November 4, 2010 • 43 mins
Modern scientists have extensively researched addicts and the things they abuse, but we still don't understand everything about the nature of addiction. So how does it work? Tune in to learn more about addiction (and why you can't kick your SYSK habit).
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
from House toff works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast on Josh Clark. There's Charles w Chuck Tryan Bryant,
(00:21):
Chucky Chuckles, Chuck's Chuck Star whatever, Chutrean's new. I had
a I had something that I was working on in
my head, but it got pushed up by the eight
million other things that I have to keep in my
working memory. Another Nicknamer. There's a good one too. I
think it was gonna it was really gonna knock everyone's
socks off. Chuckolate. No, l Yeah, she's getting she's getting
(00:47):
a lot freer with the last these days. Huh. Either
or she's moving her chair closer and closer, or she's
on L O L cats right now or just not
she's name listening? Yeah, um, Chuck, Yes, we're talking about
addiction today. That's right. Do you remember in the Science
Phasing Out Sleep podcast, which strangely enough comes out today
on the day we're recording it, but this will be
(01:09):
released like five weeks later, you talked about recording this. Yeah,
we talked about doing addiction and lo and behold here
it is so really if you think about it, we
are on track in real time, but in podcast released
publishing time, it seems like there's a big lag. But
we're giving people what they want, right, that's right, addiction
(01:30):
or what we want. Did you like this article? Yeah?
Did you know that there are many stories about addiction
in our society today? Yeah? When this is like the
most rigid article of mine you've ever read? Oh you
wrote this? Yes, I'm just kidding, dude. It was. Um.
I went back when I read it. I was like,
it was very scientific sounding, like you. It could have
been on the National Institutes of Health website, and it
(01:53):
was very bland. And there was one thing I remember
going back reading, I didn't pull the trigger on Um,
we're talking about addiction and researching it, uh, compared to
our views of addiction, like even twenty thirty years ago,
like in the eighties. God, can you believe that was
like thirty years ago? Night? Um, that whole Nancy Reagan
(02:15):
just Say No campaign scared the Bejesus out of a
lot of people, but it also had a very negative
impact as well, and that it's so grossly overexaggerated the
effects and the addictiveness of drugs, that for kids who
were I guess gutsy enough to go ahead and try
the drugs that they've been warned against. Once they tried
(02:38):
them and found out that they weren't you know, they
didn't turn into like a donkey, uh as Nancy Reagan
told them they would. Then UM, they were like, well,
I wonder what other drugs are gonna do? You know,
they get a little more bold and courageous. So what
are you saying that they just say No to drugs
campaign may have had the reverse effect on people who
actually tried drugs. They and it's not just me saying that,
(03:02):
there's a lot of there's a lot of consensus in
the addiction UM field, which is you know, multidiscipline UM
that this just say no campaign or any campaign that
overexaggerates the effects of drugs and deviates from a straight
science based reporting of what uh addictive substances can do
(03:22):
to you UM can have a negative impact. Well, you
you think we would have learned our lesson from refer
madness back in the day. You would definitely think so,
you know, that whole dope fine thing Chuck. It's funny
that you bring up refer madness and the dope fine thing,
because that was the way for a period that people
(03:42):
looked at addicts. It was a major character flaw, right,
But before that it was just no big deal. Well,
there was no such thing as addiction up until like
the late eighteenth century. It was called how Things are Exactly?
Did you see that little thing I sent you about
the the funeral of a Boston minister's wife in sixteen
seventy year? I didn't get a chance to read it,
(04:04):
was it. So there's this really cool paper if you
ever have some time to kill, which you know you
never ever ever do. But it's a thirty two pager
by a guy named Harry g. Levine called The Discovery
of Addiction colon Changing Conceptions of Habitual Drunkenness in America.
It sounds really boring. I think it's like ninety eight.
But um this guy is tracing the history of addiction
(04:25):
and he's saying, like, prior to the eighteenth century, the
end of the eighteenth century, there was no such thing
like people drank because they wanted to get drunk, right. Um,
So in sixteen seventy eight, people in America drank their
faces off Chuck e. G. At the funeral of a
Boston minister's wife, mourners consumed fifty one and a half
gallons of wine. And think how many could there be.
(04:49):
It's sixteen seventy eight in Boston. It's like fifty people
who aren't like Native American in in the continental United
States or what would become Well, maybe there were fifty
one and a half people and they drank he so uh.
And then at the ordination not a funeral, an ordination
of Reverend Edwin Jackson of Woburn, Massachusetts, guests drink six
and a half barrels of cider, twenty five gallons of wine,
(05:12):
two gallons of brandy, and four gallons of rome. Yeah,
and that was just for the guy becoming a minister.
You know, our Boston listeners right now, we're like that's right.
They're like, well, that's wicked awesome. So and then in
the eighteenth century there was everybody's just drink and drink
and drinking for fun. Then the eighteenth century some people
are like, you know what, I kind of have to
(05:34):
have four gallons of brandy help me. And then we
started to get this idea that there was such thing
as addiction, but it wasn't the person. It was on
the substance, right, Yeah, it's the absinthe or the opium.
You know, those were like the drugs of choice back
in the day. That's the problem. Those things are evil
and they're bad, right And um, Actually, opium addiction was
(05:57):
so widespread. Did you see that little sidebar at not
opium addiction. Opium was everywhere, right, like you could get
it in any kind of tincture, tonic for any kind
of malady whatsoever. Um. And so many middle aged women
became hooked on morphine and opium that it was seen
in the late nineteenth century as a woman's problem p
(06:20):
MS or menopause. Interesting, that's how people viewed addiction for
a while. But it went from the substance to the person.
The character flawed, the dope fiend. Right. I thought it
went from the person to the substance. No, it went
from this I'm sorry, the substance to the person. So
it went from it's the problem of the substance to
the problem of the person. It's a character flaw, their
dope fiend. And then finally we arrive at the idea
(06:42):
that addiction is um a disease, a chronic disease, and
the person who is addicted is a sufferer, not a fiend.
That's where we are now for the most part. But
we still don't fully understand addiction. We have a pretty
good view of it, right, I feel like a lot
of things with the human body we explained, we always
(07:03):
lead in with like they sort of know, but they
sort of don't. Well, it's that it's that point where
all the pieces are on the table, we just haven't
put them all together. Remember, do you know why, Josh? Why?
Because the human body is a miracle. It's a big,
mysterious miracle. I mean when you think about it, really
about all the things going on in the brain and
the body, and the fact that you know it's wrapped
(07:24):
up in bones and skin. That sounds like intelligent design
to me. Well, there you have it. Have Do you
remember your theory of what happened to the Neanderthals? Uh?
Didn't they say they froze? I got thirsty. Yeah, they
got hot and thirsty and they died. Alright, Chuck, I
stand by that. So the whole point of addiction is
(07:44):
it hijacks the brains reward system, right, Yeah, the limbic system,
And that's exactly what it does. Josh. When you are
you know, born, and you're a human being, you learned
very quickly that you know you have to survive by
eating and sleeping and taking care of yourself. And that's
because it triggers the limbic system into shooting a little
(08:05):
dopamine out and your body says, hey, I like that,
I need to do that again. And that's what drugs do,
except they do it two to ten times as much,
and it's it's fault. It's fake. Dopa means like the
doggy treat of anything with the brain. Yeah, So if
you can get ten doggie treats yeah, immediately instead of
(08:25):
the one, then you take it. And then your brain says, boy,
this is great. I could get used to this. And
it does, right, And since we learn, we're pretty much
hardwired to learn from that release of dopamine to repeat
that behavior like reproduce or exercise or eat. Um. We
if we're getting ten times that amount, we pick it
(08:46):
up even quicker, like, Okay, well this crack cocaine makes
me feel really good, so I'm gonna try that. We
need it more and when it goes away, it makes
things a lot worse than just um sleepy because I
didn't get enough sleep. Well, we should say also that UM.
The current view of addiction, the brain disease model, right,
(09:06):
UM states that just because you try something doesn't mean
you're going to become addicted. The process or addiction is
a process, and a person goes from a user, crosses
a threshold at some point, uh, and becomes an addict.
So a user and an addict, they're not synonymous. They
exist on two different parts of the spectrum of addiction
(09:27):
or spectrum of substance use interviews. Right used to be
assess that those are the two different words. Right, So, uh,
well you summed up the UM. I guess the way
that addiction works pretty succinctly chucked. Well, it becomes physically addictive. Basically,
you develop a dependency on this shot of dopamine, this
huge shot of dopamine, and your body needs it all
(09:49):
of a sudden sudden, and you you know, you lose control. Right,
And we should say that UM drugs generally, like all
drugs of addiction, UM hijack the reward system. We talked
about other drugs. I can't remember in some other podcasts
that don't necessarily work the dopamine. Therefore, if they don't
necessarily produce addictive properties, right, Um, but those that do
(10:14):
hijack dopamine transmitters, they either stimulate dopaminees release and or
they bind to dopamine receptors and prevent its reuptake. Right,
So you've got a bunch of dopamine release and you've
got a bunch of its staying in between your synapses longer,
and then, like you said, you become dependent on that.
(10:35):
You want that feeling, Well, your brain does without even
if you don't even know this is going on, your
brain is saying to your body, you need to go
out and get more of that because that was really awesome. Right,
Because your reward system is uh, it's it's there to
motivate us to do stuff or to or to do stuff.
That's the reward system. So yeah, like you said, um,
(10:57):
your your priorities become prioritized and drugs get to be
four or whatever that substance or behavior is. Right. Well, yeah,
you always hear um. Like the hardcore abusers of heroin
or cocaine, it literally they say it overtakes your life.
To where your job is to every day get the
(11:18):
money that you can find the draw and find the
drugs so you can use the drugs. It's a full
time deal. And so you've got you've got the hangover withdrawal.
That's where your dopamine UM. Basically your brains like, Okay,
I've sense that something artificial is going on, so I'm
going to stop producing as much and you're gonna have
to go through a horrible little period. That's the withdrawal
(11:39):
or hangover. Right. Then you've got physical dependency and at
at about this point you've crossed over into addictive. Being
an addict, you're not a user anymore. Once you have
physical dependency UM. And that's where because your brain is
not producing that dopamine naturally any longer, and you write
the withdrawal or the hangover so bad that you can't
(12:00):
stand it, you will do more. And at that point
you're like Crusty the clown with moon rocks. You're just
getting back to normal, you know. Now you're physically dependent.
That's like, that's the key. I'm not sure if that's
getting through to all, because I can picture people out
there looking concerned and bewildered. Right now, your brain actually
stops producing dopamine if it's getting it, you know, an
(12:21):
unnatural way, because you know, I don't even make it anymore,
but there's enough of it out there floating around, all right.
It's just so messed up. You're literally tricking your brain
into doing something that it should be doing naturally. Right,
And that's why with a lot of drugs, getting high,
getting that high, Uh, it's harder and harder, and harder
and harder, sure well or easier. There's that flip side
to which I thought was interesting. It is, and I
(12:42):
don't fully understand it. I don't. I don't feel bad
because I don't think science fully understands it either. But
that's two symptoms of physical addiction. Um. Either you need
more to get high, or you need far less than
you ever did before. I would think if you're an attitude,
you'd want to use the second one. You'd be like, man,
I can get high of two dollars worth the heroin
like I used to need. Unfortunately, don't get that choice though,
(13:05):
UM now because of this, because your brain has been
basically hijacked by this drug, and I hate I guess
we probably shouldn't anthropomorphize drugs, not actually hijacking anything, but
because your brain's reward system has been reprioritized to serve
this drug. Um, the whole point of treating addiction. And
(13:28):
I actually wrote a companion article on this how rehab works.
That's pretty interesting. Um, was that based on your experience
and rehab? Uh? No, no, no, not true. Um, the
point of treating addiction is in most cases to just
completely discontinue use, which is called abstinence. Right, Yeah, for
most all addiction. Abstinence is the way to go for
(13:49):
of course, like eating addictions and stuff like that. Right.
And sex addiction. Yeah, they don't want you to never
have sex again. No, because I have a problem with
sex addiction. Okay, I have a problem, But I have
a problem with everyone saying all these athletes are sex
addicts because they cheat their wise. Oh yeah, I would
think that's probably the most exploited addiction of Sure, Josh,
(14:09):
we're talking about addiction. What are some of these symptoms
of addiction? How do you know if you're an addict? Well,
there's two types that there's physical and behavioral. And I
should say those two types are specific to substances of abuse, right,
you can have and or physical or behavioral if you're
doing like coke or heroin or drinking with behavior behavioral
(14:34):
addictions behaviors, it's just behavioral. But that doesn't mean it's
any less addictive. That doesn't any less addictive or harmful
to you, know your life. Right, But we said one
of the one of the physical symptoms is that you
either need more or less of the drug. Right, that's right. Um,
that's a physical symptoms. Then there's a lot of stuff
that you could easily guess, um, trouble sleeping, sweating, hand
(15:00):
amer's nausea, physical agitation, that's if you don't have the
substance in your body. Right, those are the withdrawal. Basically,
your body's telling you, like, go do more because we
don't feel good right now. And you get that from
everything from alcohol to uh cigarettes to caffeine. Caffeine headaches
are supposed to be pretty bad, right. I've heard, like,
(15:21):
I've heard people that try to kick diet coke. It
can be pretty awful. I've um, I've had caffeine headaches before.
They're not that bad, but I have heard of people
who really suffer from them. Yeah. Um, so the physical,
the physical stuff. Really it's using more or less or
just using to get back to normal. That's physical addiction.
(15:42):
And then you know, anything that that happens to your
body as a result of using your abusing a drug,
that's physical behavioral, which is also called psychological symptoms. UM
is the stuff that happens to your life basically, Well,
it's um. You may have tried to quit doing whatever
this behavior is, whether it's gambling or overeating or sex,
(16:05):
and uh, you're not able to. So that's one of
the traits. So you're not gonna have much success there,
or maybe you spend more time doing it where to
the point where it's like you know, you might lose
your job or go broke or something like that. Those
are all behavioral traits. What else, well, you um, basically,
you're still using this stuff even though you know it's
(16:27):
having a harmful impact on you or your life for others.
Or you might stop doing stuff that's good for you,
Like it used to be a jogger, but then my
sex addiction became so great. Don't even jog anymore. Now,
just have sex all the time and play professional football.
Um and chuck. Because of this, this brain disease model
(16:47):
that we talked about, because these of these symptoms um.
The view of addiction as it stands today, the most
widely held model is the brain disease model, and the
basis of that is that addiction is a chronic disease. Right,
So as such, just like say asthma or tuberculosis or whatever,
you're gonna have flare ups relapse, right, Yeah, it's relapse
(17:12):
with addiction. And so if you go into treatment, you
need to have like booster sessions as well. After you're
cured or clean or whatever. Well, yeah, that's just the
sort of the basis of a right. You still gotta
go those meetings, right, which is why I think it's
so radically successful. And the LSD and the coffee, right,
that should be out by now, I think otherwise people
(17:33):
can go what I need to get to A I
had a a a joke, but I'm not gonna tell it.
That's a good chuck. We've both grown up so much,
haven't we, Yes, in the past thirty minutes. Uh, what
else we got here, josh Um Behavioral psychologists, they used
to think that, I thought this was really interesting. They
(17:53):
sort of understand addiction a little bit, but they used
to think that if you just tried drugs in the
first place, drugs or alcohol or any kind of addictive substance,
then there was just something wrong with you. But there's
actually genetic basis for even that, not even whether or
not you get addicted, but whether you try it to
begin with. Well, yeah, it's not just that, Like genetics
is one of a number of risk factors. There's also
(18:14):
like your susceptibility to peer pressure, your feelings of self
worth at that moment or at that period in your life. Um,
there are like if you have anxiety or depression that's
been shown to increase the likelihood that you're going to
try drugs. Um. So it's not just like a kid's
like I'll try this, let's see what happens. Uh That
(18:37):
that's how they used to see it. Now they see
it as like, no, there's some there's some other uh
comorbid factors going on. It's both nature and nurture. So,
like a good example would be like, um, if you
start having sex to increase your sense of self worth,
that could lead to a sex addiction. That that low
self esteem would be a risk factor that led you
(18:58):
into your sexy right or if you're depressed and you
just self medicate, right, or if you try drugs and
you're like, wow, I really really like these, that's another
one for sure. Right. So we were talking about UM
physical and behavioral symptoms, right, UM again, under the current
brain disease model of addiction, UM, the the basically the
(19:19):
double whammy is UM psychological dependence, right, because it has
not only an effect on the person, it has effect
on the society as well. So like the person's life
can be ruined by addiction, but they may also commit
crime to feed their addiction, or their break up their
(19:42):
family on a personal level, or both, or commit violence
the worst, the worst one is psychological or behavioral, which
makes both substances of abuse and compulsive behaviors addictive behaviors
UM equally bad. Well yeah, and what that means is
is you can't say you can't be one of these hardliners.
(20:04):
It just says, you know, if someone wants to go
out and kill themselves on dope, then that's their business, right. Well, yeah,
because there's a lot of other things going on. It's
a great argument against it, but their impacts. Right, But
it's prohibition. The answer, It certainly wasn't what alcohol was
it's not work. You know why, because no one stopped drinking.
Profiction didn't really go over too well. So, Chuck, you
(20:25):
want to talk about some specific drugs and behaviors that
people get addicted to. You. Yeah, we've talked about meth
a little bit and what a stupid thing that is
to try. Right, What what was that in our big
anti meth rant I think it was when we did
the meth Labs crime scene clean up. Meth ampheta means um,
the good news is the US is going down. It
(20:46):
looks like yeah, which surprises me. I would have thought
it would be steady or still going up. Well, maybe
people aren't starting to realize that. It's not very smart.
But they actually study brain patterns Josh of long term
meth users, and they they found that up to of
their dopamine producing cells were damaged or just shot. Yeah,
(21:08):
so you literally, I mean, I don't know if they
can regenerate you. That remains to be seen. Remember there's
that whole study on m D m A that got
it out law in the first place, about serotonin levels
being able to regenerate. I don't know. I don't I
don't think anybody knows yet. If we're capable of doing that,
We've not been studying it long enough. I think, just
let's get some stats going to while we're doing these.
(21:29):
But yeah, I was gonna say, Um, what's what's um
encouraging about meth prevalence is that it's cut in half. Uh,
people who have used it in the past month. UM
has gone down from seven one thousand and two thousand
six and this is in the US to thousand and
(21:50):
two thousand eight. That's half of what it was. Yeah,
that's great, that's significant in two years that kind of dropped.
So yeah, I would say that the anti meth campaigns
are working, but they're all dying. Yeah, which is possible. Uh,
what's next. Prescription drugs? Now, those are on the rise. Yeah.
They're probably the most abused drug in the United States
(22:12):
because everybody's on them. There's a huge problem with the
elderly population basically getting hooked on meds. There's a huge
problem with the adolescent population basically getting hooked on their
grandparents meds. UM, and there's been a fourfold increase in
people checking into rehab who are on prescription medications uh
(22:33):
within the century, within the first decade, four four times
as many as there were before UM and in right,
two point two percent of people seeking treatment for any
kind of drugs were on prescription drugs, Josh. Also with
the scripts as I like to call them, prescription drugs.
(22:56):
Two point two percent of people seeking treatment UM reported
of using the pain releavers, and in two thousand eight,
ten years later, ten reported abuse. Right, And that's just
among people who are seeking treatment. I mean, I can
supposedly need it. Yeah. I think one of the reasons
why prescription drugs are so abused is because they're legal
(23:16):
technically and they're socially accepted in a lot of ways.
Oh yeah, totally. You know, people don't look at him
as like a blanket drug. They look at him as
all these different little drugs, you know. Yeah, I mean
Robert Downey Jr. Used heroin, so he was, you know,
this lawless scoundrel. But Chandler being gets hooked on back
(23:38):
pills because he had a bad back, and it's yeah,
it's sort of dismissed. Yeah, you know, Jodie Foster said
she would never work with Robert Downey Jr. Again after
UM home for the holidays. Was he messed up during that? Yeah,
that was right in the middle of it. Yeah, that's
a good movie. That's a shame, is it? I never thought. Yeah,
that's it's good. It's a Thanksgiving movie. You should run
it for Thanksgiving. Speaking of heroin, right, Yes, um, apparently
(24:02):
is a lot more specially acceptable than it was before.
But it's still pretty much like a junkie is a
junkie in the US, nobody's like, oh, it's just a junkie.
It's like he's a junkie. That's kind of a huge deal. Well,
the twenty they say that of people who try heroin
become dependent on it, so that's pretty substantial. Yeah, that's
(24:23):
about a quarter. But at the same time, it's surprising
though if you were raised in the eighties, because you
would think that a hundred and eight percent of people
who try heroin become hooked on it. Yeah. I remember
the one big one that they used to say is
you if you try heroin just once, you're physically addicted
to it. Yeah, that was one of the big campaigns.
Same with crack. They said the same thing about crackers.
(24:44):
You try one time and you're addicted. Um. The in
the US there's actually been something of an increase from
two thousand seven to two thousand eight, according to the
National Survey and Drug Use in Health UM from a
hundred and fifty three thousand people aged twelve and o
older in the US who said that they've used heroin
in the past month to UH two d and thirteen
(25:05):
thousand and two thousand eight, So there has been I
guess that is substantial, especially if you look at the
population of heroin users that tiny amount, that's kind of yeah,
that's a big increase. Actually, now I think about it,
you got cocaine and crack Josh. From two thousand two
to two thousand eight, rates of past month cocaine use
(25:27):
among kids declined from point six to point four percent,
which is good, and it also dropped among young adults
eighteen to twenty five, So it seems like those drugs
are sort of on the wane a little bit. Yeah,
And and again, if you look at myth prescription drugs,
will pain killers, especially heroin, coke, crack, All of these
(25:49):
um have an effect of targeting your reward center, producing
that high, and you're learning to repeat this behavior right again.
This can also happen very strongly among compulsive behaviors like
sex addiction and Chuck, before you go off on sex addiction,
let's say that, Um, according to the National Association of
(26:12):
Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity, Uh, the n A s a C. Obviously, Um,
there's about three to six percent of the American population
that suffers from sex addiction, right from Yeah, which is
the real compulsive behavior that's diagnosed. So chuck, sex addiction, Go, well,
I don't clearly that there is such a thing, but
(26:34):
it's just so overused. Like you said, you know, Jesse
James is a sex addict. It's just these are men
of privilege, is what it is. Tiger Woods, Jesse James,
Brett Farve. They're guys that are in the position that
they can have sex with whoever they want, whenever they want,
and a lot of guys will take the opportunity to
do it. Doesn't mean they're sex addicts. And like you
said earlier, or we may have even cut it out,
(26:56):
I think the bad thing that it does is that
it gives them sort of a free pass because they're
just helpless to it. Yeah, yeah, it is really, I
mean basically it's uh, it seems like a defense for
poor character and like, yeah, exactly unless all these guys
are in that three to six p right. And again,
I think I'm sure that there is like an actual
(27:18):
sexual addiction, right. Vigo Mortenson had it in twenty eight
days for three to six percent of the people, right. So,
But and that's sad that there's probably a lot of
people out there who need help or who actually are
sex addics, and people just don't believe them because it's
like you're full of it. I don't believe Brett Farve either,
and as Brett Farve is. But and the other thing
(27:41):
with sex addiction too that we should point out is that,
like many addictions, it's not even about the sex anymore.
And apparently once you are a sex addic, you're not
even getting the enjoyment out of it anymore. Yeah, which sucks,
I would say. So, so I think, like we said
that the point of sex treatment sex addiction treat mint
uh is to restore the person back to a point
(28:05):
where they can enjoy sex without being addicted to it.
So it's not abstinence, it's having a healthy sex life. Right.
And the same goes with binge eating disorders, which is
about one to three percent of people have a bene
eating in the general population. If you're obese or you
seek weight loss treatment or help with eating. The population
(28:26):
is far higher. About a quarter of people who are
obese and seek professional help for it have binge eating disorder.
And it's pretty much what it sounds like. It's like
binging and purging, which is bulimia, but without the purging part,
right right, binging and binging? Yes, and Uh. Gambling, Josh,
(28:48):
is another compulsive behavior that I think has risen since
Internet gambling has become more accessible. And another name for
gambling compulsion is ludamania. Really ludamania. Yeah. Interesting. Fifteen million
people they say display some sign of gambling addiction? Is
that in the US? I guess yeah. Um, I think
(29:08):
in this article originally I had like eighteen million or
something like that. No, two million, So I guess it's
gone up because it was a recent stat that I
looked up today that you just read. Yeah, And I
actually looked up one day that said two point five
million people are gambling addicts. So there may be a
variation between a gambling addict and people who display some
sign of gambling addictions. I guess so, alcohol, Josh, we
(29:29):
haven't even talked about that yet. Uh. No, we haven't.
I got some stats for you, and these are staggering
because alcohol is the one. I mean, most of these
other things we talked about, aside from the prescription drugs,
are illicit drugs that you have to you know, get illegally.
But alcohol is the one that you can buy at
the corner store, and not surprisingly, it's the biggest problem. Yeah,
(29:50):
I'm glad you found this too, because I had trouble
finding some stats. So lay them, mom me stringing. Oh,
forty of us adults have had someone related to them
who was presently or was an alcoholic. That crazy. It
sounds a lot like the kid who says that you
wouldn't know his girlfriend because he met her at camp
and she lives in Canada. That sounds like that kind
(30:10):
of staff, does it? Three million U S citizens older
than sixty abuse of alcohol are require it to function normally,
and that's going up. Um. You mentioned that your grandparents
prescription drugs. Grandparents are like the baby boomers now, so
as the baby baby boomers have aged into quote unquote
the elderly range, a lot of them are still alcoholics
(30:32):
and pill addics, and you know, more so than their
parents generation was or were ye, what else you got
any more on alcohol? Yeah, I have a couple of
I mean, you've got a bunch of good ones from
seeing which ones are good. Um, men are three times
more likely to be alcoholics and women. Wow, did you
know that? It's kind of surprising. And if you are
(30:54):
happily married you only have an eight point nine percent chance,
whereas if you are single or have a bad marriage,
you're thirty more likely to become an alcoholic. I can
see that, especially if men are three times more likely
to be an alcoholic. I could see somebody's wife saying, like,
you need to stop drinking as much exactly. And I've
got one more, really sad one. Um, five hundred thousand
(31:18):
children age nine to twelve are alcoholics in this country.
They called them the party kids. That really so sad.
I always forget about Drew Barrymore. Remember her little She
was an outlier? You think so? Yes, she was. She
was again Nancy Reagan eighties. She was the poster child
(31:39):
for Nancy Reagan's just Say No Campa. But she was
drinking and doing cocaine. Yeah, and she was like the
only kid who was in America who was doing those things. Okay,
I thought you meant that, and it was like eight
Actually I think that she was doing coking. I thought
you meant that her story was exaggerated. No, I'm just
saying like like like on a graph, she's like way
out here. Yeah, well you always for it about that
(32:00):
now though, with her, because that was so she's definitely
cleaned up. Well, she's cleaned up, and I think she
can go out and have a good time now, I don't.
I think she had her demons when she was a
little kid, which I can't imagine being a kid and
being an alcoholic, you know. You know. That's the second podcast,
and i'd say this month that she's come up. Yeah,
roller derbian this one. UM, so Chuck, you have a
(32:22):
pill addiction one of the Oh, we should also say that, Um,
physicians tend to see alcohol withdrawal as far more dangerous
physically than even heroin withdrawal because of the symptoms it produces. Yeah,
they have pills. You we'll talk about well she talk
about this now, the pills. Yeah. I was gonna say that,
if you have a pill addiction, what's the best way
(32:43):
to treat that with more pills? That's the human answer
to things. Let's throw a pill at it, and there
we actually have come up with some pills to treat
addictive behavior. Yeah right, well, I know. They have one
um called the sulfur Um and it's sold under the
name ant Abus, and that's the one they give you
for alcohol that basically, you take this pill and you
(33:03):
drink even a little bit, and it makes you feel awful, Yeah,
like you you Basically it does the opposite of your
reward circuit, punishes you, and you learn the hard way
not to drink anymore. And apparently you don't get used
to that. So it's not like you can be on
this bill and just kind of fight through it. It
doesn't work that way. There's another one called the now
(33:24):
trek Zone. I found that one too, and that one's
used to treat alcoholism as well. But basically it's just
it's an opioid an antagonist, which means that it doesn't
allow alcohol to give you that inflated sense of self
worth like a gun, does you know? Yeah, I think
most of those. I think most of those are effect
the opiate receptors, right, yeah, but strangely so, then there's
(33:46):
also now maphine that's an opioid antagonist. Just like now
trek zone. So they should both be able to treat alcoholism.
But strangely, now trek zone has shown most miss and
treating alcoholism. Now amphine has been shown has shown the
most promise in treating gambling addictions, even though they're the
(34:07):
same type of drug. Do you know what else they
use that for? What? Shopoholics? Yeah? And I don't know.
I mean I guess that. I think it just cuts
down the thrill, right, yeah, I guess so any sort
of compulsive behavior like that, it looks like it might
target interesting. It is interesting, and then of course you
can just go after the genes, right, Yeah, they're they're
coming a long way and targeting genes. And what they
(34:29):
don't think at this point is that there's like a
single gene that they can find. They think it's probably
a combination of genes. And it's probably also largely epigenetic
as well too. Yeah, well you should explain what that
means again, just in case people didn't listen to that one.
How could they not have if you didn't go listen
to can your grandfather's diet short in your life? Basically? Um,
(34:51):
we've found through epigenetics that it's what makes us us.
Isn't just our parents um genes kind genetic contribution. We
can actually affect the way our genes work, turning them
on and off and amplifying them and um lowering their
their their frequency by the stuff we do, including drugs, drinking,
(35:14):
the way we eat, pretty much everything has an effect. Yeah.
And the other thing too you pointed out, which I
thought was really interesting, is not only are their gene
combinations that make you more susceptible to this, If you're
not susceptible to it, it's not like you just are
lacking those genes, are actually genes that make you less
susceptible to addiction. Right, So, like the A L D
(35:35):
H two gene um, people who have two copies of
this gene um don't don't become alcoholics as easily as
people who have just one or don't have it at all.
Isn't that weird? That is very weird. And if you
have low neuropeptide y, which is a hormone, well, if
you're a mouse, I should say, you're you're probably not
gonna want the booze as much as your fellow Right. Yeah,
(36:00):
I did find another interesting one too about relapse rates.
They've even kind of pegged it down to that level.
They found that um a variant of the opioid receptor
gene A s P forty, you have a lower rate
of relapse with alcoholism if you have the A s
N forty by so even if you try to quit,
(36:22):
certain genes will say you're more likely to relapse than others.
So just give up. Yeah, exactly. Speaking of relapse, there
was some interesting tibet tibit to bat interesting tibet that
we left out about heroin relapse. In two thousand and four.
Get this, The entrance rate for heroin treatment right in
(36:44):
the US for the fifth time was higher than the
entrance for heroin treatment for the first time. I believe
that isn't that crazy? Yeah, that's it's really heart to kick.
I guess I would think so. But try to try again.
Or go watch train Spotting and never try it in
the first place, yes, Or or watch Sister Act two
(37:08):
while you're high on heroin and I'll bet that does
the same thing. That's a similar fact of trainspining. Ill
bet it's horrific. Back in the habit. Yeah, if you
want to know more about drugs and addiction, in general. UM,
we strongly recommend you read this strangely um prim article
(37:28):
in your career. It's pretty early back then too. It's
called how Addiction Works. You can find it by typing
that into the handy search bar how stiff works dot com.
And while you're doing that, UM, try rehab too interesting one. Yeah,
well we should tackle at some point too. Maybe we will.
Something happened to me throughout this podcast. Since I said
(37:50):
handy search bar, that means, of course it's time for
listener mail. That was the brakes being apply because we
have we have a small bit of administrative detail here
Josh at the onset to plug our our new app
for the iPhone that's coming soon. I'm very very excited
(38:13):
about this. I'm playing with it right now because I
was lucky enough to get a beta version because I
work here, and you can access all of our podcast
video and audio. You can when you click on our
big dumb faces, you can access every single episode we've
ever done. Listen to it right there. The new episodes
pop up automatically. Uh. You can go to our blog
(38:33):
through there, you can go to Facebook and Twitter. Through there,
you can watch our video podcast from our our stuff
they don't want you to know and cool stuff on
the planet. Or you can just go back and stare
at our faces all day too. You can do that
if you want. It's also got a huge, huge repository
of articles from the website how Stuffworks dot com. Yeah,
(38:56):
and they're broken down and um their chapters as well.
They're it's really easy to now the gate like we
created a new way to access the site and all
of the related content for the iPhone, like for a
mobile system. Yeah. They I mean they they did an
awesome job with the design. I was like, I don't
I wouldn't sure at first, but it looks really really
awesome and it's like you said, it's easy to work
(39:17):
and free. Yes, I'm very excited. I can finally go
to sleep when this thing finally comes out. So looking
forward to it. And no more excuses about not being
able to listen to our show, because if you get
the app, you will always be able to listen to
the show exactly. So you can just to enter the
app store on your iPhone or go into it the
iTunes and download the House Stuff Works iPhone app free
(39:38):
of charge. Got us now back to our regularly scheduled
program right then, I'm gonna call this an update from
Sarah the amazing thirteen year old fans Awesome. Yeah, I
saw that yesterday. You know. My goal is to eventually
do this podcast through graduation for Sarah, and we just
have updates from her from the age of eleven to eighteen.
(40:01):
That's Michael, I wrote her back. They did Jerry, did you?
She did not? It's all right. This is from Sarah. Hey, guys,
Chucker's Josh, Jerry and Frank the Chair. I haven't chatted
with you in a while, so I'm gonna tell y'all
what's been going on in my world. School started about
two months ago, and believe it or not, I actually
(40:22):
like it. Since I'm in the eighth grade now, I
feel like no one looks down to me. They didn't
really anyway, since I'm five ft eight, she's okay, crazy,
she's eight, She's like almost as all as I am. Uh.
This school year will be full of fine arts, which
are my favorite enquired drama. We have been working on
Susical Jr. Which is a musical based work. Uh musical
(40:43):
based on the works of Dr Seuss. I'm having a
ball in that class. I get the act, sing and
dance three of my favorite things. By the way, y'all
are my favorites. Uh, y'all are on my favorite list too.
In honor of this unique musical, I was wondering if
you guys and gal would consider doing a podcast on theater. Guys,
we a a doctor Dr Seuss, So I when I
wrote it back, I was like, I'll have to run
(41:03):
this boy Chuck see what he thinks about it. But
I'm totally down with that. Well, we covered him on
the webcast, I know, and he was just I mean,
I love I loved him anyway, but once he really
got into his history, he was pretty awesome. So you
want to Yeah, let's do it for sure. Uh. In school,
we have a cooking class. In our first class, we
made a meal. We have about ten students in this class,
so we split off into three groups. One group, not mine,
(41:26):
was assigned to make cookies. They made the batter, but
messed up and put a quarter cups of salt in
the cookies instead of a teaspoon of salt. That's so crazy.
The girls baked the cookies and when the teacher tried them,
she came up with a brilliant idea we should give
them to the eighth grade boys. Let's just say the
look on their faces was really hard to describe. It
(41:46):
was hilarious watching the boys run to the water fountain.
I can't think of anything else to say. Thanks for
reading from Sarah, the now amazing thirteen year old fans
who started out as the amazing eleven year old fan. Yeah,
that means I'm almost the amazing forty year old podcaster.
So I'm reading this book called the Consumer republic Um,
and I just found out did you know that home
(42:08):
at classes are the earnest result of the consumer empowerment
movement of the depression? Really? Yeah? Did you take commack? Yeah? Yeah,
me too. It was one of my favorite classes. Actually,
it's like, wow, this classroom looks like a house. Yeah.
I like that, and we kind of just get to
cut up and make cookies and eat them exactly. Did
(42:30):
you take shop? I took that one too. I was
much more intimidated in that class. Like wood shop. Yeah, yeah,
we didn't have Some schools have a car shop. We
never had that de chol in that we had when
I never took it. Auto shop. Yeah, those kids could
take a car apart and put it back together. I
wish I would have ye. I wonder how much more
I would have liked shop. Had I been as comfortable
(42:53):
then as I am now around people missing a finger,
I could have been a changed person. I got nothing else. Well,
if you have a story about losing a finger, we
want to hear it. It better be for real, though,
none of this loop Vegas stuff. Uh wrap it up
in an email and ship it post haste to stuff
(43:14):
podcast at how stuff works dot com. For more on
this and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff
works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check out
our blogs on the house. Stuff works dot com home page.
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
(43:36):
It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
from House toff works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast on Josh Clark. There's Charles w Chuck Tryan Bryant,
(00:21):
Chucky Chuckles, Chuck's Chuck Star whatever, Chutrean's new. I had
a I had something that I was working on in
my head, but it got pushed up by the eight
million other things that I have to keep in my
working memory. Another Nicknamer. There's a good one too. I
think it was gonna it was really gonna knock everyone's
socks off. Chuckolate. No, l Yeah, she's getting she's getting
(00:47):
a lot freer with the last these days. Huh. Either
or she's moving her chair closer and closer, or she's
on L O L cats right now or just not
she's name listening? Yeah, um, Chuck, Yes, we're talking about
addiction today. That's right. Do you remember in the Science
Phasing Out Sleep podcast, which strangely enough comes out today
on the day we're recording it, but this will be
(01:09):
released like five weeks later, you talked about recording this. Yeah,
we talked about doing addiction and lo and behold here
it is so really if you think about it, we
are on track in real time, but in podcast released
publishing time, it seems like there's a big lag. But
we're giving people what they want, right, that's right, addiction
(01:30):
or what we want. Did you like this article? Yeah?
Did you know that there are many stories about addiction
in our society today? Yeah? When this is like the
most rigid article of mine you've ever read? Oh you
wrote this? Yes, I'm just kidding, dude. It was. Um.
I went back when I read it. I was like,
it was very scientific sounding, like you. It could have
been on the National Institutes of Health website, and it
(01:53):
was very bland. And there was one thing I remember
going back reading, I didn't pull the trigger on Um,
we're talking about addiction and researching it, uh, compared to
our views of addiction, like even twenty thirty years ago,
like in the eighties. God, can you believe that was
like thirty years ago? Night? Um, that whole Nancy Reagan
(02:15):
just Say No campaign scared the Bejesus out of a
lot of people, but it also had a very negative
impact as well, and that it's so grossly overexaggerated the
effects and the addictiveness of drugs, that for kids who
were I guess gutsy enough to go ahead and try
the drugs that they've been warned against. Once they tried
(02:38):
them and found out that they weren't you know, they
didn't turn into like a donkey, uh as Nancy Reagan
told them they would. Then UM, they were like, well,
I wonder what other drugs are gonna do? You know,
they get a little more bold and courageous. So what
are you saying that they just say No to drugs
campaign may have had the reverse effect on people who
actually tried drugs. They and it's not just me saying that,
(03:02):
there's a lot of there's a lot of consensus in
the addiction UM field, which is you know, multidiscipline UM
that this just say no campaign or any campaign that
overexaggerates the effects of drugs and deviates from a straight
science based reporting of what uh addictive substances can do
(03:22):
to you UM can have a negative impact. Well, you
you think we would have learned our lesson from refer
madness back in the day. You would definitely think so,
you know, that whole dope fine thing Chuck. It's funny
that you bring up refer madness and the dope fine thing,
because that was the way for a period that people
(03:42):
looked at addicts. It was a major character flaw, right,
But before that it was just no big deal. Well,
there was no such thing as addiction up until like
the late eighteenth century. It was called how Things are Exactly?
Did you see that little thing I sent you about
the the funeral of a Boston minister's wife in sixteen
seventy year? I didn't get a chance to read it,
(04:04):
was it. So there's this really cool paper if you
ever have some time to kill, which you know you
never ever ever do. But it's a thirty two pager
by a guy named Harry g. Levine called The Discovery
of Addiction colon Changing Conceptions of Habitual Drunkenness in America.
It sounds really boring. I think it's like ninety eight.
But um this guy is tracing the history of addiction
(04:25):
and he's saying, like, prior to the eighteenth century, the
end of the eighteenth century, there was no such thing
like people drank because they wanted to get drunk, right. Um,
So in sixteen seventy eight, people in America drank their
faces off Chuck e. G. At the funeral of a
Boston minister's wife, mourners consumed fifty one and a half
gallons of wine. And think how many could there be.
(04:49):
It's sixteen seventy eight in Boston. It's like fifty people
who aren't like Native American in in the continental United
States or what would become Well, maybe there were fifty
one and a half people and they drank he so uh.
And then at the ordination not a funeral, an ordination
of Reverend Edwin Jackson of Woburn, Massachusetts, guests drink six
and a half barrels of cider, twenty five gallons of wine,
(05:12):
two gallons of brandy, and four gallons of rome. Yeah,
and that was just for the guy becoming a minister.
You know, our Boston listeners right now, we're like that's right.
They're like, well, that's wicked awesome. So and then in
the eighteenth century there was everybody's just drink and drink
and drinking for fun. Then the eighteenth century some people
are like, you know what, I kind of have to
(05:34):
have four gallons of brandy help me. And then we
started to get this idea that there was such thing
as addiction, but it wasn't the person. It was on
the substance, right, Yeah, it's the absinthe or the opium.
You know, those were like the drugs of choice back
in the day. That's the problem. Those things are evil
and they're bad, right And um, Actually, opium addiction was
(05:57):
so widespread. Did you see that little sidebar at not
opium addiction. Opium was everywhere, right, like you could get
it in any kind of tincture, tonic for any kind
of malady whatsoever. Um. And so many middle aged women
became hooked on morphine and opium that it was seen
in the late nineteenth century as a woman's problem p
(06:20):
MS or menopause. Interesting, that's how people viewed addiction for
a while. But it went from the substance to the person.
The character flawed, the dope fiend. Right. I thought it
went from the person to the substance. No, it went
from this I'm sorry, the substance to the person. So
it went from it's the problem of the substance to
the problem of the person. It's a character flaw, their
dope fiend. And then finally we arrive at the idea
(06:42):
that addiction is um a disease, a chronic disease, and
the person who is addicted is a sufferer, not a fiend.
That's where we are now for the most part. But
we still don't fully understand addiction. We have a pretty
good view of it, right, I feel like a lot
of things with the human body we explained, we always
(07:03):
lead in with like they sort of know, but they
sort of don't. Well, it's that it's that point where
all the pieces are on the table, we just haven't
put them all together. Remember, do you know why, Josh? Why?
Because the human body is a miracle. It's a big,
mysterious miracle. I mean when you think about it, really
about all the things going on in the brain and
the body, and the fact that you know it's wrapped
(07:24):
up in bones and skin. That sounds like intelligent design
to me. Well, there you have it. Have Do you
remember your theory of what happened to the Neanderthals? Uh?
Didn't they say they froze? I got thirsty. Yeah, they
got hot and thirsty and they died. Alright, Chuck, I
stand by that. So the whole point of addiction is
(07:44):
it hijacks the brains reward system, right, Yeah, the limbic system,
And that's exactly what it does. Josh. When you are
you know, born, and you're a human being, you learned
very quickly that you know you have to survive by
eating and sleeping and taking care of yourself. And that's
because it triggers the limbic system into shooting a little
(08:05):
dopamine out and your body says, hey, I like that,
I need to do that again. And that's what drugs do,
except they do it two to ten times as much,
and it's it's fault. It's fake. Dopa means like the
doggy treat of anything with the brain. Yeah, So if
you can get ten doggie treats yeah, immediately instead of
(08:25):
the one, then you take it. And then your brain says, boy,
this is great. I could get used to this. And
it does, right, And since we learn, we're pretty much
hardwired to learn from that release of dopamine to repeat
that behavior like reproduce or exercise or eat. Um. We
if we're getting ten times that amount, we pick it
(08:46):
up even quicker, like, Okay, well this crack cocaine makes
me feel really good, so I'm gonna try that. We
need it more and when it goes away, it makes
things a lot worse than just um sleepy because I
didn't get enough sleep. Well, we should say also that UM.
The current view of addiction, the brain disease model, right,
(09:06):
UM states that just because you try something doesn't mean
you're going to become addicted. The process or addiction is
a process, and a person goes from a user, crosses
a threshold at some point, uh, and becomes an addict.
So a user and an addict, they're not synonymous. They
exist on two different parts of the spectrum of addiction
(09:27):
or spectrum of substance use interviews. Right used to be
assess that those are the two different words. Right, So, uh,
well you summed up the UM. I guess the way
that addiction works pretty succinctly chucked. Well, it becomes physically addictive. Basically,
you develop a dependency on this shot of dopamine, this
huge shot of dopamine, and your body needs it all
(09:49):
of a sudden sudden, and you you know, you lose control. Right,
And we should say that UM drugs generally, like all
drugs of addiction, UM hijack the reward system. We talked
about other drugs. I can't remember in some other podcasts
that don't necessarily work the dopamine. Therefore, if they don't
necessarily produce addictive properties, right, Um, but those that do
(10:14):
hijack dopamine transmitters, they either stimulate dopaminees release and or
they bind to dopamine receptors and prevent its reuptake. Right,
So you've got a bunch of dopamine release and you've
got a bunch of its staying in between your synapses longer,
and then, like you said, you become dependent on that.
(10:35):
You want that feeling, Well, your brain does without even
if you don't even know this is going on, your
brain is saying to your body, you need to go
out and get more of that because that was really awesome. Right,
Because your reward system is uh, it's it's there to
motivate us to do stuff or to or to do stuff.
That's the reward system. So yeah, like you said, um,
(10:57):
your your priorities become prioritized and drugs get to be
four or whatever that substance or behavior is. Right. Well, yeah,
you always hear um. Like the hardcore abusers of heroin
or cocaine, it literally they say it overtakes your life.
To where your job is to every day get the
(11:18):
money that you can find the draw and find the
drugs so you can use the drugs. It's a full
time deal. And so you've got you've got the hangover withdrawal.
That's where your dopamine UM. Basically your brains like, Okay,
I've sense that something artificial is going on, so I'm
going to stop producing as much and you're gonna have
to go through a horrible little period. That's the withdrawal
(11:39):
or hangover. Right. Then you've got physical dependency and at
at about this point you've crossed over into addictive. Being
an addict, you're not a user anymore. Once you have
physical dependency UM. And that's where because your brain is
not producing that dopamine naturally any longer, and you write
the withdrawal or the hangover so bad that you can't
(12:00):
stand it, you will do more. And at that point
you're like Crusty the clown with moon rocks. You're just
getting back to normal, you know. Now you're physically dependent.
That's like, that's the key. I'm not sure if that's
getting through to all, because I can picture people out
there looking concerned and bewildered. Right now, your brain actually
stops producing dopamine if it's getting it, you know, an
(12:21):
unnatural way, because you know, I don't even make it anymore,
but there's enough of it out there floating around, all right.
It's just so messed up. You're literally tricking your brain
into doing something that it should be doing naturally. Right,
And that's why with a lot of drugs, getting high,
getting that high, Uh, it's harder and harder, and harder
and harder, sure well or easier. There's that flip side
to which I thought was interesting. It is, and I
(12:42):
don't fully understand it. I don't. I don't feel bad
because I don't think science fully understands it either. But
that's two symptoms of physical addiction. Um. Either you need
more to get high, or you need far less than
you ever did before. I would think if you're an attitude,
you'd want to use the second one. You'd be like, man,
I can get high of two dollars worth the heroin
like I used to need. Unfortunately, don't get that choice though,
(13:05):
UM now because of this, because your brain has been
basically hijacked by this drug, and I hate I guess
we probably shouldn't anthropomorphize drugs, not actually hijacking anything, but
because your brain's reward system has been reprioritized to serve
this drug. Um, the whole point of treating addiction. And
(13:28):
I actually wrote a companion article on this how rehab works.
That's pretty interesting. Um, was that based on your experience
and rehab? Uh? No, no, no, not true. Um, the
point of treating addiction is in most cases to just
completely discontinue use, which is called abstinence. Right, Yeah, for
most all addiction. Abstinence is the way to go for
(13:49):
of course, like eating addictions and stuff like that. Right.
And sex addiction. Yeah, they don't want you to never
have sex again. No, because I have a problem with
sex addiction. Okay, I have a problem, But I have
a problem with everyone saying all these athletes are sex
addicts because they cheat their wise. Oh yeah, I would
think that's probably the most exploited addiction of Sure, Josh,
(14:09):
we're talking about addiction. What are some of these symptoms
of addiction? How do you know if you're an addict? Well,
there's two types that there's physical and behavioral. And I
should say those two types are specific to substances of abuse, right,
you can have and or physical or behavioral if you're
doing like coke or heroin or drinking with behavior behavioral
(14:34):
addictions behaviors, it's just behavioral. But that doesn't mean it's
any less addictive. That doesn't any less addictive or harmful
to you, know your life. Right, But we said one
of the one of the physical symptoms is that you
either need more or less of the drug. Right, that's right. Um,
that's a physical symptoms. Then there's a lot of stuff
that you could easily guess, um, trouble sleeping, sweating, hand
(15:00):
amer's nausea, physical agitation, that's if you don't have the
substance in your body. Right, those are the withdrawal. Basically,
your body's telling you, like, go do more because we
don't feel good right now. And you get that from
everything from alcohol to uh cigarettes to caffeine. Caffeine headaches
are supposed to be pretty bad, right. I've heard, like,
(15:21):
I've heard people that try to kick diet coke. It
can be pretty awful. I've um, I've had caffeine headaches before.
They're not that bad, but I have heard of people
who really suffer from them. Yeah. Um, so the physical,
the physical stuff. Really it's using more or less or
just using to get back to normal. That's physical addiction.
(15:42):
And then you know, anything that that happens to your
body as a result of using your abusing a drug,
that's physical behavioral, which is also called psychological symptoms. UM
is the stuff that happens to your life basically, Well,
it's um. You may have tried to quit doing whatever
this behavior is, whether it's gambling or overeating or sex,
(16:05):
and uh, you're not able to. So that's one of
the traits. So you're not gonna have much success there,
or maybe you spend more time doing it where to
the point where it's like you know, you might lose
your job or go broke or something like that. Those
are all behavioral traits. What else, well, you um, basically,
you're still using this stuff even though you know it's
(16:27):
having a harmful impact on you or your life for others.
Or you might stop doing stuff that's good for you,
Like it used to be a jogger, but then my
sex addiction became so great. Don't even jog anymore. Now,
just have sex all the time and play professional football.
Um and chuck. Because of this, this brain disease model
(16:47):
that we talked about, because these of these symptoms um.
The view of addiction as it stands today, the most
widely held model is the brain disease model, and the
basis of that is that addiction is a chronic disease. Right,
So as such, just like say asthma or tuberculosis or whatever,
you're gonna have flare ups relapse, right, Yeah, it's relapse
(17:12):
with addiction. And so if you go into treatment, you
need to have like booster sessions as well. After you're
cured or clean or whatever. Well, yeah, that's just the
sort of the basis of a right. You still gotta
go those meetings, right, which is why I think it's
so radically successful. And the LSD and the coffee, right,
that should be out by now, I think otherwise people
(17:33):
can go what I need to get to A I
had a a a joke, but I'm not gonna tell it.
That's a good chuck. We've both grown up so much,
haven't we, Yes, in the past thirty minutes. Uh, what
else we got here, josh Um Behavioral psychologists, they used
to think that, I thought this was really interesting. They
(17:53):
sort of understand addiction a little bit, but they used
to think that if you just tried drugs in the
first place, drugs or alcohol or any kind of addictive substance,
then there was just something wrong with you. But there's
actually genetic basis for even that, not even whether or
not you get addicted, but whether you try it to
begin with. Well, yeah, it's not just that, Like genetics
is one of a number of risk factors. There's also
(18:14):
like your susceptibility to peer pressure, your feelings of self
worth at that moment or at that period in your life. Um,
there are like if you have anxiety or depression that's
been shown to increase the likelihood that you're going to
try drugs. Um. So it's not just like a kid's
like I'll try this, let's see what happens. Uh That
(18:37):
that's how they used to see it. Now they see
it as like, no, there's some there's some other uh
comorbid factors going on. It's both nature and nurture. So,
like a good example would be like, um, if you
start having sex to increase your sense of self worth,
that could lead to a sex addiction. That that low
self esteem would be a risk factor that led you
(18:58):
into your sexy right or if you're depressed and you
just self medicate, right, or if you try drugs and
you're like, wow, I really really like these, that's another
one for sure. Right. So we were talking about UM
physical and behavioral symptoms, right, UM again, under the current
brain disease model of addiction, UM, the the basically the
(19:19):
double whammy is UM psychological dependence, right, because it has
not only an effect on the person, it has effect
on the society as well. So like the person's life
can be ruined by addiction, but they may also commit
crime to feed their addiction, or their break up their
(19:42):
family on a personal level, or both, or commit violence
the worst, the worst one is psychological or behavioral, which
makes both substances of abuse and compulsive behaviors addictive behaviors
UM equally bad. Well yeah, and what that means is
is you can't say you can't be one of these hardliners.
(20:04):
It just says, you know, if someone wants to go
out and kill themselves on dope, then that's their business, right. Well, yeah,
because there's a lot of other things going on. It's
a great argument against it, but their impacts. Right, But
it's prohibition. The answer, It certainly wasn't what alcohol was
it's not work. You know why, because no one stopped drinking.
Profiction didn't really go over too well. So, Chuck, you
(20:25):
want to talk about some specific drugs and behaviors that
people get addicted to. You. Yeah, we've talked about meth
a little bit and what a stupid thing that is
to try. Right, What what was that in our big
anti meth rant I think it was when we did
the meth Labs crime scene clean up. Meth ampheta means um,
the good news is the US is going down. It
(20:46):
looks like yeah, which surprises me. I would have thought
it would be steady or still going up. Well, maybe
people aren't starting to realize that. It's not very smart.
But they actually study brain patterns Josh of long term
meth users, and they they found that up to of
their dopamine producing cells were damaged or just shot. Yeah,
(21:08):
so you literally, I mean, I don't know if they
can regenerate you. That remains to be seen. Remember there's
that whole study on m D m A that got
it out law in the first place, about serotonin levels
being able to regenerate. I don't know. I don't I
don't think anybody knows yet. If we're capable of doing that,
We've not been studying it long enough. I think, just
let's get some stats going to while we're doing these.
(21:29):
But yeah, I was gonna say, Um, what's what's um
encouraging about meth prevalence is that it's cut in half. Uh,
people who have used it in the past month. UM
has gone down from seven one thousand and two thousand
six and this is in the US to thousand and
(21:50):
two thousand eight. That's half of what it was. Yeah,
that's great, that's significant in two years that kind of dropped.
So yeah, I would say that the anti meth campaigns
are working, but they're all dying. Yeah, which is possible. Uh,
what's next. Prescription drugs? Now, those are on the rise. Yeah.
They're probably the most abused drug in the United States
(22:12):
because everybody's on them. There's a huge problem with the
elderly population basically getting hooked on meds. There's a huge
problem with the adolescent population basically getting hooked on their
grandparents meds. UM, and there's been a fourfold increase in
people checking into rehab who are on prescription medications uh
(22:33):
within the century, within the first decade, four four times
as many as there were before UM and in right,
two point two percent of people seeking treatment for any
kind of drugs were on prescription drugs, Josh. Also with
the scripts as I like to call them, prescription drugs.
(22:56):
Two point two percent of people seeking treatment UM reported
of using the pain releavers, and in two thousand eight,
ten years later, ten reported abuse. Right, And that's just
among people who are seeking treatment. I mean, I can
supposedly need it. Yeah. I think one of the reasons
why prescription drugs are so abused is because they're legal
(23:16):
technically and they're socially accepted in a lot of ways.
Oh yeah, totally. You know, people don't look at him
as like a blanket drug. They look at him as
all these different little drugs, you know. Yeah, I mean
Robert Downey Jr. Used heroin, so he was, you know,
this lawless scoundrel. But Chandler being gets hooked on back
(23:38):
pills because he had a bad back, and it's yeah,
it's sort of dismissed. Yeah, you know, Jodie Foster said
she would never work with Robert Downey Jr. Again after
UM home for the holidays. Was he messed up during that? Yeah,
that was right in the middle of it. Yeah, that's
a good movie. That's a shame, is it? I never thought. Yeah,
that's it's good. It's a Thanksgiving movie. You should run
it for Thanksgiving. Speaking of heroin, right, Yes, um, apparently
(24:02):
is a lot more specially acceptable than it was before.
But it's still pretty much like a junkie is a
junkie in the US, nobody's like, oh, it's just a junkie.
It's like he's a junkie. That's kind of a huge deal. Well,
the twenty they say that of people who try heroin
become dependent on it, so that's pretty substantial. Yeah, that's
(24:23):
about a quarter. But at the same time, it's surprising
though if you were raised in the eighties, because you
would think that a hundred and eight percent of people
who try heroin become hooked on it. Yeah. I remember
the one big one that they used to say is
you if you try heroin just once, you're physically addicted
to it. Yeah, that was one of the big campaigns.
Same with crack. They said the same thing about crackers.
(24:44):
You try one time and you're addicted. Um. The in
the US there's actually been something of an increase from
two thousand seven to two thousand eight, according to the
National Survey and Drug Use in Health UM from a
hundred and fifty three thousand people aged twelve and o
older in the US who said that they've used heroin
in the past month to UH two d and thirteen
(25:05):
thousand and two thousand eight, So there has been I
guess that is substantial, especially if you look at the
population of heroin users that tiny amount, that's kind of yeah,
that's a big increase. Actually, now I think about it,
you got cocaine and crack Josh. From two thousand two
to two thousand eight, rates of past month cocaine use
(25:27):
among kids declined from point six to point four percent,
which is good, and it also dropped among young adults
eighteen to twenty five, So it seems like those drugs
are sort of on the wane a little bit. Yeah,
And and again, if you look at myth prescription drugs,
will pain killers, especially heroin, coke, crack, All of these
(25:49):
um have an effect of targeting your reward center, producing
that high, and you're learning to repeat this behavior right again.
This can also happen very strongly among compulsive behaviors like
sex addiction and Chuck, before you go off on sex addiction,
let's say that, Um, according to the National Association of
(26:12):
Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity, Uh, the n A s a C. Obviously, Um,
there's about three to six percent of the American population
that suffers from sex addiction, right from Yeah, which is
the real compulsive behavior that's diagnosed. So chuck, sex addiction, Go, well,
I don't clearly that there is such a thing, but
(26:34):
it's just so overused. Like you said, you know, Jesse
James is a sex addict. It's just these are men
of privilege, is what it is. Tiger Woods, Jesse James,
Brett Farve. They're guys that are in the position that
they can have sex with whoever they want, whenever they want,
and a lot of guys will take the opportunity to
do it. Doesn't mean they're sex addicts. And like you
said earlier, or we may have even cut it out,
(26:56):
I think the bad thing that it does is that
it gives them sort of a free pass because they're
just helpless to it. Yeah, yeah, it is really, I
mean basically it's uh, it seems like a defense for
poor character and like, yeah, exactly unless all these guys
are in that three to six p right. And again,
I think I'm sure that there is like an actual
(27:18):
sexual addiction, right. Vigo Mortenson had it in twenty eight
days for three to six percent of the people, right. So,
But and that's sad that there's probably a lot of
people out there who need help or who actually are
sex addics, and people just don't believe them because it's
like you're full of it. I don't believe Brett Farve either,
and as Brett Farve is. But and the other thing
(27:41):
with sex addiction too that we should point out is that,
like many addictions, it's not even about the sex anymore.
And apparently once you are a sex addic, you're not
even getting the enjoyment out of it anymore. Yeah, which sucks,
I would say. So, so I think, like we said
that the point of sex treatment sex addiction treat mint
uh is to restore the person back to a point
(28:05):
where they can enjoy sex without being addicted to it.
So it's not abstinence, it's having a healthy sex life. Right.
And the same goes with binge eating disorders, which is
about one to three percent of people have a bene
eating in the general population. If you're obese or you
seek weight loss treatment or help with eating. The population
(28:26):
is far higher. About a quarter of people who are
obese and seek professional help for it have binge eating disorder.
And it's pretty much what it sounds like. It's like
binging and purging, which is bulimia, but without the purging part,
right right, binging and binging? Yes, and Uh. Gambling, Josh,
(28:48):
is another compulsive behavior that I think has risen since
Internet gambling has become more accessible. And another name for
gambling compulsion is ludamania. Really ludamania. Yeah. Interesting. Fifteen million
people they say display some sign of gambling addiction? Is
that in the US? I guess yeah. Um, I think
(29:08):
in this article originally I had like eighteen million or
something like that. No, two million, So I guess it's
gone up because it was a recent stat that I
looked up today that you just read. Yeah, And I
actually looked up one day that said two point five
million people are gambling addicts. So there may be a
variation between a gambling addict and people who display some
sign of gambling addictions. I guess so, alcohol, Josh, we
(29:29):
haven't even talked about that yet. Uh. No, we haven't.
I got some stats for you, and these are staggering
because alcohol is the one. I mean, most of these
other things we talked about, aside from the prescription drugs,
are illicit drugs that you have to you know, get illegally.
But alcohol is the one that you can buy at
the corner store, and not surprisingly, it's the biggest problem. Yeah,
(29:50):
I'm glad you found this too, because I had trouble
finding some stats. So lay them, mom me stringing. Oh,
forty of us adults have had someone related to them
who was presently or was an alcoholic. That crazy. It
sounds a lot like the kid who says that you
wouldn't know his girlfriend because he met her at camp
and she lives in Canada. That sounds like that kind
(30:10):
of staff, does it? Three million U S citizens older
than sixty abuse of alcohol are require it to function normally,
and that's going up. Um. You mentioned that your grandparents
prescription drugs. Grandparents are like the baby boomers now, so
as the baby baby boomers have aged into quote unquote
the elderly range, a lot of them are still alcoholics
(30:32):
and pill addics, and you know, more so than their
parents generation was or were ye, what else you got
any more on alcohol? Yeah, I have a couple of
I mean, you've got a bunch of good ones from
seeing which ones are good. Um, men are three times
more likely to be alcoholics and women. Wow, did you
know that? It's kind of surprising. And if you are
(30:54):
happily married you only have an eight point nine percent chance,
whereas if you are single or have a bad marriage,
you're thirty more likely to become an alcoholic. I can
see that, especially if men are three times more likely
to be an alcoholic. I could see somebody's wife saying, like,
you need to stop drinking as much exactly. And I've
got one more, really sad one. Um, five hundred thousand
(31:18):
children age nine to twelve are alcoholics in this country.
They called them the party kids. That really so sad.
I always forget about Drew Barrymore. Remember her little She
was an outlier? You think so? Yes, she was. She
was again Nancy Reagan eighties. She was the poster child
(31:39):
for Nancy Reagan's just Say No Campa. But she was
drinking and doing cocaine. Yeah, and she was like the
only kid who was in America who was doing those things. Okay,
I thought you meant that, and it was like eight
Actually I think that she was doing coking. I thought
you meant that her story was exaggerated. No, I'm just
saying like like like on a graph, she's like way
out here. Yeah, well you always for it about that
(32:00):
now though, with her, because that was so she's definitely
cleaned up. Well, she's cleaned up, and I think she
can go out and have a good time now, I don't.
I think she had her demons when she was a
little kid, which I can't imagine being a kid and
being an alcoholic, you know. You know. That's the second podcast,
and i'd say this month that she's come up. Yeah,
roller derbian this one. UM, so Chuck, you have a
(32:22):
pill addiction one of the Oh, we should also say that, Um,
physicians tend to see alcohol withdrawal as far more dangerous
physically than even heroin withdrawal because of the symptoms it produces. Yeah,
they have pills. You we'll talk about well she talk
about this now, the pills. Yeah. I was gonna say that,
if you have a pill addiction, what's the best way
(32:43):
to treat that with more pills? That's the human answer
to things. Let's throw a pill at it, and there
we actually have come up with some pills to treat
addictive behavior. Yeah right, well, I know. They have one
um called the sulfur Um and it's sold under the
name ant Abus, and that's the one they give you
for alcohol that basically, you take this pill and you
(33:03):
drink even a little bit, and it makes you feel awful, Yeah,
like you you Basically it does the opposite of your
reward circuit, punishes you, and you learn the hard way
not to drink anymore. And apparently you don't get used
to that. So it's not like you can be on
this bill and just kind of fight through it. It
doesn't work that way. There's another one called the now
(33:24):
trek Zone. I found that one too, and that one's
used to treat alcoholism as well. But basically it's just
it's an opioid an antagonist, which means that it doesn't
allow alcohol to give you that inflated sense of self
worth like a gun, does you know? Yeah, I think
most of those. I think most of those are effect
the opiate receptors, right, yeah, but strangely so, then there's
(33:46):
also now maphine that's an opioid antagonist. Just like now
trek zone. So they should both be able to treat alcoholism.
But strangely, now trek zone has shown most miss and
treating alcoholism. Now amphine has been shown has shown the
most promise in treating gambling addictions, even though they're the
(34:07):
same type of drug. Do you know what else they
use that for? What? Shopoholics? Yeah? And I don't know.
I mean I guess that. I think it just cuts
down the thrill, right, yeah, I guess so any sort
of compulsive behavior like that, it looks like it might
target interesting. It is interesting, and then of course you
can just go after the genes, right, Yeah, they're they're
coming a long way and targeting genes. And what they
(34:29):
don't think at this point is that there's like a
single gene that they can find. They think it's probably
a combination of genes. And it's probably also largely epigenetic
as well too. Yeah, well you should explain what that
means again, just in case people didn't listen to that one.
How could they not have if you didn't go listen
to can your grandfather's diet short in your life? Basically? Um,
(34:51):
we've found through epigenetics that it's what makes us us.
Isn't just our parents um genes kind genetic contribution. We
can actually affect the way our genes work, turning them
on and off and amplifying them and um lowering their
their their frequency by the stuff we do, including drugs, drinking,
(35:14):
the way we eat, pretty much everything has an effect. Yeah.
And the other thing too you pointed out, which I
thought was really interesting, is not only are their gene
combinations that make you more susceptible to this, If you're
not susceptible to it, it's not like you just are
lacking those genes, are actually genes that make you less
susceptible to addiction. Right, So, like the A L D
(35:35):
H two gene um, people who have two copies of
this gene um don't don't become alcoholics as easily as
people who have just one or don't have it at all.
Isn't that weird? That is very weird. And if you
have low neuropeptide y, which is a hormone, well, if
you're a mouse, I should say, you're you're probably not
gonna want the booze as much as your fellow Right. Yeah,
(36:00):
I did find another interesting one too about relapse rates.
They've even kind of pegged it down to that level.
They found that um a variant of the opioid receptor
gene A s P forty, you have a lower rate
of relapse with alcoholism if you have the A s
N forty by so even if you try to quit,
(36:22):
certain genes will say you're more likely to relapse than others.
So just give up. Yeah, exactly. Speaking of relapse, there
was some interesting tibet tibit to bat interesting tibet that
we left out about heroin relapse. In two thousand and four.
Get this, The entrance rate for heroin treatment right in
(36:44):
the US for the fifth time was higher than the
entrance for heroin treatment for the first time. I believe
that isn't that crazy? Yeah, that's it's really heart to kick.
I guess I would think so. But try to try again.
Or go watch train Spotting and never try it in
the first place, yes, Or or watch Sister Act two
(37:08):
while you're high on heroin and I'll bet that does
the same thing. That's a similar fact of trainspining. Ill
bet it's horrific. Back in the habit. Yeah, if you
want to know more about drugs and addiction, in general. UM,
we strongly recommend you read this strangely um prim article
(37:28):
in your career. It's pretty early back then too. It's
called how Addiction Works. You can find it by typing
that into the handy search bar how stiff works dot com.
And while you're doing that, UM, try rehab too interesting one. Yeah,
well we should tackle at some point too. Maybe we will.
Something happened to me throughout this podcast. Since I said
(37:50):
handy search bar, that means, of course it's time for
listener mail. That was the brakes being apply because we
have we have a small bit of administrative detail here
Josh at the onset to plug our our new app
for the iPhone that's coming soon. I'm very very excited
(38:13):
about this. I'm playing with it right now because I
was lucky enough to get a beta version because I
work here, and you can access all of our podcast
video and audio. You can when you click on our
big dumb faces, you can access every single episode we've
ever done. Listen to it right there. The new episodes
pop up automatically. Uh. You can go to our blog
(38:33):
through there, you can go to Facebook and Twitter. Through there,
you can watch our video podcast from our our stuff
they don't want you to know and cool stuff on
the planet. Or you can just go back and stare
at our faces all day too. You can do that
if you want. It's also got a huge, huge repository
of articles from the website how Stuffworks dot com. Yeah,
(38:56):
and they're broken down and um their chapters as well.
They're it's really easy to now the gate like we
created a new way to access the site and all
of the related content for the iPhone, like for a
mobile system. Yeah. They I mean they they did an
awesome job with the design. I was like, I don't
I wouldn't sure at first, but it looks really really
awesome and it's like you said, it's easy to work
(39:17):
and free. Yes, I'm very excited. I can finally go
to sleep when this thing finally comes out. So looking
forward to it. And no more excuses about not being
able to listen to our show, because if you get
the app, you will always be able to listen to
the show exactly. So you can just to enter the
app store on your iPhone or go into it the
iTunes and download the House Stuff Works iPhone app free
(39:38):
of charge. Got us now back to our regularly scheduled
program right then, I'm gonna call this an update from
Sarah the amazing thirteen year old fans Awesome. Yeah, I
saw that yesterday. You know. My goal is to eventually
do this podcast through graduation for Sarah, and we just
have updates from her from the age of eleven to eighteen.
(40:01):
That's Michael, I wrote her back. They did Jerry, did you?
She did not? It's all right. This is from Sarah. Hey, guys,
Chucker's Josh, Jerry and Frank the Chair. I haven't chatted
with you in a while, so I'm gonna tell y'all
what's been going on in my world. School started about
two months ago, and believe it or not, I actually
(40:22):
like it. Since I'm in the eighth grade now, I
feel like no one looks down to me. They didn't
really anyway, since I'm five ft eight, she's okay, crazy,
she's eight, She's like almost as all as I am. Uh.
This school year will be full of fine arts, which
are my favorite enquired drama. We have been working on
Susical Jr. Which is a musical based work. Uh musical
(40:43):
based on the works of Dr Seuss. I'm having a
ball in that class. I get the act, sing and
dance three of my favorite things. By the way, y'all
are my favorites. Uh, y'all are on my favorite list too.
In honor of this unique musical, I was wondering if
you guys and gal would consider doing a podcast on theater. Guys,
we a a doctor Dr Seuss, So I when I
wrote it back, I was like, I'll have to run
(41:03):
this boy Chuck see what he thinks about it. But
I'm totally down with that. Well, we covered him on
the webcast, I know, and he was just I mean,
I love I loved him anyway, but once he really
got into his history, he was pretty awesome. So you
want to Yeah, let's do it for sure. Uh. In school,
we have a cooking class. In our first class, we
made a meal. We have about ten students in this class,
so we split off into three groups. One group, not mine,
(41:26):
was assigned to make cookies. They made the batter, but
messed up and put a quarter cups of salt in
the cookies instead of a teaspoon of salt. That's so crazy.
The girls baked the cookies and when the teacher tried them,
she came up with a brilliant idea we should give
them to the eighth grade boys. Let's just say the
look on their faces was really hard to describe. It
(41:46):
was hilarious watching the boys run to the water fountain.
I can't think of anything else to say. Thanks for
reading from Sarah, the now amazing thirteen year old fans
who started out as the amazing eleven year old fan. Yeah,
that means I'm almost the amazing forty year old podcaster.
So I'm reading this book called the Consumer republic Um,
and I just found out did you know that home
(42:08):
at classes are the earnest result of the consumer empowerment
movement of the depression? Really? Yeah? Did you take commack? Yeah? Yeah,
me too. It was one of my favorite classes. Actually,
it's like, wow, this classroom looks like a house. Yeah.
I like that, and we kind of just get to
cut up and make cookies and eat them exactly. Did
(42:30):
you take shop? I took that one too. I was
much more intimidated in that class. Like wood shop. Yeah, yeah,
we didn't have Some schools have a car shop. We
never had that de chol in that we had when
I never took it. Auto shop. Yeah, those kids could
take a car apart and put it back together. I
wish I would have ye. I wonder how much more
I would have liked shop. Had I been as comfortable
(42:53):
then as I am now around people missing a finger,
I could have been a changed person. I got nothing else. Well,
if you have a story about losing a finger, we
want to hear it. It better be for real, though,
none of this loop Vegas stuff. Uh wrap it up
in an email and ship it post haste to stuff
(43:14):
podcast at how stuff works dot com. For more on
this and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff
works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check out
our blogs on the house. Stuff works dot com home page.
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
(43:36):
It's ready, are you
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