WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.540 This episode is sponsored by yet another incredible 00:00:02.540 --> 00:00:05.419 company that I stand behind fully, and that is 00:00:05.419 --> 00:00:09.179 Bubs Naturals. Now, I've not only used Bubs products 00:00:09.179 --> 00:00:12.439 for four years now, but I've also had the founder, 00:00:12.560 --> 00:00:16.039 Sean Lake, on the show twice. And they are offering 00:00:16.039 --> 00:00:18.160 you, the audience of the Behind the Shield podcast, 00:00:18.620 --> 00:00:21.660 20 % off your entire order, and I will give you 00:00:21.660 --> 00:00:25.300 that code in a moment. Now, Bubs has a very powerful 00:00:25.300 --> 00:00:28.980 backstory. Glenn Bob Doherty is one of the two 00:00:28.980 --> 00:00:32.520 Navy SEALs killed protecting the CIA facility 00:00:32.520 --> 00:00:36.560 in Benghazi. And wanting to honor his best friend, 00:00:36.799 --> 00:00:39.969 Sean stood up this company. Now, it began with 00:00:39.969 --> 00:00:42.289 their flagship product, which is their collagen. 00:00:42.450 --> 00:00:45.310 And I have to say, as a Brit with really dry 00:00:45.310 --> 00:00:49.369 skin who's now 51, I cannot underline the importance 00:00:49.369 --> 00:00:52.549 of collagen in your diet. I have seen a huge 00:00:52.549 --> 00:00:56.350 positive impact on my skin, nails, hair, and 00:00:56.350 --> 00:00:59.850 most importantly, digestive system. Another thing 00:00:59.850 --> 00:01:02.909 that I use religiously is their MCT creamers. 00:01:02.909 --> 00:01:05.150 That's the part of coconut oil that is good for 00:01:05.150 --> 00:01:08.310 our brain. And they come in dairy and non -dairy, 00:01:08.370 --> 00:01:11.129 depending on your diet. Now, I started taking 00:01:11.129 --> 00:01:14.250 Bub's latest product, creatine, about three months 00:01:14.250 --> 00:01:16.849 ago. And that was primarily because it's been 00:01:16.849 --> 00:01:20.090 proven to improve cognition and brain health. 00:01:20.390 --> 00:01:23.590 But not only did I witness that, I also saw an 00:01:23.590 --> 00:01:26.590 improvement in my performance. my lean muscle 00:01:26.590 --> 00:01:29.469 mass, and even a reduction in inflammation and 00:01:29.469 --> 00:01:33.129 sports injury pain. Now in addition, Bubz makes 00:01:33.129 --> 00:01:37.750 apple cider vinegar gummies, vitamin C, and their 00:01:37.750 --> 00:01:41.549 hydration product Hydrate or Die. And several 00:01:41.549 --> 00:01:44.569 of these products are also NSF certified, which 00:01:44.569 --> 00:01:46.989 is the highest level of certification as far 00:01:46.989 --> 00:01:50.140 as efficacy and cleanliness. Now, one of the 00:01:50.140 --> 00:01:52.439 most important elements of this company, in my 00:01:52.439 --> 00:01:54.640 opinion, is that they are a social business, 00:01:54.959 --> 00:01:58.280 meaning 10 % of their profits go to charity. 00:01:58.340 --> 00:02:00.939 And in this case, that is the Glenn Doherty Foundation. 00:02:01.599 --> 00:02:04.340 Now, as I mentioned before, they are offering 00:02:04.340 --> 00:02:06.700 you, the audience of the Behind the Shield podcast, 00:02:07.079 --> 00:02:11.219 20 % off your entire order if you use the code 00:02:11.219 --> 00:02:17.120 BTS at bubsnaturals .com. And if you want to 00:02:17.120 --> 00:02:19.620 hear more about the products, the backstory, 00:02:19.840 --> 00:02:23.039 and how Sean used Glenn's story to help other 00:02:23.039 --> 00:02:28.560 veterans, listen to episodes 558 and 1055 of 00:02:28.560 --> 00:02:31.740 the Behind the Shield podcast. Welcome to the 00:02:31.740 --> 00:02:33.460 Behind the Shield podcast. As always, my name 00:02:33.460 --> 00:02:35.659 is James Geering. And this week, it is my absolute 00:02:35.659 --> 00:02:38.719 honor to welcome on the show, renowned addiction 00:02:38.719 --> 00:02:43.580 expert, speaker, and author, Dr. Gabor Mate. 00:02:44.780 --> 00:02:47.139 Now, in this conversation, we discuss a host 00:02:47.139 --> 00:02:49.900 of topics. From his perspective on the national 00:02:49.900 --> 00:02:54.360 addiction crisis, sociopaths in power, the corrosion 00:02:54.360 --> 00:02:58.680 of empathy, first responder mental health, proactive 00:02:58.680 --> 00:03:02.360 programs, the healing power of psychedelics, 00:03:02.379 --> 00:03:05.479 and so much more. Now, before we get to this 00:03:05.479 --> 00:03:08.039 incredible conversation, as I say every week, 00:03:08.159 --> 00:03:11.379 please just take a moment. Go to whichever app 00:03:11.379 --> 00:03:14.159 you listen to this on. Subscribe to the show. 00:03:14.680 --> 00:03:18.639 Leave feedback and leave a rating. Every single 00:03:18.639 --> 00:03:21.840 five -star rating truly does elevate this podcast, 00:03:22.180 --> 00:03:24.659 therefore making it easier for others to find. 00:03:24.860 --> 00:03:29.840 And this is a free library of over 1 ,200 episodes 00:03:29.840 --> 00:03:33.719 now. So all I ask in return is that you help 00:03:33.719 --> 00:03:36.419 share these incredible men and women's stories 00:03:36.419 --> 00:03:40.360 so I can get them to every single person on planet 00:03:40.360 --> 00:03:43.699 Earth who needs to hear them. So with that being 00:03:43.699 --> 00:03:49.360 said, I introduce to you Dr. Gabor Mate. Enjoy. 00:04:08.520 --> 00:04:11.340 I want to start by saying two things. Firstly, 00:04:11.439 --> 00:04:13.879 thank you to our mutual friend Trevor Miller 00:04:13.879 --> 00:04:16.540 for making this connection. And secondly, I want 00:04:16.540 --> 00:04:18.699 to welcome you to the Behind the Shield podcast 00:04:18.699 --> 00:04:24.579 today. Thank you. As to Trevor, he just had a 00:04:24.579 --> 00:04:27.259 big article about him in the New York Times magazine 00:04:27.259 --> 00:04:31.100 just the day after we speak here on his work 00:04:31.100 --> 00:04:35.660 with the program PTSD. Thanks for welcoming me. 00:04:36.300 --> 00:04:38.680 Well, very first question, where on planet Earth 00:04:38.680 --> 00:04:41.680 are we finding you today? Well, finding me in 00:04:41.680 --> 00:04:43.240 Vancouver, British Columbia, where I'm nursing 00:04:43.240 --> 00:04:46.180 five broken ribs, having fallen off my bicycle 00:04:46.180 --> 00:04:49.779 on my way to go swimming three days ago. So I'm 00:04:49.779 --> 00:04:51.560 not particularly having the best of all possible 00:04:51.560 --> 00:04:54.240 times of it. Well, I'm sorry to hear that. I 00:04:54.240 --> 00:04:56.019 didn't help that for people listening that there 00:04:56.019 --> 00:04:58.040 was an issue even jumping on this call too. So 00:04:58.040 --> 00:05:00.339 I'm sorry to add even more stress to your day 00:05:00.339 --> 00:05:04.350 today. Well, likely. You never know what life 00:05:04.350 --> 00:05:08.110 is. My wife says it turns on a dime. Absolutely. 00:05:08.569 --> 00:05:11.329 I'm actually on my way home. As soon as we finish 00:05:11.329 --> 00:05:13.149 this conversation, I'm jumping on a plane to 00:05:13.149 --> 00:05:16.649 the UK. And even that, the plans, you had family 00:05:16.649 --> 00:05:19.610 members fall over and people with cancer and 00:05:19.610 --> 00:05:22.509 all kinds of stuff. So, yeah, life is a dynamic, 00:05:22.790 --> 00:05:28.639 unplannable experience. Yeah. Well, I would love 00:05:28.639 --> 00:05:30.220 to jump in because I want to be mindful of your 00:05:30.220 --> 00:05:32.480 time. Obviously, we've got an hour and usually 00:05:32.480 --> 00:05:34.480 I would kind of start the beginning of someone's 00:05:34.480 --> 00:05:36.319 life and kind of walk their way through. But 00:05:36.319 --> 00:05:39.040 I would love to pick out some of the areas we 00:05:39.040 --> 00:05:41.180 talked before we hit recording about, you know, 00:05:41.180 --> 00:05:44.439 the first responders specifically. But as we 00:05:44.439 --> 00:05:48.990 sit here in 2026. What is your perspective on 00:05:48.990 --> 00:05:54.310 the addiction crisis in general? Are we trending 00:05:54.310 --> 00:05:56.750 in the right way, or do you feel like we're still 00:05:56.750 --> 00:06:01.089 regressing at the moment? Well, these dynamics 00:06:01.089 --> 00:06:08.269 fluctuate. But in the last year, in the U .S., 00:06:08.269 --> 00:06:12.529 there were fewer overdose deaths than the year 00:06:12.529 --> 00:06:16.649 before. So that's good. But on the other hand, 00:06:17.160 --> 00:06:21.540 Any given year in the U .S., still twice as many 00:06:21.540 --> 00:06:24.459 Americans die of overdoses than died in the Vietnam, 00:06:24.660 --> 00:06:28.720 Afghan, and Iraq wars put together. So those 00:06:28.720 --> 00:06:30.759 numbers are just horrendous. And this is in a 00:06:30.759 --> 00:06:35.000 country that has spearheaded the so -called war 00:06:35.000 --> 00:06:41.839 on drugs since the 1970s. And people ought to 00:06:41.839 --> 00:06:44.660 be able to think for themselves, well, maybe... 00:06:45.199 --> 00:06:49.019 We don't have the right approach. If after announcing 00:06:49.019 --> 00:06:51.939 the war on drugs and persecuting it with such 00:06:51.939 --> 00:06:59.540 ferocity for decades, the number of people overdosing 00:06:59.540 --> 00:07:03.120 in our own country is going up, and the continued 00:07:03.120 --> 00:07:06.240 violence over drug trafficking such as we saw 00:07:06.240 --> 00:07:09.339 in Mexico just a couple of weeks ago continues 00:07:09.339 --> 00:07:12.620 unabated, is it possible that we're doing something 00:07:12.620 --> 00:07:17.860 wrong? So, also if you look at more generally, 00:07:18.120 --> 00:07:23.000 if you get beyond the definition of addiction 00:07:23.000 --> 00:07:27.199 that is drug -related, I mean, drugs are one 00:07:27.199 --> 00:07:32.680 obvious target of addictive drives, and I worked 00:07:32.680 --> 00:07:34.620 with the highly addicted population here in the 00:07:34.620 --> 00:07:38.439 group for 12 years. But people can also be addicted 00:07:38.439 --> 00:07:40.800 to gambling, to shopping, to pornography, to 00:07:40.800 --> 00:07:43.100 sex, to gaming, to the internet, to their cell 00:07:43.100 --> 00:07:48.980 phones, to bulimia, to self -cutting, to any 00:07:48.980 --> 00:07:53.379 number of behaviors. So if you look at the gambling 00:07:53.379 --> 00:07:59.300 specter that looms over the society, it's huge. 00:07:59.980 --> 00:08:02.300 And it goes well beyond the issue of substance 00:08:02.300 --> 00:08:07.779 abuse. I had Johan Hari on the show a couple 00:08:07.779 --> 00:08:09.860 of times, actually, and we kind of unpacked the 00:08:09.860 --> 00:08:12.439 origin story of drug prohibition. You know, when 00:08:12.439 --> 00:08:14.980 you learn about the story of Harry Anslinger 00:08:14.980 --> 00:08:18.079 and job justification and the failure of alcohol 00:08:18.079 --> 00:08:20.139 prohibition, which you would think would be a 00:08:20.139 --> 00:08:22.579 massive red flag for prohibition of something 00:08:22.579 --> 00:08:26.120 else. We're at 80 plus years now, longitudinal 00:08:26.120 --> 00:08:29.220 study of whether that works. And I would argue 00:08:29.220 --> 00:08:31.990 that it's an epic failure and spending. My whole 00:08:31.990 --> 00:08:34.230 career as a first responder, as a firefighter 00:08:34.230 --> 00:08:37.029 and a paramedic in these communities watching, 00:08:37.149 --> 00:08:40.110 you know, the homelessness, the sex work, the 00:08:40.110 --> 00:08:44.610 gang membership, the overdoses. There's no question 00:08:44.610 --> 00:08:47.889 that it isn't working, this war on drugs. What 00:08:47.889 --> 00:08:51.429 is the resistance to the progressive answers 00:08:51.429 --> 00:08:54.070 that, for example, Portugal have? I sat with 00:08:54.070 --> 00:08:57.360 Jao Gulau in Lisbon a few years ago. and witnessed 00:08:57.360 --> 00:09:00.340 it with my own eyes and heard of the incredible 00:09:00.340 --> 00:09:03.059 success that they've had. As you sit there in 00:09:03.059 --> 00:09:06.080 Canada, as I sit here in America now, what are 00:09:06.080 --> 00:09:12.100 the forces against this massive worldwide conversation 00:09:12.100 --> 00:09:17.120 of changing the way we view addiction? Well, 00:09:17.220 --> 00:09:19.120 first of all, I don't agree that it's a failure. 00:09:20.419 --> 00:09:24.000 It's a massive success. The question is what 00:09:24.000 --> 00:09:27.769 you think the assumptions are. If the assumptions 00:09:27.769 --> 00:09:35.610 are that we should diminish drug use, downgrade 00:09:35.610 --> 00:09:42.769 the drug trade, then it's a failure. But I can 00:09:42.769 --> 00:09:46.470 ask you a question. Was the Iraq war a success 00:09:46.470 --> 00:09:53.490 or a failure? Depends how you look at it. Depends 00:09:53.490 --> 00:09:58.860 who for. One of you. or overturning a regime 00:09:58.860 --> 00:10:01.960 with weapons of mass destruction was a failure 00:10:01.960 --> 00:10:04.340 because there was never a regime with weapons 00:10:04.340 --> 00:10:07.360 of mass destruction. As we all knew then, anybody 00:10:07.360 --> 00:10:09.720 had a chance to even open their eyes, one little 00:10:09.720 --> 00:10:12.159 slit could tell that the whole thing was based 00:10:12.159 --> 00:10:20.279 on a pack of lies. If the attempt was to create 00:10:20.279 --> 00:10:23.659 a democratic country in the Middle East, of course 00:10:23.659 --> 00:10:28.779 it was a failure. failure achieved at the death 00:10:28.779 --> 00:10:32.440 of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. But if the 00:10:32.440 --> 00:10:38.580 intent was to stamp the male fist of the American 00:10:38.580 --> 00:10:41.940 empire in yet another part of the world and tell 00:10:41.940 --> 00:10:46.100 them, you guys are not in charge, we are. And 00:10:46.100 --> 00:10:51.480 if the intent was to enrich what President Eisenhower 00:10:51.480 --> 00:10:55.610 called the military -industrial complex, It was 00:10:55.610 --> 00:10:59.409 a huge success. Now, if you go back to the war 00:10:59.409 --> 00:11:05.049 on drugs, in terms of entrenching military -equipped 00:11:05.049 --> 00:11:11.450 law enforcement institutions, enforcing the power 00:11:11.450 --> 00:11:15.090 of the courts, intimidating minority populations, 00:11:16.049 --> 00:11:19.450 segregating millions of black kids in jails, 00:11:21.519 --> 00:11:23.860 for crimes for which white kids don't get nearly 00:11:23.860 --> 00:11:27.799 the same degree of retribution, such as cocaine 00:11:27.799 --> 00:11:33.320 possession, to enhance the coercive powers of 00:11:33.320 --> 00:11:42.360 the state, and, frankly, to keep a whole industry 00:11:42.360 --> 00:11:46.980 of private prisons and busy lawyers and judges 00:11:46.980 --> 00:11:51.669 flush in business. It's been a major success. 00:11:53.049 --> 00:11:58.230 Not to mention it's been a major success in criminalizing 00:11:58.230 --> 00:12:03.730 the drug addict, of demonizing a section of the 00:12:03.730 --> 00:12:07.490 population. People need to have enemies. People 00:12:07.490 --> 00:12:11.629 need to have people to blame. And so you can 00:12:11.629 --> 00:12:17.490 channel that into politically useful areas. And 00:12:17.490 --> 00:12:20.480 everybody's worried about... being tough on crime, 00:12:20.639 --> 00:12:23.360 nobody's going to look at the actual conditions 00:12:23.360 --> 00:12:27.500 that create the crime. So I would argue it's 00:12:27.500 --> 00:12:32.240 been a major success. Yeah. And this is the problem. 00:12:32.340 --> 00:12:34.779 So I'm going to go straight into something that 00:12:34.779 --> 00:12:36.500 I've been thinking about recently. I actually 00:12:36.500 --> 00:12:39.840 heard it was on the Joe Rogan podcast and there 00:12:39.840 --> 00:12:42.379 was a guy called Sad Guru who was traveling around 00:12:42.379 --> 00:12:44.960 on a motorbike and they were talking about, you 00:12:44.960 --> 00:12:49.590 know, I've met the guy. oh you have yeah so you 00:12:49.590 --> 00:12:51.529 know exactly what i'm talking about and he just 00:12:51.529 --> 00:12:53.809 made a comment you know he was saying about you 00:12:53.809 --> 00:12:56.710 know people having trauma and joe said oh yeah 00:12:56.710 --> 00:12:58.789 apart from the heads of drug companies or something 00:12:58.789 --> 00:13:01.990 like that and he said no they have it too and 00:13:01.990 --> 00:13:03.570 then they went on with the conversation didn't 00:13:03.570 --> 00:13:06.649 even linger on that but it made me think when 00:13:06.649 --> 00:13:08.750 we in the first responder for a profession for 00:13:08.750 --> 00:13:10.669 example talk about our mental health we talk 00:13:10.669 --> 00:13:13.490 about You know, the firefighters, the engineers, 00:13:13.529 --> 00:13:15.409 the lieutenants that are actually on the streets 00:13:15.409 --> 00:13:17.730 responding to these things, you know, police 00:13:17.730 --> 00:13:20.710 officers, et cetera. But we're not looking at 00:13:20.710 --> 00:13:23.210 the chiefs, you know, and the fire chiefs and 00:13:23.210 --> 00:13:27.269 the police chiefs, some of whom seem to be completely 00:13:27.269 --> 00:13:29.870 disconnected from the well -being of their people. 00:13:29.909 --> 00:13:32.450 And they're not advocating for them. If you look 00:13:32.450 --> 00:13:35.149 at a more macro level, you look at, for example, 00:13:35.289 --> 00:13:39.000 Richard Sackler from Purdue Pharma. Whose deliberate, 00:13:39.120 --> 00:13:41.919 you know, misinformation really was one of the 00:13:41.919 --> 00:13:44.399 biggest parts of the amplification of the opioid 00:13:44.399 --> 00:13:47.120 crisis that to this day still takes 100 ,000 00:13:47.120 --> 00:13:50.759 American lives every single year. And the question 00:13:50.759 --> 00:13:52.820 is, well, how could you sleep at night knowing 00:13:52.820 --> 00:13:55.419 that your products, you know, nicotine or weapons 00:13:55.419 --> 00:13:57.759 or whatever it is that you are profiteering off 00:13:57.759 --> 00:14:00.679 the sickness and the deaths of Americans, Canadians, 00:14:00.860 --> 00:14:04.899 British, etc. So you touch on this on your latest 00:14:04.899 --> 00:14:10.519 book. Talk to me. About the the mental health 00:14:10.519 --> 00:14:12.519 of some of these people in these positions of 00:14:12.519 --> 00:14:14.779 power, you know, I would argue presidents, prime 00:14:14.779 --> 00:14:18.679 ministers, too. And, you know, how detrimental 00:14:18.679 --> 00:14:21.840 that can then be when someone with so much influence 00:14:21.840 --> 00:14:24.360 is not addressing their own trauma. And then 00:14:24.360 --> 00:14:27.019 that kind of hatred is being or that greed is 00:14:27.019 --> 00:14:32.820 being perpetuated down the line. Yeah, well, 00:14:32.940 --> 00:14:36.299 we have here is a combination of. individual 00:14:36.299 --> 00:14:39.779 psychological factors, and then social and economic 00:14:39.779 --> 00:14:44.379 priorities. So there's a professor here at the 00:14:44.379 --> 00:14:46.700 University of British Columbia who I quote in 00:14:46.700 --> 00:14:48.379 the book, he has mentioned the myth of normal, 00:14:48.519 --> 00:14:51.519 and he says that not all psychopaths are in prison, 00:14:51.620 --> 00:14:55.840 some are in the boardrooms of corporations. And 00:14:55.840 --> 00:15:00.399 if you look at it objectively, nobody in their 00:15:00.399 --> 00:15:04.539 right mind with any access to the least bit of 00:15:04.539 --> 00:15:11.980 information and objective research can deny that 00:15:11.980 --> 00:15:15.279 there's a climate crisis going on. Every day 00:15:15.279 --> 00:15:17.720 there's new reports of more scientists sounding 00:15:17.720 --> 00:15:22.559 the alarm about possibly irreversible climate 00:15:22.559 --> 00:15:25.580 changes with all kinds of effects on human life, 00:15:25.700 --> 00:15:29.659 animal life, nature, the oceans, the glaciers, 00:15:29.659 --> 00:15:35.519 and so on. And those changes have already caused 00:15:35.519 --> 00:15:41.960 the deaths of a lot of people. Or take an example 00:15:41.960 --> 00:15:47.740 like smoking, which nobody doubts anymore, is 00:15:47.740 --> 00:15:51.940 a significant risk factor in lung cancer. Or 00:15:51.940 --> 00:15:55.659 we can take the example of junk foods, which 00:15:55.659 --> 00:15:59.529 we know... are a significant contributor to diabetes, 00:15:59.769 --> 00:16:06.090 to obesity, to heart disease, to strokes, to 00:16:06.090 --> 00:16:11.350 all kinds of metabolic problems. Now, none of 00:16:11.350 --> 00:16:16.129 the facts around climate change, smoking and 00:16:16.129 --> 00:16:21.210 cigarette smoking and harm to human health, or 00:16:21.210 --> 00:16:24.129 junk foods and its harm to human health, none 00:16:24.129 --> 00:16:26.899 of those are vaguely scientifically controversial. 00:16:27.879 --> 00:16:31.899 That's the first fact. The second fact is that 00:16:31.899 --> 00:16:36.200 these truths about tobacco, climate, and food 00:16:36.200 --> 00:16:41.440 have been known for decades. The third fact that's 00:16:41.440 --> 00:16:44.639 true is that the corporations and the CEOs and 00:16:44.639 --> 00:16:48.100 the executives of the corporations have known 00:16:48.100 --> 00:16:52.200 these truths for decades. And the fourth fact 00:16:52.200 --> 00:16:55.919 is that they've knowingly denied them and tried 00:16:55.919 --> 00:17:01.220 to discredit the science showing the link between 00:17:01.220 --> 00:17:03.940 lung cancer and smoking, link between junk food 00:17:03.940 --> 00:17:07.920 and ill health, diabetes, and the link between 00:17:07.920 --> 00:17:14.940 human activity and climate change. So they deny 00:17:14.940 --> 00:17:18.640 this knowing that millions of people are going 00:17:18.640 --> 00:17:22.279 to die. which they have. Millions of people have 00:17:22.279 --> 00:17:27.920 died and more will as a result of all this denial. 00:17:28.380 --> 00:17:32.000 Now, if you or I, James, were to go out and kill 00:17:32.000 --> 00:17:36.539 one person, we'd be charged, we'd be tried, we'd 00:17:36.539 --> 00:17:41.140 be convicted. These people have killed millions. 00:17:41.920 --> 00:17:45.779 They're heroes. They're rewarded by the system. 00:17:47.730 --> 00:17:50.509 Now, so this one person, this professor at UBC, 00:17:50.630 --> 00:17:53.569 he said, not all psychopaths are in prison, some 00:17:53.569 --> 00:17:57.049 are in the boardrooms. So what I'm saying is 00:17:57.049 --> 00:18:00.410 that we have a system because of the materialistic 00:18:00.410 --> 00:18:03.230 ethic, because the only thing that matters is 00:18:03.230 --> 00:18:09.890 power, profit, privilege, and performance. Therefore, 00:18:10.230 --> 00:18:15.170 everything else is secondary. And so that The 00:18:15.170 --> 00:18:17.170 very people who are the least concerned with 00:18:17.170 --> 00:18:20.170 human dignity, human life, human health, are 00:18:20.170 --> 00:18:23.650 the ones we put in charge to run our institutions. 00:18:25.589 --> 00:18:27.829 And then we wonder, now, what happened to them 00:18:27.829 --> 00:18:33.630 personally? It's pretty easy to tell what happened 00:18:33.630 --> 00:18:35.390 to them personally. They're shut down from their 00:18:35.390 --> 00:18:37.210 emotions, they're shut down from their truth, 00:18:37.430 --> 00:18:39.250 they're shut down from their connection to their 00:18:39.250 --> 00:18:42.579 humanity. And in the midst of normal, I looked 00:18:42.579 --> 00:18:46.079 at two cases of two politicians. One is Donald 00:18:46.079 --> 00:18:51.960 Trump. And people think I'm sort of anti -Trump. 00:18:52.000 --> 00:18:55.000 I'm not anti -Trump. I'm just telling how it 00:18:55.000 --> 00:19:00.819 is. He is somebody who literally said in so many 00:19:00.819 --> 00:19:03.619 words, I'm quoting him, the world is a horrible 00:19:03.619 --> 00:19:07.720 place. It's dog -eat -dog. Everyone is against 00:19:07.720 --> 00:19:11.339 you. Your friends want your wealth. Your friends 00:19:11.339 --> 00:19:14.039 want your wife. Your friends want your house. 00:19:14.140 --> 00:19:17.839 These are your friends. Now, if that's the world 00:19:17.839 --> 00:19:20.119 that you believe in, how are you going to have 00:19:20.119 --> 00:19:22.420 to be? You're going to have to be grandiose. 00:19:23.200 --> 00:19:25.839 You're going to have to be suspicious. You're 00:19:25.839 --> 00:19:29.400 going to have to be aggressive, acquisitive, 00:19:29.519 --> 00:19:32.960 greedy, accumulate as much power as you can for 00:19:32.960 --> 00:19:35.920 yourself, and you have to absolutely lack a conscience. 00:19:37.119 --> 00:19:40.839 Otherwise, you'll be eaten up. How did he come 00:19:40.839 --> 00:19:42.819 to believe in that world? Because that was his 00:19:42.819 --> 00:19:47.019 childhood. His niece, Mary Trump, who's a psychologist, 00:19:47.180 --> 00:19:50.779 says that Fred Sr., Fred's father, was a sociopath 00:19:50.779 --> 00:19:54.119 who treated his kids horribly. And this is where 00:19:54.119 --> 00:19:55.799 Trump learned that this is the way the world 00:19:55.799 --> 00:19:58.539 works. His elder brother dealt with it by dragging 00:19:58.539 --> 00:20:04.319 himself to death. Now his opponent, Hillary Clinton, 00:20:04.619 --> 00:20:10.190 who was quite capable of going into and destroying 00:20:10.190 --> 00:20:13.430 a country, bombing it, killing tens of thousands 00:20:13.430 --> 00:20:17.049 and rendering a country utterly dysfunctional. 00:20:19.230 --> 00:20:22.609 And who put up with the sexual escapades of her 00:20:22.609 --> 00:20:29.710 husband by blaming the women. She had also a 00:20:29.710 --> 00:20:33.190 very traumatic childhood, where her needs were 00:20:33.190 --> 00:20:37.569 not met, where she was beaten, where... If she 00:20:37.569 --> 00:20:39.549 complained, she was told not to be a coward, 00:20:39.690 --> 00:20:42.309 she had to suck it up. So what I'm saying is 00:20:42.309 --> 00:20:44.589 that the American public had the choice between 00:20:44.589 --> 00:20:47.849 two traumatized people in the 2016 election. 00:20:48.109 --> 00:20:49.769 The question is, which trauma did they choose? 00:20:50.029 --> 00:20:53.809 They chose the Big Daddy trauma because there's 00:20:53.809 --> 00:20:56.150 so much fear in a society, so much insecurity, 00:20:56.470 --> 00:21:03.150 and so much need for protection that Trump's 00:21:03.150 --> 00:21:08.579 grandiosity... appears to people as power that 00:21:08.579 --> 00:21:13.220 we can rely on. It's a very compensatory mechanism. 00:21:13.740 --> 00:21:16.539 If I look at him psychologically, he's the least 00:21:16.539 --> 00:21:20.140 secure person I've ever seen. Who needs to have 00:21:20.140 --> 00:21:23.539 their name on buildings? I mean, if you had a 00:21:23.539 --> 00:21:26.880 neighbor, let's say, James, you had a neighbor 00:21:26.880 --> 00:21:32.299 whose name was Smith, and who then put a big 00:21:32.299 --> 00:21:37.250 sign on his house saying, Smith, power, and gold 00:21:37.250 --> 00:21:40.329 letters. And the neighborhood high school had 00:21:40.329 --> 00:21:43.990 to be named Smith High School. What would you 00:21:43.990 --> 00:21:47.930 think of this guy? But these are the leaders. 00:21:48.049 --> 00:21:50.309 And Trump is only the most exigious example. 00:21:50.829 --> 00:21:54.130 What I'm saying is that in this society, we elect 00:21:54.130 --> 00:21:57.750 traumatized people who then pursue traumatizing 00:21:57.750 --> 00:22:02.029 policies. See, and people would say, oh, this 00:22:02.029 --> 00:22:04.549 is a political conversation. I couldn't disagree 00:22:04.549 --> 00:22:08.240 more. People use the word politics to stop people 00:22:08.240 --> 00:22:10.799 having the conversations that are needed about 00:22:10.799 --> 00:22:13.359 the human beings. And I've said this, I mean, 00:22:13.400 --> 00:22:18.819 I only came over here 22 years ago and I got 00:22:18.819 --> 00:22:22.660 to vote. I think it was the Trump Clinton was 00:22:22.660 --> 00:22:24.279 the first one, if I'm not mistaken, if I got 00:22:24.279 --> 00:22:26.839 that right in my head. And I ended up going independent 00:22:26.839 --> 00:22:29.900 because everyone kept saying the phrase is the 00:22:29.900 --> 00:22:32.319 lesser of two evils. And I would say, well, there's 00:22:32.319 --> 00:22:35.789 340 million people in America. what is wrong 00:22:35.789 --> 00:22:37.890 with the system that you're presented with two 00:22:37.890 --> 00:22:40.289 people and you use the word the lesser of two 00:22:40.289 --> 00:22:43.690 evils so and then as you look at the exact examples 00:22:43.690 --> 00:22:46.519 that you've given hurt people hurt people. I 00:22:46.519 --> 00:22:49.519 mean, it's blatantly obvious the narcissism and 00:22:49.519 --> 00:22:53.400 the nastiness that's projected when you look 00:22:53.400 --> 00:22:55.740 at the revered leaders of our history, you know, 00:22:55.740 --> 00:22:57.880 all nations, you know, they were strong when 00:22:57.880 --> 00:22:59.680 they were compassionate and they were kind. You 00:22:59.680 --> 00:23:01.200 know, there were times when we went to war, like 00:23:01.200 --> 00:23:04.140 World War II, and, you know, the allies did incredible, 00:23:04.319 --> 00:23:06.519 incredible things. And they had some great leaders 00:23:06.519 --> 00:23:09.279 at certain times then. But, you know, going around 00:23:09.279 --> 00:23:11.319 the way we are now, and even, you know, I know 00:23:11.319 --> 00:23:13.700 you've been a voice on this too. It turns my 00:23:13.700 --> 00:23:17.809 stomach. that a generational conflict like Gaza, 00:23:17.970 --> 00:23:20.150 and I've always mirrored this with Ireland. I 00:23:20.150 --> 00:23:23.109 grew up next to a military base in England, and 00:23:23.109 --> 00:23:25.549 I had to sweep under my car in the morning to 00:23:25.549 --> 00:23:28.049 make sure there wasn't a bomb from the IRA. That's 00:23:28.049 --> 00:23:30.109 not me being dramatic. It's just geographically, 00:23:30.109 --> 00:23:33.450 we were right next to a base. But I understand 00:23:33.450 --> 00:23:36.150 the backstory of why there was that conflict 00:23:36.150 --> 00:23:38.049 in the first place. But I've always said, if 00:23:38.049 --> 00:23:41.450 the IRA bombed the mainland, which they did many 00:23:41.450 --> 00:23:44.579 times, and then the British went in and flattened 00:23:44.579 --> 00:23:47.599 the entire city of Belfast, men, women, and children, 00:23:47.819 --> 00:23:51.759 how would the world react? But 20 ,000 children 00:23:51.759 --> 00:23:55.059 are killed in Gaza, and there's so little moral 00:23:55.059 --> 00:23:57.420 courage because of these figures that you said 00:23:57.420 --> 00:24:00.299 have been presented to us that the American people 00:24:00.299 --> 00:24:03.799 can't separate between the back and forth of 00:24:03.799 --> 00:24:07.869 militant combatants. And this incredibly, you 00:24:07.869 --> 00:24:10.750 know, genocidal number of children, not to mention 00:24:10.750 --> 00:24:13.309 innocent women, innocent men, children that are 00:24:13.309 --> 00:24:15.470 killed in that conflict. And I think this is 00:24:15.470 --> 00:24:16.950 something that we have to look in the mirror. 00:24:17.009 --> 00:24:19.930 If you're not appalled by, you know, imagine 00:24:19.930 --> 00:24:23.690 20 ,000 of children in your home, your schools, 00:24:23.829 --> 00:24:25.509 your community were killed, and that doesn't 00:24:25.509 --> 00:24:28.150 move you. And yet you go to a holy building every 00:24:28.150 --> 00:24:31.069 Sunday or Saturday or whatever religion you lean 00:24:31.069 --> 00:24:35.759 into. I think it's an incredibly nauseating barometer 00:24:35.759 --> 00:24:39.279 on how we've been driven away from what used 00:24:39.279 --> 00:24:42.960 to be a pretty strong moral compass. You know, 00:24:43.039 --> 00:24:45.799 there's a lot in what you say. First of all, 00:24:45.839 --> 00:24:48.900 as to the comment that this is a political discussion, 00:24:49.240 --> 00:24:53.099 I said nothing about politics. Exactly. I didn't 00:24:53.099 --> 00:24:55.980 say anything about do I agree with Trump's policies 00:24:55.980 --> 00:24:59.480 or Clinton's or anybody else's. I just said... 00:24:59.980 --> 00:25:02.460 These are the forces that shape the personality 00:25:02.460 --> 00:25:07.200 that lead our culture. And the more hurt they 00:25:07.200 --> 00:25:09.839 are, the more damage they cause. If you look 00:25:09.839 --> 00:25:11.759 at somebody like Hitler, he was a severely abused 00:25:11.759 --> 00:25:18.500 child. Severely. So that's the first point. And, 00:25:18.559 --> 00:25:21.440 you know, I'm not talking about politics as policy. 00:25:21.940 --> 00:25:26.279 I'm talking about in certain cultures, certain 00:25:26.279 --> 00:25:29.849 people get elevated. Because they project a sense 00:25:29.849 --> 00:25:33.210 of strength, but that strength is really grandiosity, 00:25:33.490 --> 00:25:37.869 which is a compensation for a lack of self -respect. 00:25:39.029 --> 00:25:41.450 That's what I'm saying. I'm just stating an obvious 00:25:41.450 --> 00:25:46.950 psychological fact. And you can find them all 00:25:46.950 --> 00:25:52.809 around the political spectrum. As to Ireland 00:25:52.809 --> 00:25:56.390 and England, well, as you are probably aware, 00:25:57.240 --> 00:26:00.359 The IRA didn't all of a sudden arise out of a 00:26:00.359 --> 00:26:06.339 pumpkin patch. There'd been a history of brutal 00:26:06.339 --> 00:26:09.880 British suppression of Irish independence and 00:26:09.880 --> 00:26:15.980 culture and mass starvation and all kinds of 00:26:15.980 --> 00:26:20.400 depredations for hundreds of years. Similarly, 00:26:20.759 --> 00:26:25.930 Hamas did not arise out of a pumpkin patch. Not 00:26:25.930 --> 00:26:30.630 to justify killing of civilians, but the Palestinians 00:26:30.630 --> 00:26:33.569 had suffered massive killing of the civilians 00:26:33.569 --> 00:26:37.210 for 80 years, which has been documented by Israeli 00:26:37.210 --> 00:26:43.029 scholars. And there was an article in the Israeli 00:26:43.029 --> 00:26:45.569 newspaper Haaretz just two weeks ago about how 00:26:45.569 --> 00:26:49.089 more documents have been found about what Israel 00:26:49.089 --> 00:26:54.559 did to the Palestinians in 1948. They keep finding 00:26:54.559 --> 00:26:57.099 more and more evidence of the massacres, expulsions, 00:26:57.140 --> 00:27:00.680 oppressions. And I've been there. I've seen it 00:27:00.680 --> 00:27:05.339 with my own eyes. Three years ago now, two years 00:27:05.339 --> 00:27:08.660 ago, four years ago now, I was in the West Bank 00:27:08.660 --> 00:27:11.900 working with Palestinian women who had been tortured 00:27:11.900 --> 00:27:15.579 in Israeli jails. And so that when you look at 00:27:15.579 --> 00:27:17.740 Gaza, and then it's not just a question of killing, 00:27:17.880 --> 00:27:21.670 it's also... They don't let in anesthetics so 00:27:21.670 --> 00:27:23.130 children, when they have to have their limbs 00:27:23.130 --> 00:27:25.710 amputated, it's done without any pain medication. 00:27:28.710 --> 00:27:32.150 I just poked my ribs a few days ago. I get to 00:27:32.150 --> 00:27:35.509 take pain medication. Somebody gets their arm 00:27:35.509 --> 00:27:38.269 blown off and they need an amputation. They don't 00:27:38.269 --> 00:27:41.390 even get an aspirin because the Israelis don't 00:27:41.390 --> 00:27:44.289 let in medications. So we're talking about levels 00:27:44.289 --> 00:27:51.019 of cruelty that are beyond imaginable. And I 00:27:51.019 --> 00:27:54.759 suppose the more general question is, this has 00:27:54.759 --> 00:27:57.339 been going on in human life for a long time. 00:27:57.980 --> 00:28:01.079 In my country, in your country, in the Middle 00:28:01.079 --> 00:28:05.000 East, elsewhere, everybody's capable of being 00:28:05.000 --> 00:28:07.940 a victim and everybody's capable of being a perpetrator. 00:28:08.400 --> 00:28:18.269 There's no, nobody gets a pass card. that you're 00:28:18.269 --> 00:28:19.769 going to be good and everybody else is going 00:28:19.769 --> 00:28:22.470 to be bad. It just depends on the circumstances. 00:28:22.509 --> 00:28:27.630 The question I keep asking in all my books, including 00:28:27.630 --> 00:28:29.750 this most recent one, The Myth of Normal, is 00:28:29.750 --> 00:28:34.329 what gives a rise to healthy human development 00:28:34.329 --> 00:28:37.710 and what distorts healthy human development? 00:28:38.349 --> 00:28:42.869 Going back to your fire chiefs, when I looked 00:28:42.869 --> 00:28:45.890 at the first responder culture, I noticed a number 00:28:45.890 --> 00:28:48.589 of things. First of all, the people that go into 00:28:48.589 --> 00:28:53.930 it tend to be very dedicated, very idealistic 00:28:53.930 --> 00:28:55.450 in a certain sense, and they're really committed 00:28:55.450 --> 00:29:00.589 to making a difference. So they care. Number 00:29:00.589 --> 00:29:03.430 one. Number two. Sometimes what they have to 00:29:03.430 --> 00:29:07.450 witness is horrific. Even if their own lives 00:29:07.450 --> 00:29:10.589 don't come under threat, which often it does, 00:29:11.109 --> 00:29:14.670 but just by what they have to witness in terms 00:29:14.670 --> 00:29:17.640 of human suffering. Sometimes human cruelty. 00:29:19.420 --> 00:29:24.619 So that takes a toll. But that's accompanied 00:29:24.619 --> 00:29:29.559 by a kind of male -matchel culture where we're 00:29:29.559 --> 00:29:32.539 not supposed to have feelings. We're not supposed 00:29:32.539 --> 00:29:38.559 to be vulnerable. We're not supposed to crack 00:29:38.559 --> 00:29:41.859 under the pressure. We're not supposed to be 00:29:41.859 --> 00:29:44.799 upset and have issues. And it's kind of considered 00:29:44.799 --> 00:29:53.869 a... slanderously female -like concept that we 00:29:53.869 --> 00:29:55.730 should have feelings and we should have vulnerability. 00:29:56.109 --> 00:30:03.309 So not only are people exposed to a lot of deep 00:30:03.309 --> 00:30:06.390 stress and potentially traumatizing influences, 00:30:06.849 --> 00:30:08.890 they're also totally discouraged from dealing 00:30:08.890 --> 00:30:11.990 with it. And it's considered a weakness. And 00:30:11.990 --> 00:30:13.690 you can tell me if this is wrong, but this is 00:30:13.690 --> 00:30:17.319 my general impression. In the myth of normal, 00:30:17.440 --> 00:30:20.140 I actually talk about a case of a female first 00:30:20.140 --> 00:30:23.819 responder who, in her firehouse, underwent all 00:30:23.819 --> 00:30:30.359 kinds of misogynist harassment. They would throw 00:30:30.359 --> 00:30:33.460 tampons into her bed and make sexual comments. 00:30:33.740 --> 00:30:37.119 It's like the feminine is denied, and the feminine 00:30:37.119 --> 00:30:40.519 is our emotional vulnerable part. So people are 00:30:40.519 --> 00:30:43.640 denying their own feminine parts, and males hate 00:30:43.640 --> 00:30:46.920 to tell you. I don't hate to tell you. As human 00:30:46.920 --> 00:30:48.720 beings, we all have what we call feminine and 00:30:48.720 --> 00:30:51.539 masculine parts. And there's this cult of the 00:30:51.539 --> 00:30:54.839 masculine, of the tough, invulnerable masculine. 00:30:55.960 --> 00:31:00.759 And our mutual friend, Trevor Miller, who you 00:31:00.759 --> 00:31:06.900 mentioned, he works with veterans. And what breaks 00:31:06.900 --> 00:31:11.019 down when people heal from a post -traumatic 00:31:11.019 --> 00:31:14.720 stress disorder. What breaks down and blessedly 00:31:14.720 --> 00:31:19.980 is this facade of male invulnerability. That's 00:31:19.980 --> 00:31:24.140 the culture. Now, your fire chiefs, they're the 00:31:24.140 --> 00:31:25.680 most extreme of it because they're the ones who 00:31:25.680 --> 00:31:29.460 get to be at the top of it. So I would argue 00:31:29.460 --> 00:31:32.440 that in most cases, not in all cases, but in 00:31:32.440 --> 00:31:34.440 most cases, the people who make it to the top 00:31:34.440 --> 00:31:40.339 are the ones who are the least open to the caring, 00:31:40.359 --> 00:31:43.039 vulnerable side. So there's no culture of caring 00:31:43.039 --> 00:31:47.980 and support. There's not to be. This is hard 00:31:47.980 --> 00:31:53.859 work. What we're seeing at the moment is there, 00:31:53.920 --> 00:31:56.400 don't get me wrong, some excellent leaders out 00:31:56.400 --> 00:31:59.059 there who are advocating for their people, who 00:31:59.059 --> 00:32:01.880 are fighting for healthy work weeks. I mean, 00:32:01.900 --> 00:32:05.420 I don't have to explain to you the impact of 00:32:05.420 --> 00:32:07.220 sleep deprivation on mental health, for example, 00:32:07.220 --> 00:32:09.680 not to mention cancer and testosterone and everything 00:32:09.680 --> 00:32:14.869 else. As you discussed earlier, smoking, fast 00:32:14.869 --> 00:32:17.250 food, et cetera, we know the science is there 00:32:17.250 --> 00:32:19.789 for how detrimental that is to human health. 00:32:19.910 --> 00:32:22.390 It's the same with shift work. And at the moment, 00:32:22.390 --> 00:32:26.130 we're in a recruitment crisis because people 00:32:26.130 --> 00:32:28.109 haven't changed, because we haven't acknowledged 00:32:28.109 --> 00:32:30.950 the issues and acknowledged all these funerals 00:32:30.950 --> 00:32:33.849 that we're having and said in this 56 -hour work 00:32:33.849 --> 00:32:35.869 week and then this mandatory overtime, it's now 00:32:35.869 --> 00:32:39.299 80 hours. is a massive contributing factor to 00:32:39.299 --> 00:32:42.079 a lot of the issues that we struggle with but 00:32:42.079 --> 00:32:44.640 as we talked about with some of these you know 00:32:44.640 --> 00:32:47.440 psychopaths in the boardroom we're also seeing 00:32:47.440 --> 00:32:50.400 that in the chief's office in some places where 00:32:50.400 --> 00:32:54.660 they are unmoved by not only you know the the 00:32:54.660 --> 00:32:56.220 fact that they're not going home to their families 00:32:56.220 --> 00:32:58.779 but there are suicides and cancers you know numerous 00:32:58.779 --> 00:33:02.000 deaths and these men and women just go home at 00:33:02.000 --> 00:33:03.740 five o 'clock every night and they kind of shrug 00:33:03.740 --> 00:33:06.539 their shoulders and go oh well And it's the same. 00:33:06.599 --> 00:33:09.140 I see it as the same thing. The good leaders 00:33:09.140 --> 00:33:11.319 still have that heart of service and they feel 00:33:11.319 --> 00:33:13.240 it when their people are suffering and they fight 00:33:13.240 --> 00:33:16.359 for them. But the poor leaders, to your point, 00:33:16.500 --> 00:33:19.059 I feel they're so disconnected and so mentally 00:33:19.059 --> 00:33:22.140 shut down that we need to have a conversation 00:33:22.140 --> 00:33:24.539 about mental health in the fire service leadership. 00:33:25.339 --> 00:33:27.539 Because if you're not fighting for your men and 00:33:27.539 --> 00:33:29.619 women, and God forbid, you're even burying your 00:33:29.619 --> 00:33:32.220 men and women and it's not moving you to action. 00:33:32.940 --> 00:33:36.599 That's an empathy issue. That is borderline sociopathy, 00:33:36.640 --> 00:33:41.380 I think. It is an individual level. On the systemic 00:33:41.380 --> 00:33:45.119 level, there's what we can call the patriarchy. 00:33:45.279 --> 00:33:49.900 And the patriarchy, often people think that men 00:33:49.900 --> 00:33:53.440 are in charge. Well, no, it's not about individual 00:33:53.440 --> 00:33:56.740 men being in charge. Although, if you look at 00:33:56.740 --> 00:33:59.640 the power structures, they tend to be elderly 00:33:59.640 --> 00:34:02.970 men. elderly Caucasian then for that matter. 00:34:03.069 --> 00:34:07.990 So that's undeniable. But Patriarch is less of 00:34:07.990 --> 00:34:13.969 a declared ideology than an underlying dynamic. 00:34:14.489 --> 00:34:20.769 And basically it glorifies what we consider to 00:34:20.769 --> 00:34:24.030 be masculine and it demeans and controls what 00:34:24.030 --> 00:34:28.800 we consider to be feminine. I knew a therapist 00:34:28.800 --> 00:34:34.159 friend of mine, very well known, whose clientele 00:34:34.159 --> 00:34:38.699 includes, who gets to charge a lot of money, 00:34:38.800 --> 00:34:42.380 because his clientele includes the heads of corporations. 00:34:42.760 --> 00:34:47.760 And he says, these guys are a mess. Underneath 00:34:47.760 --> 00:34:52.900 the facade of success and power, they're really 00:34:52.900 --> 00:34:57.000 broken human beings. Because they're... are so 00:34:57.000 --> 00:35:03.420 separated from their emotions. And again, these 00:35:03.420 --> 00:35:08.099 are the people that the system rewards. And these 00:35:08.099 --> 00:35:10.860 are the people that I hear people make comments 00:35:10.860 --> 00:35:12.900 on that, you know, that interact like yourself 00:35:12.900 --> 00:35:14.760 with some of these men and women. And they're 00:35:14.760 --> 00:35:16.840 like, and it's never enough. It's never enough 00:35:16.840 --> 00:35:19.480 power. It's never enough money. It's never enough 00:35:19.480 --> 00:35:22.539 sexual attention, whatever it is, because that 00:35:22.539 --> 00:35:26.230 void is unfillable by that point. That's the 00:35:26.230 --> 00:35:31.110 whole point is, and all addictions to whatever 00:35:31.110 --> 00:35:36.969 are rooted in this emptiness inside. And you 00:35:36.969 --> 00:35:40.550 can never fit from the outside. And in fact, 00:35:40.570 --> 00:35:42.889 the more you get from the outside, the more insecure 00:35:42.889 --> 00:35:49.650 you get. I mean, I think it was like to be in 00:35:49.650 --> 00:35:53.719 the consciousness of an Elon Musk. I wouldn't 00:35:53.719 --> 00:35:56.880 want to leave his mind for a second. There must 00:35:56.880 --> 00:36:00.639 be sheer hell in there. Not that he knows that, 00:36:00.739 --> 00:36:06.559 but to need that much power, to need that much 00:36:06.559 --> 00:36:11.619 money, that much recognition, how empty do you 00:36:11.619 --> 00:36:16.739 have to be? Absolutely. I talked about Portugal. 00:36:17.559 --> 00:36:21.840 They had such an incredible model and not only 00:36:22.460 --> 00:36:24.380 turning everything around, but then even for 00:36:24.380 --> 00:36:25.840 their law enforcement, you know, they're not 00:36:25.840 --> 00:36:27.980 walking around wearing military gear or, you 00:36:27.980 --> 00:36:29.219 know, that kind of thing. And I think people 00:36:29.219 --> 00:36:31.719 in America forget, there are lots of countries 00:36:31.719 --> 00:36:34.119 where the police just walk around, you know, 00:36:34.119 --> 00:36:36.380 interacting with people like American police 00:36:36.380 --> 00:36:39.500 officers did, you know, a few decades ago. I 00:36:39.500 --> 00:36:41.340 want to get to the psychedelics. But before we 00:36:41.340 --> 00:36:44.519 do, as far as systems, if you were king for a 00:36:44.519 --> 00:36:46.219 day, and you could actually implement something 00:36:46.219 --> 00:36:51.579 directly into Canada or the US, what needs to 00:36:51.579 --> 00:36:55.239 change so we can actually start addressing addiction 00:36:55.239 --> 00:36:57.300 as a mental health element address generational 00:36:57.300 --> 00:37:01.280 trauma you know give proactive tools to get people 00:37:01.280 --> 00:37:03.519 out of addiction you know what what are some 00:37:03.519 --> 00:37:05.179 of the best systems that you've seen around the 00:37:05.179 --> 00:37:08.019 world that you think need to be in northern america 00:37:08.019 --> 00:37:14.539 as well the problem of being king for a day is 00:37:14.539 --> 00:37:18.320 very hierarchical and it needs you imposing something 00:37:18.320 --> 00:37:21.500 on others because you've got the And that by 00:37:21.500 --> 00:37:25.440 definition doesn't work. But if I could give 00:37:25.440 --> 00:37:27.780 advice, if that's what you're asking, that people 00:37:27.780 --> 00:37:31.480 might actually listen to, I would say, look, 00:37:31.679 --> 00:37:38.360 just look at the actual science of addiction. 00:37:40.380 --> 00:37:44.800 And I don't just mean the science in the narrow 00:37:44.800 --> 00:37:47.840 sense of the neurobiology of the addicted brain. 00:37:47.960 --> 00:37:49.820 That's easy enough. You can show brain scans. 00:37:51.150 --> 00:37:53.369 But what shapes the neurobiology of the brain? 00:37:54.309 --> 00:37:57.630 So it turns out, I'm speaking pure brain science 00:37:57.630 --> 00:38:01.349 here, is that the human brain is shaped by interaction 00:38:01.349 --> 00:38:04.849 with the environment. And that begins before 00:38:04.849 --> 00:38:09.889 birth. So you can stress pregnant women, and 00:38:09.889 --> 00:38:12.889 those stresses will affect the child's brain 00:38:12.889 --> 00:38:16.250 development in such ways that they'll be more 00:38:16.250 --> 00:38:19.289 likely to... develop mental health issues, they 00:38:19.289 --> 00:38:22.829 can predispose to addictions later on. So in 00:38:22.829 --> 00:38:25.590 my book on addiction, in the realm of omnivores, 00:38:25.730 --> 00:38:29.590 in the appendix on prevention, I say that the 00:38:29.590 --> 00:38:33.469 first, the prevention of addiction is to begin 00:38:33.469 --> 00:38:36.710 at the first prenatal visit by taking care of 00:38:36.710 --> 00:38:39.769 a pregnant woman and looking after their stresses. 00:38:41.510 --> 00:38:47.110 And so from the moment of conception, till birth, 00:38:47.389 --> 00:38:52.590 and for two or more decades beyond birth, the 00:38:52.590 --> 00:38:54.789 brain develops an interaction with the environment. 00:38:56.010 --> 00:39:00.789 So, for example, the opiate addict is desperate 00:39:00.789 --> 00:39:06.050 for a hit of morphine or, you know, opium, fentanyl. 00:39:06.130 --> 00:39:11.349 Why? Because they want what the opiates provide. 00:39:11.769 --> 00:39:14.650 Now, we have our internal opiates. They're called 00:39:14.650 --> 00:39:19.409 endorphins. And they're essential for pain relief. 00:39:20.289 --> 00:39:22.949 They're essential to give us a sense of pleasure 00:39:22.949 --> 00:39:27.110 and reward. And they're essential for caring 00:39:27.110 --> 00:39:33.869 and loving and connection. Now, we have an internal 00:39:33.869 --> 00:39:40.210 endorphins. And as with any developmental process, 00:39:40.429 --> 00:39:43.769 if the conditions are right, our brain will develop. 00:39:44.380 --> 00:39:48.519 and will develop these endorphin circuits. But 00:39:48.519 --> 00:39:51.639 what if they're not? So if you look at the science, 00:39:51.920 --> 00:39:54.179 what happens to addicted people, particularly 00:39:54.179 --> 00:39:56.820 severely drug -addicted people, is they didn't 00:39:56.820 --> 00:39:58.480 have good conditions for development. They had 00:39:58.480 --> 00:40:02.099 abuse and adversity and rejection, all kinds 00:40:02.099 --> 00:40:07.559 of stress and trauma. So if you want to prevent 00:40:07.559 --> 00:40:11.139 addiction, let's promote the healthy development 00:40:11.139 --> 00:40:14.619 of human brains. which means let's have a trauma 00:40:14.619 --> 00:40:19.320 -informed society. Let's look after young families 00:40:19.320 --> 00:40:22.179 at risk. Let's give them support. Let's make 00:40:22.179 --> 00:40:25.260 sure that in the schools and institutions where 00:40:25.260 --> 00:40:29.260 kids are cared for, and don't forget, the brain 00:40:29.260 --> 00:40:32.039 keeps developing into adulthood, children treated 00:40:32.039 --> 00:40:34.699 in such ways that promote healthy development. 00:40:36.219 --> 00:40:38.860 It's not about teaching them who won the war 00:40:38.860 --> 00:40:43.449 of 1812 or... which battle of the Civil War was 00:40:43.449 --> 00:40:49.170 won or lost by which general. Those learnings 00:40:49.170 --> 00:40:52.690 can come later. Am I building a brain that's 00:40:52.690 --> 00:40:56.670 curious, that's open, that can receive information? 00:40:57.889 --> 00:41:02.010 So what I'm saying is that if I could create 00:41:02.010 --> 00:41:06.630 a healthy environment, I would have a trauma, 00:41:06.730 --> 00:41:08.250 and I talk about this in The Myth of Normal. 00:41:08.840 --> 00:41:12.099 I'd have trauma -informed medical education so 00:41:12.099 --> 00:41:13.880 doctors know what the hell they're dealing with. 00:41:13.940 --> 00:41:18.280 They don't. They just look at diseases, including 00:41:18.280 --> 00:41:23.099 mental health conditions, as diseases, but not 00:41:23.099 --> 00:41:26.539 as the manifestations of people's lives. They 00:41:26.539 --> 00:41:29.420 look at addiction as a genetic, at the very best, 00:41:29.579 --> 00:41:32.019 they look at addiction as a genetically determined 00:41:32.019 --> 00:41:36.420 brain disease. Society doesn't even do that. 00:41:36.500 --> 00:41:38.659 Society says addiction is just a bad choice that 00:41:38.659 --> 00:41:43.320 you made. You go to jail. This is nonsense. So 00:41:43.320 --> 00:41:46.519 if you understood these mental health conditions, 00:41:46.659 --> 00:41:49.619 including the affliction of addiction, as an 00:41:49.619 --> 00:41:52.880 outcome of stress and trauma, then we would do 00:41:52.880 --> 00:41:55.360 what we can to provide the right environment 00:41:55.360 --> 00:42:01.099 for children from conception. And when people 00:42:01.099 --> 00:42:05.980 did behave in ways that are harmful to them or 00:42:05.980 --> 00:42:08.679 others, we would find compassionate ways of treating 00:42:08.679 --> 00:42:13.559 them. Portugal is one example where they don't 00:42:13.559 --> 00:42:17.059 criminalize the personal possession of drug use. 00:42:17.440 --> 00:42:20.480 It's not that you're allowed to sell drugs, but 00:42:20.480 --> 00:42:23.619 if you possess them for personal use, you're 00:42:23.619 --> 00:42:27.179 not a criminal. You get treatment. And I don't 00:42:27.179 --> 00:42:28.860 know too many places. There have been programs 00:42:28.860 --> 00:42:31.239 here and there, but there aren't any societies 00:42:31.239 --> 00:42:37.139 on a large scale. that have really adopted trauma 00:42:37.139 --> 00:42:42.260 -informed policies. You mentioned about developing 00:42:42.260 --> 00:42:47.139 brain. There's a shift as the fire service becomes 00:42:47.139 --> 00:42:51.059 understaffed to now go into high schools and 00:42:51.059 --> 00:42:53.980 persuade high school kids to come straight at 00:42:53.980 --> 00:42:57.400 18 years old into the fire service. A lot of 00:42:57.400 --> 00:42:59.420 us, when it was very competitive, took a few 00:42:59.420 --> 00:43:02.690 years to even get a job as a firefighter. And 00:43:02.690 --> 00:43:05.650 in law enforcement, usually in the States, you 00:43:05.650 --> 00:43:09.090 have to be 21. What is your perspective as far 00:43:09.090 --> 00:43:13.050 as the, ideal is the wrong word, but is there 00:43:13.050 --> 00:43:16.829 a cautionary tale as far as how young a first 00:43:16.829 --> 00:43:20.429 responder could or should be rather than kind 00:43:20.429 --> 00:43:23.130 of holding off and then letting the brain mature 00:43:23.130 --> 00:43:25.349 a little bit more before they do and see the 00:43:25.349 --> 00:43:26.829 horrific things that we do in our profession? 00:43:28.889 --> 00:43:38.010 Good question. But let me reverse the question. 00:43:39.789 --> 00:43:42.150 Given how emotionally challenging the work can 00:43:42.150 --> 00:43:52.230 be, given how much maturity it requires to make 00:43:52.230 --> 00:43:57.269 the right decisions, given what a collaborative 00:43:57.269 --> 00:44:08.300 effort it is, Your own stresses and traumas are 00:44:08.300 --> 00:44:10.719 likely to be triggered sooner or later if you 00:44:10.719 --> 00:44:16.119 keep doing this work. What attributes would you 00:44:16.119 --> 00:44:18.400 like a candidate to possess before they enter 00:44:18.400 --> 00:44:22.260 this work? And I doubt very much that by age 00:44:22.260 --> 00:44:24.440 18 most people have developed those capacities. 00:44:25.659 --> 00:44:27.639 They'll have to have lived in the world of it, 00:44:27.699 --> 00:44:31.179 I think. And I would make the same case for law 00:44:31.179 --> 00:44:33.219 enforcement. I'd certainly make the same case 00:44:33.219 --> 00:44:38.719 for medical personnel. I mean, doctors, science 00:44:38.719 --> 00:44:43.840 kids going to university and learning the physiology 00:44:43.840 --> 00:44:47.920 of the body. How does that prepare them to understand 00:44:47.920 --> 00:44:51.119 human beings? Which is what they're dealing with. 00:44:51.159 --> 00:44:52.599 They're not dealing with physiology. They're 00:44:52.599 --> 00:44:56.340 dealing with the whole creature whose psychology 00:44:56.340 --> 00:45:00.420 is inseparable from their physiology and their 00:45:00.420 --> 00:45:05.650 social relationships. So I think... Anybody in 00:45:05.650 --> 00:45:10.849 these important people professions needs to have 00:45:10.849 --> 00:45:12.789 more experience before they get trained in the 00:45:12.789 --> 00:45:18.670 specific skills of the profession. I would argue. 00:45:19.110 --> 00:45:22.610 Yeah, no, I agree. And it's interesting. I credit 00:45:22.610 --> 00:45:24.889 Jake Clark from Save a Warrior for opening my 00:45:24.889 --> 00:45:27.369 eyes on the prevalence of childhood trauma or 00:45:27.369 --> 00:45:29.750 childhood struggles in a lot of us in uniform 00:45:29.750 --> 00:45:35.170 and incarcerated men and women as well. Having, 00:45:35.170 --> 00:45:37.510 you know, what normally happens in the fire service, 00:45:37.530 --> 00:45:41.150 you do a psych test, you know, and it's the MMPI. 00:45:41.210 --> 00:45:43.329 And then, you know, you either pass or you fail. 00:45:43.429 --> 00:45:45.289 You might do a polygraph like I did several times. 00:45:45.630 --> 00:45:47.610 Have to lie your way through that because, you 00:45:47.610 --> 00:45:49.869 know, if you if you're going to be a good responder, 00:45:49.969 --> 00:45:51.389 you've probably done some naughty things when 00:45:51.389 --> 00:45:54.829 you were younger. But what I've realized now, 00:45:55.010 --> 00:45:58.449 OK, well, if the aces on average are six, why 00:45:58.449 --> 00:46:00.329 are we not having a conversation at the front 00:46:00.329 --> 00:46:03.070 door and say, look. you've probably been through 00:46:03.070 --> 00:46:05.869 some things that's why you wanted to become a 00:46:05.869 --> 00:46:07.809 firefighter or a police officer or a soldier 00:46:07.809 --> 00:46:10.909 or whatever it is that that is going to be a 00:46:10.909 --> 00:46:13.610 strength if we talk about it from day one the 00:46:13.610 --> 00:46:15.570 same way as we're going to do push -ups and sit 00:46:15.570 --> 00:46:17.929 -ups on the drill ground you know whatever that 00:46:17.929 --> 00:46:21.199 looks like counseling whatever so that Now we're 00:46:21.199 --> 00:46:23.860 forging that post -traumatic growth. We're creating 00:46:23.860 --> 00:46:25.960 more empathy. We're creating a higher level of 00:46:25.960 --> 00:46:28.960 performance with a calmer mind rather than, well, 00:46:28.980 --> 00:46:30.980 let's just wait. And then if James breaks, we'll 00:46:30.980 --> 00:46:34.199 send him to a psychiatrist and hopefully get 00:46:34.199 --> 00:46:37.260 him before he takes his own life. So that proactive 00:46:37.260 --> 00:46:41.349 acknowledgement of. the attributes, as you said, 00:46:41.369 --> 00:46:43.969 the life skills that we've got once processed, 00:46:44.030 --> 00:46:46.550 I think there's a beautiful opportunity to actually 00:46:46.550 --> 00:46:49.550 forge not just mental health, but even a higher 00:46:49.550 --> 00:46:53.789 level of performance in our profession. I don't 00:46:53.789 --> 00:46:56.889 doubt it. And what's the adverse? The adverse 00:46:56.889 --> 00:47:00.030 is you get these high levels of burnout and PTSD 00:47:00.030 --> 00:47:05.489 and alcoholism and addictions and suicides even, 00:47:05.550 --> 00:47:11.989 I imagine. That's the outcome when we don't act 00:47:11.989 --> 00:47:17.210 proactively. So I don't know what case can be 00:47:17.210 --> 00:47:19.730 made against it. Well, I think the other thing 00:47:19.730 --> 00:47:22.449 is that then it makes doing the exact same work 00:47:22.449 --> 00:47:25.360 exciting. If I know that I'm going to be a better 00:47:25.360 --> 00:47:27.880 paramedic, a better firefighter, and arguably 00:47:27.880 --> 00:47:30.940 a better husband and father, if I do the work 00:47:30.940 --> 00:47:33.320 right from the beginning, that excites me to 00:47:33.320 --> 00:47:35.860 go to counseling, to meditate, to do breath work, 00:47:36.059 --> 00:47:38.579 to maybe watch what I eat and exercise more. 00:47:38.900 --> 00:47:41.380 But if it's just a last -ditch attempt when I'm 00:47:41.380 --> 00:47:43.980 drowning, then it becomes a very sad conversation, 00:47:44.000 --> 00:47:47.179 and it's not driving people towards treatment 00:47:47.179 --> 00:47:52.380 then. That's right. That's right. The real issue 00:47:52.380 --> 00:47:56.260 is, This is both science and it's common sense. 00:47:57.400 --> 00:48:00.800 Why are we having such a hard time convincing 00:48:00.800 --> 00:48:05.139 people? That's the king for a day question as 00:48:05.139 --> 00:48:09.400 well. All right. Well, we mentioned Trevor. So 00:48:09.400 --> 00:48:12.699 he's a founder of Ambio and I've had Marcus Capone 00:48:12.699 --> 00:48:15.679 on here. A lot of the, the seal. you know family 00:48:15.679 --> 00:48:18.619 on here and then uh more recently there's a couple 00:48:18.619 --> 00:48:20.659 of non -profits now for first responders the 00:48:20.659 --> 00:48:24.139 siren project and the 343 fund also sending people 00:48:24.139 --> 00:48:27.960 to you know trusted um ayahuasca retreats in 00:48:27.960 --> 00:48:31.599 in mexico talk to me about how you first came 00:48:31.599 --> 00:48:34.400 across that treatment and how important do you 00:48:34.400 --> 00:48:36.760 think that is in the overall mental health conversation 00:48:36.760 --> 00:48:40.579 you're making me weep bitterly at the moment 00:48:40.579 --> 00:48:45.710 because um this friday i was going to go to Costa 00:48:45.710 --> 00:48:47.869 Rica to take part in some ayahuasca ceremonies. 00:48:48.630 --> 00:48:51.869 But if you haven't done ayahuasca, it makes you 00:48:51.869 --> 00:48:55.250 retch. And you can't very well go through the 00:48:55.250 --> 00:48:57.530 night retching with four broken ribs. That would 00:48:57.530 --> 00:49:02.170 be counterproductive. So I had to cancel the 00:49:02.170 --> 00:49:10.349 trip. Okay. It was not meant to be. I became 00:49:10.349 --> 00:49:13.239 aware of psychedelics. See, I worked for 12 years 00:49:13.239 --> 00:49:17.460 as a physician in Vancouver's, or North America's, 00:49:17.519 --> 00:49:20.900 most concentrated area of drug use, which is 00:49:20.900 --> 00:49:24.260 the downtown east side of Vancouver. And in that 00:49:24.260 --> 00:49:26.980 few square block radius, we have more people 00:49:26.980 --> 00:49:30.139 ingesting, inhaling, injecting drugs than anywhere 00:49:30.139 --> 00:49:31.820 else in the Western world, including anywhere 00:49:31.820 --> 00:49:34.880 else in North America. And it's quite a horrendous 00:49:34.880 --> 00:49:37.300 scene for people that visit it. There's all kinds 00:49:37.300 --> 00:49:40.199 of historical reasons why Vancouver's downtown 00:49:40.199 --> 00:49:43.260 east side has become kind of a, drug use capital 00:49:43.260 --> 00:49:48.639 of North America, but people there are in the 00:49:48.639 --> 00:49:54.079 streets injecting, especially before we had better 00:49:54.079 --> 00:49:57.400 treatments, people were dying of HIV, hepatitis 00:49:57.400 --> 00:50:02.219 C, suicides, infections of all kinds. And I was 00:50:02.219 --> 00:50:04.579 a doctor down there for 12 years. These are my 00:50:04.579 --> 00:50:12.550 patients. And that's when I wrote my I think 00:50:12.550 --> 00:50:14.349 it was my third book. It's called In the Realm 00:50:14.349 --> 00:50:17.070 of Hungry Roast, Close to Condors of Addiction, 00:50:17.170 --> 00:50:20.230 which points out that what I've talked about 00:50:20.230 --> 00:50:26.130 before is that addiction is neither a choice 00:50:26.130 --> 00:50:28.510 that anybody makes. Nobody wakes up some morning 00:50:28.510 --> 00:50:30.989 and says, hey, my ambition is to be an addict, 00:50:31.230 --> 00:50:35.210 number one. Number two, it's not an inherited 00:50:35.210 --> 00:50:38.590 brain disease. The arguments that it's genetic 00:50:38.590 --> 00:50:45.099 are scientifically. Alcoholism runs in the family 00:50:45.099 --> 00:50:48.920 not because alcoholism runs in the family. Alcoholism 00:50:48.920 --> 00:50:50.800 runs in the family because trauma runs in the 00:50:50.800 --> 00:50:54.179 family. And drinking is a response to emotional 00:50:54.179 --> 00:50:59.500 pain. And so my mantra under addiction is don't 00:50:59.500 --> 00:51:02.699 ask why the addiction, ask why the pain. And 00:51:02.699 --> 00:51:05.239 furthermore, I point out that all addictions, 00:51:05.340 --> 00:51:07.519 whether it's gambling, shopping, eating, booing, 00:51:07.619 --> 00:51:14.000 self -cutting, as I said before, are the same 00:51:14.000 --> 00:51:20.000 addiction process, are different targets, but 00:51:20.000 --> 00:51:22.260 people want inner peace, they want a temporary 00:51:22.260 --> 00:51:26.480 sense of being alive, of connection, a sense 00:51:26.480 --> 00:51:28.679 of ease. These are necessary human attributes, 00:51:28.940 --> 00:51:31.000 and the real question is, why don't they have 00:51:31.000 --> 00:51:33.920 them, particularly with trauma? So I pointed 00:51:33.920 --> 00:51:37.559 out all the historical and scientific evidence 00:51:37.559 --> 00:51:39.739 of trauma and all that, and after that book was 00:51:39.739 --> 00:51:43.750 published, I was traveling with a book tour, 00:51:43.929 --> 00:51:46.909 and people kept asking me, what do you know about 00:51:46.909 --> 00:51:48.889 ayahuasca and the healing of addiction? And I 00:51:48.889 --> 00:51:52.789 said nothing, because I didn't. And nobody in 00:51:52.789 --> 00:51:54.969 medical school talks about that kind of stuff. 00:51:56.409 --> 00:52:00.230 Next visit, what do you know about ayahuasca 00:52:00.230 --> 00:52:03.190 and the healing of addiction? I actually got 00:52:03.190 --> 00:52:07.090 annoyed with the question. For Christ's sake. 00:52:07.789 --> 00:52:09.829 I just spent three years pouring my life and 00:52:09.829 --> 00:52:13.230 heart into this book that I know is going to 00:52:13.230 --> 00:52:15.030 make a big difference out there. And you ask 00:52:15.030 --> 00:52:17.250 me about the one thing I never heard about, you 00:52:17.250 --> 00:52:19.949 know. And then somebody said, you know, you could 00:52:19.949 --> 00:52:24.309 actually experience it yourself. So I did. Up 00:52:24.309 --> 00:52:29.409 here in Vancouver. And I got it. I got that under 00:52:29.409 --> 00:52:32.690 the psychedelic influence, two major things can 00:52:32.690 --> 00:52:40.199 happen in the right context. One is you can actually 00:52:40.199 --> 00:52:44.159 feel all the pain, all the trauma that you've 00:52:44.159 --> 00:52:46.559 been running away from through the addiction. 00:52:49.019 --> 00:52:54.980 The isolation, the broken heart, the sense of 00:52:54.980 --> 00:52:58.579 hopelessness, which create the emptiness that 00:52:58.579 --> 00:53:02.119 the addiction tries to fill. And you can also 00:53:02.119 --> 00:53:10.449 experience the truer, present self that's quite 00:53:10.449 --> 00:53:14.730 content to be in the world and doesn't have to 00:53:14.730 --> 00:53:18.869 run anywhere. So you can experience both the 00:53:18.869 --> 00:53:24.670 need for the addiction, but also the self that 00:53:24.670 --> 00:53:27.670 doesn't need the addiction. And for a lot of 00:53:27.670 --> 00:53:31.250 people, it also brings up a lot of emotional 00:53:31.250 --> 00:53:34.909 memories and processing of traumas, of woundings 00:53:34.909 --> 00:53:40.670 that they had dealt with. So it can show you 00:53:40.670 --> 00:53:44.030 your traumatized self, and it can also show you 00:53:44.030 --> 00:53:46.150 your true self. And so that's in a nutshell. 00:53:46.309 --> 00:53:48.550 Now, do I think it's ideal for everybody? No. 00:53:48.909 --> 00:53:51.789 Do I think everybody should do it? No. Do they 00:53:51.789 --> 00:53:57.369 work every time and for everybody? No. But they're 00:53:57.369 --> 00:54:01.929 a whole lot better than almost anything that 00:54:01.929 --> 00:54:04.929 Western medicine has to offer. So in the right 00:54:04.929 --> 00:54:07.070 context, with the right guidance, the right leadership, 00:54:07.210 --> 00:54:09.389 the right safety, the right integration, the 00:54:09.389 --> 00:54:14.409 right support, and the right selection of participants. 00:54:15.510 --> 00:54:18.969 It's like it began for predilection, for example, 00:54:18.969 --> 00:54:22.250 in the article in the New York Times about our 00:54:22.250 --> 00:54:26.889 friend Trevor, or Ayahuasca. I've seen him save 00:54:26.889 --> 00:54:31.289 lives and change people's trajectories from self 00:54:31.289 --> 00:54:34.260 -destructive to self -enhancing. I've seen people 00:54:34.260 --> 00:54:39.300 heal from illnesses. So the potentials are vast. 00:54:39.739 --> 00:54:44.400 And, you know, there's also limitations. I'm 00:54:44.400 --> 00:54:47.800 not an evangelist for psychedelics, but I sure 00:54:47.800 --> 00:54:51.219 value them. And I have a chapter in the Metanormal 00:54:51.219 --> 00:54:54.440 just on my own experience with psychedelics and 00:54:54.440 --> 00:54:57.860 what as a physician I understand about their 00:54:57.860 --> 00:55:02.670 potential use. One thing that really amazed me 00:55:02.670 --> 00:55:04.250 because I've had so many people on here that 00:55:04.250 --> 00:55:07.230 have had success with MDMA -led psychotherapy, 00:55:07.530 --> 00:55:12.670 Ibogaine, Ayahuasca, 5 -MeO -DMT. And more often 00:55:12.670 --> 00:55:15.010 than not, the soldier, the firefighter, the police 00:55:15.010 --> 00:55:17.289 officer thought it was going to be combat, thought 00:55:17.289 --> 00:55:19.150 it was going to be those horrific calls that 00:55:19.150 --> 00:55:22.690 we run on. That was going to be the nucleus of 00:55:22.690 --> 00:55:25.369 their pain. And more often than not, it wasn't. 00:55:25.530 --> 00:55:28.550 Most of the time, it was their formative years. 00:55:28.969 --> 00:55:31.530 And, you know, so again, a lot of these areas 00:55:31.530 --> 00:55:33.849 weren't accessible for them in the talk therapy 00:55:33.849 --> 00:55:35.690 that they were trying. Obviously, it certainly 00:55:35.690 --> 00:55:37.849 wasn't addressing it with the SSRIs or whatever 00:55:37.849 --> 00:55:40.230 they were prescribed. And they were finally able 00:55:40.230 --> 00:55:42.630 to get to, you know, to use a princess and a 00:55:42.630 --> 00:55:44.590 pea analogy, finally able to get the pea under 00:55:44.590 --> 00:55:47.349 the mattress. And that's where so much of their 00:55:47.349 --> 00:55:51.170 healing seemed to have really begun. Well, you 00:55:51.170 --> 00:55:56.559 know, that's absolutely accurate. People think 00:55:56.559 --> 00:55:58.800 that PTSD is about what happened as an adult. 00:55:59.960 --> 00:56:03.639 So 80 soldiers go into battle, and they all witness 00:56:03.639 --> 00:56:08.400 horrific events. 20 come out of PTSD, 80 don't. 00:56:09.360 --> 00:56:11.800 Who are the 20? The ones who are traumatized 00:56:11.800 --> 00:56:15.760 in childhood. And that adult experience simply 00:56:15.760 --> 00:56:19.500 triggered their unresolved childhood trauma. 00:56:20.699 --> 00:56:24.280 So there's research to that effect, by the way. 00:56:25.199 --> 00:56:28.539 So what you're describing is absolutely accurate, 00:56:28.820 --> 00:56:32.699 that the real traumas, that they hadn't considered 00:56:32.699 --> 00:56:34.619 traumas because they thought it was just normal, 00:56:34.739 --> 00:56:39.780 happened in their childhood in the way that they 00:56:39.780 --> 00:56:43.559 were treated, in the way that sometimes badly 00:56:43.559 --> 00:56:46.159 mistreated, or the way they needed to get their 00:56:46.159 --> 00:56:49.380 needs met. And so they were wounded, hurt by 00:56:49.380 --> 00:56:51.840 that. Trauma means a wound, and you can wound 00:56:51.840 --> 00:56:57.909 kids in many ways. And one of the points I make 00:56:57.909 --> 00:57:00.989 in my book, The Myth of Normal, is that so much 00:57:00.989 --> 00:57:04.809 of what we consider normal in our society is 00:57:04.809 --> 00:57:07.909 actually harmful. A lot of the ways that we raise 00:57:07.909 --> 00:57:12.090 kids are considered normal, but they're harmful. 00:57:12.989 --> 00:57:16.469 And a lot of people think that in normal childhood, 00:57:16.590 --> 00:57:19.750 then they struggle with a mental health issue 00:57:19.750 --> 00:57:24.219 or a physical health issue. confront the fact 00:57:24.219 --> 00:57:28.699 that no that childhood i had a lot of pain that 00:57:28.699 --> 00:57:32.380 i didn't know what to do well let's expand on 00:57:32.380 --> 00:57:34.400 that talk to me about the myth of normal what 00:57:34.400 --> 00:57:36.739 made you write this particular book and what 00:57:36.739 --> 00:57:38.820 people what can people find within the pages 00:57:38.820 --> 00:57:46.000 of that so that book i have to say um it was 00:57:46.000 --> 00:57:48.940 a 19 week new york times bestseller it's bestseller 00:57:48.940 --> 00:57:51.559 in england in germany hungary published in over 00:57:51.559 --> 00:57:56.550 40 countries And it took me 10 years to write, 00:57:56.630 --> 00:58:00.409 10 years to collect the material for it. I'd 00:58:00.409 --> 00:58:03.309 written books on specific subjects, like I was 00:58:03.309 --> 00:58:05.809 diagnosed with ADHD in my mid -50s, so my first 00:58:05.809 --> 00:58:11.530 book is on ADHD, Scattered Minds, which is an 00:58:11.530 --> 00:58:14.230 interesting subject that most people also get 00:58:14.230 --> 00:58:18.949 totally wrong. I'll be doing a webinar on it, 00:58:18.989 --> 00:58:21.309 if anybody's interested, on May the 12th, actually, 00:58:21.469 --> 00:58:27.139 a free webinar. on ADHD. So that was my first 00:58:27.139 --> 00:58:29.500 book. And that made me interested in child development 00:58:29.500 --> 00:58:32.400 and how does the brain develop. Then I went to 00:58:32.400 --> 00:58:34.519 work in the downtown Eastside with this evicted 00:58:34.519 --> 00:58:36.760 population. So I wrote in the realm of funny 00:58:36.760 --> 00:58:39.780 ghosts and addiction. I wrote a third book called 00:58:39.780 --> 00:58:42.659 When the Body Says No, which is about the impact 00:58:42.659 --> 00:58:45.639 of emotional stress and emotional self -suppression 00:58:45.639 --> 00:58:48.980 on physiology. Because the mind can't be separated 00:58:48.980 --> 00:58:51.780 from the body, scientifically. So the impact 00:58:51.780 --> 00:59:00.579 of emotions and suppressed emotion on diseases 00:59:00.579 --> 00:59:03.920 like cancer and autoimmune disease. So whole 00:59:03.920 --> 00:59:07.179 mind -body unity. And then I helped write a book 00:59:07.179 --> 00:59:12.019 on parenting called Hold On To Your Kids. All 00:59:12.019 --> 00:59:16.809 these were on discrete topics. But I wanted to 00:59:16.809 --> 00:59:19.769 write a book that brought it all together. Because 00:59:19.769 --> 00:59:23.190 here's the deal. Ultimately, we're not isolated 00:59:23.190 --> 00:59:29.670 creatures. We live in a culture. And while as 00:59:29.670 --> 00:59:32.730 a physician, I'm largely trained to see disease 00:59:32.730 --> 00:59:37.469 as the outcome of individual physiological problems 00:59:37.469 --> 00:59:41.889 or predispositions, in actual scientific fact, 00:59:42.070 --> 00:59:48.230 as has been shown by decades of science, human 00:59:48.230 --> 00:59:52.289 beings are what's called biopsychosocial creatures, 00:59:52.550 --> 00:59:56.389 which means that our biology is shaped by our 00:59:56.389 --> 00:59:59.769 emotions, which is shaped by our social relationships. 01:00:01.170 --> 01:00:06.369 And somebody might say, we also are biopsychosocial 01:00:06.369 --> 01:00:08.610 spiritual creatures, we also have spiritual needs. 01:00:09.489 --> 01:00:14.869 And that health... rests on a balance between 01:00:14.869 --> 01:00:22.230 those four quadrants. And so, for example, in 01:00:22.230 --> 01:00:27.469 Canada, Indigenous women have six times the rate 01:00:27.469 --> 01:00:29.789 of rheumatoid arthritis than a Caucasian male. 01:00:30.710 --> 01:00:33.409 Now, these people never used to have rheumatoid 01:00:33.409 --> 01:00:37.190 arthritis. It's an outcome of being an Indigenous 01:00:37.190 --> 01:00:42.739 woman in a patriarchal, racist culture. So you 01:00:42.739 --> 01:00:45.500 can't say that the joint inflammation is just 01:00:45.500 --> 01:00:48.820 a result of a physiological process. That physiological 01:00:48.820 --> 01:00:52.320 process reflects the stresses of life in a certain 01:00:52.320 --> 01:00:56.219 culture. We've known for decades and decades 01:00:56.219 --> 01:00:59.320 that children whose parents are stressed, the 01:00:59.320 --> 01:01:01.699 more stressed the parents are, the more likely 01:01:01.699 --> 01:01:04.780 the child is to have asthma. In other words, 01:01:04.780 --> 01:01:07.719 the inflammation of the child's lungs is not 01:01:07.719 --> 01:01:11.320 just a physiological event in an isolated organ. 01:01:12.329 --> 01:01:15.190 It's also the impact of the parent's social situation, 01:01:15.489 --> 01:01:22.190 which affects the physiology of the child. I 01:01:22.190 --> 01:01:27.110 mean, I could go on. PTSD. We know from the Harvard 01:01:27.110 --> 01:01:30.230 study six years ago that women with post -traumatic 01:01:30.230 --> 01:01:33.090 stress disorder have double the risk of ovarian 01:01:33.090 --> 01:01:37.190 cancer. And the milder the symptoms, the less 01:01:37.190 --> 01:01:40.690 the risk. Which means that this malignancy... 01:01:41.079 --> 01:01:44.900 isn't just an isolated development in an isolated 01:01:44.900 --> 01:01:47.860 organ. Because nobody develops PTSD sitting in 01:01:47.860 --> 01:01:51.320 a room by themselves. PTSD is, by definition, 01:01:51.480 --> 01:01:53.280 a social event. It happens in a relationship. 01:01:53.679 --> 01:01:57.239 It happens in a context. So I wanted to write 01:01:57.239 --> 01:02:00.320 a book that brings together everything. The mind 01:02:00.320 --> 01:02:02.659 -body unity, the importance of child development, 01:02:02.920 --> 01:02:04.900 how the brain develops in the direction of the 01:02:04.900 --> 01:02:07.119 environment, what children need, what they don't 01:02:07.119 --> 01:02:09.920 need. what addictions represent, as you and I 01:02:09.920 --> 01:02:12.679 have talked about, what mental health conditions 01:02:12.679 --> 01:02:15.619 represent, how physical health conditions are 01:02:15.619 --> 01:02:18.719 very often manifestations of a whole life lived 01:02:18.719 --> 01:02:20.880 in a certain context, and how we're going to 01:02:20.880 --> 01:02:23.699 push the healing of all these problems, and how 01:02:23.699 --> 01:02:26.960 politics, in a sense of who's in charge and what 01:02:26.960 --> 01:02:28.480 kind of people are in charge and what kind of 01:02:28.480 --> 01:02:30.780 decisions they make, they also impact people's 01:02:30.780 --> 01:02:33.179 health. And who are the people that we elect 01:02:33.179 --> 01:02:35.800 to power? And you and I talked about that a little 01:02:35.800 --> 01:02:38.829 bit earlier. All that is covered. And I just 01:02:38.829 --> 01:02:43.409 had to bring everything together under one umbrella. 01:02:43.789 --> 01:02:46.869 And so it took me 10 years to put that work together. 01:02:47.469 --> 01:02:50.389 I just love how diverse the topics were. And 01:02:50.389 --> 01:02:52.789 especially, we're running out of time now, but 01:02:52.789 --> 01:02:55.550 the kind of body keeps us to a score mentality 01:02:55.550 --> 01:02:59.329 of the impact of psychological trauma on the 01:02:59.329 --> 01:03:02.230 body. And you look at my profession, we have 01:03:02.230 --> 01:03:05.849 done a good job of identifying the carcinogens 01:03:05.849 --> 01:03:08.789 in our job. as far as the actual chemicals. So 01:03:08.789 --> 01:03:11.750 in a good department, they'll clean gear, they'll 01:03:11.750 --> 01:03:13.849 change out gear, they'll put a big hose on the 01:03:13.849 --> 01:03:15.889 fire engine when we drive into the station to 01:03:15.889 --> 01:03:19.210 try and get rid of the fumes. But we still die 01:03:19.210 --> 01:03:22.500 of cancer constantly. But if you look at shift 01:03:22.500 --> 01:03:25.159 work, it is a carcinogen. And back to the science 01:03:25.159 --> 01:03:27.800 that no one wants to acknowledge, it is irrefutable, 01:03:27.940 --> 01:03:30.579 the impact of sleep deprivation on physical health, 01:03:30.619 --> 01:03:33.179 on mental health. But also, as you alluded to, 01:03:33.280 --> 01:03:35.780 in my profession and on a broader scale for the 01:03:35.780 --> 01:03:39.079 entire nation, how many young people are we losing 01:03:39.079 --> 01:03:42.619 to cancer? So many. And yet, what is a common 01:03:42.619 --> 01:03:44.679 denominator? Yes, there's chemicals in our food, 01:03:44.780 --> 01:03:47.099 in our air, in our water. And of course, that's 01:03:47.099 --> 01:03:49.800 contributing as well. But also the stress. I 01:03:49.800 --> 01:03:52.840 mean, stress causes cancer. Stress causes autoimmune 01:03:52.840 --> 01:03:55.260 disease. And as you said, with the arthritis. 01:03:55.260 --> 01:03:58.239 And we see that so prevalent in modern society 01:03:58.239 --> 01:04:02.519 now. Stress is a major contributor to cancer. 01:04:03.380 --> 01:04:07.760 It's not even controversial. And especially the 01:04:07.760 --> 01:04:14.730 stress of... suppressing your emotions, because 01:04:14.730 --> 01:04:21.869 that really messes with the immune system. So, 01:04:22.010 --> 01:04:30.210 for example, if you say to people, does smoking 01:04:30.210 --> 01:04:33.630 cause lung cancer? Most people say, yes, it does. 01:04:34.389 --> 01:04:38.929 Well, actually, no, it doesn't. it contributes 01:04:38.929 --> 01:04:42.550 to it in a major way. So that out of 100 people 01:04:42.550 --> 01:04:48.789 who smoke, I should say out of 100 people with 01:04:48.789 --> 01:04:51.969 lung cancer, about 80 to 90 will have smoked. 01:04:52.909 --> 01:04:56.030 So smoking is a major contributor. At the same 01:04:56.030 --> 01:04:59.170 time, out of 100 people who smoke, only 15 or 01:04:59.170 --> 01:05:02.090 20 will have lung cancer. So smoking was the 01:05:02.090 --> 01:05:04.900 cause of lung cancer. Everybody who smokes will 01:05:04.900 --> 01:05:07.239 have lung cancer. Because if A causes B, every 01:05:07.239 --> 01:05:10.860 time you see A, you see B. So there's going to 01:05:10.860 --> 01:05:13.760 be something else going on. What is going on 01:05:13.760 --> 01:05:17.420 is emotional stress. And the more stressed people 01:05:17.420 --> 01:05:22.719 are emotionally, the less cigarette it takes 01:05:22.719 --> 01:05:28.639 to trigger their lung cancer. So that, yes, smoking 01:05:28.639 --> 01:05:32.880 is a major risk factor for lung cancer. So stress. 01:05:34.239 --> 01:05:35.900 That's interesting. I never thought of it that 01:05:35.900 --> 01:05:39.579 way, but that's usually what people who smoke 01:05:39.579 --> 01:05:42.980 for. The initial couple of hits, obviously, they 01:05:42.980 --> 01:05:46.159 get that big kind of euphoric response, and after 01:05:46.159 --> 01:05:48.219 that, it's an addiction, and it's normally when 01:05:48.219 --> 01:05:49.780 they're stressed. They'll go grab a cigarette. 01:05:49.920 --> 01:05:51.719 So, yeah, I never even thought of it that way. 01:05:52.739 --> 01:05:56.300 Oh, yeah, I know. And with nicotine, it's like 01:05:56.300 --> 01:06:00.030 cocaine. It's a stimulant. It elevates dopamine 01:06:00.030 --> 01:06:02.110 in the brain, and dopamine is an essential brain 01:06:02.110 --> 01:06:04.489 chemical for feeling alive and feeling euphoric 01:06:04.489 --> 01:06:09.969 and relaxation and so on. So people, smokers, 01:06:09.969 --> 01:06:18.469 are trying to change their brain biology to get 01:06:18.469 --> 01:06:20.449 away from the emotional distress that they're 01:06:20.449 --> 01:06:24.480 experiencing. Well, I want to be mindful of your 01:06:24.480 --> 01:06:27.500 time, respectful. For people listening, where 01:06:27.500 --> 01:06:29.480 are the best places to find any of your books? 01:06:31.960 --> 01:06:35.179 Well, I mean, there's my website, www .gabalmaty 01:06:35.179 --> 01:06:38.699 .com. There's my Instagram site, gabalmaty .com. 01:06:40.000 --> 01:06:42.380 There's my website where all my events are listed. 01:06:42.539 --> 01:06:45.480 I do travel and speak quite a bit. I do online 01:06:45.480 --> 01:06:49.219 events. So my books, they're all over the place. 01:06:49.239 --> 01:06:52.440 They've been published now. probably 45 languages, 01:06:52.800 --> 01:06:57.019 certainly the online sellers, but local bookstores. 01:06:59.000 --> 01:07:03.079 So, you know, I'm easy to find. And on YouTube, 01:07:03.119 --> 01:07:05.960 there's dozens of my interviews. So all you have 01:07:05.960 --> 01:07:08.780 to do is Google my name on YouTube and you'll 01:07:08.780 --> 01:07:12.800 find plenty of podcasts and interviews. It's 01:07:12.800 --> 01:07:16.579 impossible to avoid me. If you really want to 01:07:16.579 --> 01:07:20.170 find out, I'm too easy to find. Well, I want 01:07:20.170 --> 01:07:22.929 to thank you again, firstly, for being flexible 01:07:22.929 --> 01:07:24.670 at the beginning of this interview, but more 01:07:24.670 --> 01:07:26.670 importantly, for being so generous with your 01:07:26.670 --> 01:07:29.389 time and carving out an hour. It's been incredibly 01:07:29.389 --> 01:07:32.349 insightful. I can't speak highly enough of the 01:07:32.349 --> 01:07:35.150 myth of normal. I mean, like I said, the diverse 01:07:35.150 --> 01:07:37.210 topics that it covers, yet obviously everything 01:07:37.210 --> 01:07:40.630 is interrelated, was just so interesting to read. 01:07:40.769 --> 01:07:43.369 So I want to thank you so, so much for being 01:07:43.369 --> 01:07:45.309 so generous with your time and coming on the 01:07:45.309 --> 01:07:48.619 Behind the Shield podcast today. Thanks for the 01:07:48.619 --> 01:07:49.820 hospitality. Take care.