Dr. Drew on The Psychology of Healing Addiction and Trauma with Lewis Howes

welcome everyone in the school of greatest podcast we've got a living legend dr. drew in the half-hour Wow good to see you man not the right word for me well I'm grateful you're here um you know I've known about you for many years probably a decade of just watching different shows on TV what you've been on and that you've hosted and had and I'm just thinking speak up alleged you let your wall you're like people that wall medical legend is legend your medical legit there you go but you help a lot of people you try people you join you help educate people with a lot of their yeah their trauma getting around Andrew that's the type of stuff that people need the most is how to let go of things that hold them back from their greatness in my mind okay if there's something in their mind that is consuming them some type of addiction some type of paying aggression yeah resentment lack of not forgiving people yeah that it's really holding them back from connecting from opening up yeah yeah being their true authentic self which is holding them back from being the most creative loving risk-taking joyful beings in the world so don't you provide an incredible platform for decades to help people whether it be from radio show to podcast TV shows you do to serve humanity so I want to acknowledge you for her thank you your incredible service and we connected through Ryan Hall day connect try to catch me about a year ago to you yeah and we've just never been able to he's a great guy right you asked me I'm not right Ryan I'm I was giving I was going around I can't remember what it was it was something for something about oh my god it was for college kids like they took editors and writers from school newspapers and they had them meet with me and I can't remember who was in the group but it was just sort of I I can't remember the conceit it was sort of about what's going on campuses and condoms and I think the kind of company was sponsoring it and sort of what's going on the male-female relationships and it was it was sort of there in the whole hookup era it must have been 15 years ago maybe 15 years ago probably and Ryan just came up to me afterwards said you know what are you doing now and I said well I'm reading the stoic philosophy I'm just just getting into you said this day yeah biggest thing we says it in the book he says thank you for turning him on to this and I said you know Epictetus just kind of fascinates me right now and I have trying to sort of figure out I was trying to fit things together anthropology and philosophy in human experience instead of it I had talked to a few minutes about what I understood about stoicism and he just ran with it he wrote a book called daily stoic that just came out but it was the enemy was the enemy and optionals the less obstacles the way is the one that was written is off the story yeah like all this books are based on this philosophy but they just an article in New York Times yeah and I called it he was on the front page of the Style section and they pissed me off because if you didn't know Ryan you would not see Ryan in that article and as always this is what makes me furious is that finding the truth out of press today particularly print medium is almost impossible it's impossible they will not publish an article without first assuming that somebody who they're reporting on is a lying sack of [ __ ] really that's the position the editor takes in all circumstances and so it's always seen through this sort of prism of well we can't trust this guy and they pitted Ryan against academic philosophers and it's like that's not what Ryan's trying to trying to be an argue with academics he's trying to improve sort of a platform for quality of an old an old philosophy might inform living today it's all he was doing right yeah yeah but you guys stay in touch for 15 years like yeah I'm standing over there my kids by someone visited him in Austin it was crazy my kids idolize everything right you have triplets right I do and how old are they 24 24 that's crazy what is that like what is that like well now that the God is probably much different right yeah I mean the first five years my hair was darker than yours they were born and surprised you still have it right and that was on full survival mode Wow and it was interesting my wife and I sort of live off I those moments again looking back and it's literally like one day we just decided you know we're just it was like playing poker and guy will here my chips and we were all in on parenting we're just that's our job now is we're parents I really felt like I said the table take my bed good okay I'm putting it over here on child-rearing but 24 years ago you were also building your career and getting in the media and I was not really thinking about media then at all love Lyonne I think was one day a week back then it was I thought I was doing community service on the radio that's and I was practicing full-time I would get up at 5:00 in the morning I would struggle to get home by 10:00 at night and I did that for years and I had sort of three or four different jobs I did it I had in a inpatient medical practice which includes intensive care medicine which was pretty good at an outpatient medical practice and then at that point I think I was running the medical services in a psychiatric hospital that eventually morphed into running their addiction services so I had those three things going all the time for many many many years now it's here in LA yeah past yeah yeah and so I sort of had kind of three careers crammed into one for a couple decades and that sort of took me looking back that was it was so much work and it was like like almost like an enriched back almost like a little dream state you know living you know seeing upwards of 60 patients a day you know it wasn't really sick and it was pretty interesting yeah why did you get into the the medical profession in the first place it's an interesting story my dad was a doctor it was always assumed I'd be a doctor and then I went to college and I was always good at science and math and stuff and I went to college I was like well screw this this is I am NOT this I did like a semester of pre-med I'm like these people are smart I am NOT and I messed around for about a year and a half I left college for a while I just was like lost really lost and after about 18 months I was like medical thing was something I should really think about again it because I was absolutely rejecting it for a long time and I thought I wonder and I started feeling the more I thought about the more I felt good and I thought all right I'll give it a try and as I got back into it something about the male brain male brain does not fully myelinated the frontal lobe does it come online until you're about 26 and certainly at 17 when I went away to college in Massachusetts I was not ready right and at 19 all of a sudden I was ready I could do this stuff and I was like and not only was I ready to do it I had to like double down because I was running out of time and so I did it and it was and it was every step although it was a high-wire act getting it all done every step I felt more and more and more and more so of euphoric about the decision and then when I have I'll never forget I you know I can almost see the hospital where I trained just on the other side of these those buildings the I think you can kind of see the old county hospital there on the hill if it wasn't as hazy right now I think I see it well and when I the first four years of you know medical school I see were there and I remember walking out of the parking lot every day my first year oh I gotta love this is I'm so lucky I really this is it man I have found what I want to do and then later in residency you're like why not do this no no I really said I found my I really dug it I really liked my training I died he was intense yeah well I like the dress some dread said it later when I was over my work wall wasn't really able to kick it in right you had no life at zero life and but I was is because I was so into it I started gorging on it I think Wow one was like the first experience of you and your practice for you felt like wow this is I'm so glad I did this because of the impact I had or because of the transformation someone had or the healing or a person or a moment you're like wow no because you're inundated in that all the time and what I do remember there was that it started happening in medical school I remember even just being able to levy a pain was a big deal you know think things like that but later on sort of much later on actually I was I'm always studying philosophy and that's Apollo trying to figure about the human experience and Aristotle had a thing about the good life and he was saying you know service is really important there every where ever you get to it you find giving back being a big being the other thing the other is how you find meaning in life always always and Aristotle was may taking a position that you had to have technique which is skill and this is a part that people miss that they don't to be of service I'm ready let's go and and that's great and you can go late a little so you can can do something but if you have a skill if you spent time developing skill where you can really make a difference that is a profound experience and and he always said it was wisdom techne he had a bunch of criteria needed to really lead a good life and we leave that skill development part off sometimes because you think of it as you don't think of it that way you know they give to develop that skill to be of service and and it takes a lot of time and a lot of energy to develop a skill that's really impactful these days even to be of service to like a company or an entrepreneur I get a lot of people that email me and say I will move to LA and work for you for free but I'm like what can you provide like what skills do you have they're like well I'll do whatever you need I like to be honest it's gonna take more time for me to train you and write bigger things out people miss that's the part it's not worth you working for free if it's gonna take up all my time and energy about what I can put I mean I if you really think about as probably why apprenticeships developed and why schools developed because somebody said we gotta pay me to do the exact stuff and that's where a professional develop exactly Wow so when did the whole media attempt a thing get involved when you start doing my TV and her complete accident yeah radio was again I was very I really got involved right here in 1983 because it was just happening in my neighborhood somebody asked me to help out of this thing and I was like geez don't talking to young people about HIV it wasn't it was grits that gay-related Tesla disease syndrome Wow and I thought somebody's got to talk it was just an instinct that somebody needs to tell sort of the rock n roll radio had been such a had such a negative impact on people's behavior from standpoint their sexual behavior and their drug use since always said somebody's infiltrate this and turn this Wow yeah and especially with this thing coming I could see what was happening because we were putting people in the ground every day with with oh yeah we didn't know what it was I would sit down by it by my third year medical school I was sitting down with patients every day and saying you have six months to live no yeah every day and I was never wrong and that's just what it was we didn't have a name for it yet we were just starting to be called AIDS we did not have a causative agent here we started to be called htlv three remember that and then HIV one and then a chose we didn't know what we were dealing with it but it quickly quickly evolved into you know uh you know something we la it was ground zero ground zero it was very people forget how dark that was and so that motivated me to get on to talk about it and he'll try to change people's understanding of the biology of their sexual behaviors which was not being discussed anywhere at the time especially not to young people mm-hmm and I would did that one at a week for years and years and then all of a sudden somebody wanted to do it five night nights a week I was like oh crap I'm gonna do this working all day in your practice then you go dad I'd go do radio and I sort of found a way to do that and then literally the week that they decided to put it on five nights a week was the week my wife got pregnant with triplets oh my god oh my gosh is right now yeah and yeah and and then these guys turned up and wanted to do a TV show like that sounds interesting what's that how do you do that Maury ssin that was love line at MTV there was 1996 so what I've been doing radio for 13 years at that point and and it just turned to this thing and it's and itv2 I was just like well I've got Friday afternoon and Saturday afternoon if you don't do it then we'll do it otherwise I can't do it I'm not gonna do it you want to sacrifice your practice in here leave me alone my whole thing was leaving a lot of practice medicine I can't this media thing is interesting and I hope that it's fun it has a huge impact and I think it's right but it was just sort of an exploration for me it wasn't something that I was committed to until about 2010 when I when I was doing a lot of television I thought oh man you gotta like look in the mirror admit to yourself you're on your second career and that's when I stopped doing the psychiatric stuff and let go of the inpatient medical practice and I just do outpatient medicine now Wow so you do how often are you working without every day every day some fashion every day whether it's emails are that's right but then how many but you're doing a lot more media now well so now so now since 2011 really I just said okay that's it you're doing your day telogen radio this is your go do it go do it yeah Wow how's it been since the trans but interesting it's fun it's different it's it's it's challenging what's the biggest challenge for you keeping the plates spinning and you know finding as people want to watch that also do good that I think that's the hardest thing is doing things that are really still you know mission critical which is making a difference which is all I really care about and getting watched which is gonna be interesting it's got to be media and it's really hard because people aren't watching really anything anymore except nonsense watching the Kardashians you know so how do you make a reality show that people will watch it's hard you got to have a lot of drama but also you got to have some kind of love teaching and solutions yeah and it's all got to be covert because you be in a white coat no good yeah what did you say but I like it I like the credit process I like I've got about you know nine or ten different things I'm trying to work on it see if they'll new shows right now yeah nine or ten different shows yeah because I know you have to do that because only if you're it's a miracle that anything gets on television is a miracle for one season and that two seasons is like that's like infinitely infinitely is unlikely yeah rob dyrdek he's hit he's hit the mark on ridiculousness he just gets on season after season yeah I found his niche well but to be fair but he was sort of doing you know or hit multiple different businesses and things and different ways of doing it me I had a good vision I executed it well yeah yeah Wow so your constant looking your constant thinking new ideas around medicine and practice and therapy or addiction and things like that right no no no new ideas on television yes not necessarily I I I'm more interested in like I'm doing some writing some scripted things I'm interested just showing people about the human experience generally and if they learn about mental health if they get really what I want them to learn I'll feel very grateful but I just have interested in showing them about human experience what's the biggest thing you learned about the human experience and all your work yeah to me it's because it's becoming background for me now you know I'm so steeped in all this but I I would say that the thing that's that I'm thinking about all the time that might be interesting to other people is how bodily based a lot of our experiences are that the idea of you know looking in the brain for all the answers is a huge mistake if the brain is a processing units are a lot of stuff's going on there but we we've got these other systems that are very complex that are distributed through our body that have a lot to do with the the particularly interactive inter subjective expect of being weary in and around other people and ours the self and that really is the foundation I mean to wish and all these other things that that really are sort of magical in my opinion and then the other thing is how how much so much the experience is about the the embedded context which is other people hmm Wow okay and so I've worked in that biology all the time all the time it's very complicated it's a complex biology it's and and the psychodynamic aspects of it and how its experience and then how I can be useful as an instrument it takes a lot of time a lot of training again that's that technique part that Aristotle pointed out well so what should we be focusing on if we're feeling like we're held back in any way we as an individual yeah like whether it be emotionally physically mentally health should be the host animal bodies well I mean your health your health is you know your physical health first right or you know that you don't got much yeah and certainly you know your nutrition and your exercise and your routines in the day and and I would say paramount above all that is your important relationships make sure they're healthy and good and if they're not get help with that because there are armies of people that know how to do that and it really is about then you know sitting with another human being with a skill set who knows how to help you craft a new relationship and sort of developing that with you so then you could take it out in the world and I went to I went therapy for 11 years yeah and I'm pretty healthy emotionally but but I was very I wanted to really dig into it and it was very important for me I mean that was again as part of my much a part of my training as my sort of formal training was hmm would you say our closest relationships and most intimate relationships affect our body and our mind the most or is it more based on our relationship with ourselves no it's other people way more impactful than anything going on as an autonomous can affect our emotional health and everything everything everything's about the other everything really but the problem is the problem is we get stuck in these characteristic patterns and so whatever's going on in our relationship with other people is built on some much earlier structures and really sort of fundamentally our biggest sort of these days at least our biggest job is to regulate ourselves emotionally have a you know to be able to integrate holistically all aspects of who this being is you know within the brain within the skull and throughout the body and how that is experienced with the other person so I get to have all these crazy experience with other people because because I'm I'm way open to it I've been in very intense experience with very sick people with very heavy traumas and so you know I've become kind of a weird sort of a mind reader because I get to you know how my body responds to sitting around little person informs me a ton a time and is especially working with addicts and alcoholics what they're saying is normally BS it's not really just a lot of I I just I almost don't listen to what they're saying what did I used to say what's that they're just they're complain and complain and complain and complain and complaining and now about their their life their loved one their care their whatever that's the state I you know I deal with the very very sick in the very early parts of their treatment that's sort of my specialty and I'll just sit and listen I'll listen not just with my ear as I listen with my whole body and so how I'll start feeling funny things and I go I don't normally feel that or I'll hear music or I'll well you don't know what I'll have all kinds of strange experiences and I'll stop the my god I'm having experience I wonder if that's meaningful to you and inevitably inevitably it'll be deep it's a substantive and they'll be able to go how did you know and you know that's that it forms a connection now when a person starts to trust that they're really being heard and understood and and a you know a big part of treatment is just hearing that other person and letting them know that they're heard that's how the battle huh that's the beginning that is that is the opening volley that allows the battle to play effect that can express all the things then they feel like they're in a safe environment and they're contained and you know what's called the context the the the frame where they can be held safely where they can start to have interesting experiences Wow and then they don't do that in normal life normal life we just sort of we sort of interact you said this you mentioned the self earlier and that self is a sort of a highly structured phenomena that thing you know relates in very predictable ways with other people and we tend to seek out certain kinds of people and so that fit with that and that's not good that's limiting it's limiting it's very it's very very these days it's the very rare person that is as open as you described in your opening volley where you're we're truly open to every you know everything and have that creative experience happening all the time yeah that's right yeah what would you say is the the root of addiction then well root of addiction fundamentally addiction is a genetic problem right and so either have that gene oh you don't and the the it's not aging it's a you know it's a genetic burden and it may be a mild burden may be a heavy burden genetically and then that typically has to get activated by some kind of environmental mmm hit and that environmental hit you know it can be just simply I'm a torque driver and I need to stay up all night so I'm taking meth but typically if you get bad enough addiction that you need to see me that environmental hit is trauma childhood trauma interpersonal trauma and that emotional sexual whatever and and that ruptures the the frame of where people develop that capacity for emotional regulation so they never re-enter the frame and a in an open way again and they start trying to regulate any way they can well they find drugs and alcohol that works and off they go they end up by the time I see them there's two problems there's a severe addiction and whatever comes with that the neurobiological consequences the and all the differently comes with addiction and then there's the trauma so you know that you can't holding on to oh sure it's in their bodies its embedded in them it's done it says doesn't it's fixed it's a fixed phenomenon once somebody's been traumatized and and but that trauma can't really be treated until the addiction is well in hand you can't start treating the trauma just dry out the top first what they can't access it and secondly it just fuels the addiction they're just gonna stop your visit first you got to treat the addiction treat the addition and then you can address the baby may at some point hopefully Wow yeah and that may be six weeks six months six years down the line depends on the case so it's it takes a time to treat what's the relation what's the most effective experience or a process that you take people through to to kind of let go of that trauma technology and and then allow it to be holding them back their whole life yeah but it takes from long periods of time to treat that again these these these are you're talking about changing the wiring of the brain the whole system yeah and the brain wires very slowly and that it has to be as we always say that you know when you repeat the behavior or the experience the wiring becomes more fixed so you have to sort of create the wiring and then re experience and re experience a experience so the wire becomes fixed so the regulation becomes more fixed and that takes you know brain grows slowly super slowly and unfortunately there isn't any resources for that these days most people can't afford it a lot of practitioners don't practice that kind of treatment because there's no nobody that can do it yeah so it's very sad thankfully 12-step itself is is configured in such a way that they've done properly some of that treatment happens automatically well people in 12-step process in their relationship with their sponsor will create a frame we'll have intense experiences with that person that person hopefully having gone through it themselves will be sort of open to that and that creates a version of trauma therapy in my opinion how many how many people would you say in America or the world have addictive genes or about ten percent ten percent are addictive the potential yeah have that genetic potential and you know the really interesting question is you know well if this is such a bad disease why does this why didn't this gene evolve out of the gene pool long time ago right it's been fixed seemingly for a long time hmm so how would you answer that question hey why does this gene persist in the human population well it must have some adaptive advantage right it must be something about it that that's useful that crate also has a liability and what I've found and this is sort of a simplistic way of looking at this but but there's clear adaptive advantage in extreme circumstances so addicts before they develop their disease before they develop addiction make great extreme athletes fighter pilots you know all these extreme situations are positions a optic strip again military you know shortstop's and there they're there they're fantastic at that so when you look at populations that are repeatedly assaulted like even genocide all military assaults do you see the gene for addiction just come up up like crazy so you know you look at isolated populations particularly Scotland Ireland where there was multiple generations of extreme you know brutality alcoholism emergencies these are the survivors they survive better in extreme adversity now when you into you know Downton the normal civilization with peace this other thing emerges this thing we call alcoholism or addiction Wow yeah this is fascinating how long you've been studying this addiction in general this particular thing uh really got into it late 80s early 90s and you know I was running medical services in a psychiatric hospital and all the medical problems were down on the drug unit I became an expert and drug withdrawal and then lo and behold I got interested I watched some people have these amazing recoveries and I just thought I was what was that how does that work I didn't learn about that in medical school what the hell happened and he learned a lot about it next ten years how many guess of peak performers or extreme athletes or you know creatives or artists or musicians at a top level how many of those individuals would you say have addictive personalities ones are obsessed with peak performance and achieving I don't know that you know obsessed with perfection is different than I make a good fighter pilot it's a little different because you know sort of the system calls down to people it just matter-of-factly with with or without that is the genetics but there many other factors that you know go into these personality characteristics that that result in people craving performance I would say so I i would bet it's a relatively low number gotcha gotcha and what would you say is more traumatic in general the emotional abuse or the sexual abuse the people go through with sexual abuse is pretty shattering especially if it's at the hand of somebody they trust because the the body has violated in addition to the emotional system yeah and unfortunately I think we just went through an epidemic I remember back in the 90s I was having two Vince people that that it happened and it was so weird like oh well you're just talking about it more no no it is happening at an extraordinary rate and then unfortunately there was a big period later 90s where there was child and child sexual abuse which was also very cut out on child yeah a child that has been sexually abused by an adult will act out on other children and that just happens it's just how God doesn't know and and that come is traumatizing for the objects of that abuse so we had this huge wave of that and and people didn't really know that that was so traumatizing they because the trauma survivor always sort of thinks the trauma is something they have quote dealt with I don't with this don't have its back and what that is is a walling off neurologically of the experiences and the pieces of self that are so hurt and injured and then the body is also sort of unregulated and often cut off I mean there's different wiring as a result of this yeah and so people end up with chronic pain syndromes and all kinds of stuff that addiction or well addiction is the the other thing that's that that's if they have that gene and the trauma but yeah the sort of experience of the self and the body is all disconnected this associated we call that and there can be bodily based association there could be self dissociation the emotional dissociations and their main means of regulation is by disconnecting and then what comes out of the body is sort of an unregulated and scary bit of material neurological material that can't process it's interesting you know I was sexually abused when I was five by a man that I didn't know when I was at the babysitters and I remember for 25 years I didn't open up about it I didn't talk about it because I was so guilty shameful possible for everything I was just like I don't want people to feel bad I want people to look at me differently and I remember being always so aggressive whenever I felt like in sports specifically I took all my aggression out in sports and was driven to be a great athlete and any time I felt like anyone was trying to attack me in any way whether it be verbally or like a physical like little you know sidearm or something or just whatever I would react and such a you know just aggressive manner yeah like I couldn't control it was like I always felt like I had to defend myself my manhood my whatever yeah until I've everybody so every so what happens is that you know every threat becomes potentially that against crazy so you go from zero to a hundred with so quick and I you know people always be like why you so reacting so much yeah the point that's why I hate the idea of anger management thing what you're gonna man is that anger no control it no you're gonna deal with the trauma and then the anger goes away yeah or it reduces that or it can be focused you can use it that kind of right and so a few years ago I finally went through an experience where I talk started talking about it I started sharing with all my family members my friends I started opening up about it all the time and went through an experience like a physical experience where I really just released it all you know just emotional is it really work like that but you had a big experience a huge experience where I felt like it didn't own me anymore yeah and I can talk in front of you yeah calmly without freaking out like if I thought of this three years ago there's no chance I would have opened up to you or thought about it yeah yeah and by no means in my perfect I still get react and get aggressive and things like that but it's like I'm so aware well you know be really good is something called EMDR I've heard of that yeah where because the idea is that there's still a piece of you that is sort of left behind and it your body can't reacquaint itself with it without specialized kinds of care yeah it literally has to be in another person metabolize and handed pack in a weird way and you can't do it by yourself you just can you can improve it like you've done you've done leaves other great things it's awesome but to really get that little piece brought back into the hole so you can be a whole thing again it requires a little specialized treatment it may not be that much even after you've said too much working on your own right but it is something that that and I just have never seen it spontaneously room yeah yeah I mean I don't it's been three years and I've been working on it consistently right but I think I still have a lot more work to do every obviously but um you know what you were talking about we kind of contain it for 25 years I contained it and I didn't talk about it I was like us in the past you know what I'm fine with that I don't even talk about it yeah it's all good but yeah and I realized when I opened up like I was oops we could try it was just like everything was just like a release of like this fear pain and you know heal everything at once I couldn't control my body you know it was unbelievable the process and I think that's uh you know if anyone I've talked about this many times in the podcast now and I've had other people talk about their experiences of any type of sexual emotional abuse but I feel like that's one of the things that holds us back the most being well I was about growing up and I was left with a lot of feelings of emptiness yeah and then disconnected anxiety I had anxiety anxiety anxiety and I still have anxiety disorder I'm sort of wired that way and which is fine I can use that as a net you can use all these things as assets later yeah all that anger is stuff for sports you use it exactly a channel of it yeah but the emptiness was a real challenge for me and I found that in a really well-managed what's called mentalizing therapy or transference therapy you can be safe and a frame to fall into that emptiness and then learn to come in and out of it and then it goes away imagine that because it feels like it's just there and and I don't know how that really I can tell you experientially how it happens but no one really knows how it happens it's probably different for different people but I I what I found is I would I would actually just go into these what what got him Allan schore was it who really writes a lot of the neurobiological material in this he wrote a book called affic regulation and the origin of the self which is my sort of my Bible and he calls them trauma associated dead spots I just call it emptiness and you'll fall into them and the therapist has to be very skilled at keeping you there and getting you out Wow and then you start going in and out and then it goes away and that that's that that's that specialize that's for me that was my version of the specialized care I needed yeah in order to really close this wound sure yeah it's funny because I was I channeled all my aggression and anger into sports to being the best that I could go skilled and I trained like a maniac I and all my sports dreams and goals I achieved them but it's funny after I achieved every one of them I always felt empty and lonely mmm I always felt like oh it's not enough I'm still not good enough well that's that I still need to generate but but isn't that we people talk about as filling the void it's never enough it's money it's never enough never enough lots of women never enough and that's that's the nature of how we're configured as human beings once we get one of these injuries we do what we can as individuals to fill it it will not fill without the other bottom line and the way you're connected to the other it has to be a very it has to be different than what you're accustomed to yeah guess what you're accustomed to will be based on the wiring of the trauma right right yeah and trauma does the other crazy this is the craziest thing of all and I see a lot in culture and in a lot of people's behaviors and stuff is it makes us reenact the trauma we will create relationships circumstances will be attract this is the part that people miss will be attracted to people and circumstances that and that are much like the perpetrators in the environment which are original I've heard no one knows and people people it it's just how we work as humans the real question is is what what is the evolutionary Allah you know in the environment of evolution i dapped it doesn't why do we develop this thing why did we do that right and I think it has something to do my suspicion is I spent a lot of time thinking about girls like this but my suspicion is it allows us then to transmit information about major traumas that affected populations in the remote past in other words if you're gonna try to transmit information about what happened in Egypt during the Passover if you try to tell that story generation generation it's gonna get lost but if we engage in a ritual every year where we reenact the truck we're never gonna forget this and we still do Passover today many thousands of years later but that story would have never lasted that's a ritual does and so in a weird way it's sort of a ritual reenactment of the trauma so it must have had an adaptiveness for the population but if the individual it's maladaptive right that make sense chorus yeah yeah interesting speaking of rituals what's a ritual that you think or that you do or you think everyone should do on a daily basis to live a which for health would have do some kind of physical exertion something and and i-ight for me I'm an auditory learner it's why maybe I'm like in podcasting but I have two very important podcast I want to prefer got go for it what's called this good you got to go to dr. calm to get on my podcast I do one without a choral still yeah but dr. Drew podcast gray I do another one on the crawl of network network called the dr. OOP I catch was sort of celebrity and medical related then I do something called the weekly infusion with another doctor if you are a Corolla fan it's doctor spaz dr. British over which is strictly medically related but it's sort of medical incredible stuff and that you're another one with Bob Forrest got the hat and glasses that I did this lovely rehab with and that's called this life so please the this life and and weekly infusion needs your help so so please everybody know let's table some of those thank you listen iTunes Louis anyway what should you do every day my thing is you must physically exert yourself every day in fashion at least five days a week it is your you're not doing your under serving your body and what that you know as they always say what exercise should you do the one you'll do when you sweat the one is the one you will do I don't care if it's playing handball I don't wait when you will do the one you should do because you'll you'll you know we all have our own sort of zone for what we like and will do and I like lifting weights so I will look for its every day my garage is filled with stuff that's yeah and I will literally go down there like I'm as soon as we finish here I think I have like a half hour somewhere and I'm cramming it I'll go downstairs my garage do it and but the other piece this is the other thing that I think is important is some so my wife is texting me some sort of meditative something something for your brain and for me it's listening to lectures I listen elections about you here we already have topology but I go I'm a very astute auditory learner so I I can lift weights and listen and really take in the information I know I understand everyone's brains not configured that way sure but it's it's for me it's almost it's elevating whatever brain state I'm in so whatever that means to you that's what you should do while you're working Wow what's the one audio book or lecture or book that should read oh my god you're going you're taking me down the nerd path because stuff I love it's cool you know what about would you love people i stuff I love it optimize their health for the room so there isn't it there isn't such a thing okay that's gonna listen to what you here's what I like I like iTunes you you oh my god it's all every University in the world essentially submits it's an app and they'll submit their great courses and you can listen rate free listen to the great courses Frey and I'm telling you yell at Berkeley and yell Berkeley and Emory are my favorite they have the best stuff up online alright I'll tell you what here's my Emery has I'm gonna see what my thing is right well here's my here's my page Instagram story every has something called the Center for mind brain and culture let's see let me see this is your page will this is one of my pages dr. Drew's page on iTunes right your courses will hit this yeah super narrow but I have but I have like pages and pages of this I mean it goes and it's just it's this app that's the app right there oh I've seen that yes yes yes yes and and I listened to an hour of lecture every day and and and now it's time having trouble finding the one here's there some good as is this the you see TV has some great stuff Carta Chicago's grace to heels great it's not amazing but I but I started with the basics you know I just start with great ideas right that's really what I started with I just really making myself familiar with the great ideas and you know going from there mmm what are you you've done so much in your career you've helped so many people I don't know you have like 40 hours in a day you do seven shows a day it seems like like all these different podcast I don't know how you do it all you're healing it 60 clients a day you're doing it I'm manic three kids triplets you know I'm hypomanic I driving all over the place you have to drive from Pasadena to West Hollywood you know which takes four hours of traffic but but but I found way to use that time I listen to listeners you learn or I make phone call I do business talk to patients whatever it needs needed one you can always use your time you can use your time too when I was a kid this I've never talked about this this is an interesting idea when I was a kid I was I always wanted to take my home with me if I had to go away at this dream that I could shrink my house into a something my home was very I don't know reassuring to me or I don't know it wasn't the happiest but it felt like I wanted to take it with me and my dad would always say just think about figure it out he goes think people figures different more difficult things out figure that I'll figure out a shrink your home and then land it wherever you want it and and as I early on I bought into that and later I was like come on stop it how at least give me motivation to do something that's possible stop but then I started realizing that what I was interested in was sort of internally taking my home with me right so being in an inside thing and the travel part was somehow something that I didn't like and and so I found ways to use travel as something other than travel mmm whether it's on a plane or in a car that's time to do work or listen to things to learn things and so I don't think of it as travel anymore I just think of it as study hall gonna school yeah yeah it just happens to be the time so I don't I don't regret my travel time I used to hate it right and now our phones yeah and I can do love something so yeah I'm getting in the car accent of course but but but he it's somehow somehow that early idea that he planted and he came this that's cool you know when I moved here four and a half years ago where'd you move from I was in from Ohio yeah moved to New York City for a year and a half and then moved here for our girl of course didn't work out quickly good times and great lessons though and it all works out in the end but I remember driving on the 10 in traffic one day trying to get like two miles we're going to evolve and do an episode of the SNL California 91 hilarious and I remember sitting and I was like just going through this breakup frustrate I was like why not leave New York was amazing I was on top of the world and I was like there's gotta be a better way to like be in this traffic and inspire people who are frustrated like me in this moment yeah and that's where school of greatness can go good for you see I was like I want to create some more people are traveling they have some inspiration they can learn something from the most inspiring people the world's like yourself wonderful yeah we have about 10 minutes left because I want to make sure I'm on time for you okay thank you what you've done so much in your career what's your vision and mission moving forward everything I've done has always been without a blueprint I don't know quite it and to me that's sort of part of the creative process yeah I I it's for me it's been all about being willing to take risk and open a door and walk through it and see what's there because I've done some pretty scary stuff for a physician yeah you know it put yourself on the line along yeah and and I've always just been willing to do that if I my instinct was that it would be good for people in the long run that I do who would do something good because I know that as we talked about earlier in the hour I got to trust people to know how to attract eyes if I'm gonna make a difference those eyes have to be there absolutely and so that means creating environments that I may not be familiar with or feel comfortable with but okay let me see if I can make it into something worthwhile and live with some good information and that started back in 1983 when I showed up on that radio show I was like oh my god what is this and I was I went through some very tough times with that on every front I've always have always been taking heat for stuff I've wanted to do to help because I know I know you can't just do it the way doctors wouldn't traditionally do it the way we would do it as didactic teachers it just doesn't work I don't know not on a mass scale well and media has a huge impact and it needs additions and needs are a point of view not enough you guys do it and we have to be willing to be creative and different how we approach and we've got to lay off our peers that decide to do it yeah support them yeah so yeah did I answer that question so your mission no no the mission moving forward is just keep one foot in front of the other for as long as my blood yeah yeah as long as I can handle it I wish I had more of a mission really because it'd be probably more comfortable I mean you they at least I had a trash roll down I sort of could gauge myself better well with no mission you're still doing great but so much of my stuff that so much of my stuff is that does not have a precedent yeah so I'm sort of always in kind of a frontier or a mode yeah scaring me talking about I'm all about having a vision and just being like you know for as an athlete every season at the beginning of the season our coach would have on the chalkboard okay what's our vision for the next three months yeah I get that but what do you want achieve yeah it's a period of time not like your whole life I get that and in with things with letter performance I think that's necessary because you're always having to you know seek out little improvements which make a big difference the next guy in my world it's more like a philosophy and so that's sort of what I have is and you've I've been talking about my philosophy and and I think that's and that's something I work on every day is what is that philosophy and how could I improve that and not gonna make a difference more of a difference and how can I bring that understanding to bear and yeah use it in a way that helps people it's very simple I have fun too good make a difference say yeah simple life who's been the most influential person in your life hmm and what's the biggest lesson they taught you my dad was a pretty big influence who sort of a pain in the ass but he's a pretty much influence his thing was always put patients first and that was pretty good in fact I bought onto that even more than he didn't the work thing from him he was workaholic too and I think that was that was a important thing I had a professor in college that was very influential and he's sort of out of vogue now but I just liked the way he made me think and yeah kind of Headley our keys that is now being attacked because he's he takes very rigid certain points of view but he made me think about philosophy and things that I had not thought about that was busy out in the sciences and stuff too and so to have a political science trust or make me think in a new way with our agreed his point of view or not was important to me I'm sure if I thought about above 30 people on that list yeah I mean it depends I had a psychiatrist colleague that was deeply impactful on me I want to write about him a little bit this guy that studied it was a psychoanalyst who was in psychiatry for 50 years and she could have sort of saw the whole arc of all what was happening at sky 'try and I sort of listened to him and said a lot of time talking to him and adopting his philosophies and things I had medical trainers trainees I've had a professor in intensive care medicine that I took away it's little pieces for everybody there's one guy chanted at me always diagnosis prognosis treatment book diagnosis prognosis treatment book it just chanted that at me and his point was if you don't come up with a diagnosis you don't have a treatment and doctors don't get this they start trying treatments before they ever make a diagnosis so is it you you treatments are studied in the context of a particular diagnosis and if you're not treating that diagnosis your treatments PS right yeah that's just a guess but so you make sure your diagnosis is as accurate as possible apply the treatment diagnosis prognosis you know all furel prognosis to everyone based on that on that diagnosis prognosis treatment wait wait diagnosis prognosis so you can prognosticate first then off your treatment and then go back to the end study in study and do research and study Wow there's a diagnosis prognosis treatment book and and that's always been with me and I had a cardiologist that was deeply impactful on me I had infectious disease doctor that I've come back around and yes dinner a couple times so yeah show my appreciation for how it would impact yadda means and these there are people that the way they think they just don't get things wrong and I try to be one of those guys even though I'm not these guys that like give a quick story I mean a guy member I called friend eye infections these consult I was looking at its kid in the emergency room it looked like measles Tomatoes 19 year old kid with more billa form rash and fevers and tongue was reading up about usual measles stuff and this friend of mine actually looks look well look in there when he goes have you ever heard of septic scarlet fever of course him knowing that I'd never even heard that and this is septic scar the favorite dammit he was right so excuse me something a little up - Wow interesting okay this is one of the final questions that I ask all my guests at the end it's called the three truths okay you've got a lot of messages you put out the but on the radio for ever 30-something years eight 1984 I was 84 as you said 83 that's what moderate August I would say okay March is when I was born so you've been you've been as long as you've been a lot of sharing content yes the media and the radio and TV and all your writing and everything for a long time and imagine that it's the last day for you many many years from now and I am our last day okay yes last day on earth yeah you've created everything you want to create yeah taking all the risks and they've all worked out why Norway another but for whatever reason everything you've created is now erased it's gone no one has access to it for whatever reasons okay hypothetically obviously yeah yeah but someone to buy your bed gives you a piece of paper in a pan and says will you write down the three things you know to be true about everything you've experienced in your life three lessons three simple truths that you could pass on that that you this would be the thing that people remember you by these three truce Jesus everyone freaked out is very good so I'm gonna distill it down I'm gonna steal it down to what I've seen works with people who are in who are dying frankly who are you know in extreme circumstances and and these three things tend to everything seems to you know things gonna kind of go down into a single dot when you're really in the moment and these see these three things I've seen to be true have faith whatever that means to you develop some concept of faith and that's can be God it can be just a faith and physical properties of the universe I don't care what it is you need faith have hope and again that's kind of a big concept to that it may be based in reality it may not be have hope and nothing matters but the important relationships in your life mmm that's it those are powerful that's what that's what people usually that's what those things if they can hang out of those things when when it really the rubber hits the road [ __ ] it's the fan those three things tend to keep people moving forward that's great those are great before I ask the final question I want to acknowledge you for a moment dr. drew for your incredible contribution to humanity again all the work you've done all the capability is very important to it's very kind very conscious I want to take a moment it's hard for me to take that kind of thing in so I appreciate you doing that but I will try because it'd be good to do so so I would have let you practice patience for a moment and not speaking and let me from moment echnology for you know sparking so much inspiration in me as someone who watched on TV many many years ago before I got into any of this you really inspired me as a human being too so even if it was crazy or whatever the context was it really showed me how to be a better human being and how to heal myself and I think the work that you do on a day and a daily basis for 35 plus years now just on radio TV alone is so profound in making impact globally not just one-on-one which is also extremely important which you constantly do but trying to use all of your energy to make the maximum impact on the mask no more people from me or acknowledge you for that yes I thank you I will say that it's somehow more real and meaningful for me to hear that I Peck did you what I do for a big scale feels I'm hope it does yeah but that's harder for me to take it yeah yeah I appreciate it before I so final question where can we connect with you dr. drew comm where go they got to hang out yeah in Los Angeles I'm doing a radio show every day a new to 3k BC 790 a.m. which we're fun with okay probably gonna go back on CNN soon I'm gonna be producing some interesting projects I think coming up that keep an eye out for I can't really talk about him yet but I think they're gonna make a difference to which social media that you hang out the monster oh oh you can you wait I Facebook I monitor Twitter the most but I hate it the most okay cuz it's so abusive to check it out every day though I tell you a couple of day but it's it's so bad it's something that's my souls have the negative stuff dr. Drew on twitter at dr. drew at dr gary w on twitter and i have a face we're gonna watch too much Instagram I watch a little bit if you would watch out there and when I do put stuff up it's I mean it's important to me yeah yeah otherwise the website dr. arcanas mostly we're hangouts so on Twitter let dr. Drew know exactly the thing that you're inspire almost get in our contact list at dr. calm its we'll send you emails and you can send me emails a tweet to my wife monitors all that it does get to me okay I program cool the final question is what's your definition at this rate this is the last question what's your definition of hi my instinct is greatness is what you say it is and there's what you define as greatness and you want to be it it may not look that great to somebody else but I think the individual has to term what greatness is and yeah I think I can say that great greatness is an individual and from my opinion it's an individual measure and it's something that you should establish for yourself dr. drew thank you so much man thank you great thank you for your kind words of course thanks so much for watching this video I really appreciate it and if you enjoyed this video then make sure to subscribe to my youtube channel you can do that by clicking right here to subscribe because each week we come out with awesome epic and inspiring interviews and messages and videos just for you so click Subscribe right here to get notified of new videos every week also if you enjoyed this specific interview we've got a lot of great interviews like this that are uplifting and inspiring so click right here to watch the previous interviews because the people I've had on are pretty cool and epic as well so click here to watch previous interviews click here to subscribe I love you guys and I'll see you very soon

Channel: Lewis Howes

Views: 114,290

Rating: 4.8152113 out of 5

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Id: 1eh4fMcvAVE

Length: 55min 32sec (3332 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 14 2016