What We Get Wrong About Addiction and the War on Drugs with Johann Hari
On The Mend
High Performance
4.9 • 566 Ratings
🗓️ 28 August 2024
⏱️ 28 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
This week’s guest is Johann Hari, whose books and TED Talks on depression, anxiety, and addiction have reached millions of people.
His 2015 talk Everything You Think You Know About Addiction Is Wrong had a huge impact on Matt, changing how he thought about his own recovery.
Matt then devoured Johann’s first book Chasing The Scream which looked at the war on drugs, through the story of Billie Holiday. While writing this book, Johann travelled the world to find out how different countries and cultures are dealing with addiction. Because, when it comes to treatment, prevention and enforcement, some countries have got it nailed... and some really haven't. In fact, many countries (including the UK) have got a lot to learn when it comes to our attitudes towards drugs and addiction.
This conversation dives into Billie Holiday’s story and the legacy of Harry J Anslinger’s war on drugs; the importance of connection and compassion in addiction recovery; and what we can learn from innovations in countries like Portugal and Switzerland, and, at the community level, in Vancouver.
(01:10) Johann’s funeral song (a surprising choice, but perhaps not for Busted fans)
(02:44) The impact of Johann’s Ted Talk on Matt
(04:45) Johann’s motivation for researching addiction
(08:43) The Rat Park experiment and the importance of connection
(13:26) The U.S. vs. Billie Holiday and what this story teaches us about the war on drugs
(27:36) Addiction treatment in the prison system
(32:32) Shame and stigma in addiction (and the importance of looking at multiple factors)
(43:40) The impact of junk values in contemporary society
(51:00) Looking for, and fixating on, negative feedback
(53:36) The different approach to addiction in PortugalÂ
(59:07) Andrew Sullivan, gay marriage, and important cultural change
(01:01:59) Decriminalisation vs. legalisation and the Swiss approach to addiction
(01:06:22) The power of ordinary people in cultural change
(01:07:54) What we can learn from Vancouver (Bud Osborn and Philip Owen)
(01:14:24) Concluding thoughts from Johann and Matt
Related links:
Johann’s books
The film adaptation of Chasing The Scream: The United States vs, Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday’s Strange Fruit
Bruce K Alexander’s Rat Park experiment
Professor Tim Kasser’s The High Price of Materialism and his experiment with Nathan Duncan
Portugal’s Dr João Goulão
Virtually Normal by Andrew Sullivan
Former President of Switzerland Ruth Dreifuss
The Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users: VANDU
Former Vancouver Mayor Philip Owen
NHS: Getting Help for Drug Addiction
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Want to know who's coming up next? Hit follow wherever you get your podcast and you'll be the first to find out. |
| 0:09.0 | Hello everyone and welcome back to On the Men. My name is Matt Willis and this podcast is about addiction, recovery and resilience more generally. |
| 0:17.0 | This week's guest is Johann Harry, whose TED talk on depression, anxiety and addiction |
| 0:22.6 | has reached over, I mean, something ridiculous, like 25 million people or something have watched it. |
| 0:28.6 | His 2015 talk was titled, Everything You Think You Know About Addiction is Wrong, |
| 0:33.6 | and it had a massive impact on me. It really changed how I thought about my own recovery. |
| 0:38.5 | And since then, I read his book, Chasing the Scream, which is Johan's bestselling book, |
| 0:43.1 | which looked at the war on drugs, via the story of Billy Holiday. And you'll hear more about |
| 0:47.4 | that shortly in the podcast. This book was, I mean, so incredible. I can't really put it |
| 0:53.3 | into words. I messaged him out of the blue to appear in the podcast because I'm a massive fan, |
| 0:57.8 | and I was delighted that he said yes. |
| 0:59.8 | And we got to pick his brains as a writer of words who really, really resonated me. |
| 1:04.0 | So let's hear it for Johann Harry. |
| 1:10.6 | Johann, it's so good to have you here, mate. |
| 1:12.7 | So it's a bit of a head fuck for me to be here because about two weeks ago I had to drop my will. |
| 1:17.5 | And... |
| 1:18.9 | Wait, wait, start again? |
| 1:19.9 | I had to write a will. |
| 1:20.9 | Just because, like, I don't know what I had to do a will. |
| 1:24.8 | I was ordered to do a will by some of my relatives and my accountant. |
| 1:28.3 | Right. |
| 1:29.3 | And you do like funeral instructions, you can put them in. Yeah. And I was trying to think, what song do I want as I'm incinerated, hopefully like many, many years from now? Yeah. You know, a lot of people do like my way, self-justificatory songs. I don't want that. People are hopefully going to be feeling like shit, I'm dead, right? |
... |
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