's one of
16:08
Speaker 1: the traits. So you're not gonna have much success there,
16:11
Speaker 1: or maybe you spend more time doing it where to
16:15
Speaker 1: the point where it's like you know, you might lose
16:17
Speaker 1: your job or go broke or something like that. Those
16:21
Speaker 1: are all behavioral traits. What else, well, you um, basically,
16:25
Speaker 1: you're still using this stuff even though you know it's
16:27
Speaker 1: having a harmful impact on you or your life for others.
16:30
Speaker 1: Or you might stop doing stuff that's good for you,
16:32
Speaker 1: Like it used to be a jogger, but then my
16:35
Speaker 1: sex addiction became so great. Don't even jog anymore. Now,
16:39
Speaker 1: just have sex all the time and play professional football.
16:43
Speaker 1: Um and chuck. Because of this, this brain disease model
16:47
Speaker 1: that we talked about, because these of these symptoms um.
16:52
Speaker 1: The view of addiction as it stands today, the most
16:54
Speaker 1: widely held model is the brain disease model, and the
16:58
Speaker 1: basis of that is that addiction is a chronic disease. Right,
17:02
Speaker 1: So as such, just like say asthma or tuberculosis or whatever,
17:07
Speaker 1: you're gonna have flare ups relapse, right, Yeah, it's relapse
17:12
Speaker 1: with addiction. And so if you go into treatment, you
17:16
Speaker 1: need to have like booster sessions as well. After you're
17:18
Speaker 1: cured or clean or whatever. Well, yeah, that's just the
17:21
Speaker 1: sort of the basis of a right. You still gotta
17:22
Speaker 1: go those meetings, right, which is why I think it's
17:25
Speaker 1: so radically successful. And the LSD and the coffee, right,
17:31
Speaker 1: that should be out by now, I think otherwise people
17:33
Speaker 1: can go what I need to get to A I
17:37
Speaker 1: had a a a joke, but I'm not gonna tell it.
17:38
Speaker 1: That's a good chuck. We've both grown up so much,
17:41
Speaker 1: haven't we, Yes, in the past thirty minutes. Uh, what
17:44
Speaker 1: else we got here, josh Um Behavioral psychologists, they used
17:49
Speaker 1: to think that, I thought this was really interesting. They
17:53
Speaker 1: sort of understand addiction a little bit, but they used
17:55
Speaker 1: to think that if you just tried drugs in the
17:58
Speaker 1: first place, drugs or alcohol or any kind of addictive substance,
18:01
Speaker 1: then there was just something wrong with you. But there's
18:03
Speaker 1: actually genetic basis for even that, not even whether or
18:07
Speaker 1: not you get addicted, but whether you try it to
18:09
Speaker 1: begin with. Well, yeah, it's not just that, Like genetics
18:11
Speaker 1: is one of a number of risk factors. There's also
18:14
Speaker 1: like your susceptibility to peer pressure, your feelings of self
18:18
Speaker 1: worth at that moment or at that period in your life. Um,
18:23
Speaker 1: there are like if you have anxiety or depression that's
18:26
Speaker 1: been shown to increase the likelihood that you're going to
18:29
Speaker 1: try drugs. Um. So it's not just like a kid's
18:33
Speaker 1: like I'll try this, let's see what happens. Uh That
18:37
Speaker 1: that's how they used to see it. Now they see
18:39
Speaker 1: it as like, no, there's some there's some other uh
18:42
Speaker 1: comorbid factors going on. It's both nature and nurture. So,
18:45
Speaker 1: like a good example would be like, um, if you
18:47
Speaker 1: start having sex to increase your sense of self worth,
18:51
Speaker 1: that could lead to a sex addiction. That that low
18:55
Speaker 1: self esteem would be a risk factor that led you
18:58
Speaker 1: into your sexy right or if you're depressed and you
19:01
Speaker 1: just self medicate, right, or if you try drugs and
19:05
Speaker 1: you're like, wow, I really really like these, that's another
19:08
Speaker 1: one for sure. Right. So we were talking about UM
19:11
Speaker 1: physical and behavioral symptoms, right, UM again, under the current
19:15
Speaker 1: brain disease model of addiction, UM, the the basically the
19:19
Speaker 1: double whammy is UM psychological dependence, right, because it has
19:28
Speaker 1: not only an effect on the person, it has effect
19:32
Speaker 1: on the society as well. So like the person's life
19:35
Speaker 1: can be ruined by addiction, but they may also commit
19:39
Speaker 1: crime to feed their addiction, or their break up their
19:42
Speaker 1: family on a personal level, or both, or commit violence
19:49
Speaker 1: the worst, the worst one is psychological or behavioral, which
19:53
Speaker 1: makes both substances of abuse and compulsive behaviors addictive behaviors
19:59
Speaker 1: UM equally bad. Well yeah, and what that means is
20:01
Speaker 1: is you can't say you can't be one of these hardliners.
20:04
Speaker 1: It just says, you know, if someone wants to go
20:06
Speaker 1: out and kill themselves on dope, then that's their business, right. Well, yeah,
20:09
Speaker 1: because there's a lot of other things going on. It's
20:10
Speaker 1: a great argument against it, but their impacts. Right, But
20:13
Speaker 1: it's prohibition. The answer, It certainly wasn't what alcohol was
20:18
Speaker 1: it's not work. You know why, because no one stopped drinking.
20:22
Speaker 1: Profiction didn't really go over too well. So, Chuck, you
20:25
Speaker 1: want to talk about some specific drugs and behaviors that
20:28
Speaker 1: people get addicted to. You. Yeah, we've talked about meth
20:31
Speaker 1: a little bit and what a stupid thing that is
20:34
Speaker 1: to try. Right, What what was that in our big
20:38
Speaker 1: anti meth rant I think it was when we did
20:39
Speaker 1: the meth Labs crime scene clean up. Meth ampheta means um,
20:43
Speaker 1: the good news is the US is going down. It
20:46
Speaker 1: looks like yeah, which surprises me. I would have thought
20:49
Speaker 1: it would be steady or still going up. Well, maybe
20:52
Speaker 1: people aren't starting to realize that. It's not very smart.
20:55
Speaker 1: But they actually study brain patterns Josh of long term
20:58
Speaker 1: meth users, and they they found that up to of
21:03
Speaker 1: their dopamine producing cells were damaged or just shot. Yeah,
21:08
Speaker 1: so you literally, I mean, I don't know if they
21:10
Speaker 1: can regenerate you. That remains to be seen. Remember there's
21:14
Speaker 1: that whole study on m D m A that got
21:16
Speaker 1: it out law in the first place, about serotonin levels
21:19
Speaker 1: being able to regenerate. I don't know. I don't I
21:22
Speaker 1: don't think anybody knows yet. If we're capable of doing that,
21:25
Speaker 1: We've not been studying it long enough. I think, just
21:27
Speaker 1: let's get some stats going to while we're doing these.
21:29
Speaker 1: But yeah, I was gonna say, Um, what's what's um
21:33
Speaker 1: encouraging about meth prevalence is that it's cut in half. Uh,
21:39
Speaker 1: people who have used it in the past month. UM
21:43
Speaker 1: has gone down from seven one thousand and two thousand
21:46
Speaker 1: six and this is in the US to thousand and
21:50
Speaker 1: two thousand eight. That's half of what it was. Yeah,
21:53
Speaker 1: that's great, that's significant in two years that kind of dropped.
21:56
Speaker 1: So yeah, I would say that the anti meth campaigns
21:59
Speaker 1: are working, but they're all dying. Yeah, which is possible. Uh,
22:05
Speaker 1: what's next. Prescription drugs? Now, those are on the rise. Yeah.
22:09
Speaker 1: They're probably the most abused drug in the United States
22:12
Speaker 1: because everybody's on them. There's a huge problem with the
22:15
Speaker 1: elderly population basically getting hooked on meds. There's a huge
22:19
Speaker 1: problem with the adolescent population basically getting hooked on their
22:23
Speaker 1: grandparents meds. UM, and there's been a fourfold increase in
22:28
Speaker 1: people checking into rehab who are on prescription medications uh
22:33
Speaker 1: within the century, within the first decade, four four times
22:37
Speaker 1: as many as there were before UM and in right,
22:41
Speaker 1: two point two percent of people seeking treatment for any
22:47
Speaker 1: kind of drugs were on prescription drugs, Josh. Also with
22:51
Speaker 1: the scripts as I like to call them, prescription drugs.
22:56
Speaker 1: Two point two percent of people seeking treatment UM reported
23:00
Speaker 1: of using the pain releavers, and in two thousand eight,
23:03
Speaker 1: ten years later, ten reported abuse. Right, And that's just
23:07
Speaker 1: among people who are seeking treatment. I mean, I can
23:09
Speaker 1: supposedly need it. Yeah. I think one of the reasons
23:11
Speaker 1: why prescription drugs are so abused is because they're legal
23:16
Speaker 1: technically and they're socially accepted in a lot of ways.
23:22
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, totally. You know, people don't look at him
23:24
Speaker 1: as like a blanket drug. They look at him as
23:26
Speaker 1: all these different little drugs, you know. Yeah, I mean
23:29
Speaker 1: Robert Downey Jr. Used heroin, so he was, you know,
23:33
Speaker 1: this lawless scoundrel. But Chandler being gets hooked on back
23:38
Speaker 1: pills because he had a bad back, and it's yeah,
23:41
Speaker 1: it's sort of dismissed. Yeah, you know, Jodie Foster said
23:44
Speaker 1: she would never work with Robert Downey Jr. Again after
23:47
Speaker 1: UM home for the holidays. Was he messed up during that? Yeah,
23:50
Speaker 1: that was right in the middle of it. Yeah, that's
23:52
Speaker 1: a good movie. That's a shame, is it? I never thought. Yeah,
23:55
Speaker 1: that's it's good. It's a Thanksgiving movie. You should run
23:57
Speaker 1: it for Thanksgiving. Speaking of heroin, right, Yes, um, apparently
24:02
Speaker 1: is a lot more specially acceptable than it was before.
24:05
Speaker 1: But it's still pretty much like a junkie is a
24:09
Speaker 1: junkie in the US, nobody's like, oh, it's just a junkie.
24:13
Speaker 1: It's like he's a junkie. That's kind of a huge deal. Well,
24:16
Speaker 1: the twenty they say that of people who try heroin
24:21
Speaker 1: become dependent on it, so that's pretty substantial. Yeah, that's
24:23
Speaker 1: about a quarter. But at the same time, it's surprising
24:25
Speaker 1: though if you were raised in the eighties, because you
24:28
Speaker 1: would think that a hundred and eight percent of people
24:31
Speaker 1: who try heroin become hooked on it. Yeah. I remember
24:33
Speaker 1: the one big one that they used to say is
24:35
Speaker 1: you if you try heroin just once, you're physically addicted
24:39
Speaker 1: to it. Yeah, that was one of the big campaigns.
24:42
Speaker 1: Same with crack. They said the same thing about crackers.
24:44
Speaker 1: You try one time and you're addicted. Um. The in
24:47
Speaker 1: the US there's actually been something of an increase from
24:51
Speaker 1: two thousand seven to two thousand eight, according to the
24:53
Speaker 1: National Survey and Drug Use in Health UM from a
24:56
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty three thousand people aged twelve and o
25:00
Speaker 1: older in the US who said that they've used heroin
25:02
Speaker 1: in the past month to UH two d and thirteen
25:05
Speaker 1: thousand and two thousand eight, So there has been I
25:08
Speaker 1: guess that is substantial, especially if you look at the
25:10
Speaker 1: population of heroin users that tiny amount, that's kind of yeah,
25:16
Speaker 1: that's a big increase. Actually, now I think about it,
25:19
Speaker 1: you got cocaine and crack Josh. From two thousand two
25:23
Speaker 1: to two thousand eight, rates of past month cocaine use
25:27
Speaker 1: among kids declined from point six to point four percent,
25:32
Speaker 1: which is good, and it also dropped among young adults
25:35
Speaker 1: eighteen to twenty five, So it seems like those drugs
25:38
Speaker 1: are sort of on the wane a little bit. Yeah,
25:42
Speaker 1: And and again, if you look at myth prescription drugs,
25:45
Speaker 1: will pain killers, especially heroin, coke, crack, All of these
25:49
Speaker 1: um have an effect of targeting your reward center, producing
25:54
Speaker 1: that high, and you're learning to repeat this behavior right again.
25:59
Speaker 1: This can also happen very strongly among compulsive behaviors like
26:04
Speaker 1: sex addiction and Chuck, before you go off on sex addiction,
26:09
Speaker 1: let's say that, Um, according to the National Association of
26:12
Speaker 1: Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity, Uh, the n A s a C. Obviously, Um,
26:19
Speaker 1: there's about three to six percent of the American population
26:23
Speaker 1: that suffers from sex addiction, right from Yeah, which is
26:25
Speaker 1: the real compulsive behavior that's diagnosed. So chuck, sex addiction, Go, well,
26:31
Speaker 1: I don't clearly that there is such a thing, but
26:34
Speaker 1: it's just so overused. Like you said, you know, Jesse
26:36
Speaker 1: James is a sex addict. It's just these are men
26:39
Speaker 1: of privilege, is what it is. Tiger Woods, Jesse James,
26:43
Speaker 1: Brett Farve. They're guys that are in the position that
26:47
Speaker 1: they can have sex with whoever they want, whenever they want,
26:50
Speaker 1: and a lot of guys will take the opportunity to
26:51
Speaker 1: do it. Doesn't mean they're sex addicts. And like you
26:54
Speaker 1: said earlier, or we may have even cut it out,
26:56
Speaker 1: I think the bad thing that it does is that
26:59
Speaker 1: it gives them sort of a free pass because they're
27:02
Speaker 1: just helpless to it. Yeah, yeah, it is really, I
27:07
Speaker 1: mean basically it's uh, it seems like a defense for
27:09
Speaker 1: poor character and like, yeah, exactly unless all these guys
27:12
Speaker 1: are in that three to six p right. And again,
27:15
Speaker 1: I think I'm sure that there is like an actual
27:18
Speaker 1: sexual addiction, right. Vigo Mortenson had it in twenty eight
27:22
Speaker 1: days for three to six percent of the people, right. So,
27:25
Speaker 1: But and that's sad that there's probably a lot of
27:27
Speaker 1: people out there who need help or who actually are
27:30
Speaker 1: sex addics, and people just don't believe them because it's
27:32
Speaker 1: like you're full of it. I don't believe Brett Farve either,
27:37
Speaker 1: and as Brett Farve is. But and the other thing
27:41
Speaker 1: with sex addiction too that we should point out is that,
27:44
Speaker 1: like many addictions, it's not even about the sex anymore.
27:47
Speaker 1: And apparently once you are a sex addic, you're not
27:50
Speaker 1: even getting the enjoyment out of it anymore. Yeah, which sucks,
27:53
Speaker 1: I would say. So, so I think, like we said
27:56
Speaker 1: that the point of sex treatment sex addiction treat mint
28:00
Speaker 1: uh is to restore the person back to a point
28:05
Speaker 1: where they can enjoy sex without being addicted to it.
28:09
Speaker 1: So it's not abstinence, it's having a healthy sex life. Right.
28:12
Speaker 1: And the same goes with binge eating disorders, which is
28:15
Speaker 1: about one to three percent of people have a bene
28:18
Speaker 1: eating in the general population. If you're obese or you
28:22
Speaker 1: seek weight loss treatment or help with eating. The population
28:26
Speaker 1: is far higher. About a quarter of people who are
28:30
Speaker 1: obese and seek professional help for it have binge eating disorder.
28:35
Speaker 1: And it's pretty much what it sounds like. It's like
28:38
Speaker 1: binging and purging, which is bulimia, but without the purging part,
28:42
Speaker 1: right right, binging and binging? Yes, and Uh. Gambling, Josh,
28:48
Speaker 1: is another compulsive behavior that I think has risen since
28:51
Speaker 1: Internet gambling has become more accessible. And another name for
28:55
Speaker 1: gambling compulsion is ludamania. Really ludamania. Yeah. Interesting. Fifteen million
29:02
Speaker 1: people they say display some sign of gambling addiction? Is
29:04
Speaker 1: that in the US? I guess yeah. Um, I think
29:08
Speaker 1: in this article originally I had like eighteen million or
29:11
Speaker 1: something like that. No, two million, So I guess it's
29:14
Speaker 1: gone up because it was a recent stat that I
29:17
Speaker 1: looked up today that you just read. Yeah, And I
29:19
Speaker 1: actually looked up one day that said two point five
29:21
Speaker 1: million people are gambling addicts. So there may be a
29:23
Speaker 1: variation between a gambling addict and people who display some
29:26
Speaker 1: sign of gambling addictions. I guess so, alcohol, Josh, we
29:29
Speaker 1: haven't even talked about that yet. Uh. No, we haven't.
29:33
Speaker 1: I got some stats for you, and these are staggering
29:35
Speaker 1: because alcohol is the one. I mean, most of these
29:38
Speaker 1: other things we talked about, aside from the prescription drugs,
29:41
Speaker 1: are illicit drugs that you have to you know, get illegally.
29:45
Speaker 1: But alcohol is the one that you can buy at
29:46
Speaker 1: the corner store, and not surprisingly, it's the biggest problem. Yeah,
29:50
Speaker 1: I'm glad you found this too, because I had trouble
29:52
Speaker 1: finding some stats. So lay them, mom me stringing. Oh,
29:55
Speaker 1: forty of us adults have had someone related to them
29:59
Speaker 1: who was presently or was an alcoholic. That crazy. It
30:02
Speaker 1: sounds a lot like the kid who says that you
30:05
Speaker 1: wouldn't know his girlfriend because he met her at camp
30:07
Speaker 1: and she lives in Canada. That sounds like that kind
30:10
Speaker 1: of staff, does it? Three million U S citizens older
30:13
Speaker 1: than sixty abuse of alcohol are require it to function normally,
30:17
Speaker 1: and that's going up. Um. You mentioned that your grandparents
30:20
Speaker 1: prescription drugs. Grandparents are like the baby boomers now, so
30:25
Speaker 1: as the baby baby boomers have aged into quote unquote
30:29
Speaker 1: the elderly range, a lot of them are still alcoholics
30:32
Speaker 1: and pill addics, and you know, more so than their
30:36
Speaker 1: parents generation was or were ye, what else you got
30:41
Speaker 1: any more on alcohol? Yeah, I have a couple of
30:44
Speaker 1: I mean, you've got a bunch of good ones from
30:45
Speaker 1: seeing which ones are good. Um, men are three times
30:47
Speaker 1: more likely to be alcoholics and women. Wow, did you
30:50
Speaker 1: know that? It's kind of surprising. And if you are
30:54
Speaker 1: happily married you only have an eight point nine percent chance,
30:57
Speaker 1: whereas if you are single or have a bad marriage,
31:01
Speaker 1: you're thirty more likely to become an alcoholic. I can
31:04
Speaker 1: see that, especially if men are three times more likely
31:07
Speaker 1: to be an alcoholic. I could see somebody's wife saying, like,
31:11
Speaker 1: you need to stop drinking as much exactly. And I've
31:14
Speaker 1: got one more, really sad one. Um, five hundred thousand
31:18
Speaker 1: children age nine to twelve are alcoholics in this country.
31:22
Speaker 1: They called them the party kids. That really so sad.
31:28
Speaker 1: I always forget about Drew Barrymore. Remember her little She
31:31
Speaker 1: was an outlier? You think so? Yes, she was. She
31:35
Speaker 1: was again Nancy Reagan eighties. She was the poster child
31:39
Speaker 1: for Nancy Reagan's just Say No Campa. But she was
31:41
Speaker 1: drinking and doing cocaine. Yeah, and she was like the
31:44
Speaker 1: only kid who was in America who was doing those things. Okay,
31:47
Speaker 1: I thought you meant that, and it was like eight
31:49
Speaker 1: Actually I think that she was doing coking. I thought
31:52
Speaker 1: you meant that her story was exaggerated. No, I'm just
31:55
Speaker 1: saying like like like on a graph, she's like way
31:58
Speaker 1: out here. Yeah, well you always for it about that
32:00
Speaker 1: now though, with her, because that was so she's definitely
32:02
Speaker 1: cleaned up. Well, she's cleaned up, and I think she
32:04
Speaker 1: can go out and have a good time now, I don't.
32:06
Speaker 1: I think she had her demons when she was a
32:08
Speaker 1: little kid, which I can't imagine being a kid and
32:10
Speaker 1: being an alcoholic, you know. You know. That's the second podcast,
32:14
Speaker 1: and i'd say this month that she's come up. Yeah,
32:18
Speaker 1: roller derbian this one. UM, so Chuck, you have a
32:22
Speaker 1: pill addiction one of the Oh, we should also say that, Um,
32:27
Speaker 1: physicians tend to see alcohol withdrawal as far more dangerous
32:33
Speaker 1: physically than even heroin withdrawal because of the symptoms it produces. Yeah,
32:37
Speaker 1: they have pills. You we'll talk about well she talk
32:39
Speaker 1: about this now, the pills. Yeah. I was gonna say that,
32:41
Speaker 1: if you have a pill addiction, what's the best way
32:43
Speaker 1: to treat that with more pills? That's the human answer
32:46
Speaker 1: to things. Let's throw a pill at it, and there
32:48
Speaker 1: we actually have come up with some pills to treat
32:52
Speaker 1: addictive behavior. Yeah right, well, I know. They have one
32:55
Speaker 1: um called the sulfur Um and it's sold under the
32:58
Speaker 1: name ant Abus, and that's the one they give you
33:01
Speaker 1: for alcohol that basically, you take this pill and you
33:03
Speaker 1: drink even a little bit, and it makes you feel awful, Yeah,
33:07
Speaker 1: like you you Basically it does the opposite of your
33:10
Speaker 1: reward circuit, punishes you, and you learn the hard way
33:13
Speaker 1: not to drink anymore. And apparently you don't get used
33:16
Speaker 1: to that. So it's not like you can be on
33:18
Speaker 1: this bill and just kind of fight through it. It
33:20
Speaker 1: doesn't work that way. There's another one called the now
33:24
Speaker 1: trek Zone. I found that one too, and that one's
33:27
Speaker 1: used to treat alcoholism as well. But basically it's just
33:30
Speaker 1: it's an opioid an antagonist, which means that it doesn't
33:34
Speaker 1: allow alcohol to give you that inflated sense of self
33:38
Speaker 1: worth like a gun, does you know? Yeah, I think
33:40
Speaker 1: most of those. I think most of those are effect
33:43
Speaker 1: the opiate receptors, right, yeah, but strangely so, then there's
33:46
Speaker 1: also now maphine that's an opioid antagonist. Just like now
33:51
Speaker 1: trek zone. So they should both be able to treat alcoholism.
33:56
Speaker 1: But strangely, now trek zone has shown most miss and
34:00
Speaker 1: treating alcoholism. Now amphine has been shown has shown the
34:04
Speaker 1: most promise in treating gambling addictions, even though they're the
34:07
Speaker 1: same type of drug. Do you know what else they
34:09
Speaker 1: use that for? What? Shopoholics? Yeah? And I don't know.
34:13
Speaker 1: I mean I guess that. I think it just cuts
34:14
Speaker 1: down the thrill, right, yeah, I guess so any sort
34:17
Speaker 1: of compulsive behavior like that, it looks like it might
34:19
Speaker 1: target interesting. It is interesting, and then of course you
34:22
Speaker 1: can just go after the genes, right, Yeah, they're they're
34:27
Speaker 1: coming a long way and targeting genes. And what they
34:29
Speaker 1: don't think at this point is that there's like a
34:32
Speaker 1: single gene that they can find. They think it's probably
34:34
Speaker 1: a combination of genes. And it's probably also largely epigenetic
34:38
Speaker 1: as well too. Yeah, well you should explain what that
34:41
Speaker 1: means again, just in case people didn't listen to that one.
34:44
Speaker 1: How could they not have if you didn't go listen
34:47
Speaker 1: to can your grandfather's diet short in your life? Basically? Um,
34:51
Speaker 1: we've found through epigenetics that it's what makes us us.
34:55
Speaker 1: Isn't just our parents um genes kind genetic contribution. We
35:02
Speaker 1: can actually affect the way our genes work, turning them
35:04
Speaker 1: on and off and amplifying them and um lowering their
35:08
Speaker 1: their their frequency by the stuff we do, including drugs, drinking,
35:14
Speaker 1: the way we eat, pretty much everything has an effect. Yeah.
35:17
Speaker 1: And the other thing too you pointed out, which I
35:19
Speaker 1: thought was really interesting, is not only are their gene
35:22
Speaker 1: combinations that make you more susceptible to this, If you're
35:27
Speaker 1: not susceptible to it, it's not like you just are
35:28
Speaker 1: lacking those genes, are actually genes that make you less
35:31
Speaker 1: susceptible to addiction. Right, So, like the A L D
35:35
Speaker 1: H two gene um, people who have two copies of
35:39
Speaker 1: this gene um don't don't become alcoholics as easily as
35:43
Speaker 1: people who have just one or don't have it at all.
35:46
Speaker 1: Isn't that weird? That is very weird. And if you
35:48
Speaker 1: have low neuropeptide y, which is a hormone, well, if
35:53
Speaker 1: you're a mouse, I should say, you're you're probably not
35:55
Speaker 1: gonna want the booze as much as your fellow Right. Yeah,
36:00
Speaker 1: I did find another interesting one too about relapse rates.
36:02
Speaker 1: They've even kind of pegged it down to that level.
36:06
Speaker 1: They found that um a variant of the opioid receptor
36:10
Speaker 1: gene A s P forty, you have a lower rate
36:13
Speaker 1: of relapse with alcoholism if you have the A s
36:16
Speaker 1: N forty by so even if you try to quit,
36:22
Speaker 1: certain genes will say you're more likely to relapse than others.
36:26
Speaker 1: So just give up. Yeah, exactly. Speaking of relapse, there
36:30
Speaker 1: was some interesting tibet tibit to bat interesting tibet that
36:35
Speaker 1: we left out about heroin relapse. In two thousand and four.
36:40
Speaker 1: Get this, The entrance rate for heroin treatment right in
36:44
Speaker 1: the US for the fifth time was higher than the
36:50
Speaker 1: entrance for heroin treatment for the first time. I believe
36:53
Speaker 1: that isn't that crazy? Yeah, that's it's really heart to kick.
36:56
Speaker 1: I guess I would think so. But try to try again.
37:00
Speaker 1: Or go watch train Spotting and never try it in
37:03
Speaker 1: the first place, yes, Or or watch Sister Act two
37:08
Speaker 1: while you're high on heroin and I'll bet that does
37:10
Speaker 1: the same thing. That's a similar fact of trainspining. Ill
37:12
Speaker 1: bet it's horrific. Back in the habit. Yeah, if you
37:16
Speaker 1: want to know more about drugs and addiction, in general. UM,
37:21
Speaker 1: we strongly recommend you read this strangely um prim article
37:28
Speaker 1: in your career. It's pretty early back then too. It's
37:32
Speaker 1: called how Addiction Works. You can find it by typing
37:35
Speaker 1: that into the handy search bar how stiff works dot com.
37:37
Speaker 1: And while you're doing that, UM, try rehab too interesting one. Yeah,
37:42
Speaker 1: well we should tackle at some point too. Maybe we will.
37:47
Speaker 1: Something happened to me throughout this podcast. Since I said
37:50
Speaker 1: handy search bar, that means, of course it's time for
37:53
Speaker 1: listener mail. That was the brakes being apply because we
38:01
Speaker 1: have we have a small bit of administrative detail here
38:04
Speaker 1: Josh at the onset to plug our our new app
38:08
Speaker 1: for the iPhone that's coming soon. I'm very very excited
38:13
Speaker 1: about this. I'm playing with it right now because I
38:15
Speaker 1: was lucky enough to get a beta version because I
38:16
Speaker 1: work here, and you can access all of our podcast
38:20
Speaker 1: video and audio. You can when you click on our
38:23
Speaker 1: big dumb faces, you can access every single episode we've
38:27
Speaker 1: ever done. Listen to it right there. The new episodes
38:30
Speaker 1: pop up automatically. Uh. You can go to our blog
38:33
Speaker 1: through there, you can go to Facebook and Twitter. Through there,
38:37
Speaker 1: you can watch our video podcast from our our stuff
38:40
Speaker 1: they don't want you to know and cool stuff on
38:42
Speaker 1: the planet. Or you can just go back and stare
38:44
Speaker 1: at our faces all day too. You can do that
38:46
Speaker 1: if you want. It's also got a huge, huge repository
38:51
Speaker 1: of articles from the website how Stuffworks dot com. Yeah,
38:56
Speaker 1: and they're broken down and um their chapters as well.
38:58
Speaker 1: They're it's really easy to now the gate like we
39:00
Speaker 1: created a new way to access the site and all
39:04
Speaker 1: of the related content for the iPhone, like for a
39:08
Speaker 1: mobile system. Yeah. They I mean they they did an
39:11
Speaker 1: awesome job with the design. I was like, I don't
39:13
Speaker 1: I wouldn't sure at first, but it looks really really
39:15
Speaker 1: awesome and it's like you said, it's easy to work
39:17
Speaker 1: and free. Yes, I'm very excited. I can finally go
39:20
Speaker 1: to sleep when this thing finally comes out. So looking
39:23
Speaker 1: forward to it. And no more excuses about not being
39:25
Speaker 1: able to listen to our show, because if you get
39:27
Speaker 1: the app, you will always be able to listen to
39:29
Speaker 1: the show exactly. So you can just to enter the
39:32
Speaker 1: app store on your iPhone or go into it the
39:35
Speaker 1: iTunes and download the House Stuff Works iPhone app free
39:38
Speaker 1: of charge. Got us now back to our regularly scheduled
39:43
Speaker 1: program right then, I'm gonna call this an update from
39:47
Speaker 1: Sarah the amazing thirteen year old fans Awesome. Yeah, I
39:50
Speaker 1: saw that yesterday. You know. My goal is to eventually
39:53
Speaker 1: do this podcast through graduation for Sarah, and we just
39:57
Speaker 1: have updates from her from the age of eleven to eighteen.
40:01
Speaker 1: That's Michael, I wrote her back. They did Jerry, did you?
40:07
Speaker 1: She did not? It's all right. This is from Sarah. Hey, guys,
40:13
Speaker 1: Chucker's Josh, Jerry and Frank the Chair. I haven't chatted
40:16
Speaker 1: with you in a while, so I'm gonna tell y'all
40:17
Speaker 1: what's been going on in my world. School started about
40:20
Speaker 1: two months ago, and believe it or not, I actually
40:22
Speaker 1: like it. Since I'm in the eighth grade now, I
40:24
Speaker 1: feel like no one looks down to me. They didn't
40:27
Speaker 1: really anyway, since I'm five ft eight, she's okay, crazy,
40:30
Speaker 1: she's eight, She's like almost as all as I am. Uh.
40:33
Speaker 1: This school year will be full of fine arts, which
40:36
Speaker 1: are my favorite enquired drama. We have been working on
40:39
Speaker 1: Susical Jr. Which is a musical based work. Uh musical
40:43
Speaker 1: based on the works of Dr Seuss. I'm having a
40:45
Speaker 1: ball in that class. I get the act, sing and
40:47
Speaker 1: dance three of my favorite things. By the way, y'all
40:49
Speaker 1: are my favorites. Uh, y'all are on my favorite list too.
40:53
Speaker 1: In honor of this unique musical, I was wondering if
40:55
Speaker 1: you guys and gal would consider doing a podcast on theater. Guys,
40:59
Speaker 1: we a a doctor Dr Seuss, So I when I
41:02
Speaker 1: wrote it back, I was like, I'll have to run
41:03
Speaker 1: this boy Chuck see what he thinks about it. But
41:05
Speaker 1: I'm totally down with that. Well, we covered him on
41:08
Speaker 1: the webcast, I know, and he was just I mean,
41:12
Speaker 1: I love I loved him anyway, but once he really
41:14
Speaker 1: got into his history, he was pretty awesome. So you
41:16
Speaker 1: want to Yeah, let's do it for sure. Uh. In school,
41:19
Speaker 1: we have a cooking class. In our first class, we
41:21
Speaker 1: made a meal. We have about ten students in this class,
41:23
Speaker 1: so we split off into three groups. One group, not mine,
41:26
Speaker 1: was assigned to make cookies. They made the batter, but
41:29
Speaker 1: messed up and put a quarter cups of salt in
41:31
Speaker 1: the cookies instead of a teaspoon of salt. That's so crazy.
41:37
Speaker 1: The girls baked the cookies and when the teacher tried them,
41:39
Speaker 1: she came up with a brilliant idea we should give
41:41
Speaker 1: them to the eighth grade boys. Let's just say the
41:43
Speaker 1: look on their faces was really hard to describe. It
41:46
Speaker 1: was hilarious watching the boys run to the water fountain.
41:49
Speaker 1: I can't think of anything else to say. Thanks for
41:52
Speaker 1: reading from Sarah, the now amazing thirteen year old fans
41:56
Speaker 1: who started out as the amazing eleven year old fan. Yeah,
41:59
Speaker 1: that means I'm almost the amazing forty year old podcaster.
42:02
Speaker 1: So I'm reading this book called the Consumer republic Um,
42:06
Speaker 1: and I just found out did you know that home
42:08
Speaker 1: at classes are the earnest result of the consumer empowerment
42:14
Speaker 1: movement of the depression? Really? Yeah? Did you take commack? Yeah? Yeah,
42:19
Speaker 1: me too. It was one of my favorite classes. Actually,
42:22
Speaker 1: it's like, wow, this classroom looks like a house. Yeah.
42:25
Speaker 1: I like that, and we kind of just get to
42:26
Speaker 1: cut up and make cookies and eat them exactly. Did
42:30
Speaker 1: you take shop? I took that one too. I was
42:32
Speaker 1: much more intimidated in that class. Like wood shop. Yeah, yeah,
42:36
Speaker 1: we didn't have Some schools have a car shop. We
42:39
Speaker 1: never had that de chol in that we had when
42:42
Speaker 1: I never took it. Auto shop. Yeah, those kids could
42:44
Speaker 1: take a car apart and put it back together. I
42:46
Speaker 1: wish I would have ye. I wonder how much more
42:48
Speaker 1: I would have liked shop. Had I been as comfortable
42:53
Speaker 1: then as I am now around people missing a finger,
42:58
Speaker 1: I could have been a changed person. I got nothing else. Well,
43:01
Speaker 1: if you have a story about losing a finger, we
43:04
Speaker 1: want to hear it. It better be for real, though,
43:06
Speaker 1: none of this loop Vegas stuff. Uh wrap it up
43:10
Speaker 1: in an email and ship it post haste to stuff
43:14
Speaker 1: podcast at how stuff works dot com. For more on
43:22
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff
43:25
Speaker 1: works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check out
43:28
Speaker 1: our blogs on the house. Stuff works dot com home page.
43:34
Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
43:36
Speaker 1: It's ready, are you