Diseases of despair include cognitive despair, emotional despair, behavioral despair, and biological despair. These factors, along with dislocation theory, are compared and related to drug addiction in society today.

#diseaseofdespair #dislocationtheory #drugaddiction #toxicdrugs #alienation

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Okay, Corey, so what I'm gonna do here is I'm going to talk a little

bit about what is referred to as diseases of despair, and there's a couple of

researchers who have come up with the term diseases of despair and they've

broken them down into four different.

Types.

Okay, so there's four.

Mm-hmm.

, basic types of despair.

We're gonna go through each one.

I'm gonna ask your, uh, opinion about how they resonate with you personally,

and then I'll throw it a little bit of information for people just to

kind of let them know how it relates to drug and alcohol use right now,

how it relates to the toxic drug crisis in North America, et et cetera.

And then we'll look at some factors.

. And, uh, what we'll do later after that is, uh, I'm just gonna read

a few paragraphs from the book I'm reading right now, the Urge

by Eric Fisher and, um, cool.

Yeah.

And then I'll get your take on those as well on a personal level.

Okay.

These

are all live and as it happens, cuz these, this is new for me.

So

, Nathan: we must add that side note there.

Yes.

Okay, so we're talking diseases of despair.

The first one is cognitive despair.

Which denotes thoughts connected to defeat, guilt,

hopelessness, and pessimism.

It may make a person perceive other people's actions as hostile and discount

the value of long-term outcomes.

So that's the first one.

Cognitive despair.

Have you experienced any of those terms?

Yes,

, Corey: all of the above for sure.

Yeah, for sure.

That is a pretty good summation of how I felt in the, particularly,

maybe in the early and mid parts of my addictive behavior for sure.

Yeah, I, we've talked about this.

We both have a certain type of mindset that is prone to

cognitive despair, I think.

Yeah.

Um, we both tend to see things as the default setting a little bit

darker than we should and or not.

I say we should, I mean, I understand the evolutionary benefit of angst, but um,

but yeah, we've talked about it and the hopelessness one and pessimism, I think

is, those are two huge factors in a.

Yeah.

You know, and I, I'm gonna back it up further, like, you know, I just said

it, that was early on in addiction.

I think that sense of pessimism or the sense of cynicism and

teetering on hopelessness was present earlier in my life.

And, you know, in a meeting this week, I said, you know, I, I, I recall

being a, a kid like six years old saying, what is the point of this?

Right?

If we all die, what's the point?

. Nathan: Right.

So, and experiencing, uh, experiencing, uh, death in your family early, how does

that play out for somebody who's trying to reconcile their future as a child?

You just, yeah.

I mean, , of course that's going to, you're gonna have some questions, right?

Well, I, yeah, and

I think that that is in fact quite a common trait of someone who

has experienced early childhood loss.

Is that question or that feeling of hopelessness or like, uh, pessimism,

cynicism of both the whole show.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

existential angst for sure.

That's a driver.

Okay.

Uh, the second one they've got listed here.

If I don't have the people who are responsible for this definition

listed, where are they now?

Oh, uh, uh, case in Deaton.

That's the two.

It's a man and a woman.

Uh, they're psychologists, I believe, who came up with this, this model.

I gotta credit them for that.

Emotional spare refers to feelings of sadness, irritability, loneliness,

and apathy, and may partly impede the process of creating and nourishing

interpersonal relationships.

Mm-hmm.

. Corey: So this one, I would say

last couple years before going off work and in, in addictive behavior.

That the emotional things that were weighing on me were getting in the way

of relationship building, of nurturing healthy relationships, of being, you

know, honest and vulnerable and, and in, in thereby in my tendency to isolate.

Absolutely.

I, I a hundred percent agree so far in that the first one is kind of like

a, a default setting for me as well.

And then the emotional despair was what I believe led to the,

the problem in a more acute sense.

Yeah, I think so too.

I think it, it's like it's the next, the next big building block

on top of the cognitive despair.

Absolutely.

So the third one is, Behavioral despair, which describes risky,

reckless, or self-destructive acts, reflecting little to no consideration

of the future, such as self-harm, reckless driving drug use, risky, uh,

risky sexual behavior, and others.

So behavioral despair.

, risky, reckless and self-destructive acts with no consideration of the future

or little consideration of the future.

Mm-hmm.

. Corey: So I think that this

loading, immediate gratification.

You know, I, I knew a person in one of my meetings who called it the fuck its

. Nathan: Right, right.

Yeah.

You, you

know, like where you just, you, you don't care about

the long-term consequence.

It's the short-term.

Short-term.

Entirely.

Yeah.

And that dopamine response, that's kind of what we're talking about there.

Absolutely.

And it's a little bit, when I looked at it, I thought maybe it's a chicken and an

egg scenario that people can get confused about when somebody's using drugs.

Right?

It's like, well, maybe their behavior is this way because they're using drugs.

Mm.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Whereas I believe many times it's that the behavior.

Because of the first two items, you don't believe you have a future.

Therefore, what is the purpose of long-term goals and, uh, with,

uh, loneliness and a lack of connection, you're basically, you

have no support to back you up.

So those two, the first two things make the third thing so attractive, right?

Yeah.

I

mean, yeah, because if, if you think about it like a, a

piece of cake, Lit, like a literal piece of cake gives everyone sugar.

Mm-hmm.

gives everyone like a, a bit of a dopamine kick where you're just

like, oh my God, this is so good.

Mm-hmm.

, but for the person who is lonely or the person who doesn't have

connection, doesn't have all these other things that we've been talking

about and that we were talking about just in that last conversation.

That's where the hooks can come in.

The hooks of addiction can come in and I use a piece of cake, but I could be

talking about, I could be talking about a drug, a chemical drug, just as easily as

well, for sure.

Yeah.

It's uh, , it's the setup, right?

It's the setup, yeah.

Not the, not the substance, uh, necessarily.

And lastly, we have biological despair.

We're talking diseases of despair, of which there are four types.

Lastly, biological despair, which relates to dysfunction or dysregulation

of the body's stress reactive system and or to hormonal inst.

Yeah.

What are your thoughts on that one?

This to me is like that feeling when I was going to work of noticing

in hindsight or even in the moment, noticing an elevated heart rate.

Um, noticing that as on my drive to work, I would get to the same place in my town

a block and a half away from the hospital and feel the same way physiologically.

Mm-hmm.

and that sometimes that would relate to a taste in my.

You know that I talked about in my first episode, you know, that the,

the feeling of anxiety and stress, the feeling of an el, a perpetually

constant, uh, elevation of cortisol Yes.

And adrenaline and, and how that could get enmeshed with a sort

of an addictive symptom or an

urge of course.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so this is why environment and not changing, not changing the environment,

not changing the other factors is a, such a recipe for, um, risk.

Yeah.

It, and, uh, it's interesting how you can look at these four in the way we just did.

It's sort of a, uh, 1, 2, 3, 4 naco punch, right?

Isn't it?

Yeah.

And the fourth one keeps you in the pocket.

It's the one that locks you in.

He's got the third one is the, , right?

Yeah.

That's the one that staggers you and then you're, you're down for the count and

the fourth keeps you from getting up.

Yeah.

So, wow.

Wow.

Interesting, right?

? Very, yeah.

. So what I'm going to, I'll, I'll just, I'm gonna give a little more of a

explanation as to the definition of, uh, and factors that are contributing

to diseases of despair right now.

And after I do that, then we'll, we'll look at a couple paragraphs, okay?

Yep.

So diseases of despair.

Um, we talk, we, we talk the first four basic types, and then there's some effects

that are going on right now, such as being under the influence of despair

for an extended amount of time may lead to the development of one or more of

the diseases of despair, such as, so you've got diseases of despair causing

suicidal thoughts or drug or alcohol.

If an individual has a disease of despair, there is an increased

risk of death from despair.

So we, we see that these dis diseases are, they're type of

social disease really, right?

Yep.

And they lead to deaths of despair, which are classified as suicides, drug

or alcohol, overdoses or liver failure.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

So we got those three that are going on right now.

Uh, a little bit of backstory on, we're gonna talk.

I'll use the US data and I'll tie it into Canada, but we're

talking North America here.

So mortality and morbidity rates, which, uh, morbidity, if you don't know, is

the rate of incidents of disease in a population as denoted by a percentage.

So mortality and morbidity rates in the United States have

been decreasing for decades.

As we go along, things have generally gotten better.

If we look at, uh, from 1970 to about 2013, mortality rates fell

by 44%, and morbidity was on the decline even amongst the elderly.

So we were doing pretty.

cardiovascular disease and cancer.

The two biggest killers in middle age are also on the decline, so

those are still like, we're still improving there, even with obesity

being uncontrolled, especially in the US but in Canada as well.

So, We still have those, those two there, and we're not considering

obesity being under control at all.

Despite those improvements, white, middle-aged Americans are experiencing an

increase in premature deaths, especially in those caused by suicide, drug

overdose, and alcohol, liver disease.

. I will add to this that although middle-aged white Americans are

increasing rapidly, they have just caught up to the, to black and Hispanic

ethnicities who have been suffering at higher levels for quite some time.

Yeah.

So this is the first time that we're seeing, especially in our

generation, what's happening is all of a sudden there is almost.

As of the latest data, I believe there's now no difference in races, uh, across

North America for, uh, diseases of despair that end in deaths of despair.

So we are interesting are all Yeah.

Isn't it interesting.

And it's particularly between, uh, the ages 20 to 44.

So there's two factors that they've looked at that are playing into this.

One is education.

. So if you are, if you have an education level that's below or less than a

bachelor's degree, you're at increased risk of dying from diseases of despair.

And then interestingly, um, people who live in rural areas, so in the,

I think the study they're looking at was mostly in the Appalachian

areas of the United States.

So, uh, it's, uh, West Virginia down, I think.

Mm-hmm.

. Mm-hmm.

, um, a ridge, that ridge on the east side of the, the states.

So, in that area, people who were more, uh, living in more

rural areas were more at risk.

And the first thing that came for to mind for me was that maybe that's

because of a lack of communal support.

Like they just don't have the resources to, like, I think you're

more, you're probably more prone to self isolate just because of the.

Kind of the attitude and also the, the actual geo geographical location problem.

You simply don't have the people around you.

So, um, not that cities are, you know, by their nature more, uh,

communal, but you know what I mean.

You

do probably have greater access to, to healthcare though.

Yeah, absolutely.

And that might be, that might be the sole factor, right?

Mm-hmm.

They, they haven't elucidated what.

What is causing that, but that's, that's part of the, uh, part of it as far

as an, the numbers game is concerned.

So if you've got a bachelor's degree of education, at least you have

some protection and, uh, they're, they think that that plays into

your, your outlook for the future.

Right.

Preliminary indications in Canada and the United States demonstrate that the

trajectory of drug overdose related deaths was exacerbated by the pandemic in Canada.

Drug overdose related deaths stabilized prior to the onset.

Onset of Covid 19.

I'll put a little addendum in there.

And by stabilized they mean our atrocious numbers.

Were continuing not getting worse.

, right?

Not getting better.

Just leveling out.

Okay.

Yeah.

Which is still horrific.

Yeah.

So in Canada, drug overdose deaths o overdose related deaths stabilized

prior to the onset of covid 19, but increased after the onset of

Covid 19 in the United States.

drug overdose related deaths increased prior to and accelerated

after the onset of Covid 19.

So I'll ask you there, I guess, what do you think is going on as far as,

uh, those numbers are concerned?

Like they seem to be having a, a significant impact on, uh, death

from these diseases of despair?

Yeah,

so emotional despair.

way up, biological, despair, way up, cognitive despair, probably up.

Mm-hmm.

. So each one of those factors has probably significantly increased.

Yes.

Isolation, increased.

Mm-hmm.

resources decreased.

Right?

Um, like resources in terms of healthcare, in terms of social

resources, in terms of human connection, all of those things dropped off.

Uh, financial resources, speaking loss, financial

resources, losing their jobs.

Plays into, um, when I looked at those numbers, I thought hopelessness, right?

Yes.

When you're looking to the future and you're in the middle of a

lockdown, all of a sudden your world's been turned upside down.

You don't know whether or not you're gonna have a job.

You don't know how long things are gonna go on like this.

You don't know if there's an end game.

These are very real and impactful psychological factors

for human beings that, mm-hmm.

. Uh, there's actually quite a few studies going on right now.

Sort of suss out what kind of an impact we're looking at, but I thought it

was interesting that that's thus far having a, uh, that much of a significant

impact on our, our toxic drug crisis.

Yeah, and, and to go back to what you said at the beginning, , I

think probably, although it impacted everyone, the people with less

education, maybe without a degree.

So maybe there was less job security or their jobs were different so that it, it

they weren't essential services maybe.

Um, it's a meaningfulness too, right?

Yeah.

Uh, the, the meaningful, uh, how meaningful your job is.

. If you have less than a bachelor's degree in education, you're more likely to be

in a factory type, uh, production job.

Where sometimes that's fine for people, but other people are gonna

find it difficult to derive real meaning and get job satisfaction

from that kind of a environment.

Mm-hmm.

. So I think that plays into it as well.

All right, Corey, so what I'm gonna do now is, Read you four paragraphs

that I have highlighted from the book, the Urge by Eric Fisher, which

I'm currently just about finished.

If I would stop highlighting stuff, I would probably be done.

But, um, there's a lot of good information in there.

So I've got four paragraphs that pertain to our previous discussion

that I'm gonna read here, and I'll just get your thoughts after each one.

Okay, cool.

Yep.

Paragraph.

The Canadian psychologist Bruce Alexander has articulated this idea as

his dislocation theory of addiction, which asserts that the most important

and fundamental cause of addiction is not the biological effect of a

drug or some inborn vulnerability to addiction indiv in individuals,

but rather a society's wounds.

Importantly, That pain doesn't need to be the kind of concrete loss

such as the poverty and disease experienced by any culture or

group that we're gonna talk about.

There is also a psychological dislocation that can be just as toxic,

such as being torn from a culture and traditional S spirituality,

losing freedom and self-determination and lacking opportunities for

joy, joy and self-expression.

Even for those of us who are not suffering from such tangible deprivations today, we

are just as vulnerable as our ancestors, if not more so to the psychospiritual one.

What are your thoughts on that?

Yeah, that's a, that's a big one.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Certainly rings true for me.

The thing it took me back to is how I was feeling.

You know, I, I was divorced, I became a single parent, had a lot of.

a lot of bills to pay a lot, you know, financially I became sort of locked into

a, into a pretty desperate feeling state, which took away some of the feeling

of freedom or feeling of choice that I had with, with my job in particular.

And so it, you know, the thing, the word that comes up is like,

it was, it really locked me.

Yeah.

When I read this, I see people's opportunities and

autonomy being taken away.

Yeah.

By circumstances that are out of their control.

Yeah.

And while I don't necessarily agree that it, it's, you know, it's not, this was

just an assertion that, and it was one theory that was put forward at a time.

Um, we know that there's many factors of addiction and you can't.

Nail it down to one, but it's interesting how this psychologist

kind of looked around, saw the cultures that were suffering.

The First Nations cultures are a great example of what happens when you, you

take away people's purpose, their meaning, their spiritual connection, their ability

to live their life, the way they wanna live their life, and lock them into

a, a paradigm shift that they had, you know, no interest in being a part of.

Right.

. Yeah.

Hopelessness is still an undervalued

human condition, isn't it though?

Yeah.

I mean, the more I look, the more I read, it just keeps coming up.

Mm-hmm.

, it's hopelessness and, uh, I used to laugh about it in pharmacy because

I would always, uh, I had a joke with a, a pharmacist early on about

how our situation was despondent.

Mm-hmm.

, like, there was no way we could, there was no hope for winning.

Right.

Yeah.

This was, you know, previous to my issues.

And I, I look back at that and I think, huh?

Despondent is a big factor.

Yeah.

And it, although we were joking about it, there was a lot of truth and still is.

Well, it still is.

There's more truth to it than ever in the profession of pharmacy.

And I'm sure if you talk to any nurse who's practicing right

now, , despondent would be.

Something they could use to describe the situation.

Oh my God, yeah.

There, there's no hopeful language being used in that, in the profession.

I don't

think.

No.

Uh, no.

Hopeful language and optimism is hard to generate.

Like, I mean, I was, yeah, I was just talking with, uh, a pharmacist that

I've known for a long time yesterday, and I tried to take an optimistic kind

of turn on the conversation when we were talking about how pharmacists

are gonna be able to prescribe and.

you know, just watching that bounce off this pharmacist as if No, they immediate,

like, it's not, it doesn't matter at all.

They're going to screw it up.

Yeah.

You know, , I just, I mean, I, I couldn't keep up the facade, you know?

No.

Like, I know that we all know it, you know, it's, they just,

the evidence is overwhelming.

But anyway, yeah.

So that's that one.

Uh, the next paragraph will be shorter, I promise.

So here we go.

This is the core of addiction as dislocation theory.

Beyond soothing the concrete effects of physical dislocation,

people use drugs to address an alienation from cultural supports.

This kind of alienation is what Emily Durkheim, the founder of

Modern Sociology, called Anami.

The social condition of a breakdown of norms and values resulting in

an existential lack of connection to meaning and purpose, both this

sense of dislocation and the actions of addiction supply industries,

uh, whether that's pharmaceutical or illicit drug supply industries.

Some scholars argue are the core drivers of today's opioid epidemic.

So she's asserting that the, the condition we discussed before, the

addiction as dislocation theory and the aggressive nature of, especially in the

us the marketing of pharmaceuticals.

Mm-hmm.

, um, we know that played a factor, but, you know, what are your thoughts

on the, on that paragraph so far?

That the machine that we speak of so regularly is more harmful than

it is good if it, it is generating the feeling of hopelessness.

It is taking away the feeling of self-determination and autonomy.

Then just by that alone, which is a lot , then it's doing more harm than it is.

Good.

That's what comes

to mind for me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This kind of illustrates the.

the importance of considering how much you are going to change your lifestyle

and maybe profession if you are in a situation where your profession

is, is contributing to your problem.

Mm-hmm.

like it was for me and you, you can see how dangerous it is to continue to

sit in that, go back and sit in that environment when you know, even on a, a

large, uh, social scale, you can see how these things have a determining factor.

Absolut.

Okay, next one is shorter still.

So, case in Deaton, these are the two who, who came up with the diseases of despair,

uh, to psychologists labeled these deaths from suicide, drug overdoses, and alcohol,

liver diseases, deaths of despair.

In 2017, there were more than 150,000 deaths of despair in the United States.

More than half the numbers of US combat deaths in World War II, all

in one year, and many of them among people in their twenties and forties.

Wow.

Yeah.

Wow.

Right.

That's how , I mean, the only thing I, uh, that I would add to this

is that they're not considering the, the nature of the drug supply.

Right?

Yeah.

Right.

So, with that statement, what are your, uh, thoughts?

Oh, you know, in the current trend that you, you know, you

five minutes, two minutes online, the trend is this promotion of

the focus of on mental health.

Mm-hmm.

, and obviously that.

greatly needed, but just what, what that makes me think is that it is so much

worse than we all understand it to be.

Mm-hmm.

. It is a, what a tragic state of affairs that we're in as a society, if that

people feel that hopeless and desperate.

Yeah.

And again, I, I can't state this enough that the ramifications of hollowing out

the core of our population demographic, that is already in big, big trouble.

, I mean, how this is not front and center problem number one in this province.

I just can't, I cannot understand the shortsightedness of our leaders mm-hmm.

On this.

Mm-hmm.

. Mm-hmm.

. It's just mind boggling.

I mean, we know that we're going into a situation where we've got a inverted

pyramid, basically, population wise, and now we're talking about taking.

You're basically eliminating the support structure right

underneath the baby boomers.

Yeah.

What do you think is gonna happen?

You know, I mean, this is a very, uh, a strange situation to be a part

of, to watch it unfold and to watch the, to see how much more prominent,

um, like even in the pandemic, yes, it, I mean, I understand it was a

crazy time for everybody, but nobody is talking about how we are under.

The, the situation we are in and have been is way more dangerous.

Yeah.

And has been for a long time.

Yeah.

You know, the, the, the only other thing that makes me

think too is that we are the people that are in positions of power.

The people that are calling the shots are also certainly in despair.

In their own, in their own way.

Oh, sure.

I don't think, I think in many times they are not the, sort of the victims

of financial despair or of, of being powerless or hopeless mm-hmm.

because they are the ones that are, that are wielding the sword,

but, But you can see the, the hurt, you can see the, the anguish.

You know, there was just as an example, and not to get too far into like American

politics, but one of the most profound examples of this to me was in the United

States two weeks ago, they were voting for the speaker of the house and this

sort of Republican, Trump, Republican Kevin McCarthy is, is trying to get

voted in to be the speaker of the house.

And it took like, 14 votes and he kept, you know, publicly getting rejected.

No, we're not, we don't accept you.

And then he, and this is all on camera, and he's, you know, trying to rally

support and going to this person, going to this person and trying to

plead his case and No, you're rejected.

And they vote again.

And he, and he rejected and, and it was like, , it was like the child on

the playground who kept going back and getting rejected and, and you could

just see this guy's sort of psyche on display, uh, and the ugliness there.

Mm-hmm.

and the, the human despair.

Right.

And, and this is not someone who I would be supportive of as a, you know,

like sort of a, a Donald Trump guy.

He was, the opposition to him was trying to sort.

Maintained some or regained some normalcy.

Mm-hmm.

, and he ultimately ended up getting in and the people who, the people

on his side, the Republicans on his side, were finally caved and weren't

able to sort of sustain the pressure.

Mm-hmm.

and I look at those people too and say, well, there's, there's human despair

at play there too, that they couldn't sort of maintain their own boundaries.

Right.

And finally ended up saying, yeah, fine.

And they voted him.

Yeah.

And yeah, that, that's a, that's a great example of, uh, The state

of, uh, how the state of politics is.

I mean, we know that it's a, a clown show at this point as far as Yeah.

Uh, you know, the structure of our leadership in Canada and the states.

It's just, there's nothing left that resembles what you would, I

think, describe as a democracy.

It's just a, yeah, intangible, nebulous, cloud of mayhem, . But, uh,

it, it does illustrate a good point.

And that's that, uh, those people are human too, and they are struggl.

And, uh, maybe the chaos or the lack of action is a, a little bit.

Um, I, it certainly can't be excused, but you can see that the structure

of the, the bigger machine is kind of maybe holding back a lot of people from

making progress, I guess you could say.

Yeah.

And we do a really good job of looking way back in history and saying, well,

N Napoleon, he was crazy and Adolf Hitler was crazy and they had all of

this early life stuff that happened to them and, and they were on drugs and

they were this, and they were that.

But this too is happening in the present that people are, the people

that are making these decisions for us as a society are also in

their own way hurting and, and.

I have some empathy for them, but I also want to say like we have to change that.

I would hope that we can find people who are, who have figured

out their despair a little bit better to rule our, our countries

That's my hope at

least.

. Well, you gotta have hope.

Uh, like

imagine a, imagine a campaign, a political campaign where the, the

politicians says, well, I've really done what I can in the last number of years

to, to look at my cognitive despair, , and to look at my emotional despair.

And I've formulated really good, strong, powerful connections in my life.

Yeah.

And I'm doing all I can to, to work on my stress and my anxiety and

my feelings of inferiority, , and,

well, this is, I mean, there's problems that, uh, that go back to.

I mean, really we've been marketed out of our ability to discern

what a good leader even is.

Yeah.

And to be honest, at this point, what happens in politics is secondary to the

structures that lie above it now, which is, you know, like the pharmaceutical

companies that we're able to do what.

Purdue did, and the, you know, these, these kind of structures

until they're held accountable, we are going to constantly be at the

mercy of marketing campaigns mm-hmm.

That are too slick for the average Canadian or American to navigate.

that includes both of us.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But the hope is, like you said, if we can, if we can increase our understanding

as individuals of our own cognitive needs as far as maintenance goes, then

perhaps that can have a spillover effect.

And eventually we'll come to an awareness as a culture that we need to make changes

on a big structural, uh, structural level.

So we must tend to the garden that we can touch.

Yes.

Yes.

, do you have one more there?

I realized this last one here is just a spillover of the, uh,

of what we've already discussed.

So I'm gonna leave that one and show mercy to you cuz you, uh, navigated

those very well, , incredibly lengthy.

That was

fascinating.

Really, really interesting.

And can you tell us again where this literature came?

The explanation of the diseases of despair.

I mean, it, it's all over the web.

Uh, there's, if you go on Wikipedia and look at their first, like 17 resources,

they've all got, uh, case and Deaton studies in there that you can look at.

Uh, you can also, uh, search case and Deaton themselves, and they, you'll,

you'll see the work that they've done.

So that's, uh, that'll give you all the information on diseases of Despair.

And then the rest is from Eric Fisher's book, the Urge.

Which is, uh, written by a physician who struggled with alcohol himself and

he kind of weaves his own story that's very similar to ours in that he went

through the same type of kind of hampered system, uh, for healthcare professionals

where you have access to supports and you're kind of guided through this thing

that still makes absolutely no sense.

Mm-hmm.

. And you have to, you know, he talks about having to just be like, uh, Yeah.

Uhhuh.

I, I'll do what you say.

Just, uh, get me through this thing, right?

Yeah.

Um, a and then he weaves stories.

Uh, it's the most.

Detailed history of the, of drug policy.

I've ever seen some of this stuff I've, I've run across before, but

I've, this is the most far reaching.

Mm-hmm.

. He, he goes way back and he really demonstrates the politics of both

Democrats, Republicans in the States, how little it makes a difference,

who's in power, where it, it's just all it is, is a different kind of

coding on the same product, which.

You know, fear driven mass media campaigns in marketing mm-hmm.

to continue the status quo.

He refers to the treatment, uh, economy down there as the, what does he say?

The treatment industrial complex.

So it's, uh, I like that because it's, uh, it's, it's quite accurate.

Yeah.

Um, and when you see how much power they wielded in the nineties, especi.

Once, you know, when basically they were running a like stamp and print

campaign for insurance companies.

I mean, they had so much money they could push whatever

agenda they wanted, but yeah.

Yeah.

I'm rambling on now.

Interesting though.

I like that.

The treatment industrial complex.

I'm

gonna think about that . Yeah.

Uh, food for thought and maybe discussion later.

All right, Corey, thank you very much for, uh, your thoughtful replies.

It was really good.

All right, Corey, we will talk next time.

Thank you.

See you soon.

Bye.