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The Rich Roll Podcast

Dan Peres: From Opiod Slave To Sober Salvation

The Rich Roll Podcast

Rich Roll

Health & Fitness, Education, Self-improvement, Society & Culture

4.812.9K Ratings

🗓️ 16 March 2020

⏱️ 132 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Today I share one man’s journey into the depths of opioid addiction despair -- what happened, what it was like, and how he ultimately found a way out. His name is Dan Peres -- and it’s quite the story. Hardly a born media insider, Dan was an awkward, magic-obsessed adolescent. But his gift for the written word and shrewd eye for culture catapulted him to premature heights in the fast-paced world of glossy magazine publishing. At 24, he was covering catwalks in Paris as the European editor for W magazine. A few short years later he landed the coveted editor gig at Details magazine, the arbiter of all things cool and zeitgeist -- a post he held for 15 years. Along the way Dan nurtured a secret, seeking refuge in opioids to a salve profound imposter syndrome as he navigated the high-voltage netherworld of fashion designers, celebrities and media moguls. Like so many, it’s a relationship that began with a back injury and a prescription. A love affair that escalated to 60 pills a day, betrayal soon followed. A best friend that turned dark. And an addiction that took him places he never thought he would go, produced more instances of incomprehensible demoralization than he cares to remember, and eroded the moral fabric of his life. By a power greater than himself, Dan found a way out. Now 12 years sober, he recollects the vivid details of his experience in As Needed For A Pain -- a harrowing and at times humorous coming-of-age tale that offers a rare glimpse into New York media’s past (a time when print magazines mattered), dissects a life teetering on the edge of destruction, and chronicles what it took to pull back from the brink of an addiction that very nearly killed him. Today Dan shares his powerful tale from depravity to salvation. Even if the opioid epidemic hasn’t affected you directly, chances are someone in your life suffers. May this conversation open your eyes. Help you better understand the cunning, baffling and powerful nature of this disease. And provide hope to those that currently suffer -- because there is a solution. The visually inclined can watch it all go down on YouTube. And as always, the audio version streams wild and free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. If you need help, seek out an A.A. meeting in your area here. Or call the Substance Abuse And Mental Health Services national helpline at 1-800-662-HELP. Thanks to my friends Amy Dresner (RRP #341) and Jeff Gordinier (RRP #453) for introducing me to Dan. And thank you to Dan for being so open and vulnerable. This conversation is a doozie. I'm better for having it. May it impact you similarly. Peace + Plants, Rich Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

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0:00.0

I absolutely couldn't stop. I knew I needed to stop. I acknowledged that I was a drug addict.

0:07.2

I knew that I was going to probably die if I didn't stop. I had been Odeeing, stopped breathing

0:14.2

a number of times in the middle of the night. Like waking up literally was someone on,

0:19.2

like a girlfriend on top of me, like basically banging on my chest, like freaking out because

0:24.4

I wasn't breathing. Maintaining a supply of these pills was really my only focus. And I had never

0:34.8

worked harder at anything in my life. I had never been as committed to anything in my life before

0:42.0

that point, which is fascinating in and of itself, right? Because here I was, I was running this

0:46.8

magazine and I had a big job at Details, but this was really the only thing that I paid any

0:54.7

true, true attention to. Taking pills were my feedings and I was feeding this beast of this

1:00.7

addiction. And so I ultimately got to 15 at a time and I was doing it about four times a day.

1:06.5

And so it was a constant search for pills. It's all I cared about. That's Dan Paris and this.

1:16.8

It's the Rich Roll Podcast.

1:28.2

The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey everybody, how goes it? What's the word? My name is Rich Roll. I am

1:34.9

indeed your host. Let's do this podcast thing. Here's what we know. Every single day, over 130 people

1:44.1

in the US die from an opioid overdose. 40% of those involved a prescription. About one quarter

1:51.9

of all patients prescribed opioids for chronic pain end up misusing them. That is 10.3 million

1:59.2

people. How about this stat? About 80% of people who use heroin first misuse prescription opioids.

2:08.3

Think about that. I mean, really think about that. A tragic epidemic of untold proportions,

2:15.5

opioid addiction has basically precipitated this massive, massive public health crisis,

2:24.0

destroying millions of lives unnecessarily. Also, taxing our economy at the rate of 78.5 billion

2:30.6

dollars per year. So how do we get here? Well, we got here because in the late 1990s,

2:38.4

big pharmaceutical companies started pushing these powerful pills, stuff like viking and oxycodone,

...

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