Goody, humans. Welcome to the safe space for dangerous ideas. One dangerous idea that is

floating around in the ether is the idea that there is such a thing as an alcoholic or an addict

and that that person is constitutionally different from the rest of us healthy users of the substances over which we are

entirely in control. Katie Herzog is writing a book which will be released next year about her

experience with alcohol and specifically with a drug that is underuse and under-recognised,

but incredibly useful in helping people kick booze, or at least get it under

control.

The drug's called analtrexone.

It changed Katie's life.

I have some personal experience with it myself, just because I happened to be part of a

clinical trial in which it was involved.

You'll hear all about that.

But this is an absolute must listen for anyone who just wants to get a better handle on the relationship that we have with substances that can form habits and how there might be pharmacological solutions that are being overlooked in our quest to try to have some sort of deep spiritual understanding of where the whole of addiction comes from.

If all that sounds a little bit daunting, you need to hear Katie speak.

She's a fabulous journalist.

Her life was upended when she was a freelance journal in Seattle,

and she happened to write a piece for Seattle's Progressive Alternative Newspaper,

The Stranger, about

detransitioners. In other words, trans people who sort of changed their minds. And this was at a

moment when it was incredibly taboo to do so in progressive circles. And despite the fact that

Katie is gay herself, she nonetheless lost dozens of friends.

There were enormous protests.

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