Addiction: Why you can't kick SYSK

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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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, 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 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.

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,

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

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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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.

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, 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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, 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 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 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, 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. 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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.

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 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 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, 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. 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 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 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 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.

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 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 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 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 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.

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 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 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 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 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 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, 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

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 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 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 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, 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 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

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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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

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 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 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, 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, 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 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, 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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.

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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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.

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