Brian Posehn: Gentle Giants, Weed, and Dungeons & Dragons

[Music] when did you find kind of the community of of d d uh eighth grade became aware of it and i went to uh the club at my school and uh they did not want me in there so i was even turned down by the dnd kids hi i'm ian bialik and welcome to my breakdown this is the place where we break things down so you don't have to it's mine be alex breakdown she's gonna break it down for you because you know she knows a thing or two so now she's gonna break down so break down she's gonna break it down today we're gonna be breaking down a lot of things regarding the writer actor and comic brian posane you might know brian from the big bang theory uh he played bert the geologist who my character um had some really fun scenes with we we teased him a lot as a geologist on the show before we talk more about the things we're going to talk about with brian poceyne who's really really a fascinating a really fascinating guest um i'd like to introduce you to jonathan cohen the man who makes neurosis look hot hi miam there he goes how you doing just gathering things to be worried about uh jonathan tell people about our website our website is bialikbreakdown.com that's bia oh who's going first now apparently you bia lik breakdown.com where you can ask miam anything anything anything about mental health and well-being which pretty much leaves almost nothing off the table uh also mime is very curious so you can also send us facts and tidbits there and uh she might comment on them i love to comment on things i'm very excited for today's episode yeah it's a really good one brian possain is someone that i got to know really only after knowing him for a couple years uh he's very very um shy he's a very private person those kind of people are always very very interesting to me and so when he came to work on big bang i wanted to know so many things about him we quickly discovered that we were both nerds which is important um i was really the only nerd on the set of the big bang theory until he came along and kevin sussman came along uh john ross bowie's like a different kind of the genre is more of like a a geek he's kind of cooler than me and kevin and brian anyway uh brian and i ended up uh participating in a dungeons and dragons campaign for several years um i've been part of this game with eric kaplan who's the co-executive producer of big bang theory and and kevin sussman and maria ferrari another one of our producers from big bang theory and we had been playing for several years um kind of an early version of of dungeons and dragons called gerps it's such a long nerd ball story anyway we added brian uh in the last couple years and um that's when i really got to see a lot of his kind of comedy genius and and his playfulness and we have kids around the same age and so we would talk about that and and he has a podcast where he just plays d so um we actually have a lot in common and brian's the kind of guy i would have hung out with in in junior high in high school um exactly like he was not like oh the way he is now is you know he's so cool and fun i mean like i really gravitated towards guys like that really since elementary school i was friends with the kid who kind of had a very bright postsaneness to him um and those kind of dudes were always very interesting to me um and indeed brian has a very very interesting story word of the day the word of the day is actually three words of the day they go together cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome very good cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome three times fast cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome cannabinoid hyperemesis cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome still doesn't get clear keep going though tell us what it means this is a good word of the day because one of the things we're going to talk about with brian is um cannabis use and especially how the use of of pot as self-medication has pros and it has cons and especially in this last year um you know exactly the time that you and i formulated this podcast a lot of people have been struggling with ways to make themselves feel better especially in the absence of a lot of the outlets that we usually you know have been able to to have and pot use and drinking has absolutely increased i mean i think just anecdotally you know from the people that i know um that that's absolutely true um cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome is it is not it's not a typical syndrome of all the people who show up in um emergency rooms with copious vomiting which is what hyperemesis is and i think i'm pronouncing it right i mean we could both be wrong um about six percent it's due to repeated pot use you know pot which is actually used to stop nausea especially from from chemotherapy in some people it builds up in their system so that they have copious copious vomiting and abdominal pain it can lead to significant kidney problems now this is not a word of the day so that like i scare people from smoking pot i just think that it's a it's a really it's a beautiful example of how complicated the body is you know and how certain bodies will not react well to chronic use of pot um and and by the same token some people smoke pot and there's you know never show up with this kind of thing but i think what's interesting is that hot showers often make it better um the way that you actually make it go away is to stop smoking and let it literally kind of like leave your body uh but probably the most fascinating statistic which may not even exist for our word of the day is that most people will go back to smoking pot even after having this kind of if you experience it once does that make you more likely or like that's a great question i actually don't know the answer to that but i think it's very similar and then we'll stop talking about depressing things it's very similar to you know people who end up in the hospital for alcohol poisoning or or people who od and end up in the hospital and get another chance at life that's often not people's bottom you know we don't get to decide what someone's bottom i would think if i ended up in the hospital wretching for days and losing weight and constantly vomiting with like crippling pain i'd be like this is not for me like no thank you universe maybe try a different strain try a different strand jonathan it's really a pleasure to welcome brian um to mymbialik's breakdown there's so many things that i want to talk to him about i want to talk to him about dungeons and dragons i want to talk to him about yeah how he got to be the brian that he is i do want to know when he got that tall like was he 10 and that tall was he a giant toddler i want to know we're going to ask him we're going to find out and we're also going to ask him he has been very public about his pot use that is one of the things that he has been public about um and i believe yeah it wasn't it was in you know some of the research that our intern did um that he publicly quit smoking so i'm actually curious about that um so let's bring on my friend the wonderful brian posane break it down hello brian posein how are you okay thank you so much for tolerating me in this space you tolerate me in a lot of spaces you tolerated me on big bang for years uh-huh you tolerate me when we play d and d with eric kaplan i enjoy your company what's not to enjoy okay um well thank you for for being here um i'm going to embarrass you and make my way through your bio because there are people who may know certain things about you but not all you're not only an actor you're a writer and you're a stand-up comic and did stand-up comedy come first yeah that's what i've been doing the longest and that's why i moved to los angeles and you know when did you start doing that uh 1987 i was i was uh 21 years old okay got it okay it was when i could get into a comedy club uh illegally i'd been preparing like i i decided to do it when i was going to college it was around 20 i decided i'm going to do it started writing jokes and then checked in with these comedy clubs and got in like the week i turned 21 i started telling jokes on stage just five years ago just five short years ago yeah yeah um so you had obviously a recurring role in big bang theory which is where i got to meet you you were also the first place i ever saw you was on the comedy central sarah silverman program you were absolutely hilarious and i remember that's actually like you're one of those presences that like i instantly liked you i instantly wanted to know like who's this like just your voice the way you held yourself um very i just i i loved you on that well so you have a podcast yes and you're also involved in deadpool correct yes okay so tell us about both of those things well separately uh yes uh deadpool i wrote for about three and a half years we did uh 45 issues myself and uh jerry duggan who uh now is a marvel writer on his own but he was a pal of mine and we uh we wrote a thing called last christmas for image comics and uh then just became friends with guys at marvel comic-con that's my real thing like i i am an actual nerd uh when i first got to big bang i had to ask around and find who the real nerds were yeah they gravitated towards you but uh but yeah at those i mean that's my favorite thing comic-con was my christmas until uh until covent made it go away but uh i wound up meeting these marvel guys and then we uh we pitched there was a space in deadpool and they needed they needed some riders and we uh pitched a whole year and next thing we knew we did three and a half years but wow and your podcast tell us about that been doing that a while uh nerdpoker first started like in the first wave of podcasts maybe we're a year or two behind everybody else but i've done it for a long time and and uh and it's basically we just play when people came to me and said hey do you want to do a podcast i didn't want to interview my friends and do like the the thing mark maron and you know and those guys were doing i i just wanted to play d and d basically so that's what it is we just record i i've had a a weekly game going for almost 15 years now with this friend this group of friends and we just that became the show is it poker or is it date it's d but i call it nerd poker because to me uh the attraction to d is being with your friends right it's more about it's less about the game and more about this this weekly thing with this this pod of people that really know you and and they get you and you know and we can be ourselves tell us a little bit about young brian um tell us like where you're from and you know thumbnail sketch of like what your folks do how were you raised did you have siblings like who was young brian uh mostly raised by a single mom my dad died when i was two uh raised in northern california uh grew up near stanford uh and then uh and then moved to uh san jose and sonoma the ho as we call it i have family in san jose we call it the house oh nice yes lived in san jose until i was nine don't remember too much about it and then moved it's the same it hasn't changed since like 1972. and then sonoma was this little uh you know tourist town that um wasn't fun to grow up in as the weird kid i just gotten glasses when i moved up there i had been uh you know so i had a vision problem that was diagnosed and hadn't been before and and uh so now i now i had that thing you know and immediately got made fun of and just it yeah it wasn't a wasn't a great experience but that uh i think it had a big part of why i do comedy did you have siblings no just you you and your mom mm-hmm was your mom a creative type uh not really no she uh she was a social worker and was really good at that she worked with developmentally disabled kids up at the the state hospital up there wow well after my dad died she put herself through college she went to san jose state that's why we were there amazing and then uh and then by the time i turned eight or nine she started looking for jobs at different uh state hospitals around california and then we moved up there was your dad a creative type yeah he was or he was he had a regular job but he was he was really into stand-up uh he died young i mean he died at 24 25 so he didn't get to really do what he wanted to do but he was uh i took some cues from him i went to the same junior college as he did up in sacramento wow and uh he was in the theater in comedy and i think he might have even i think he might have tried comedy if he had been able to you know live long enough right so let's talk about the fact that you're you're quite tall i did i did a little research you're in the top one percent of height making only 0.048 percent of men in the united states taller than you mm-hmm you're very tall how tall are your brains does it say how we die first too stop it no how tall are you uh six foot six like you could be a basketball player sure if i was given coordination also along with my freakish height i i wanna know how long you've been this tall like when did you hit this hike oh yeah that's a good story actually uh go ahead and tell it i grew eight inches in one year no you didn't it was terrible it was super painful and what what year was it was it like 30 18 18 19. wow so after high school so you were just like 5 10 you were that dude 5 10 in high school and then within one year was it a surprise to everyone to get to 510 was not without pain i had had i had had uh you know growing pains literal growing pains were but when that one year i mean there i could feel like my arms and legs stretching i'm sorry i don't mean to laugh but that's like out of a horror movie it was i wake up just going no and my arm's just growing you know so that's that's a lot like that's that's into like i need to find clothing that that fits me because you're very tall you do not fit a twin or full bed no i was already out of a twin at 5 10 but right yeah uh and uh my mom and i didn't have a ton of money so i was always hanging out of you know whatever you know sure and then growing too quickly through clothing and her not being able to you know no that's just like wear a potato sack till you're done just wake me when you're done pretty much wow and we thought at 5 10 that i was like oh i guess this is it my dad was six eight oh your dad was six eight yeah and my mom was six feet even you were gonna be taller than 5 10. right but my mom and i weren't convinced when i was you know it seemed like i leveled out and then just well in 18 by 18 you usually are you know it's not unusual jonathan you are a giant in the jewish world talk about when you became as tall as you are so i thought i had a good story that i grew three quarters of an inch between 21 and 22. oh wow that doesn't clear i thought i was totally done but i think the most frightening part of that would be like 18 to 19 you grow eight inches and you're like what is 19 20 going to be like oh i know well i think once i got to six six we were like ah this field this feels about good yeah yeah okay so i do have a question though in terms of like weight distribution so you also you have to put on weight when you're that much taller like like were you a lanky 510 or were you always like uh zafted kinda well now i'm big but i was i was made fun of for being skinny i was yeah oh yeah kids that was the thing like i couldn't put weight on you know i had weedy arms and just i was yeah skinny legs and the whole the whole deal my my ribs were always showing right okay so so then obviously once you grow like you got like oh i have a different body type now is what you had to reckon with like but even though it was still in my 20s i was skinny forever i thought i would just be skinny and then and then my body told me in my 30s and 40s that no dude there's uh there's effects to uh just eating whatever the hell you want as john ross bowie says eating like it's your [ __ ] 12th birthday that'll do it yeah yeah well especially as a comic and just being up late you know i ate a lot of junk food and a lot of diner food and then eventually my body was like nope this is what's gonna happen you're not gonna be skinny for the rest of your life okay that's a fascinating story i need to this might sound like a silly question were you dating anyone at the time like was someone dating 510 brian and then they were dating six six brian no brian might not have ever met girls got it if he hadn't started doing stand-up comedy like uh i'm a total late bloomer i i yeah 21. was what i for and i that wasn't even it didn't even have a girlfriend until i was 24 probably right no judgment here i'm a super late bloomer i liked girls they just didn't like me well you know and i always i always went for the wrong ones i always went for the cheerleaders you know there and then i'd find out later the nerdy girl kind of liked me and i was like god damn it you know what was it like being different because you know many of us are different in different ways um you know you had a real especially having that height you know kind of coming into your own as a young man what was that like was it depressing was it isolating did you turn it into a reason to have a sense of humor did you experience depression like did it feel lonely like what what was it like to be you well my humor i think came from loss i think it came from uh losing my dad and then losing my my favorite grandmother in high school and uh and then just uh it became like gallows humor was the first thing i was that appealed to me was you know making fun of a shitty situation that came from that as far as like kids being made fun of like i learned kind of not to fight back because when i did i would get into worse trouble because my mouth was always i was always a little bit smarter than the kid that was making fun of me and when i pointed that out it never went well and uh you know like the first the first kind of things i got picked on at my new school were kind of i felt were on me like it was me being like i bragged to these kids that i had won the reading contest at the at the town library over the summer i thought that was the way you met friends by going hey you know i got i got free i got free ice cream because i read more books than any of you idiots and um maybe i didn't say it like that but you know things like that where i was like oh maybe i'm the problem you know when i would get beaten up it was like well maybe i should have shut the [ __ ] up and uh so was that you know it was it was not fun until junior senior year i have such a like 80s movie transformation where i be i was like lucas uh you know i was the nerdy kid and then met a friend of mine who's uh lifelong uh navy guy since then but he uh he was the cool guy at school he was on the wrestling team and we met uh at summer school uh and bonded over pig floyd and then suddenly he was bringing me to the parties and we were you know doing music at school and and playing that we were dj's at during during lunch and everything and that like turned everything around for me it didn't get girls to go out with me but it got them to know my name and be a little more accepting and then guys weren't punching me anymore because my friend was gonna punch them back so was music uh was music a source of comfort for you and like identity a lot of escapism a lot of like because my mom and i didn't really get along either so there was a lot of like uh reading i became a huge stephen king fan comic books horror movies for life uh heavy metal started i got into kiss at nine and ten and then and then from kiss it was like i want something harder faster or whatever it was and and i got lucky in the you know early 80s music was changing so much so i got into heavy metal like on the ground floor as it kind of became mainstream did you i mean i was a late bloomer in in many many aspects like i didn't drink literally until i was 21 i mean i was in paris once where i was allowed to drink but like it was with my parents like i don't even know if that counts did you experiment with drugs like was that also part of your like did that feel good i drank but no i didn't i didn't smoke pot till my 20s uh-huh and what was drinking like i mean did it like were you aware like oh this is just like i like drinking and whatever or did you identify any component of like oh i'm a i like myself better when i'm like this it was a little more fun when i had a couple of beers in me and i kind of leaned into that at a certain point right it was like oh i'm that guy now like oh i'm the crazy guy i'll jump out of a tree if i have a six pack of big mickey's big mouths and then i'll do something stupid and entertain my friends there's a little bit of that sure not as sad as it sounds saying out saying it out loud i think it sounds like a hoot i mean i got no problem no judgment here so when did you when did you find kind of the community of of d i mean you know all the things you listed are are sort of the precursors you know to you know comic books and things like that like that's you know kind of the world that many of us resonate in i even have a funny story with d d so i was uh eighth grade became aware of it and was like oh this seems like something i would really like and i went to the club at my school and uh they did not want me in there so i was even turned down by the d d kids what'd they say no i walked in in this one kid who i won't say his name but just saw me and went po saying what are you doing here and i'm just like yeah you're right yeah i don't know and uh turned around and didn't play d d really till my 20s and then uh and that that even i got into a weird way i was working at a record store with a guy and the guy's like hey this buddy of mine we play d and it's just the two of them and i was like that seems weird i had you know heard it was more social than that but they had this kind of sad two-person dnd game and i got to come over one night and they made it like i had been d d was you know growing up in the 70s my mom my mom was christian but uh not crazy christian and there was always the hey kiss will make you you know turn you on to say dungeons and dragons will turn you on to satan all these satan was just waiting and all these things he's just hovering yeah just hanging out in a movie you might like and then next thing you know you're satanic oh you're enjoying something but uh yeah so i was kind of scared off by it and then when i in my 20s working at the record store i go to my friend rick's house he actually plays slayer we're smoking pot and they actually felt satanic and i was like i kind of like this stuff but when we play d d now it's way less satanic [Music] minding the alex breakdown is brought to you by apostrophe a prescription skincare company for people that are ready to take their acne seriously prescription acne treatment really works but it's hard to get because in order to see a doctor you usually have to like take off time from work you have to sit in line at the pharmacy if they even can figure out which medication you need until apostrophe apostrophe makes it easy to see a board certified dermatologist online it's amazing you get treated immediately your medications are delivered to your home you just fill out their online questionnaire all about your skin concerns and your medical history then you snap a few selfies that was fun when i did it and your dermatologist will get back to you with a customized treatment plan tailored just for you the best part is they have both topical and oral medications so you can treat your acne from the inside out and the outside in apostrophe treats acne but you're thinking mayam you don't have acne no i don't but i have other skin care goals that apostrophe is helping me treat reducing redness this is a thing that i've been battling for years wrinkles me i don't have any just kidding yes i do they even help with dark spots i've got those too i love that apostrophe allows you to not leave your home and get the care that you need for your skin this is one of those specialty things like going to a dermatologist that many people don't do because it's so hard and apostrophe makes it so easy i actually really liked the quiz it was kind of fun because they asked all sorts of questions about like do i spend time outside and like what is my skin used to and things like that anyway get 15 off your first visit with a board certified dermatologist at apostrophe.com breakdown use our code breakdown this code is only available for our listeners to get started go to apostrophe.com breakdown click begin visit then use the code breakdown at signup and you will get 15 off your dermatology visit that's a-p-o-s-t-r-o-p-h-e dot com breakdown use the code breakdown get your dermatology visit for 15 off thank you apostrophe for sponsoring the podcast and saving my skin this episode of mind be alex breakdown is brought to you by better help online counseling if you're feeling depressed if you're struggling with relationships maybe you're having difficulty sleeping or meeting your goals better help offers online professional counselors who can listen and help better help will assess your needs and match you with your own licensed professional therapist you can start communicating in under 48 hours it is not a crisis line it's not a self-help line it is professional counseling done securely online there's a broad range of expertise available which may not be locally available in many areas you can log into your account any time you can send a message to your counselor anytime you get timely and thoughtful responses and you can schedule weekly video or phone sessions you won't ever have to sit in a waiting room like you do with traditional therapy jonathan and i both talk a lot about our personal experience with therapy and how critically important it is to make that decision to treat yourself better better help is a great way to start they're committed to facilitating great therapeutic matches they make it easy and free to change counselors if you need to it's more affordable than traditional offline counseling and financial aid is also available so many people have been using better help they are recruiting additional counselors in all 50 states and our listeners get 10 off their first month of online therapy at betterhelp.com break visit dot betterhelp.com slash break and join the over 1 million people who have taken charge of their mental health with the help of an experienced better help professional [Music] you know my brother played d and d he was four years older than me and it was always like the thing i wasn't allowed to touch i wasn't allowed to do there was a lot of there's a lot of precision there's a lot of ocd friendly things about d and d you know there's there's a lot of rules there's i mean back in the day you know and i guess still now we used you know printed out sheets and my brother used to you know give me like a blank one that i could just like play with but there was this real magic you know to that that piece of paper that character sheet you know absolutely and um they used to play at like lunch time you know at the benches when i was a kid but i was never really allowed to play and i then i dated someone uh for the better part of five years who was a total d like i think he had played for like 38 years like something ridiculous and so i started playing you know what i realized is that it's a lot of the it's a lot of the the thinking patterns required for the kind of people i tend to like to hang out with um and you know when big bang theory was taken to comic-con and you know it was like kaylee and canal were warning me like there's a lot of really interesting people there just like i'm warning you it's very interesting place and i got there and i was like there's nothing alarming at all about anything happening here like i grew up in comic book stores and record stores like waiting for my dad and brother and just like leafing through like those were my friends have you never been to a con i had never been to no i had never been to a convention and i mean i just wanted to like walk the vendor aisles like that's what i wanted to do and i remember the fascination with with dice with d dice had never left me because that's what i wanted like from my brother's set so as an adult it was very liberating to get to finally play d and d and then i started playing with eric kaplan who is one of the co-eps on big bang theory who really is you know kind of my my real life counterpart um you know in the writer's room from all my years on big bang and we ended up adding you um after a couple years that we had been playing and so we've gotten to play together but what i thought we would do just for kicks is um i have some stats on d and d and i want to see how many we can um conquer together just so you know i was so happy when you guys invited me because i i was aware of your game and was like that would be fun i i hope i hope i get to know them well enough to where they asked me to play we have a super good time the early years were were a whole learning curve which i'm glad you missed out you had the cool kids game we did we did have the cool kids game but it's like also i mean i was talking to you about this the other day and this might come up again like i don't feel significantly different as an adult than i did as a you know awkward you know kid who was in chess club the only girl in chess club like that's essentially still who i am like you dress it up different but like that's really that's the core of who i am is i want to hang out with those kind of people um okay here's here this is a fun little game and okay the average d d game includes how many players like just average four okay five five okay okay um how many campaigns do you think there are worldwide at any given time wow uh it's in the millions yeah i'm not even aware how many people play i know really i know it's way more popular now than it ever has been well i that's the stat we're going to get to it says there are an estimated 3 million campaigns worldwide wow yeah the game is most popular in three english-speaking countries what are the three english-speaking countries where the game is most popular uh yeah i was gonna say canada canada is the number one yes oh wow number one even more number one that's number two and what's number three the someone where scandinavian so it's it's interesting australia oh okay i mean so anyway the game is more popular canada the us and australia the popularity of the game it says began declining in 2004. it hit a low in 2012 but then fifth edition came out in 2014 and now it's been steadily increasing this is a really interesting stat based on the data sample from this uh research that our intern helped us do 40 of chosen characters fall into quote standard tolkien based fantasy characters you know your dwarves your elves your humans what's the most popular class uh rogue fighter fighter yeah okay the least popular is what i usually like to play i had no idea cleric bard oh bard yeah yeah 40 of current players are younger than 25. what percent of current players are 40 or older what percent of players are 40 or older god i don't know uh 15 oh okay we give points for being anywhere near the answer that's pretty good what percentage of the player base identifies as female this actually shocked me is it more is it it's not more than fifty percent it's not more than fifty percent no okay 35 39 very good um the game has been used in in psychotherapeutic treatment this was interesting i didn't know its ability to create structured social engagement has been found to be helpful especially in children with autism because of the formation of shared community the practice of empathy and creative engagement um i found that really really interesting because that makes sense though right well and i think that's kind of what i wanted to um you know to poke at a little bit i'm an introvert you know who lives my life as an extrovert but in general if you look at you know kind of the classification of introverts versus extroverts you know introverts are people who feel um tapped out by interacting with other people socially and extroverts are people who really thrive on that kind of interaction and i didn't even really think much about this until you know a handful of years ago someone said something about like how excited they were to like go to a large event and i was thinking what there's people who like actively want to do that and especially this past year i've heard people saying like gosh i just i miss people so much i'm like no i i like there are certain people that i like but what i've what i've found is that for me d is a really safe place to socialize i never liked going to bars i never really was a party person but the thing about d d is i do get to interact with people who are interested at the level that i'm interested at understanding the world at it's an incredibly important social outlet and i remember brian like you know in the time that i got to work with you we often barely spoke words to each other and i remember i'm i'm very drawn and this is like a topic of a whole other episode i'm very drawn to people who are hard to draw out and i'm sure it's like it's dad issues and i wasn't sure if maybe you didn't like me because like i think i remember i totally fangirled out on you you know when i first met you i was like i am a huge fan like i loved you and sarah silverman and i just think you're amazing and um but i realized like you're a very private person you're a very quiet person and then when i found out you did stand up i was like he gives himself to audiences why can't he give himself to me but i was so interested in how much fun we do get to have in a group setting like when we play and i wonder sort of what what your experience of that is with meeting people and having to socialize and what that feels like you know do you identify as someone who is socially anxious do you just like to be quiet like talk about it i when i first got to big bang i you know the whole thing was like fly under the radar you know like be funny uh be on time uh you know what i mean give a hundred percent when you're a guest on a show that's already established you know i'd had some weird experiences i'd had some shows where not everybody was cool and and everybody was at your show and but it took me a while some of us are cooler than others though you know it took me a while a while to come out of my shell i mean it's still you know it's that's been a big thing for me my whole life is to like do i feel comfortable around people enough to start to make jokes because that always that didn't always fly and so like some people go you're dark or you're weird and then so like you hear that enough you're just like okay well i'll just keep that [ __ ] to myself and just get through this so there was a little bit of that and then you know so then once i realized i was kind of the family is when i got more comfortable there once i kept coming back it you know it's like maybe the sixth or eighth episode i started to go okay well they they don't hate me here you know what i mean yeah the story i tell about my time on big bang because i started as a guest star you know i was a guest star possible recurring and then they brought me and melissa back you know throughout you know kind of season four and they had started bringing her back in season three before i even came on you know i was just like pinned for episodes you know here and there i wasn't a regular for for most of season four and there was some episode i don't remember what it was and i remember i came home on a friday because we would rehearse wednesday thursday friday and i called my manager and it was like kind of out of the blue i just said like i think this is probably my last episode like i feel like they're just kind of like done you know like i don't really know i'm like i'm doing my best and like it's funny but you know i i just i think this is it and she's like oh you never know and literally that day before end of day we got a call that they were offering me to be a regular i thought well i clearly have no idea i can't read anything i completely you know and that's about how clueless i feel in a lot of realms of my life um but it can be a very hard read especially when you're joining something you know i i likened joining and i'm sure you felt this way too as like you know joining the last year of high school in like the last semester two weeks in you know when everybody's got their locker and their alliances and i felt even more out of place it was so funny to be on a show about nerds where i felt like the biggest nerd there where i would walk in and go god these guys are so [ __ ] cool no that's well that's and and honestly like that's exactly what it was like before you came along and before before kevin you know was more of a presence and even john ross bowie you know like he and i had stuff talk about like well those guys i bonded with immediately like total other guest guys when i would see them it would be like oh my god how are you you know so good to see you and i have something in common and you know well and i think also that's you know that's sort of the aspect of like what i was like when i felt out of it and too nerdy and to whatever that doesn't really go away and you know people there are people who seem to have a sense of confidence i don't i just hadn't acquired it it's not what i was born to acquire so for me like those really were the cool kids and i've known johnny galecki since i'm 13 years old like we knew each other we used to hang out and he was always like that cool guy yeah but also like he wore fancy scarves and like leather shoes with no laces and no socks and i was like he'd walked out of a magazine and kaylee was on the cover of cosmo no but i think it was really really nice and you know for me as a female i often oftentimes find more men to bond with in this arena than women and i remember whenever interviewers would ask us like who's a who's a geek here and you know god bless melissa would be like i'm a theater geek does that count it's like if you don't have a collection of dice no it doesn't count no i remember straight up just asking guys uh like on the set like hey are you guys actually into this and they were all like nope no they're really not i would hang out yeah i would hang out in the comic book store yeah me too i was on the set like holding up dc comics going oh clearly they you know because it's warner brothers but no marvel allowed and right no one wanted to talk about that right exactly i could have talked hours no and whenever when i whenever i would give people the tour of our set like my favorite place to take them was my favorite room which was like the production set design office because we had like every dc expensive like the figurines that cost fifteen hundred dollars at the comic book store we were like we had them by the dozen it was insane that would have been a podcast just talking about the set design and hanging out in the comic book store oh so much fun well we missed that iteration have you ever been in therapy is it something you've participated yeah well so basically my therapist i've had one in la the same one the whole time i've been here and uh the whole time she's just been telling me that i've been holding on to old [ __ ] and then i'm cooler than i think and you know that's like the biggest thing you know and my wife too you know it's like no you're not you're not that geek and i am i am geeky about things but it's really about these old feelings of you know and it was other kids calling me names and finally you know nerd became empowering in the 90s but for a long time it wasn't you know it was the bad word that i had heard on i'd never even heard it till happy days and then kids called me it at school when did you start going to therapy i'm trying to do the math of how long you've been in la well no i so i went to uh play therapy as a kid after having my dad die and and uh i had some issues at school so i i went i'd like to say my mom started me if i was in san jose i probably started seeing one around four or five do you remember anything of what play therapy was like no i just remember getting on the floor with this cool british guy and he had all these models of of ships he had a queen mary model and he was just into that i remember him being into ships and i remember just playing sitting on this comfortable rug and just talking to him and playing playing with toys but and he would talk to me about how i was feeling and things like that i remember that i remember knowing that he wasn't really my pal but it felt like he was you know what i mean and i it like it was like a doctor but not really i remember that feeling and then high school my mom and i really didn't get along so we went to uh we we had uh whatever you call it uh parent and kid therapy we went together and then i saw that therapist alone through high school too so just i would go we'd have sessions with my mom and then we'd have sessions in santa rosa by myself and then we'd you know drive home and i'd get yelled at what was the basis of your not getting along with her like i mean just generally speaking it never got worked up my mom passed away last year and we never we never really worked our [ __ ] out i mean were you just like very very different did she want you to do things a certain way or were you like playing too loud it was a little bit being raised by a kid is the way my my current therapist words it uh you know my mom was a really smart lady but then wasn't able to really uh talk to me in the right way or got it you know so there was a lot of resentment and a lot of uh teen anger that's still like you know it was yeah it hangs on doesn't it yes um so as an adult um are you like a classical psychotherapy person do you do cognitive behavioral therapy like do you do anything hippy dippy and way out there like i've tried not really my therapist is pretty down the middle she's tried a couple of things where they didn't fly with me with things that you might call hippy dippy what was it i want to know like just kind of role-playing things or not role-playing not role-playing but but just forcing me to do something different than just talk about things what i liked about it the most was and i don't currently go right now but uh i was going before covid and she we've done some phoners but i feel like and for me the biggest thing was stand up uh and i i needed her to get through you know uh when i didn't want to go out and going back to covid like this is kind of a great thing for me staying home like when you were talking earlier about being an introvert i definitely am and i maybe should have never been a stand-up comic because i only really like the joke part i like i like writing jokes and i like telling them to certain people but i don't like all the people in my audience like i look i look at an audience and i can i can count who i wouldn't hang out with and it's just uh and it's a lot of stress involved i hate i used to hate uh flying and so i was using therapy mostly to like uh build myself up to like okay you gotta do this thing that you hate this week and i talked to her about that and a lot of the stuff we talked about was still mom issues you know how a shy introverted kid gets into stand-up is dealing with not wanting to go getting support from a therapist like how does that change you to start you know being successful at stand-up and to ever feel more comfortable on stage like when does that start to happen for you well no i mean i know i don't think i ever got comfortable on stage uh i i can do it i can i i mean and i know i i know that i can do it and so i do it and and uh but it wasn't something that i loved you know and it's complex i hate sounding like i don't like my job but my job of stand-up game you know creates a lot of stress it's a complex thing you know i love it i'm good at it i i mean i can i at least feel like i don't think i'm a shitty comic that would be bad but it it it's really nerve-wracking doing it does that make sense well it 100 makes sense and i just like because you're successful because you're good at it and i'm a fan of your your stand-up uh like there's a part of me that's just wondering does it ever go like can you can you flip that switch and be like yes i have all these feelings yes it's really uncomfortable yes i i don't want to do this but like is there that part of you that you're connected to that's like but i go up and and it usually works out pretty well yeah to like help you like bridge through that moment because it's like you know we talk about this on the podcast like our feelings are temporary even though they feel so immediate it's not that i'm nervous about eating it because i i have more confidence than that i know i know that i can do it i think the stress comes from the other stuff it comes from the being away from being away from my family being away from my dogs just being you know and being social when i don't want to be and then pot pot helps that actually because you you meet a stoner after a show and you you know uh start smoking pot with them you don't have to talk to them really something to do it's like yeah all right so hold on both of you hang on a second does it change for you then if you're in like a local show is it significantly less anxiety provoking so so yes it's still all about how i feel because i don't feel comfortable at certain places the comedy store i've never felt comfortable so even though i'm at the level i'm at and i've had people go hey how come you don't do sets at the store and then i'll go do a set at the store and then i'll remember why uh because it's not fun for me i don't i hate knowing that it's on my calendar that i have to be there it's a stressful event and it's not worth uh you know because you don't really get paid when you do the sets in la so financially it's not worth anything um and then i don't get any i don't get a spark out of making that audience like me but the improv i don't mind going but it's still there's still a little battle of like leaving the valley i live i live in encino and i i like my house and i like my space and you know there's a little bit of that of like not wanting to leave this episode of mine be alex breakdown is brought to you by hint water how much water do you drink in a day jonathan i'm going to tell you not enough do you know how many ounces you're supposed to drink a day more than i drink yes 64 ounces that's eight eight ounce glasses for most people that is not easy to do mostly because no insult to water it's tasteless and boring enter hint water hint water makes it so easy to consume the amount of water you're supposed to also it tastes great it's easy to consume the recommended amount of water every day it is pure water infused with fruit essences that create favorite phrase surprisingly accurate fruit flavors they are surprisingly accurate there's no sugar there's no diet sweeteners there's no calories it's available in more than 25 flavors i didn't even know there were 25 flavors i'm a fan of anything that involves blueberry and lemon and they are in one bottle of hint water jonathan what do you like watermelon every time that's my favorite no variation i like the other flavors but watermelon is my hands down my face import you from snowy canada so that you can enjoy watermelon it's like always summer in your head it's water with a touch of true fruit flavor you can find hint water at retail stores across the u.s or you can have it delivered directly to your door when you order at hintwater.com get a free case that's 12 16-ounce bottles do the math how long that'll last you and then triple it when you buy two cases of hint water you get a free case shipping's free enter the code break at checkout this episode of mine be alex breakdown is brought to you by ritual we deserve to know what we're putting in our bodies and why especially when it comes to something that we're taking every day ritual's clean vegan-friendly multivitamin is formulated with high quality nutrients in forms your body can actually use that's called bioavailable forms what you won't find is sugars gmos allergens synthetic fillers and artificial colorants plus the fresh taste and delayed release capsule design make taking your vitamins easy i love taking ritual because so many products out there are not bioavailable forms of the things that you need and people take them and think like oh i'm doing a great thing for my body but ritual they've actually figured out how to make these nutrients in the best form that your body can use them in it is also traceable you always know what nutrients you're taking and where they come from thanks to rituals one of a kind visible supply chain ritual is designed with your life stage in mind now available for women men and teens ritual multivitamins are scientifically developed to help support different life stages get key ingredients without the bs ritual is offering our listeners 10 off during your first three months visit ritual.com breakdown to start your ritual today this episode of mind be alex breakdown is brought to you by whoop one of the things we talk about most is knowing yourself and we talk about it in a lot of ways we talk about it in terms of knowing yourself emotionally and knowing yourself psychologically but it's also important to know your body and to listen to your body and build a strong relationship between your body and your mind that's why we're excited to tell you about whoop which is a fitness tracker designed specifically to help you know yourself better so you can build healthier habits whoop provides personalized insight into how recovered your body is after a workout how much stress you're taking on during the day and in training and it lets you know how well you sleep so it's like having a personal trainer that lets you know what your body can handle how hard to push and how much sleep that you need in order to recover whoop has a built-in journal feature where you can track behaviors you do such as meditation taking cbd log if you're stressed and you'll get a report every month that shows you how these modalities impact your recovery and your sleep you can get all this great insight for less than 30 dollars a month i love the notion that this is kind of taking your fitness and your body and your awareness of your body to the next level because it's not enough to say oh i burn this many calories or oh i did this but to be able to start making those connections really is the foundation of making larger connections between your behavior and the results you're seeing and it doesn't matter the fitness level it you can be a beginner you can be an expert understanding how your body breaks down and recovers is so key to building smarter habits for all of our listeners today if you've been thinking about giving woop a shot there's no better time you can save fifteen percent off a whoop with the code breakdown go to whoop wh oop dot com use code breakdown at checkout and save yourself 15 off today [Music] let's take someone who let's say is not an alcoholic or doesn't have a problem with drinking right many people have that experience of when i have a glass of wine it's easier to i mean fill in the blank you know it's easier to go on a date it's easier to flirt with someone it's easier to go into a meeting you know whatever it is um you know alcohol it's it is it's a social lubricant you know and for some people that becomes the crutch you know which which then takes their life down an entirely different path you know i think the same is also can be true of pot as well um you know it's it's a bridge to removing that veil of of of inhibition which some of us have more of than other people right right is that what you feel pot is is it that bridge between sort of like a more comfortable version of you and you yeah it is but then also it dulls you in and which is another thing that's the negative thing but sometimes that's a positive like i like you know there's a part of me that likes being dulled because i've got so much anxiety going on in my brain and and uh and so much other you know bad thoughts that uh you know the pot can make those go away or be less less intrusive or less uh less loud yeah in that sense you see it as i mean it is therapeutic and it can be and it's a social thing with certain people i have i have a handful of friends that you know um we might not be friends if we didn't have that no i'm it sounds bad but it doesn't sound bad that's like the bond and it's with a lot of creative people comics and and writers friends of mine that that's became our thing and then when we do you know sure we aren't having big conversations or sometimes we do but a lot of it is smoke this and get comfortable and get you know get quiet get you know into where the silence doesn't bother you you know how does it impact your writing do you like to write one way or another i have a friend who uses it only to punch up things but i and i always thought that was that uh it's a funny way to go about it like he goes when he's writing when he's writing the first draft he's not high but when he's going back he's able to you know he thinks he loosens up for me there's not any rule to it i uh sometimes will feel too high to write and then just go okay well that's not the answer we'll come back to this but uh other times it totally helps like coming up with a premise whether it's sketch whether it's writing something for deadpool uh whether it's you know working on a feature or anything or animated it does help or my stand-up my stand-up i went through a couple of i quit pot for three years too and that was a big thing for me of like and in my head i was like am i gonna be silly still i mean i might i'll still be able to write jokes but am i going to find that silly place because my style what i like about what i do my my own comedy i like walking this line of dumb and smart together uh and i like i feel like some of my favorite stuff i've been involved with treads that line whether it's uh sarah silverman uh mr show the things that i'm the most proud of for me are hey that's kind of that was that written by a smart guy or a dumb guy you can't tell you know what i mean like there's there's qualities to it highbrow and lowbrow and i like silliness and i and i i was a little concerned when i wasn't smoking that would i still be able to find this kind of stony silliness and could you yeah absolutely because it was always there i think that's a really interesting point because a lot of people are like oh weed makes me this or that but it's actually as you articulated it's you had that thing and maybe we'd helped you slow down or access it or whatever it was but to be able to still do that i think is hugely important and knowing that you can have it without that you know they say if you want to find out why you use stop using and i'm curious what if there were any other revelations you had you know about either what was missing or what was harder or i mean i think you already probably knew it but i'm just curious if at that stage in your life you know for those three years if you learned anything different i'm curious about your relationship like yeah well and i i i'm going i'm i want to get back to that i want to get back to maybe not being completely sober but there was there was something good about that those three years so i i don't know but without beating myself up too much about it it's a thing i don't love that i that i feel like i use it as a crutch sometimes i don't love that about it without getting too far into like political stuff but or just everything out there it's been hard for me to quit the last year it's been a hell of a year it's been a hell of a year in a hell of a four years i'm just gonna i will own this on your behalf and this is why i started this podcast was because the last year has introduced anxiety into people's lives who literally never even touched it i had people reaching out to me like i can't sleep i can't eat what should i go to the doctor no you're anxious because the country's on fire the world is literally on fire and i think that for a lot of people i mean look this is where 12-step programs are thriving this year because those of us who resonate in in the rooms of the 12 steps which i i do um were like oh we got this like this is what the steps were made for for all the things you're powerless over and here are the things that we do and we go to our meetings and you can just you can do it from your bed now so it's been a very interesting year and that's literally why we started this podcast so well i appreciate you talking about it brian cause i think a lot of people are struggling and if not struggling they're questioning their use and they're asking themselves why am i using this how frequently should i be using this or not and then to hear someone who has quit and and quit for a long time uh reflect on both using and not using and and sort of benefits or not benefits and yeah um i think it's super helpful for people who may because there's a there's a whole other chunk of people who just use without thinking about it and i think that has its own negative consequences yeah and i do this thing where i'll i'll go well now's not the time you can't you know and it just hasn't felt the time for especially this year absolutely no i yes i've gained weight because of covid like i'm the heaviest i've ever been right because food is another thing and you know but also uh without being too on the nose pot it doesn't it doesn't help that no it doesn't well and i think also and i think that's the sort of you know when i have spoken to my kids even vaguely about pot like that's what i say when we look at you know when we see whatever someone in the news like doing something powerful and amazing or we hear about some kid who excelled in this way and donated all this money to charity i literally from from the time they were very little i said do you think that person was up drinking and vomiting in a you know alley all night no mother do you think that person was mainlining heroin all night no mother so like i know that it's not fair to do that but the fact is like when i speak to a lot of young people and that's what i say the longer you can wait before starting to introduce a crutch into the way you function socially and academically the more your brain has the ability to learn those other skills and the more your brain has the ability to adapt and the same is true of pharmaceutical drugs which we are peddled on the daily the sooner you start dumping that into your system and the sooner the doctors tell you oh you're having trouble with your menstrual cycle let me put you on an antidepressant right the sooner we introduce that we do we rob our brain and our body the ability to start navigating and i feel the same about alcohol like i'm a lot more fun after a drink like i think probably a hundred percent i'm a lot more fun but the fact is i'm grateful that i didn't try that at 14 and at 16 because i might have been one of those people who was a cautionary tale for other people's children yeah well i'm glad i'm glad that i waited until i was 22 to for weed too you know i i knew kids that smoked pot and uh but i and i wasn't at that point i may not have made it out of high school i think if you had given me access to that um brian i think you're so delightful and really it's such a pleasure to talk to you and um and also to know you and to get to be one of the people who gets to hear your weird jokes and your dark jokes and people who have your skill set have a fearlessness that i really really envy and i'm really grateful that um i get to you know i get to see that you know in you in our in our private off-camera moments a little bit thank you thank you so much brian that's the longest period of time i've spoken to brian i mean we've played dnd that goes for hours and hours but that's different we're in a group setting that's a slow to warm up person meaning even at the beginning of us talking you know he was he was shy and then he really just kind of like started going i've never seen his stand up i'm a stand-up connoisseur you may not know um i've never seen his stand-up but when he would tell me because i would try and socialize with him like on the set of big bang and i would say oh did you have a good hiatus you know and he would always say that he was like going these places to like to colleges and i was thinking like he seemed so shy like what is that like you know for him to get up on a stage and i just really loved hearing about i i remember i mean his mother passed you know we we kind of you know had a a d d session right after and um very hard um he also had some like amazing killer jokes about it like and i remember thinking like wow you know he his mind like he's he's a he's a real master of you know joke craft anyway i'm just really grateful that he opened up and wanted to talk to us i think it's important too to have people openly talking about using pot it's now been decriminalized and legalized both for medical use and recreational use in many states and uh people are having new relationships with this substance also like huge shout out to him for like like it's the elephant in the room i can't tell you how many people like when i've spoken to about like what's their year been like like it comes out in like the eighth or ninth time you check in with them like i've been smoking so much weed i don't think it's healthy like or oh i've just taken to drinking starting at 4 p.m and like not that he said that no no no i'm saying though like yeah i've been hearing this from people that i know um because it's kind of like people are bored and it numbs you out like who wants to think about what's going on in the world all the time you know i i have tremendous respect for people who can operate at that level of like like people who work in newsrooms like i'm sure that there are some who smoke pot and drink but like they live and breathe like this world all the time they've got something i don't i can't do that all the time so whether you're filling it with with alcohol with pot with food with work you know i mean that was most of my life really as an adult is like i would just work myself into the ground like oh i'd work a 10-hour day i'd come home and then i'd work another six hours like that was completely that's how i you know they say emotions can't hit a moving target like i just like kept moving kept bouncing like do this do that drink that so you know like yeah he touched on what a lot of people are experiencing which is everybody's gonna be impacted by things differently i mean that's like the dumbest thing i've ever said but i remember there was a friend of mine when trump got elected in the first place she really went down the rabbit hole of her mental health existence she was put on medication i mean she was having active panic attacks like really really had a breakdown i remember at the time i need to i don't know if i have if i owe her an amends for something that i just thought and tell anyone else at the time i was like seriously like come on maybe she had the foresight to know what was about to happen to us okay so that's the shamanic option maybe she had the foresight but maybe it was also just that like that's where she was at in terms of her emotional capacity her emotional stability and i can't fault that because at any given time in my life let's just pretend this had happened the year after i got divorced if trump had been elected the year after i got divorced what would have happened i would have given up custody of my children and either gone to live at the tassajara zen mountain center above san francisco or you would have had to put me in a hospital because the amount of of emotional information that i would have been trying to process with my god-given genetics and with everything about my functioning i don't think i would have been able to handle it i'm completely serious right now also if i was a kid right now and you put me in a zoom class f that i would have found ways to misbehave if i didn't have him before i'm interested about this idea of too much emotional information and he talked about marijuana as a numbing agent and he said well sometimes i don't want that information and he was describing that some of that information is anxiety but i'm tying that back to your story of going to live on a mountaintop like you were experiencing an enormous amount of information at that time so i'm wondering about the connection between information like the amount of information that we're processing and everybody's brain has a different capacity also but i'm also wondering about capacity of our individual brains to process amounts of information but also maybe some of us just have more information that's coming well i mean like morse extra sensory information yes the first level is that there's brain variability okay and then the second level which we talk about a lot is there's environmental variability you know you take two brains and you put one in an abusive you know deprivation neglectful abandonment situation and that's going to do something different you know to the identical brain as as if you were in an immersive enriching nurturing loving environment do those exist i've heard about them in storybooks okay so there's there's those levels and then we get to i'll say this first then we get to the level of the variability in certain people's brains is such that they are receiving more information and that's not to say that like they're operating on a different plane of existence but i'm pretty sure that's what we're saying i think different plane of existence sounds too out there to people but there's a scientific explanation for a different plane of existence and what it is is that there are people who hear differently and there are people that experience physical sensation differently so for those people oftentimes things like information that has high stressful emotional content does affect them differently so my thing stories about like i hate to say this like animals being tortured it's like the most painful thing and i fixate on those this is one of the reasons i had to take a break from news because there's something in me that like i'm i'm fascinated with the set of emotions that i feel when that empathy and that rage and that terror gets kicked up but it becomes a compulsive act for me of pursuing that story and following it through and and find it it can become it's overwhelming and it's almost the only way to understand it is to immerse myself in it and the other the other kind of level of that is that there are people and this is more of a spiritual concept there are people who feel differently and so they're going to get flooded sooner and the people who typically have that connection with the world historically were healers and shamans because you would take you know take the people in any given village and you've got one who when you feel something they feel something they're empaths and that's not fantasy unicorn fairy dust like that's a true thing and often those people are demonized burned at the stake uh pathologized called hysterical and the fact is there are different capacities yes that we're born with and you can foster those and you can make them grow so what brian was talking about was also that he may have a different sensitivity and he is seeking resources to manage those i mean we all are we all are back to your comment about the animals and the feeling that you get when you read a story about animal cruelty do you think that a it is you tapping into some childhood or rage or unprocessed anger resentment that you then transpose onto that situation b some sort of empathic experience where you tap into the rage and cruelty of humanity because as much as we are loving and kind there's also that aspect of humanity that's difficult be some combination of those two or none of the above the example that i gave is a combination of personal feelings which is really kind of the the genetics plus environment it's who i am i mean it's who all of us are i'm just using myself as an example that's who i am intuitively mostly i feel that it's more the empath in me and yeah i do think that there is another option where i do feel connected um just as a person with a spiritual practice and a and a scientific practice of understanding and wanting to understand the molecules of our existence and i do feel both a communal joy and a communal suffering like i i have an awareness of that but again what that translates to is this world is not really equipped for me to kind of function like that on a daily basis because if we you know if we fully grasp the terror of the darkness of humanity like none of us would want to get up we wouldn't get up so there's like a suspension of disbelief that we all have to go through that's what brian is talking about that was his uncomfortableness and like that was the shifting in his seat because we we force ourselves to learn how to live in an unlivable world in many ways and it can be very very crippling i'm so you know really uplifted you know by getting to talk to him because also i i just love a story of someone who had to work so hard to find their way you know like losing your dad i mean that's i i chose not to go there i actually don't know the story but when he said his dad died you know before he was even 25 like you know like and just him going up and thinking of like little brian i think he a little redhead you know like little brian going to play therapy and just like how much his mother then had to take on i mean just it's that's an unbelievable template you know and then to add to that you know just feeling awkward or or being different or being a nerd or like not knowing that you had an eye condition like just those little things but then also that is you know his growth was a huge catalyst for a whole other kind of growth and so just like i just love that path and i'm so grateful that he took us you know on it with him he really was uh very generous with his story and yeah i anonymous from studio city asks is there a right amount of marijuana like an okay amount like i i assume i'm reading between the lines here because this is a short one and we wanted to choose something that related to our general subject matter here um but i think the question is what's too much right and is there like an appropriate amount you're gonna say it really depends on the individual [Laughter] and it's a combination between our nurture and our nature let's ask let's ask the non-neuroscientists jonathan is there an answer to that would you feel different if you knew this question was being asked by a teenager i i support and totally agree that the brain should have as much time with being it's our own natural self as possible um lots of people say that the brain doesn't fully finish developing until 25. i i don't know if you there's some frontal lobe and impulse control that we definitely if you've been to a frat party you've seen that in action so having been a teenage male and an early 20s male and now a almost 42 year old male i would say that my brain has changed drastically in those years my ability to have impulse control my ability not to feel the urgency of situations and like the need to fix things immediately um my executive functioning still isn't great my planning i'm more of the creative side so different different episodes a different problem um so i would say that we should give ourselves as much okay great so that being said is there a is there an okay amount uh probably less does it depend on the person probably less is more ah less is more so you can have a glass of wine a day can you have a join today i guess the question would be the same what is what is a joint are we talking about like you know a glass of wine is however many ounces and you know is it is a joint a gram i would say a gram for an individual like and i guess there's also tolerance and sort of how that tolerance builds is a scientific question i'm curious about you know i think that the simple answer and this question is being asked by a young person the simple answer is i do believe that there is an amount of marijuana that can be consumed in in a social fashion um the way some people will drink socially however we have a culture that really favors um the normalization of pot use and the fact is it is a very very powerful social lubricant in a way that alcohol isn't um they they do not function the same so it's hard to to give a comparison of like this is the right amount or this is an okay amount of pot because so much of our reaction with pot is not predictable the way wine will be so the example i give my kids is if you take 100 people and and and within you know within 50 pounds of each other you take 50 100 people you take 100 people and you give them each two beers you can probably have a pretty predictable bell curve of of what's going to happen and it's probably going to be skewed even one way it's not even going to be a nobody cares about parabolas right now but anyway you can have a pretty predictable trajectory for what their behavior is going to be like how it changes what their recovery will be like and what they'll look like tomorrow okay if you up that to four beers you're probably also gonna have a pretty predictable pretty predictable trajectory the thing with pot is it acts differently than alcohol does and especially with young people pot's the kind of thing that one hit can land you in a panic attack one hit if you're susceptible to panic attacks you can be around other people smoking and you'll get a panic attack and still ask people to take to the hospital and then they're all stoned and no one can take you i've never been in that situation what so we have a lot less predictability with pot which makes it harder to determine what's an okay amount like an okay amount from a teenage perspective in addition the ability to feel numbed out and at ease i believe is a lot more attractive because there's a lot less side effects than going on a bender with alcohol so the ease with which you feel you can be at ease is a lot more accessible especially for young people and the fact is it's not like smoking a cigarette and it's not like having a glass of wine so that being said you know at the point i'm at in my life i literally don't even have one drink a week like it's just i it's not worth it anymore it disrupts my sleep i'm not interested there were times when i drank there were times when i drank too much you know like too much for my my comfort my lifestyle um and and i think that you will find people who are like that with pot or like oh i'll do it once in a while a thing to look out for is if you are having a life that you otherwise wouldn't have without pot that's probably too much meaning if you find that the things you want to do are best done when you're stoned that's too much because you're you're denying yourself the ability to learn the things that we need to learn to be mature responsible adults you know meaning let me just give an example like oh i have to be stoned to go on a date um i have to be stoned to go to class uh i have to be stoned to go to sleep i have to be stoned um to go for a job interview like these are these are things that are indicating that you're you're using it medicinally so maybe instead of what is too much we're talking about because i interpreted too much as the amount of use right or like the quantity of use but really what we're talking about is the frequency of use yeah i mean the the fact it's yeah it's very hard to talk amounts with pot like i said because one hit depending on your chemistry depending on what your day was like depending on what anxiety you've experienced it is a it's a it is a hallucinogenic class of drug it is a it is it does some strong things and yes there are different strains and there are different things and blah blah but the fact is um it has a lot less predictability and the pot that that was available to us when i was young is very very different than the pot that is available now and that's also something that nobody likes that answer so anonymous from studio city if you don't like the answer to that hit us up again and we'll do a redo ask us next year don't smoke for another year we'll talk about it then if you enjoyed this conversation you might enjoy going to our website biancbreakdown.com that's bia lik breakdown.com um we'll put up some interesting there there are some interesting articles there and we'll link to brian's stand-up so much oh my gosh i'm i love anything brian i do really need to get into that so all right from my breakdown to the one i hope you never have i'll see you next time it's my ambiance breakdown she's gonna break it down for you she's got a neuroscience phd or two non-fiction ones and now she's gonna break down it's a breakdown she's gonna break it down

Channel: Mayim Bialik

Views: 96,032

Keywords: mayim bialik, big bang theory, amy farrah fowler, mayim, celebrity news, Brian posehn

Id: Poc-h_HK9cY

Length: 84min 46sec (5086 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 20 2021