The Dr. Junkie Show

This week I dive into some of the work Freud wrote later in his life, particularly a book called Civilization and its Discontents published in 1930. Freud believed that the evolutionary process we can use to trace the changes humans have gone through over the centuries can also explain why culture itself has evolved as it has. He basically thinks we are all self-deceiving, chronically unfulfilled and unsatisfied bots programmed to ...

This week I talk about Freud's love of cocaine, the historical legacy of Freud's cocaine use, and the cultural changes that have occurred since then in relation to cocaine. The stories we tell about drugs impact the experience we have when we consume them, but Freud wasn't dealing with a century of propaganda. He was, in many ways, creating some of the original stories about cocaine that others would tell later on. B...

This week I dive into some of Trump's recent comments about "Venezuelan gang members" and the USA's legacy of dehumanizing people based on their drug use. I discuss Rodney King, Joaquín Guzman aka "El Chapo," George Floyd, dehumanization, Hannah Arendt's Banality of Evil, the art of shilling for Trump (aka "minionism"), and lots more.

You can find clips and images of the "Venezuelan ...

This week I share a conversation with one of my students, Madeline Grace/Levin, who is creating a podcast of her own called Dependence. I will update this episode description with a link to her podcast when it's live, but in the mean time I thought I'd share a cool conversation we had last week. We talk about religion, drugs, addiction, Michel de Certeau, neoliberalism, atheism, 12-step programs, chihuahuas, spirituality,...

This week I talk about the kratom wars: the argument over whether kratom is a deadly drug or a miracle cure (or somewhere in between). While some states are currently trying to ban kratom, others are working to make it easier and safer to get. Meanwhile, the federal government has been a bit all over the place on it, and with Trump 2.0 gathering early steam by pandering to Project 2025 nationalists, it's hard to say what attem...

This week I tackle some of the questions and comments I've been getting over the last couple months. I talk about Trump's neoliberal agenda, his capture of the Evangelical Right, Consistency and Accountability in both criminal justice and religion, and I clean up some of what I may have missed during the last few episodes I've done on these issues.

This episode was mostly unscripted and it's all over the place, b...

This week Dr. Christy Perez (C Dreams) is back to talk about her new projects, and to be dragged back into old theological debates. We talk about trans rights, Christianity, the capture of Evangelical Christianity by MAGA, expectations for the next 4 years, the anti-fact stance of the recent anti-trans executive order, and we spend way too long spinning our tires trying to figure out which parts of the Bible we should read as legit...

This week I get back to the heart of the show: drug policy, drug addiction, and drugs. I talk about free will as it relates to the war on drugs, addiction and intoxication, and I dig into genetics, criminal justice, punishment and prevention. 

The nonsensical notion of free will, which I've yet to hear defined with any sort of coherence, plays no part in addiction, and our insistence that it does has allowed us to con...

This week I talk about coffee: the history, the pharmacology, the politics and the legal battles. I take a dialectical perspective, which just means I focus on both sides of the coffee discussion: it has been blamed for sexual promiscuity and inability to perform; it has been the instigator of both dictatorships and revolutions; it has been labeled both a drug and an anti-drug in different times and places. 

I also talk ab...

This week I finally finish the topic a started a few weeks ago: religious trauma and why religion often makes people into worse versions of themselves without them noticing. I discuss two of the most important questions in life: how does one find truth, and how does one decide on morality. And I point out the many ways that religions, particularly Christianity, disrupts the process by which we do both while preventing us from notic...

The title of this week's episode is a shout out to philosopher Bertrand Russell, who wrote a book by the same name: Why I am not a Christian. This week I talk about religion as an addiction, responsible use of religion, how religion often programs people to avoid accountability and double down on things they know are not true, the problem with the Bible and other religious books, and lots more. 

*Of all the many thing...

Today's episode includes an interview with formerly incarcerated activist Jeremy Pavlik. Jeremy was incarcerated in Colorado for more than 15 years before his release in 2014. Since then, he has worked with multiple agencies who assist other recently released people trying to get back on their feet. He is currently working to start up his own organization, which you'll hear us talk about today, devoted to fulfilling all n...

This week friend of the show Meghan Cosgrove stopped by to interview me in our ongoing series about previously incarcerated people who have used education to find a pathway to success. Long time listeners have heard pieces of my story, but I've seldom stopped to dig deep into what happened to me and why my life went the way it went. We talk about prison education, addiction, religious trauma, heroin injection versus snorting, ...

Today I continue a series of interviews with recently incarcerated people who are doing some great things in the community. Taylor Doucet was sentenced to 28 years in prison for two attempted murderers in 2013. While inside he found a different version of himself and worked to overcome his past. Now he is a peer recovery coach, a personal trainer, and a bad ass academic.

We talk about prison tattoos, prison identity, gang ...

This week I host another interview with a previously incarcerated student who is doing some great work in the community. Sean Mueller was sentenced to 40 years in prison in 2010 after being convicted of running a "Ponzi Scheme" and losing a few million dollars of investors' money. Since his incarceration, he's worked to become an artist, an author, and an academic; he is currently nearing the completion of his B...

This week I share a story from another previously-incarcerated person who is doing some incredible work in the community. Geordan Morris was one of my students in the CU-Denver Strategic Communication program, and since his release earlier this year, he's worked with others who have struggled with addiction, trauma, and incarceration to help them define recovery on their own terms and to embody a better way of life. We discuss...

This week I sat down with Colorado's David Carrillo, who was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole thirty years ago, when he was 19 years old. Since then, David has accomplished some incredible things behind bars. He enrolled in college, completed his Bachelor's and then his Master's Degree, and then got hired to teach for a local college inside prison while he was still incarcerated. We talk ...