Latest / Life Will Be the Death of Me with Chelsea Handler / Drug Tips 101 with Alek Keshishian

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Drug Tips 101 with Alek Keshishian · Life Will Be the Death of Me with Chelsea Handler

0:00
Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Chelsea Handler. Welcome to Life Will Be the
0:03
Speaker 1: Death of Me, a production of I Heart Radio. We
0:07
Speaker 1: are here today in studio again. I've enjoying my in
0:10
Speaker 1: studio interviews with a very dear friend of mine, and
0:14
Speaker 1: he has been recently taking ketamine. What's the proper ketamine infusions?
0:21
Speaker 1: You've been taking them? You've been doing them? What's the
0:24
Speaker 1: proper verbiage for that? I've been Um, I've been doing
0:28
Speaker 1: ketamine infusions. Okay, So because of depression, and I know
0:33
Speaker 1: a lot of people are interested. I certainly am after
0:35
Speaker 1: reading Michael Pollan's book about psychedelics, about psilocybin, about all
0:40
Speaker 1: the different kind of PTSD trauma that it helps either
0:45
Speaker 1: kind of diminish or deteriorate or I don't know, so
0:52
Speaker 1: whether it's acid, whether it's m D M A, whether
0:54
Speaker 1: it's psilocybin or academine. This is kind of the new
0:58
Speaker 1: wave of pichedelics and this kind of there's a new
1:01
Speaker 1: acceptance happening of people and neuroscientists and psychiatrists and psychologists
1:08
Speaker 1: using it to help patients. So I wanted to talk
1:10
Speaker 1: to you about your experience, Alec, because I've known you
1:13
Speaker 1: for how many How many years have we been engaged
1:15
Speaker 1: A long time? Like? Is it ten years? Yeah? Probably
1:19
Speaker 1: ten years? Okay? And Brandon, how long have I known you?
1:22
Speaker 1: Three years? Okay? Three years? Okay, good to know. And
1:25
Speaker 1: I'm forty four. Okay, So talk to me a little
1:31
Speaker 1: bit about your research and why you decided to to
1:34
Speaker 1: start kadamine infusions. Okay. Well, I've had depression, probably from
1:38
Speaker 1: my mid twenties, so I've been on that the word
1:42
Speaker 1: you hate journey. I'm trying to figure that out for
1:46
Speaker 1: um a couple of decades now. And I've been on
1:50
Speaker 1: antidepressants most of my life, I guess, all different kinds,
1:55
Speaker 1: And while they definitely stabilize one's mood or my mood,
2:00
Speaker 1: they didn't necessarily return me to a place that I
2:04
Speaker 1: would characterize as what I remembered when I was not depressed.
2:10
Speaker 1: And so when I started reading about ketamine and ketamine infusions,
2:15
Speaker 1: the thing that intrigued me was the ketamine seems to
2:18
Speaker 1: work on a completely different basis than any antidepressant. Most
2:23
Speaker 1: antidepressants that are used today are called S S R I,
2:28
Speaker 1: and so they have a specific mechanism in the brain ketamine, which, weirdly,
2:35
Speaker 1: scientists don't, and doctors don't fully understand why exactly it's
2:39
Speaker 1: having such a strong antidepressive effect. Nonetheless, they do know
2:44
Speaker 1: that it works completely differently than s S. Al Right,
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Speaker 1: So I was just intrigued to see, could that, you know,
2:52
Speaker 1: restore more joy into my life. So while I was stabilized,
2:56
Speaker 1: I wanted to kind of see if I could turned
3:00
Speaker 1: to a place where I was even happier. Okay, and
3:03
Speaker 1: so you're still on your antidepressants and you do the
3:05
Speaker 1: ketamine and fusion. Yes, I'm on antidepressants, and ketamine is
3:11
Speaker 1: kind of an adjunct therapy for me. Ketamine has great
3:15
Speaker 1: speed in its action, which is why I like it's
3:19
Speaker 1: kind of revolutionary for people with suicidal tendencies because the
3:24
Speaker 1: anti suicidal effect is almost mediate, whereas most antidepressants require
3:29
Speaker 1: like anywhere from three to six weeks to building your system,
3:34
Speaker 1: and even then you don't know whether an antidepressant, a
3:38
Speaker 1: particular one is going to work for you or not,
3:41
Speaker 1: but especially for patients who are suicidal, obviously that's too
3:45
Speaker 1: long a period to wait. And so one of the
3:48
Speaker 1: most groundbreaking things about ketemine was that it has an
3:51
Speaker 1: immediate effect. So yeah, for me, though, ketamine. I wasn't
3:56
Speaker 1: suicidal by any means. I was managing on my typepressants,
4:01
Speaker 1: but I was intrigued and I want to see if
4:03
Speaker 1: ketamine infusions could make me better. So around a year
4:09
Speaker 1: and a half ago, I went down to La Hoya
4:13
Speaker 1: and I did a series of around seven or eight
4:16
Speaker 1: ketamine infusions. Because initially they kind of suggest that you
4:21
Speaker 1: do a series of them with a few days apart
4:25
Speaker 1: between each infusion, and then after that there really isn't
4:28
Speaker 1: any clear cut guidance or guideline about how often you
4:33
Speaker 1: need to do it from that point on or if
4:35
Speaker 1: you need to do it, And I think it's an
4:37
Speaker 1: individual thing. Like in my case, well, after the first
4:41
Speaker 1: eight I waited like six months, I didn't feel the need,
4:45
Speaker 1: and then I started doing like once every four weeks
4:50
Speaker 1: or so. But there's nothing hard and fast about that.
4:53
Speaker 1: So but what do those infusions look like? Is somebody
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Speaker 1: sitting there with you, like what are you taking? Because
4:57
Speaker 1: remember I put you in touch with a front of
4:59
Speaker 1: mine from high school who was also experimenting with ketamine infusion,
5:04
Speaker 1: and she was kind of not taking the right cocktail. Yeah,
5:08
Speaker 1: you're right, she wasn't taking the right cockati. Here's the
5:10
Speaker 1: problem with ketamine infusions is that, by and large it's
5:14
Speaker 1: like a little bit the Wild West in terms of
5:18
Speaker 1: how doctors are giving it. Because it's a drug that
5:20
Speaker 1: was created as an anesthetic and used in the Vietnam War,
5:25
Speaker 1: and then ketamine then became used widely by vets, and
5:30
Speaker 1: you know, obviously as a party drug sometimes. But once
5:35
Speaker 1: it's therapeutic unit quality was discovered, the doctor's giving it
5:40
Speaker 1: tended to be anesthesiologists and not necessarily psychiatrists. One of
5:46
Speaker 1: the reasons I went to Lahoya was because I found
5:49
Speaker 1: a psychiatrist who was giving ketamine um. When I returned
5:53
Speaker 1: to Los Angeles. My first ketamine infusion in Los Angeles
5:58
Speaker 1: was a horrible experience, as I went to an anesthesiologist
6:04
Speaker 1: who basically stuck me in a dark room and told
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Speaker 1: me to lie on the exam table. It was completely
6:10
Speaker 1: pitch black when he left the door closed, and I
6:13
Speaker 1: had a horrible experience. So when I spoke to your friend,
6:17
Speaker 1: she too had gone to one of these clinics that
6:21
Speaker 1: we're giving ketamine infusions, but they had not only given
6:25
Speaker 1: her ketamine, but they had mixed it for no good
6:29
Speaker 1: reason with propofol and not Michael Jackson, trash and Michael Jackson.
6:34
Speaker 1: It's like another anesthetic which has no help for depressive purposes.
6:41
Speaker 1: But I imagine they gave it to knock her out
6:45
Speaker 1: so that she wouldn't require any supervision while she had
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Speaker 1: the ketamine. So it's a tricky thing. You have to
6:52
Speaker 1: make sure that you find someplace where there is going
6:55
Speaker 1: to be either a doctor or nurse practitioner with you
6:58
Speaker 1: in that room while you have the infusion, and a
7:01
Speaker 1: lot of places don't do that. And so when you
7:04
Speaker 1: do sit down with in the right environment, you want
7:07
Speaker 1: to sit down with somebody like are you setting an
7:09
Speaker 1: intention for your experience? Are you going there to resolve
7:13
Speaker 1: in a specific issue or just for your overall better
7:16
Speaker 1: well being? I think you're going to get an overall benefit.
7:19
Speaker 1: It's it's a little different than let's say, if you're
7:23
Speaker 1: creating an intention for a psilocybin or LSD trip. Therapeutically,
7:27
Speaker 1: that's discussed more. They don't really talk about ketamine intention.
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Speaker 1: That said, though, I have definitely found that before a
7:37
Speaker 1: ketamine infusion, I can set not an intention so much
7:42
Speaker 1: as like a subject I want to explore. In fact,
7:44
Speaker 1: when I was in Lahoya. You and I were working
7:47
Speaker 1: on a TV project and there are a couple of
7:50
Speaker 1: infusions where before I did them, I was like, I
7:53
Speaker 1: wish I could figure out what we're going to do
7:55
Speaker 1: with that series. And during the courts of the ketamine trip,
8:00
Speaker 1: as I call them, I did kind of go into
8:03
Speaker 1: some you know, thought processes and came out with certain
8:07
Speaker 1: insights and kind of breakthroughs. I think I called you
8:10
Speaker 1: a lot of times, right you did, because and sometimes interestingly,
8:15
Speaker 1: you come out of your ketamine infusion and you're like
8:17
Speaker 1: very kind of off your It takes a moment to
8:20
Speaker 1: adjust and like, for instance, this week, you said I'm
8:23
Speaker 1: going to stay protect myself from the next twenty four
8:26
Speaker 1: hours because I'm in this state where you kind of
8:28
Speaker 1: have to digest what you've experienced. That's a really good point.
8:32
Speaker 1: The thing with ketamine is sometimes you come out of
8:35
Speaker 1: it and you feel really happy, and that happens i'd
8:39
Speaker 1: say like seventy percent of the time. But there are
8:43
Speaker 1: other times where after an infusion where you feel a
8:49
Speaker 1: little more vulnerable. And one of my psychiatrists who does
8:54
Speaker 1: ketamine infusion told me, because I hadn't one experience where
8:59
Speaker 1: I did ketamine, and then I went out to dinner
9:01
Speaker 1: with a group of people who were very anxious and
9:06
Speaker 1: fear based and very negative. And the next morning I
9:09
Speaker 1: woke up and my loote had plunged, And my psychiatrists
9:13
Speaker 1: explained that you're kind of more open right after academie
9:16
Speaker 1: confusion because your brain is actually creating new synapses. That's
9:22
Speaker 1: what the beginning of research is showing that it's actually
9:26
Speaker 1: kedemine over the course of forty eight hours begins to
9:30
Speaker 1: create new synapses, and so during that period it's better
9:35
Speaker 1: for you to be creating synapses on like happier pathways
9:39
Speaker 1: than on anxious or pathways. So his suggestion, which I'm
9:45
Speaker 1: trying to put into practice now, is yeah, for like
9:48
Speaker 1: the first twenty four hours, or certainly for the first evening,
9:52
Speaker 1: just staying in, you know, being kind of reflective, doing
9:56
Speaker 1: things that Yeah, there you go. I don't think the
10:00
Speaker 1: brings you anything that brings you an explosion of joy,
10:04
Speaker 1: anything that brings you closer to yourself after the kintamine treatment.
10:08
Speaker 1: Could being alone have an adverse effect on people? Though?
10:11
Speaker 1: It like, if you are a depressive person or someone
10:14
Speaker 1: who gets anxious, would it be better for you, or
10:18
Speaker 1: for someone per se to be in a group of
10:20
Speaker 1: happy people are doing something active that makes them happy.
10:23
Speaker 1: I don't think there's a hard and fast rule, but
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Speaker 1: I would say that no, because right after ketamine, you're
10:30
Speaker 1: not feeling particularly lonely, like you're in a pretty nice state.
10:35
Speaker 1: It's more dangerous to subject yourself to anxiety or anything
10:41
Speaker 1: or new. You want to go to your safe spot
10:43
Speaker 1: for him, that means he goes home and it hangs
10:45
Speaker 1: out by like I can call Chelsea. In fact, I do.
10:48
Speaker 1: She's usually my first call after my ketamine because I'm usually,
10:53
Speaker 1: like you know, very anxious to tell her what I experienced.
10:57
Speaker 1: But there are certain incoming calls that I won't take anymore,
11:00
Speaker 1: you know, right after actamine, and a lot of times
11:03
Speaker 1: that has to do with work or right. But also,
11:07
Speaker 1: I mean, I think all these drugs are interesting because
11:09
Speaker 1: everybody has a different you know, like when you're talking
11:11
Speaker 1: about micro docing, you know, I did mushrooms at my
11:14
Speaker 1: house this weekend with a bunch of people recreationally. I
11:17
Speaker 1: did chocolate mushrooms and they were really really mellow and
11:20
Speaker 1: really mild and in that kind of environment. Now that
11:23
Speaker 1: I know what I do about these hallucinogens. I try
11:26
Speaker 1: to be really mindful instead of just taking drugs to
11:28
Speaker 1: party and laugh my house off, I try and actually
11:30
Speaker 1: really and enjoy the moment and really be present in
11:33
Speaker 1: the moment. Now they're prescribing psilocybin, micro docing me for
11:38
Speaker 1: research in a research state, prescribing, well, I'm prescribing it.
11:43
Speaker 1: I have a surplus of it. And I can picture
11:45
Speaker 1: you going at CPS and going high. I need my
11:48
Speaker 1: psilocybin dose. Give it to me now. It's called Chelsea Handler. Okay,
11:54
Speaker 1: we're gonna take a quick break and we'll be right back.
11:58
Speaker 1: I was skiing. Where was I being, I don't know,
12:00
Speaker 1: sun Valley, maybe this winter, and somebody said, oh, yeah,
12:04
Speaker 1: I have a bunch of fun guy, and I went,
12:06
Speaker 1: is that what we're calling it now? And she said, yeah,
12:08
Speaker 1: it's micro dosing psilocybin. And so we all took some, obviously,
12:11
Speaker 1: because anything that's available to me, I'll just eat. And
12:14
Speaker 1: I noticed the tiniest kick up. I was just awake
12:17
Speaker 1: a little bit more. I wasn't hallucinating by any means,
12:20
Speaker 1: but everything was a little bit more sparkly, much the
12:23
Speaker 1: same as it is if I were to take an
12:25
Speaker 1: edible while I was skiing, you know, like a micro
12:28
Speaker 1: dosed edible. But with that, you know a little bit
12:31
Speaker 1: about that too, because there's like suggested cycles when you're
12:34
Speaker 1: supposed to take that correct. Yeah, micro dosing is is
12:38
Speaker 1: another kind of modality that is being heavily researched down
12:43
Speaker 1: for depression, and that seems to work on a different
12:47
Speaker 1: level than um ketamine and basically most psychedelics. What research
12:55
Speaker 1: shows is that they camped down the brain default mode network,
12:59
Speaker 1: and the brain default mode network, which is kind of
13:02
Speaker 1: a prefrontal brain thing, is basically what kind of serves
13:07
Speaker 1: as a traffic warden in your brain, and it kind
13:10
Speaker 1: of stops certain connections and keeps you, if you want
13:15
Speaker 1: to call it, kind of feeling sane. But it also
13:17
Speaker 1: keeps you very much ego based, very much about your
13:21
Speaker 1: own kind of history, like this is my past, is
13:24
Speaker 1: my present, this is my future. So that's what the
13:26
Speaker 1: brain default mode network does, and what they've realized is
13:30
Speaker 1: psilocybin or LSD or any number of these things seems
13:35
Speaker 1: to suppress that, and so suddenly you're making connections in
13:41
Speaker 1: your brain that you don't usually make, and they've noticed
13:44
Speaker 1: that that can have even more long term effects on
13:50
Speaker 1: depression that's been shown with megadosis of psilocybin or LST,
13:55
Speaker 1: where they're seeing like depression going away for if not
14:01
Speaker 1: even years, by one megados one mechadz, I mean that
14:05
Speaker 1: is like that is a retreat I could have at
14:07
Speaker 1: my house for people. I mean, I would totally be illegal,
14:10
Speaker 1: but okay, well then I'll change my address so you
14:13
Speaker 1: could move to the Netherlands though where it is, I
14:16
Speaker 1: don't think. I'm not thinking about moving to Brendon. Can
14:19
Speaker 1: you please find me a house. I'm working with real
14:22
Speaker 1: estate agents all over. Don't worry. Yes, ski season is coming,
14:25
Speaker 1: so we have to get creative. She's trying to find
14:28
Speaker 1: out drug watts in all different countries. In Spain. By
14:31
Speaker 1: the way, in Spain, it's legal to do mushrooms, and
14:33
Speaker 1: I have a house there, so I don't think that's
14:35
Speaker 1: a coincidence. So micro dosing, though, is basically taking that
14:39
Speaker 1: same philosophy and kind of saying, Okay, if you take
14:42
Speaker 1: a micro dose over time, can that have the same effect?
14:48
Speaker 1: And there isn't proof yet either way, but in both
14:52
Speaker 1: these situations and one of the things you just said about,
14:55
Speaker 1: like when you do chocolate mushrooms, the setting and the
14:59
Speaker 1: scene is incredibly important, so again a little bit like ketamine,
15:04
Speaker 1: Like it's really important who you do it with, whether
15:06
Speaker 1: you feel safe, whether you like the space you're in,
15:09
Speaker 1: all that stuff, and that has effects even in terms
15:14
Speaker 1: of what your takeaway is from it. So um, I
15:19
Speaker 1: think that's true for ketamine as well, which is why
15:21
Speaker 1: I say, like, make sure that the place you're going
15:24
Speaker 1: feels comfortable, like the room you're doing it in, that
15:27
Speaker 1: you feel a connection, or you feel safe with the
15:30
Speaker 1: nurse or the doctor doing you know, giving it to you.
15:34
Speaker 1: Those things actually seem to affect the result. So micro
15:38
Speaker 1: dosing is is basically just the mini psilocybin dose. But
15:43
Speaker 1: I found when I attempted it that it corresponded very
15:48
Speaker 1: much with what my state of mind was before I
15:51
Speaker 1: did it. So if I was like a little anxious
15:54
Speaker 1: that day, it would make me more anxious. If I
15:57
Speaker 1: wasn't anxious, or I was feeling creative, it would make
15:59
Speaker 1: me a little bit more creative. And I personally decided
16:02
Speaker 1: I didn't want to I didn't want to go either
16:05
Speaker 1: those ways. And that's when I took those mushrooms from
16:08
Speaker 1: you and decided to use them for thank you for
16:10
Speaker 1: making me your dealer. So that didn't work for you.
16:14
Speaker 1: Now a couple of the other things because a lot
16:16
Speaker 1: you know, like for instance, ayahuasca isn't a drug that
16:18
Speaker 1: people who are taking an antidepressant are supposed to do.
16:22
Speaker 1: Remember we looked into that for you when I was
16:24
Speaker 1: going to do it, and anybody on an SSR one
16:28
Speaker 1: s R I, well, here's the thing. I was just
16:31
Speaker 1: having the numbers and letters confused. The thing about ayouasca
16:37
Speaker 1: and psilocybin and LSD and antidepressants is that they all
16:42
Speaker 1: work on the Saratonain kind of receptors. And most sites
16:47
Speaker 1: and most practitioners will say, oh no, no, you shouldn't
16:50
Speaker 1: do an s s R I and then do ayouasca
16:54
Speaker 1: or psilocybin or l s D, and that's certainly kind
16:57
Speaker 1: of the safe kind of sponsor. However, I've spoken to
17:02
Speaker 1: like James Fadiman, who is kind of like the god
17:05
Speaker 1: of all this. He's the original researcher. He really knows
17:09
Speaker 1: his stuff here. And if you dig deeper, what you
17:12
Speaker 1: find out is that psilocybin deals with a different subset
17:18
Speaker 1: of your serotonin receptor than your antidepressant does so even
17:23
Speaker 1: though most people would be like, no, no, you shouldn't
17:25
Speaker 1: be on antidepressants and take psilocybin in actual fact, and
17:29
Speaker 1: I'm not a doctor, so don't follow this advice. I'm
17:32
Speaker 1: a doctor, so but I'm just saying in my research
17:36
Speaker 1: and my conversations with people who seem to be real,
17:40
Speaker 1: real experts, not just you know, an article about this,
17:44
Speaker 1: they say, technically speaking, psilocybin you can take with an antidepressant,
17:49
Speaker 1: but you'll need more of it to have the same effect.
17:52
Speaker 1: But with ayuasca, you know, it's again the same thing.
17:56
Speaker 1: Just to kind of bring down their liability to the
17:59
Speaker 1: lowest level possible, they say, no, you should have weaned
18:02
Speaker 1: yourself off depressants, And I don't disagree with that, like,
18:06
Speaker 1: to be honest with you, like, that's the reason I
18:08
Speaker 1: haven't taken ayuasca. But there's another reason why, which is
18:12
Speaker 1: that you don't want to shoot your pants yea and
18:14
Speaker 1: vomit in front of you. It sounds like a very
18:16
Speaker 1: valid reason. I don't have to be there, I mean
18:18
Speaker 1: I can, I will be filming it, obviously, but I
18:20
Speaker 1: don't have to be in your phone, I mean, Instagram, television,
18:26
Speaker 1: you know someone I know who's kind of a shaman.
18:29
Speaker 1: I said, ayuask is like swimming the Atlantic Ocean, and
18:33
Speaker 1: like people who do that before they've dipped their toe
18:36
Speaker 1: and anything else. It's kind of major um, kind of
18:43
Speaker 1: like a little hesitant. Yeah. No, it is a very
18:45
Speaker 1: intense experience. But I did a lot of acid in
18:48
Speaker 1: high school, so I was used to that. Did you
18:51
Speaker 1: have you ever done acid? I think I've done acid
18:53
Speaker 1: once in college. The last time I did psilocybin was,
18:57
Speaker 1: you know, in my twenties. But you did try the
19:00
Speaker 1: micro docing effect. I did micro doocing, yeah and stop.
19:04
Speaker 1: And I'm not ruling out a psilocybin trip, but it
19:08
Speaker 1: would need to be in a real therapeutic setting, like
19:12
Speaker 1: I'd like to do it with like a therapist. And
19:15
Speaker 1: that becomes a whole other hurdle because you have to
19:18
Speaker 1: do this song and dance because it's not legal here.
19:21
Speaker 1: There are places in the Netherlands though, where they will
19:24
Speaker 1: do a proper therapeutic pilocybin. Yeah, you've only just what
19:28
Speaker 1: taken in edible Brandon, Is that correct? Yeah, I've never
19:30
Speaker 1: done anything like edelic and yeah, and I've seen you
19:33
Speaker 1: on inedible and I would recommend as a doctor that
19:35
Speaker 1: you don't take it any further. You tell me anytime
19:38
Speaker 1: you're gonna take mushrooms at Brandon came out to you
19:40
Speaker 1: on these, I don't what would be? What would you be?
19:42
Speaker 1: I don't know. She seems to know that. I trust that.
19:44
Speaker 1: I think he just gets so much out of an
19:47
Speaker 1: edible there's no reason to go further, likely giggles. You know,
19:52
Speaker 1: they are doing something new out of Colorado called psychedelic
19:56
Speaker 1: cannabis trips, which is that they have certain specific hybrid
20:02
Speaker 1: strains that they use, and they put headphones on a
20:05
Speaker 1: little bit like what a therapeutic psilocybin or LSD trip
20:08
Speaker 1: is supposed to do while they have a therapist there
20:11
Speaker 1: and you have kind of a curated playlist or whatever,
20:15
Speaker 1: and you do an integration before and after. But it's
20:18
Speaker 1: called psychedelic cannabis therapy in Colorado. In Colorado, there are
20:23
Speaker 1: a few practitioners here, so that's legal. We don't know
20:27
Speaker 1: a lot about the m d M A micro do
20:29
Speaker 1: sing right, do you know? I know very little about
20:32
Speaker 1: But I do know that m d M A and
20:34
Speaker 1: antidepressants definitely do not mix. That is where you can
20:38
Speaker 1: get into trouble. Oh yeah, because m D m A
20:40
Speaker 1: depletes your whole to serotonin, rushes serotonin into your brain
20:46
Speaker 1: because that's like a way for days afterwards, your serotonin
20:50
Speaker 1: level plunges. But the problem is the danger is during
20:55
Speaker 1: the rush with your antidepressants, it can create something called
20:58
Speaker 1: serotonin syndrome, which is basically an overdose of serotonin that's
21:02
Speaker 1: life threatening. Okay, well that's good to know because for
21:05
Speaker 1: regular people who aren't on antid de depressants, there's a
21:09
Speaker 1: that day of the week. I think it's usually Tuesday
21:12
Speaker 1: where you feel if you've taken an XSC on Saturday,
21:16
Speaker 1: feeling great Sunday because it's still in your body, and
21:18
Speaker 1: Monday you're like, WHOA, don't have a hangover, And then
21:21
Speaker 1: Tuesday you want to kill yourself and I think they
21:24
Speaker 1: call it to suicide Tuesday. We were just talking about
21:26
Speaker 1: that the other night. So there is a definite depletion
21:29
Speaker 1: and what you can do is take B twelve they say,
21:32
Speaker 1: to just kind of balance that out. Um, but you
21:34
Speaker 1: have to take it before, during, and after, so that
21:37
Speaker 1: sometimes helps people. But BE twelve and fol Late can
21:40
Speaker 1: help people with that because BE twelve and Foel late
21:43
Speaker 1: are what your brain needs to create neurotransmitters like serotonin.
21:49
Speaker 1: So taking a big dose to be twelve and folate
21:53
Speaker 1: is definitely something I would do if I did that,
21:55
Speaker 1: but I don't. I think a lot of people the
21:57
Speaker 1: fear of that crash is what keeps them from doing
21:59
Speaker 1: a things psychedelic because I know my freshman is offering
22:02
Speaker 1: your college when all of my friends are out doing
22:04
Speaker 1: ecstasy or anything psychedelic. Just the fear of not knowing
22:07
Speaker 1: what that come down was going to be, Like, is
22:08
Speaker 1: there a reason they wouldn't, But just show you know,
22:11
Speaker 1: you don't get that same come down with psilocybin. You
22:15
Speaker 1: don't come down. That's that's just because m d m
22:19
Speaker 1: A works on the serotonin one receptor, which is the
22:23
Speaker 1: same as your antidepressants, but for some reason, the depletion
22:26
Speaker 1: of that is very suicide feeling, whereas the others are
22:32
Speaker 1: dealing with a different serotonin receptor. Where you're you're not overwhelmed.
22:36
Speaker 1: But also in terms of your depression, and you've done
22:39
Speaker 1: a lot of things that have helped your mood. You've
22:41
Speaker 1: lost a lot of weight, you stopped drinking for a
22:43
Speaker 1: period of time, for a long period of time. So
22:46
Speaker 1: as a depressive person, I mean, let's talk about that
22:49
Speaker 1: a little bit, because when you're doing a lot, how
22:51
Speaker 1: do you know which one is really hot? Because you
22:53
Speaker 1: take supplements also, you take mood supplements. I mean, as
22:57
Speaker 1: far as drinking goes, when a person is depressed, king
23:00
Speaker 1: is like a wet blanket, right, Yeah, Drinking is kind
23:03
Speaker 1: of a form of self medicating. The problem with with
23:07
Speaker 1: it is that you self medicate, but then you're also
23:11
Speaker 1: dealing with the effects of the medication. It's a little
23:14
Speaker 1: bit like m d m A. So like, initially the
23:18
Speaker 1: medication of alcohol feels really good, especially if you have
23:21
Speaker 1: anxiety based depression, which I kind of do. And initially
23:26
Speaker 1: it squelches your anxiety, so that feels really like relief.
23:31
Speaker 1: But as you drink, you get rebound anxiety. So it
23:35
Speaker 1: becomes kind of this vicious cycle where you're actually creating
23:39
Speaker 1: anxiety and then putting it out and around five, you know,
23:43
Speaker 1: for your cocktail, and so it's a little like eye drops.
23:47
Speaker 1: You know, it gets the red out, but then the
23:48
Speaker 1: red comes back stronger, you know. And also all alcohol
23:52
Speaker 1: is technically a depressant. Now that's difficult to say because
23:56
Speaker 1: when someone's feeling anxious. The feeling of alcohol is incredibly powerful.
24:02
Speaker 1: It's very quick in terms of the way it gets
24:05
Speaker 1: rid of anxiety. But as an experiment, Yeah, for me,
24:09
Speaker 1: I found, like wow, when I stopped drinking, you know,
24:13
Speaker 1: over the course of a week or something, I have
24:17
Speaker 1: a different energy. I mean, first of all, like I
24:20
Speaker 1: wake up super early, super clear. You feel your feelings
24:25
Speaker 1: some more, definitely. So I'm not saying that you stop
24:28
Speaker 1: drinking and suddenly you're you're happy. That's not it at all.
24:30
Speaker 1: In fact, in some ways, you you become more sensitive
24:34
Speaker 1: to your mood. So along with stopping drinking on kind
24:38
Speaker 1: of a regular basis, I'll still drink on a special
24:41
Speaker 1: occasion or something. But I looked into supplements and genetic
24:45
Speaker 1: testing for depression. So I did that, and I found
24:49
Speaker 1: that I have a variant in my in my DNA
24:53
Speaker 1: that makes it difficult for me to get full late
24:56
Speaker 1: and be twelve into my brain, which we were just
24:59
Speaker 1: talking about, and be twelve and folate or absolutely necessary
25:03
Speaker 1: to create serotonin, dopamine and all those newer transmitters. So
25:07
Speaker 1: with the help of this psychiatrist, he put me on
25:11
Speaker 1: like this Joseph supplements, But you're absolutely right. In fact,
25:14
Speaker 1: I asked him, I said, how do I know which
25:16
Speaker 1: of these like fifteen supplements you know, are doing what?
25:22
Speaker 1: And is that the ketamine is it? That is it?
25:25
Speaker 1: And he said it's synergistic. It's like each thing works
25:29
Speaker 1: together and the whole is greater than the sum of
25:32
Speaker 1: its parts. So you really kind of can answer the
25:36
Speaker 1: question of what's doing what exactly right. Yeah, I think
25:40
Speaker 1: that's how a lot of people feel about I guess
25:42
Speaker 1: it doesn't really matter because if everything is feeling better
25:44
Speaker 1: and you're thinking more clearly and you're sharp, like you
25:47
Speaker 1: want to be in present and all of the things
25:49
Speaker 1: that you care about, then who really cares what it is?
25:52
Speaker 1: As long as you know. If it's a combination of things,
25:54
Speaker 1: that's fine too. Okay, well, this sounds like a good
25:57
Speaker 1: time to take a break. M You know, exercise helps
26:03
Speaker 1: let's say ten percent. The supplements might help, the kenemine
26:07
Speaker 1: might help twenty five, antidepressents help forty. You know, you're
26:12
Speaker 1: kind of building using all those tools. So it's really
26:15
Speaker 1: about finding your personal cocktail. Each person has to do
26:18
Speaker 1: the work to find what's going to work for them. Yes,
26:21
Speaker 1: and you can find good integrative psychiatrists sometimes who kind
26:27
Speaker 1: of know shit, who know about like supplements and things
26:33
Speaker 1: like that, like other functional ways to kind of add
26:38
Speaker 1: to your Yes, It's like I wish I could tell
26:40
Speaker 1: everybody how to go get these micro docing or how
26:42
Speaker 1: to be part of a research study. But for instance,
26:45
Speaker 1: I was in National, Tennessee shooting for my documentary and
26:49
Speaker 1: one of these white rappers that I interviewed down there
26:51
Speaker 1: had tons of mushrooms and just kept handing them out
26:53
Speaker 1: to everybody. So it's like people are growing them, but
26:56
Speaker 1: there's no real, like legitimate way to get them now,
26:58
Speaker 1: so that's not helpful. But the kenemy therapy is available
27:01
Speaker 1: to people, and I don't know how many states I know,
27:04
Speaker 1: I think it's nationwide. It's legal because ketamine the big
27:08
Speaker 1: barrier with ketamine as the price, I mean, ketamine itself
27:12
Speaker 1: costs like nothing, but they charge like six hundred dollars
27:16
Speaker 1: in infusion. Is totally inflated prices. So now is that
27:23
Speaker 1: something that someone would go to their general care physician
27:25
Speaker 1: and be like, hey, I would like to get ketamine infusion.
27:27
Speaker 1: So they have to seek out a psychiatrist. What is
27:29
Speaker 1: the protocol? You can basically go online and see where
27:33
Speaker 1: in your city they offer ketamine infusion. But as I said,
27:37
Speaker 1: be careful because a lot of them are an acesiologists,
27:40
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean they can't give it. Like the one
27:42
Speaker 1: I go to now, the practice is run by an
27:45
Speaker 1: m casiologist, But I really like the nurse practitioner who
27:49
Speaker 1: gives the ketamine, and so that's important. But yeah, you
27:54
Speaker 1: you can just look online and see where it's offered
27:58
Speaker 1: in your city, but it's not something that a g
28:00
Speaker 1: P would necessarily give. And ideally, if you can, yeah,
28:04
Speaker 1: I would always pick a psychiatrist who offers it over
28:07
Speaker 1: over any other doctor. Have you ever tried ketamine? I
28:10
Speaker 1: mean that's something that gay boys do in the gay clubs.
28:12
Speaker 1: Did you know that? Yeah, I've I've snorted ketamine before
28:16
Speaker 1: when you were gay? Well no, but I was with
28:20
Speaker 1: a gay guy and he said, do you want to
28:22
Speaker 1: try this? And I was said, sure, why not? And
28:24
Speaker 1: I snorted it and I don't, I don't know, I
28:27
Speaker 1: just didn't. I just felt really relaxed. It wasn't anything
28:30
Speaker 1: that I wanted to snort. Again. There are things that
28:32
Speaker 1: I would like to try, like what you're already kind
28:35
Speaker 1: of coked up? In general, Brandon, You're kind of very
28:39
Speaker 1: detailed or definitely don't mix adder all with cocaine. Do
28:45
Speaker 1: not do that ever. Never drug tips one oh one. Yeah,
28:49
Speaker 1: you're welcome everybody for this episode of Who Do You
28:53
Speaker 1: Think You Are? So these are different modalities that are
28:57
Speaker 1: used for treating depression beyond antidepression medicine. And you've got
29:04
Speaker 1: like ketamine. They're doing like heavy research on psilocybins. Psilocybin
29:09
Speaker 1: is mushrooms. Psilocybin is mushrooms, magic mushrooms, right, okay, And
29:13
Speaker 1: then a katamine people used to call as a it
29:16
Speaker 1: was a horse tranquilizer. It was it was actually an
29:19
Speaker 1: anesthetic that was used in the Vietnam War because it
29:23
Speaker 1: had such immediate effects on Vietnamese horses, Vietnamese soldiers at
29:29
Speaker 1: US soldiers in Vietnam, and then it became used for
29:34
Speaker 1: and that practices, and like a lot of things that
29:37
Speaker 1: were therapeutic, they kind of went, oh, there's abuse potential,
29:41
Speaker 1: so you know, it was just you know, used mainly
29:46
Speaker 1: by that's at that point in terms of like there's
29:49
Speaker 1: definitely a movement now where people are talking about drugs
29:52
Speaker 1: in the sense of helping themselves and helping their psyches
29:56
Speaker 1: heal from past trauma. But you know, there was obviously
29:59
Speaker 1: a lot long era of people just using drugs recreationally
30:03
Speaker 1: too well. Actually, psychedelics were being researched for actual mental
30:09
Speaker 1: health benefits. And you know that's a whole history. I
30:14
Speaker 1: don't know that the ins and ouncer, but let's put
30:17
Speaker 1: it this way, like, it's interesting that the government shut
30:20
Speaker 1: that down and instead said, hey, let's create opioids that
30:24
Speaker 1: people can be kind that are synthetic. Yes, because that's
30:27
Speaker 1: supported by a drug company or the alcohol industry, which
30:31
Speaker 1: we know alcohol is tremendously toxic WOA. But in other words,
30:38
Speaker 1: that's toxic, whereas psychedelics do not have a toxic kind
30:45
Speaker 1: of a top limit, like there's very little evidence of
30:49
Speaker 1: any kind of great harm compared to alcohol, for example.
30:54
Speaker 1: But yet alcohol is legal and psychedelics, including magic mushrooms,
30:59
Speaker 1: are elite. It's kind of like, what you know, I
31:01
Speaker 1: wouldn't be surprised if in the next like, um, several years,
31:05
Speaker 1: if that doesn't change, because yeah, I think it's gonna
31:09
Speaker 1: because it's moving so fast. This movement is kind of
31:11
Speaker 1: happening with such alacrity that there is no stopping in
31:14
Speaker 1: and then the government realizes, oh, this is a perfect
31:17
Speaker 1: example of like grassroots you know what I mean, activism
31:20
Speaker 1: actually working because people are saying, no, we need this
31:23
Speaker 1: to help people, and the government is kind of just
31:26
Speaker 1: having to agree with it. And that's the same with
31:28
Speaker 1: cannabis legalization, but that's across the country. But that said,
31:32
Speaker 1: psilocybin is an incredibly powerful drug, so it's not like
31:36
Speaker 1: cannabis where I think psilocybin you have to be incredibly
31:40
Speaker 1: careful about because it is so powerful. So you need
31:44
Speaker 1: to make sure you're in a safe environment, that you're
31:46
Speaker 1: you don't do that by yourself, and that there are
31:49
Speaker 1: other people around you who can save you. Because the
31:53
Speaker 1: problem with psychedelic drugs, really powerful psychedelics is God forbid
31:59
Speaker 1: you you have a break where you kind of decide
32:03
Speaker 1: you want to jump off a balcony because you think
32:05
Speaker 1: you can fly. Do you read about that though, like people,
32:08
Speaker 1: because I read about people having psychological breaks. I've read
32:11
Speaker 1: about that with ayahuasca and peyote, but not mushrooms. Pearty
32:16
Speaker 1: is similar to mushrooms. I think what they say is
32:20
Speaker 1: if you have schizophrend, you know, kind of an undiagnosed
32:24
Speaker 1: kind of potential for that, which usually reveals itself right
32:28
Speaker 1: at later in life. Yeah. But but in other words,
32:31
Speaker 1: a psychedelic can trigger that, which is why I like
32:36
Speaker 1: from what I've read, I would never do a psychedelic
32:39
Speaker 1: completely by myself, ever, I think that there you know,
32:44
Speaker 1: you need an ideally, you need to be around somebody
32:47
Speaker 1: who isn't necessarily flying as high as you are. I mean,
32:52
Speaker 1: it's interesting when you say, though about taking something when
32:54
Speaker 1: you're somebody's personality is heightened or whatever feeling you're feeling
32:58
Speaker 1: after your infusion, your catamine infusion, because it's like that
33:02
Speaker 1: story about me giving Chunk melatonin, but he was in
33:06
Speaker 1: such a heightened state of anxiety that giving that to
33:09
Speaker 1: him only kept him there, and which my vet told
33:12
Speaker 1: me when I came back, Oh, when somebody's in a
33:14
Speaker 1: heightened state of anxiety, any pill you take like that
33:16
Speaker 1: is just going to keep your personality there, which made
33:20
Speaker 1: no sense to me. Well, there's two things. First of all,
33:22
Speaker 1: I have no idea how melotonein his processed and dogs well,
33:28
Speaker 1: And second of all, here's the big issue, Like with
33:31
Speaker 1: my dog. My dog weighs thirteen pounds and my mom
33:33
Speaker 1: feeds it like it's a human being who weighs a
33:36
Speaker 1: hundred forty and then like wonders why she's fat. It's
33:39
Speaker 1: like the weight of the dog requires sectually smaller dose.
33:43
Speaker 1: So chances are if you gave Chunk like a human
33:46
Speaker 1: dose of melatonin, that's like an overdose. Yeah, but his
33:50
Speaker 1: doctor was prescribing him human xanex. So what human zanex is? Okay,
33:54
Speaker 1: but in a tiny dose? Oh okay, Well it was
33:58
Speaker 1: working for me. His zanex was work for me. Brandon,
34:01
Speaker 1: If you could take one psychedelic trip, what would it
34:04
Speaker 1: be with? Probably mushrooms, right, I would like you to
34:07
Speaker 1: do mushrooms at my house. I'll leave. I'll have my
34:09
Speaker 1: belt video camera with our old vhs. What would you leave?
34:14
Speaker 1: I think you should be there. I just don't want
34:16
Speaker 1: to deal with the drama, you know what I mean,
34:17
Speaker 1: Like if he gets all out of whack or something,
34:19
Speaker 1: that's probably decisions Like I don't want to deal with that.
34:21
Speaker 1: You know. It's like people who's like first time, Like
34:24
Speaker 1: I was over my friend's house this weekend and somebody said,
34:27
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, I've never smoked pot, And I said, well,
34:29
Speaker 1: then don't. I don't want to be here for that.
34:31
Speaker 1: I remember we were at a party and someone like,
34:34
Speaker 1: should I do some pot? But last time I fell
34:37
Speaker 1: asleep and you were like, yes, I don't do it,
34:40
Speaker 1: like we don't want to have to carry you think
34:42
Speaker 1: of other people when you're thinking about doing these things. Yeah,
34:46
Speaker 1: and you're also somebody that doesn't respond to marijuana, to cannabis. No,
34:50
Speaker 1: I don't like marijuana because why First of all, I
34:54
Speaker 1: find like, you know, my brain works on a level
34:57
Speaker 1: of precision, that's just the way my brain response. And
35:00
Speaker 1: I don't like the kind of vagueness of never knowing
35:03
Speaker 1: what the doses, really what the mood is. And then finally,
35:08
Speaker 1: probably most importantly, I just don't like the way I
35:10
Speaker 1: feel the next day. So you got a pot hangover? Yeah,
35:13
Speaker 1: I feel it in my system the next day. And
35:15
Speaker 1: is it from all cannabis so inedible joint? I mean,
35:19
Speaker 1: you know, we've had a few laughs, and the only
35:22
Speaker 1: times where I've had positive experiences with cannabis have been
35:25
Speaker 1: with Chelsea. But even that isn't consistent of and they're
35:29
Speaker 1: not just so much fun that I kind of go,
35:33
Speaker 1: it's worth the hangover and stuff. Yeah, I think you
35:37
Speaker 1: remember you once saying you felt everything that you said
35:40
Speaker 1: was so stupid. I remember, Yeah, there was that one
35:43
Speaker 1: time where I felt like I was speaking and there's
35:46
Speaker 1: part of me like judging myself speaking. God, that's dumb.
35:50
Speaker 1: But that does happen. That can happen with cannabis, and
35:52
Speaker 1: that's a matter of and I think the I think
35:54
Speaker 1: the real thing to remind everybody about is when you
35:57
Speaker 1: are having a drug experience, to set your attention and
36:00
Speaker 1: even if it is recreational, to say I'm going to
36:02
Speaker 1: be in a good mood, this is going to be
36:04
Speaker 1: a fun experience. I'm not going to pick out if
36:06
Speaker 1: that's your issue and it's my issue, so I have
36:08
Speaker 1: to say that a lot to myself. But it is
36:10
Speaker 1: about setting an attention, even and if it's in a
36:12
Speaker 1: casual way. Yeah, but it's also I totally agree with you,
36:16
Speaker 1: and I think it's also about like respecting your own
36:18
Speaker 1: brain chemistry. Like I know people who will do cannabis
36:23
Speaker 1: and it really relaxes them and makes them social and whatever.
36:26
Speaker 1: My tendency with cannabis and like, I've had quite a
36:30
Speaker 1: few experiences where it's made me paranoid and it hasn't
36:33
Speaker 1: relaxed me. It's tensed me up and made me more anxious.
36:37
Speaker 1: So I kind of just respect my own brain chemistry,
36:40
Speaker 1: you know, individual. Yeah, I mean the thing is, I
36:43
Speaker 1: think a lot of people don't know that much about
36:45
Speaker 1: their own brain chemistry. You know, they know about their moods,
36:48
Speaker 1: but they're not as educated as you are about your brainstry. Yeah,
36:52
Speaker 1: but I think again, because a lot of this stuff
36:55
Speaker 1: is still, you know, new, even for scientists. I mean
37:00
Speaker 1: only like psychedelics, they've been shut down for the last
37:04
Speaker 1: what fifty years. It's only now that we're re researching them.
37:10
Speaker 1: You can be aware of your own state of mind.
37:14
Speaker 1: For a while, I was keeping, you know, a journal
37:16
Speaker 1: where I literally would write down what what even I
37:20
Speaker 1: had eaten, because I knew that even what I ate
37:23
Speaker 1: could affect my mood suppart of it. You know, once
37:25
Speaker 1: I decided to stop drinking, I just became very aware
37:30
Speaker 1: of the tiniest differences of what ingesting different things could do.
37:36
Speaker 1: And for me, as someone who suffers some depression, that
37:40
Speaker 1: was empowering. Do you feel like you've had any depression
37:44
Speaker 1: in the last six months? No, I haven't had I
37:48
Speaker 1: haven't had clinical depression since I've been on antidepressants, but
37:52
Speaker 1: I've definitely become happier since I took these additional steps,
37:58
Speaker 1: because that's what the different to this. I feel like
38:01
Speaker 1: now having known you for about three years, and when
38:06
Speaker 1: you use the word manage, that's often the way you
38:08
Speaker 1: hear people discuss their depression is that it's being managed,
38:11
Speaker 1: but they're not any happier, and they should be that
38:15
Speaker 1: they don't feel better, they just feel okay. Well, the thing,
38:18
Speaker 1: you're absolutely right, But what I was gonna say is
38:21
Speaker 1: you over the last year, I would say, seem happier,
38:24
Speaker 1: Like this seems like an increase in your joy. I mean,
38:28
Speaker 1: I definitely feel that way. But I think you're you're
38:31
Speaker 1: hitting on something that's really important, which also touches upon
38:35
Speaker 1: what's the difference between depression and sadness. You know, sadness
38:39
Speaker 1: is generally triggered by something, you know, an event situation,
38:44
Speaker 1: where suppression is different depression, it's just a vague or
38:50
Speaker 1: sense of like not wanting to do anything, a sadness
38:55
Speaker 1: that kind of permeates everything and isn't necessarily event specific.
39:01
Speaker 1: So an antidepressant manages to get you out of that hole,
39:05
Speaker 1: but it doesn't necessarily get you kind of you know,
39:09
Speaker 1: flying high and happy. It just has lifted you from
39:13
Speaker 1: the whole, which is depression. I find some of these
39:16
Speaker 1: other modalities actually lift you higher. For me, Okay, we're
39:21
Speaker 1: gonna take a quick break and we'll be right back.
39:26
Speaker 1: You were saying, even just the inclination to want to
39:29
Speaker 1: go out, to start to wonder what your friends are doing,
39:32
Speaker 1: or want to be social is a sign that your
39:34
Speaker 1: depression is lifting. You're absolutely right. One of the things
39:38
Speaker 1: that I would say characterizes depression is a diminishment in desire,
39:44
Speaker 1: so your desire. So it's like when you have no
39:48
Speaker 1: sex drive applied back to the rest of your life exactly,
39:50
Speaker 1: I don't have a desire to hang out with friends.
39:52
Speaker 1: I don't have a desire to have sex. I don't
39:54
Speaker 1: have a desire to go out to a cocktail party
39:59
Speaker 1: or anything. And the deeper depression, the more squelch and
40:04
Speaker 1: diminish your desire is for everything. So on one level,
40:10
Speaker 1: you're getting out of that hole. And one of the ways,
40:13
Speaker 1: like I have a friend who just started antidepressants like
40:17
Speaker 1: a week ago, and she was I was like, are
40:20
Speaker 1: you feeling them yet? She's like, no, I'm not really
40:21
Speaker 1: feeling them, And then she went on to tell me
40:24
Speaker 1: like she was feeling like a little bit sad that
40:27
Speaker 1: she had isolated herself for a while and she missed
40:30
Speaker 1: kind of her friends. I said, then it's working because
40:34
Speaker 1: that's your desire coming back. You're actually the first the
40:38
Speaker 1: first moments are you kind of going, oh my gosh,
40:41
Speaker 1: I've isolated myself and I don't want to be isolated.
40:44
Speaker 1: So that's the way people can kind of make sure
40:48
Speaker 1: that they're dealing with depression. If if you're feeling your
40:52
Speaker 1: desire to do everything is down, you should see a
40:56
Speaker 1: medical professional. It's also helpful to have someone in your
40:59
Speaker 1: life that is going through it because it gives me
41:00
Speaker 1: a lot more understanding of depression since it's not something
41:05
Speaker 1: Now you definitely don't suffer from it. I'm kind of
41:08
Speaker 1: always in awe of your denial. Now you're anti depressed,
41:13
Speaker 1: like whatever or in your whatever chemicals are in your brain.
41:17
Speaker 1: I mean, you are definitely functioning at a level of
41:21
Speaker 1: anti depressive. What about you, Brendan, have you ever felt depressed?
41:25
Speaker 1: Only one time? And I and when I got my period, Yes,
41:29
Speaker 1: because you wanted the baby. Every time it was seasonal depression.
41:34
Speaker 1: I would say it was just my last year in
41:36
Speaker 1: South Dakota, and I just could not get myself. I
41:38
Speaker 1: was still on his track scholarship, I wasn't going to practice.
41:40
Speaker 1: I didn't want to do anything. And so the way
41:42
Speaker 1: you're describing your lack of desire, one of my favorite
41:45
Speaker 1: things to do is eat. Like I didn't want to eat,
41:47
Speaker 1: I didn't want to do engage. I wanted to be alone.
41:50
Speaker 1: And that was the only time I can remember now
41:52
Speaker 1: looking back in retrospect, to me like that was depression,
41:55
Speaker 1: Like that wasn't just a sad or a mood. That
41:58
Speaker 1: was an inability to be happy. That's absolutely And what
42:02
Speaker 1: do you think that was triggered by. I think there
42:05
Speaker 1: were a lot of things, but I think it was
42:06
Speaker 1: being in that state at that time with just the
42:10
Speaker 1: doom and gloom, not being out of the closet yet
42:12
Speaker 1: and knowing that that was that hurdle was about to
42:15
Speaker 1: be jumped. But also seasonal as you're mentioning, like you know,
42:20
Speaker 1: but not being out of the closet and knowing that's coming.
42:22
Speaker 1: I think it was a culmination of things, but just
42:24
Speaker 1: being in that season and a lot of people say
42:26
Speaker 1: that though like you talk to people like I love Seattle.
42:27
Speaker 1: I love the overcast and the gray, but people like
42:31
Speaker 1: but living in it is different than experiencing it for
42:33
Speaker 1: a week. It really can have an effect on your
42:36
Speaker 1: mood and who you are well. Light therapy definitely helps
42:40
Speaker 1: for people who have seasonal depression, you know, during winter months,
42:44
Speaker 1: especially like you said, in in parts of the country
42:47
Speaker 1: or the world where you don't see a lot of
42:50
Speaker 1: sunlight that can definitely also trigger depression, and light therapy
42:55
Speaker 1: works with that. You know, there are other things as well,
42:58
Speaker 1: like there's magnetic therapy where they use super powerful magnets
43:04
Speaker 1: has also shown some results. I think my philosophy is,
43:08
Speaker 1: you know, research this stuff. You know that I love
43:11
Speaker 1: researching stuff, which usually you just call me and I
43:14
Speaker 1: don't have the patients to google ship, so whenever I
43:17
Speaker 1: have a question, I just text Alec what's up with
43:20
Speaker 1: and then I get a page JOSSI a back. Usually
43:25
Speaker 1: just call and tell you what's actionable and whatever you've
43:29
Speaker 1: asked me to research. But um, but yeah, there are
43:32
Speaker 1: definitely things you can do. But I think awareness of
43:36
Speaker 1: when you're depressed is one of the first. But to
43:38
Speaker 1: be also compassionate and empathetic towards other people when you
43:41
Speaker 1: don't suffer from depression because my instinct is it always
43:45
Speaker 1: to get up and move on. You know, well, that's
43:47
Speaker 1: one of the worst things people can say to someone
43:49
Speaker 1: who's depressed is snap out of it, you know that,
43:53
Speaker 1: or you should just go out more. You need to
43:55
Speaker 1: put yourself in an environment where you're on happy people.
43:58
Speaker 1: And it's like, you don't understand that's completely not within
44:02
Speaker 1: the realm of possibility. So yeah, one of the things
44:06
Speaker 1: about compassion and empathy is understanding that you know, they
44:11
Speaker 1: can't snap out of it, and going out to a
44:14
Speaker 1: group event isn't going to work either. I think what
44:16
Speaker 1: you're saying works the most is creating new habits that
44:20
Speaker 1: are helping and aiding your state of mind. So instead
44:23
Speaker 1: of having bad habits, you know, we rehbituate ourselves, which
44:26
Speaker 1: is much easier than any of us think, because you
44:29
Speaker 1: really can, in like three to five days, just start
44:32
Speaker 1: doing something every day and then it does become part
44:34
Speaker 1: of your habit and then you're helping your brain and
44:36
Speaker 1: you're on your own show. Right Like you know, if
44:39
Speaker 1: you're drinking, try reducing your drinking. There's no harm in
44:43
Speaker 1: trying to take a B twelve and foe late supplement.
44:46
Speaker 1: There are supplements like metal Guard that you can get
44:49
Speaker 1: on Amazon or anywhere, So there's no harm in kind
44:52
Speaker 1: of trying to increase your B twelve and folate. There's
44:56
Speaker 1: no harm in adding an A C which is another
45:00
Speaker 1: supplement that can really help with negative O C D thinking.
45:03
Speaker 1: In fact, psychiatrists are saying any C as a supplement
45:07
Speaker 1: is having more powerful effects for O C D thinking
45:11
Speaker 1: negative thinking than any prescription they have. So there are
45:14
Speaker 1: these things you can do, and like you said, you know,
45:17
Speaker 1: taking those little steps can help. Well. I think a
45:21
Speaker 1: lot of the concerns for people as well are the
45:22
Speaker 1: side effects. So are there, to your knowledge, side effects
45:26
Speaker 1: associated with ketamine and antidepressants. Antidepressants definitely have side effects,
45:31
Speaker 1: and I think that's one of the big reasons some
45:34
Speaker 1: people want to avoid them, and it's also one of
45:36
Speaker 1: the reasons why with antidepressants it can be so hit
45:40
Speaker 1: or miss, like people sometimes need to try several antidepressants
45:45
Speaker 1: before they find one that doesn't have the side effects
45:48
Speaker 1: that make them want to stop it. Ketamine doesn't have
45:52
Speaker 1: any specific lists of side effects. You can't drive right
45:57
Speaker 1: afterwards because your sense of balance and whatever is really
46:00
Speaker 1: thrown and during Yes, you cannot roller blade, which is
46:05
Speaker 1: usually how I get to and from appointments. But I
46:09
Speaker 1: think that with ketamine, you know, ketamine infusion is just
46:13
Speaker 1: to be clear, you do go on a trip like
46:16
Speaker 1: it's psychoactive. Well, you said, okay, the last time you
46:18
Speaker 1: did it, you said you felt like you were in
46:20
Speaker 1: a matrix right in some sort of underworld or underground.
46:26
Speaker 1: I felt like it was giving me glimpses of the universe,
46:30
Speaker 1: of of like a deeper understanding of the universe. And
46:33
Speaker 1: while I was in it, I could understand it. And
46:35
Speaker 1: as I was coming out of it, I knew that
46:38
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be able to describe it, like words were
46:42
Speaker 1: not going to do it justice. And sure enough, as
46:45
Speaker 1: I was returning back, I felt that ability to discuss
46:50
Speaker 1: it went away. But you're aware of it, like weirdly
46:55
Speaker 1: in ketamine, I'm aware that I'm on ketamine while I'm
46:58
Speaker 1: going through this journey me and I choose to use
47:03
Speaker 1: music while I do it, and that music can oftentimes
47:07
Speaker 1: dictate where I'm going and what I'm experiencing. It's kind
47:10
Speaker 1: of cool if you kind of are prepared for it
47:13
Speaker 1: and you don't freak out by it. Brendan, you were
47:16
Speaker 1: talking about ketamine as an anti pain thing for fibro mayalga.
47:21
Speaker 1: That's it's also being used as that, but it's used
47:24
Speaker 1: in much higher doses and for much longer so a
47:27
Speaker 1: lot of times for fibro myalgia, you don't necessarily go
47:31
Speaker 1: on what I call a trip. You're just kind of
47:33
Speaker 1: out of it because they do sometimes give you tranquilizers
47:36
Speaker 1: and anti nausea medicine for fibro mayalgia and ketamine, but
47:40
Speaker 1: during depression treatment, oftentimes it's about the practitioner finding that
47:45
Speaker 1: perfect dose for you so that you're not overwhelmed, but
47:49
Speaker 1: you're definitely disassociating from your real life. It's kind of cool. Yeah,
47:56
Speaker 1: I mean I feel like I should do it. Don't
47:57
Speaker 1: you think I should do There have been several times
48:00
Speaker 1: where you've actually during my trip where I've gone, wow,
48:04
Speaker 1: I wish Chelsea was Yeah, I think I should try it.
48:07
Speaker 1: You want to try it with me, Brandon, We can
48:08
Speaker 1: report back when we do our ayahuasca review with Dan
48:11
Speaker 1: and Jenny or ayahuasca. I think you should definitely do it,
48:16
Speaker 1: but again, I can't stress enough going to the right place.
48:19
Speaker 1: I'll go with you to your place. We can go together. Yeah,
48:22
Speaker 1: then we can stumble out of there together. I would
48:24
Speaker 1: go up to speak to you after. Yeah. No, that's
48:27
Speaker 1: funny that you say that because you texted me. You're like, oh,
48:29
Speaker 1: I love you so much. I can't wait to tell
48:30
Speaker 1: you all about this. And then you're like, please call
48:32
Speaker 1: me right away, and I called you You're like, i'll
48:34
Speaker 1: talk to you tomorrow. It's true that I kind of
48:38
Speaker 1: like was like, oh my god, I have so much
48:40
Speaker 1: to say. But yeah, then I was like, I think
48:42
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna like hold it in. It's also kind
48:46
Speaker 1: of bizarre what you're saying, because I mean, you know,
48:48
Speaker 1: you're going like, yeah, I kind of feel like I
48:50
Speaker 1: got a glimpse of the universe. I know it does
48:54
Speaker 1: feel bizarre, but you know when you're saying, well, it does,
48:57
Speaker 1: of course that feel stupid. But okay, so I've added
49:02
Speaker 1: more stand updates. Everybody, you can come see me perform.
49:06
Speaker 1: Let me think. At first, I want to say very
49:09
Speaker 1: very heartfelt thank you too. Not Dr al kashi Chian
49:14
Speaker 1: thank you. He's not a medical professional, and he's just
49:17
Speaker 1: one of my very very friends who's pretty much the
49:21
Speaker 1: smartest person I know. I'm coming to Brisbane. I'm coming
49:24
Speaker 1: to Sydney. I'm coming to Melbourne, Auckland, New Zealand. I'm
49:26
Speaker 1: coming to Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Grand Rapids, Vancouver, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Salt
49:34
Speaker 1: Lake City, Kansas City, Oklahoma City, which is a place
49:37
Speaker 1: I've never performed before, and Toronto show. We are adding
49:40
Speaker 1: another show so you can come see me on My
49:43
Speaker 1: Life will be the Death of Me Stand up Comedy
49:46
Speaker 1: Tour Brandon. People want to know how they can get
49:48
Speaker 1: a hold of you. They can't, but they can go
49:51
Speaker 1: to your accountable page if they want to look up
49:53
Speaker 1: any social issues or any organizations. I have a lot
49:57
Speaker 1: of suggestions of ways you can get involved on my
49:59
Speaker 1: accountable dot you page. And after that you should check
50:01
Speaker 1: out Emily's List for any female candidates. Yes, Emily's List
50:06
Speaker 1: is a great organization that I partnered with that help
50:09
Speaker 1: elect progressive women for the Democratic Party. And the book
50:13
Speaker 1: is called Life Will Be the Death of Me and
50:14
Speaker 1: my name is Tracy Joy Handler. Goodnight, Life will Be
50:22
Speaker 1: the Death of Me as a production of I Heart Radio.
50:24
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I
50:26
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
50:29
Speaker 1: your favorite shows,