Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Alcoholism

Episode Date: December 20, 2013

Welcome to Sawbones, where Dr. Sydnee McElroy and her husband Justin McElroy take you on a whimsical tour of the dumb ways in which we've tried to fix people. This week: We help you dry out. Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers (http://thetaxpayers.net)

Saw bones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, Tommy is about to books. One, two, one, two, three, four. We came across a pharmacy with a toy and that's lost it out. We were shot through the broken glass and had ourselves a look around.

The medicines, the medicines, the escalant macaque for the mouth Hello everybody and welcome to saw bones a barrel tour of misguided medicine. I am your co-host Justin McGoi. I'm Sydney McGoi. Ho ho ho ho ho ho. Ho ho it's a festive timey you said. That's right. It is Justin. The stockings are hung by the chimney with care. Well, I don't know that we took a lot of care. I just threw them up there. Honestly, there's a hook, there's a nail. I just did it. We do have an inflatable Santa in the front yard. I did that with care.

You do that. You do that wrong. You can get a hole. I'm gonna have to say not nearly as much care as my dad puts into his Christmas decorations. Yeah, it is impressive. If you are on 64, interstate 64, right around, I'm sure you all are. And if you're not get there right now, get there right now and your holiday travels right around exit. I think what is

that? 16 exit 10 right. I don't know. 16 right around how durable of our exit. Just look to your right and you will see you're not looking at the prison. Don't mind the, pass the prison. Pass the prison and you'll see. Then you'll see my parents house. You'll see her dad's display from the highway. You can see it. It's like a beacon. He has so many inflatables in the front yard

and they're all kind of spread out all over the place that it kind of looks like this weird inflatable graveyard. It's beautiful haunting. There's a message and I think there's a there's a puzzle and everyone you have to put together the clues to solve it. So go wander around my parents yard. Go for it. Preferably after dark. That won't freak them out. Said the holiday season means a lot of things to a lot of people but I'll tell you the thing a lot of people use to get through it and that's drinking. Well that's true Justin. Alcohol is a lot of people used to get through it and that's drinking. Well, that's true, Justin.

Alcohol is a key component, especially as you get older. You know, holiday cheer, the sort of excitement and vibrance you have for the holiday as a child has to be chemically infused as you grow into adulthood. You sound like you have a lot of experience with this. I mean, I'm not gonna sit here and deny that I've had a cup of something cheerful as I heard Peter O'Toole say this week. Really like. Are you looking forward to your wassle?

My wassle? This holiday? The wassle is the drink, right? You're a little bit of the milk of human kindness. Oh. You know what I'm saying? Right. But here's the problem.

Boos. Drink, you drink, and you drink, and you drink, and you drink, and you drink, and you think, this is great. This is all going great. I don't see any downside. And then oops, twist. You're addicted to it. Very badly.

That's true. So I think in the spirit of the holiday, while you're all celebrating and having your mold wine that you're drinking and your champagne on New Year's, I'm going to make you feel bad about it. I don't understand mold wine. Who has the time? Who thinks I'm going to want wanna drink wine in an hour or so? When I need a drink, I need one then.

I don't have the patience. I think this is a problem. Have you had a mald wine? No, yeah, yeah I've had it. It's freaking good. It's really good. It's a lot of good planning. Then I can't quite sit.

It's like popporee in alcohol mixed together. Popporee you can drink. You know when you're a kid and you eat popery and you think that didn't taste like what I thought it would taste like. Well, why does? It's like popery. Sid alcoholism. Yeah.

So keep this in the back of your mind when you're raising your glass. Yeah. It's not festive. It's festive season. Uh, Sid alcoholism, we have, it is obviously still a problem for a lot of people. Um, and it is something that we have tried, uh, time to time again to find an easy way out of, of course, there is a full proof cure for alcoholism. What's that?

What's that? Just, just stop it. Stop it. Stop drinking. Well, Justin, I think there are a lot of addiction specialists who may argue with you there. Listen, if you can do that, it's foolproof. Right. It's a little more complicated than that.

Foolproof. Right. But let's not get into the pathophysiology of alcoholism. Quit it. And we're not going to talk about a lot of real ways to fix alcoholism because of what fun would that be? Yeah. And to be fair, through everything I'm talking about, those efforts were in place.

I mean, if you are ever interested because I found a lot of this information when I was researching this topic, there's a rich history of alcoholics anonymous and the early groups, you know, the Native Americans first had like sobriety groups long before, you know, we ever had the term AA, which is pretty interesting back in the 1700s. So if you want to read the history of alcohol, like actual alcohol treatment, it's really fascinating. We're not going to talk about that. Boring. I want to talk about fake stuff. Give me something good, Sid. So alcoholism, of course, like just about anything else what you've talked about was initially seen as either a moral problem, you know, it was a vice.

You were just a bad person because you couldn't stop. Or it was some sort of religious issue. You were possessed by a demon or you'd fallen out of favor with, you know, whatever chosen deity, your culture worshiped. I think that is called having an external locus of control, right, Sid? Exactly. Exactly.

I don't know what is up with alcoholism. It's this demon. Blame this demon. It's something outside me and I have no impact over it. So what they would do at the time was either punish you for drinking because it was your own moral failings. So, you know, they would lock you up or beat you or put you to death or whatever. Or they would just pray for you, send you to churches and lay hands on you and pray to gods and light candles and hope that you got cured. I'm going to go with the second one.

That sounds like the treatment path for me. I didn't know everybody. You must not be praying hard enough. Please give me more. I'm gonna sit here and drink while you work harder at that. He praying. Please. I'm so broke. I'm so I'm so drunk. So drunk. Please. I'm trying to pass out. Pray harder. I don't know. I didn't find any cases where they tried to exercise somebody who was alcoholic. I really searched. I really would love to know if they actually did an exercise amount of alcoholic, but I'm sure they tried it. Everything that could happen has happened. So I was saying that has happened.

By the 1800s, we're just skipping around because a lot of things were tried for alcohol by a lot of different groups of people. I mean, all the way back to the Egyptians talked about the importance of moderation and, you know, not getting drunk and not drinking every day. So, I mean, this is not something new. But they began to try, and I think we mentioned this in another episode, opium therapy for alcoholism in the 1800s. Simply because even though they knew that opium was addictive, alcoholism was such a bigger

problem that at the time it was thought, alcoholism was such a bigger problem that at the time it was thought, well, it would be better if we could just get everybody hooked on opium. Sure. That seems like a better, that seems like a much more mild, mild addiction to have. Now obviously that seemed like a good idea for about five minutes and then everyone realized it was a really terrible idea. Yeah.

You've seen people on opium. They're not better. This is not working. Yeah. No, it's not better. This is was a real laugh critical thinking on our part. I think that the idea was that people on opium were just kind of chill and like laid around and slept a lot and weren't very productive, but people on alcohol, which is true about

alcohol. People who drink want to go do stuff like like drive cars and party and, you know, not that they wanted to drive cars in 1800. Right. People on alcohol can see the future. Whoa. They also tried some early aversion therapy. Like they told a lot of this was a wives would do this

to their husbands because alcoholism initially was a very male problem. Your husband went out and got drunk and came home and wouldn't take care of you and the kids and wives were angry. Of course, eventually, this would give birth to temperance and all that. You could try putting a bug in your husband's drink. I mean, I kind of a temporary fix, but it might buy you a few minutes. A few blessed minutes of sobriety.

Now they realize that your husband, hopefully, hopefully was smart enough to see the bug in his drink, not drink the bug. So it started to become popular to put things like Ipa-Cack in your husband's drinks. That's why sometimes, okay, you've been doing that to me because a few times I've thrown up after I drink a lot. So that is what happened. And that, right, that is the most likely explanation. Perfect. So the idea, it's like I said, a version therapy,

you would drink something alcoholic, you would throw up violently, and then you would not want to drink something alcoholic anymore. I mean, that seems, again, it seems a little short term to me. It was, and I will say that nowadays there is a medication and abuse, a disulfurum that's been around for a while, that does the same thing. It's a pill that you take, and if you drink alcohol while you're on it, you will become violently ill.

Wow. But obviously you have to know, that's part of our, we have to tell patients what we do, so they have to know they're on, that's part of our, we have to tell patients what we do. So they have to know they're on it. Thanks government. Thanks Obama. It's actually kind of a good idea. Yeah, right.

But I want to talk about, as we, as we move through this time period, there was something called the keely method, the keely cure that became very popular. I don't know if you've ever heard of it, Justin. I am not. It was, this is a big deal. So I was developed by a guy named Dr. Leslie Keely. He was from Dwight, Illinois. And he saw, I will say this for him. He was the first one to look at alcoholism and say, Okay, these people are drinking so much that it's destroying their lives,

you know, they're, they're causing themselves bodily harm, they're, you know're causing their wives or husbands or family members bodily harm, they're losing their jobs. This is a disease. This is not something that is within their control because clearly if they could control it, they would stop.

So this isn't just a vice, this is a disease. So just like any other disease, it needs a medical cure. Which was actually pretty progressive. For what time period were we talking about? Like we're talking about like the late 1800s. Okay. Yeah, late 1800s because he was prior to this, he was a surgeon in the union army during the Civil War. So we're talking about the 1800s going into like around 1900 when this kind of fell out of favor. So like I said, he initially he was an Irishman, he came to the US, he was a surgeon in the Union Army,

and he saw a lot of alcoholism. And his theory was that alcoholism was caused by toxins from alcohol, tobacco, cocaine, opiates, basically all the bad stuff. Okay. So all this stuff gets in your body and it causes some kind of illness that makes you want to keep drinking even though it causes you harm. And so he came up with a medicine that would rid your body of all those bad toxins. And as soon as you got this, you would become a sober person. Wow.

Well, why do we suffer problems without callism then, Sydney? Well, because I mean, it didn't work. Okay. But it didn't work in a really monumental fashion. I mean, it didn't work for the 500,000 people that he eventually would treat. And at the 118 treatment centers where he operated. Oh my God.

So he was like feeling all over this great land. It was a giant placebo. It was basically, if you want to know what was actually in the keely cure, it was by chloride of gold is what he would call it. It was some kind of injection. You would get this injection four times a day as to what exactly was in it,

we're still not entirely sure. We think there was strict nine. We think there was maybe some, there maybe was some gold. There was probably a lot of sodium chloride saltwater. This is a unique. Maybe some atropine. This is a uniquely American story,

said, you have someone who stumbles on to a very right idea, like alcoholism is a uniquely American story, Sid. You have someone who stumbles on to a very right idea of like alcoholism is a disease. And then his immediate reaction is, how can I scam this? How can I make a big swindle out of this? How can I make some money off of this? How can I make some coin off of this revelation?

And I mean, he did. He claimed a 95% success rate. Obviously, there were probably a handful of people who did, you know, who, because of placebo effect, and this is true of any, you know, pseudo medicine, any pseudo drug, that there are going to be people who respond to it because of the placebo effect. But other than that, there was no like science

behind what he was doing. And he really, he would line these guys up and he would give them, you know, it was mainly men again, it could be women, but it was mainly men. He would line them up and give them shots of this stuff. And then he would actually follow it with a tonic. And this treatment, of course, was, I believe, four weeks. So you did this for four weeks and you were cured forever. And the tonic was especially adapted to you. So everyone's tonic was said to be forever. And the tonic was especially adapted to you. So everyone's tonic was said to be different. And so you would take this tonic every two hours,

get these shots every day, and in four weeks, you were cured. Got to. He also would fill the syringes with a little bit of dye so that they would all be different colors. Oh, that's good. Yeah, summer blue and summer red. And it was very... Don't tell me this guy didn't know what he was doing.

He, you know, all the literature says he really believed. He really believed in what he was doing. Except for the fact that he was dying it. So he could be like, oh, this is my special Zeek Sauce. Just for you, Zeek, it's a special potion I made just for Zeek. You and you alone can enjoy this purple tonic that I made just for you. Don't get confused with the red Jake sauce. That's just for Jake.

You don't want to take that or you'll start drinking again and start drinking again. You'll drink as much as Jake did. We all remember how much Jake drank. Now this for Zeek. Now let's not give Jake a hard time again. Poor Jake. Jake's right there, single tier. It was, which is interesting kind of an inpatient treatment center, and they were locked

away from access to alcohol. They were very calming, peaceful and violent. Well, yeah, I mean, yes, you can have a 95% success right if you put people in sober jail. Yeah. Then you're relying on the five people who are crafty enough to like trade booze for cigarettes in the prison yard. That's cheating. It did give rise to, I think, first of all, if we want to talk about good things, he, again, he was

the first one to recognize alcoholism as a disease, not just, you know, a life choice. And secondly, I think it gave us some great slang terms for if somebody was in rehab, it used to be popular to say that the patient had, or that so and so has gone to Dwight. And that means that the patient is, or that the person, I always call people patients, sorry. Sorry. That means that they're currently in rehab,

so they've gone to Dwight, or they're taking the keely cure, which is a little more obvious. But that persisted well past, you know, the rise and fall of the keely method. So gone to Dwight, let's get it going again. Yeah, so if you want to say something cool now, if you've got a friend in rehab, just say they've gone to Dwight. You know, it's interesting.

You mentioned sober jail. Sober jail. And that actually was something that sober jail. Sober jail. And that actually was something that they did. Sober jail. There were hospitals, well, they weren't called jails, but they were called hospitals, but they were inebriate hospitals, and basically they locked people up for a year.

I see, I don't know if that would be, on the one hand, like I could see how that could be effective because you would develop a lot of habits and patterns that did not revolve around drinking. They tell you, it's smoking that it's hard to say you've really quit until you've gone through a year because then it's like, I've been through all the different things that I will go through and you know have no longer have those patterns associated with it. But I could see how I could also like the moment you get out you know you you haven't really changed in your

day-to-day life like the patterns that exist like in your group of friends and in your family and that kind of thing. Right because you're just locked up you know you can't you can't exist in your usual life. So as soon as you leave, there's a high risk that you'll just return to your old habits. You know, what was sad about that is that in areas where they didn't have an inebriate hospital, you could just lock them up in a asylum, yeah, putting alcoholics into psychiatric facilities

was a popular thing to do. And the treatment for them was basically, don't let them drink, give them a restricted diet. It was supposed to be healthy, but it also was minimal food and cold showers. So our plan of action was to lock them up with genuinely insane people. Because that's what alcoholics need,

something to forget. That will help. That will make them all better. Yeah. That's something you don't wanna think about. But you know, there was a step worse if you didn't have a local psychiatric facility, do you have an Alms house?

Just stick them in a poor house. Do you have, and if not, do you have a prison? And they're really, they imprisoned alcoholics because they didn't know what else, how else to help them. They felt that they were a danger to society because they would get drunken, do things. And so they just locked them up. Now you couldn't do that. We don't have the infrastructure.

We don't have spare bed for alcohol. It's also, I would say it's unethical. That would be my argument. But if the person submits himself to it, I also, I would say it's unethical. That would be my, my argument. But if the person submits himself to it, I mean, I don't think you can voluntarily be ill-assurated. We lack people who have been jailed overnight for charity sometimes, the same thing. What are you talking about like in Mayberry? Like old Joe, the bomb doesn't have anywhere to sleep tonight, so we're gonna lock him up so that he has a warm bed

What are you talking about who does that like charity will be like I'm in jail You gotta give a bunch of money to the St. Jews get me out like that. Oh Who does that? That's fake. I don't think that's real honey. I don't think they're really in jail It's actually the setup for my new horror psychological spiritual thriller What's it called jail book

jail book jail book how do you set up a joke like that? You don't have a good punchline jail book jail book jail book out this Christmas book. Get it now. It's a book. It's two pages long. That's all we got time for. Christmas is in less than a week. All right, city. Give me the other treatment. So we talked about opium. A Freud had a different take on it in the, this is about the 1880s. He advised cocaine. Okay. Yeah. To get up. Freud was a big fan of cocaine. It also would get you off opium, by the way.

So, so you could be coming alcoholic and then cure that with opium and then cure that with cocaine. Now, how you cure the cocaine? Hey, that's not his problem. Yeah. Freud's done with you now. A version therapy, we kind of mentioned it before, but it became more, you know, again, these became something that you would try at home like, you know, wives would try on their husbands and then it became something that like people would try in the medical community. And so giving the patient a whole lot of alcohol so that they wouldn't want anymore was

became popular. Kind of like, you know, if your dad caught you smoking, he used to make you smoke a whole pack of cigarettes to punish you. I've heard that that happened, that never happened to me. No, me neither. But it was same kind of idea. And this included not only would you have to drink a lot

alcohol under your whatever physician was, you know, administering this cure, they would saturate all of your food, like all your snacks, all of your drinks, everything with whiskey. So everything you put into your body was totally soaked in whiskey. So they actually predicted what has become a pretty major food trend in the last couple of years. Bourbon soaked everything. There you go. Have we invented it back then? But here's something. It doesn't work. Here's a spoiler for you. No, whiskey's delicious.

It just tastes good. It tastes delicious. Now, I don't think this part was delicious. They also would spray your clothes with whiskey and soak your sheets in it. That is just uncomfortable. I can imagine that after a while of being hung over on whiskey and wearing whiskey clothes and sleeping in a whiskey bed,

you may not want whiskey anymore. I read a book about a kid when I was in elementary school who it was like King Midas sort of, but everything he touched and drank and drank turned a chocolate. And at first he was like sweet. And then after that I was like, oh, enough. So do you wish that now that would happen to you only

with whiskey? No, because like in the book, it worked. So I guess that was maybe what they're basing this off. Oh, the book about chocolate that I read when I was eight. And you know, that's exactly what they, again, out of the- The predicting the future. Predicting the future, their alcoholism.

You know, did it work maybe? I mean, that's one of the things,redicting the future. Predicting the future, their alcoholism. Um, you know, did it work maybe? Maybe, I mean, that's one of the things when you read about this, I'm sure there were a handful of people who said forget this. This is, I'm totally grossed out. You know, I mean, like, it was like that one time that I got really drunk on tequila and ate a bunch of cheezuts

and then like for five years, I couldn't drink tequila or eat cheezuts. Right, yes, I remember this coming in our life. Right, I mean, it's over now. So, I mean, there's an expiration date on this stuff. They also tried shock therapy. Again, probably not very successful. No.

At least not for alcoholism. No. As we move forward, like in the 40s and 50s, more and more, we were trying to find if there is a medical basis for alcoholism, is there something that we can test, like some hormone level, is there something that we can target to fix with a medication, with a drug, and the theory became popular that it was an endocrine disorder, part of your endocrine system going awry. So your endocrine system, your hormonal system, this includes an endocrine disorder, part of your endocrine system going awry. So your endocrine system, your hormonal system,

this includes like an endocrine disorder, for instance, that you may be familiar with, would be diabetes. Oh, okay. Okay. So they thought, though, that it was a problem with your adrenal glands, which are two little glands that kind of sit like little hats on top of your kidneys. How adorable.

They look like little hats, and they release steroids and hormones and all kinds of things. But the idea was that this was some kind of problem with your adrenal glands. So we're gonna give you steroids and various synthetic adrenal hormones and that'll work It doesn't it doesn't okay. I thought you were about to say that no It doesn't and then you get all the side effects of steroids Perfect big muscles. No, not not't. And then you get all the side effects of steroids. Perfect, big muscles.

No, not those kind of steroids. Oh, okay. You get like puffy cheeks and you gain a lot of weight and you can get like a humpback and you feel really like moody all the time and angry and you know, people who are on chronic steroids they can tell you about it. It's not a fun, not a fun treatment.

They also tried just injecting alcohol in people. I mean, it's direct. If you want to get the party started, that's actually what the song shot, shot, shot, shots, it's about. It's scarcely. I don't know if I know. Are you sure? They read a history book for once. All their songs are historical. That would be, I think that if that's what you're gonna do, like if you're bar, if you're thing, at your bar is that we give you injections of alcohol, I think that seems cumbersome, like a health hazard. A little bit.

I mean, you're gonna have to deal with needle disposal. I don't know. Kind of sounds like a club step on would describe. It does. It sounds exactly like a club step on would describe. Um, so, you know, injecting alcohol probably didn't work. It does. It sounds exactly like a club's to form when described. So injecting alcohol probably didn't work. They started all kinds of things that they'd discovered for other things like anachist means. They work well for allergies, maybe for

alcoholism. Oxygen therapy, just give them a whole bunch of oxygen. Or how about opposite some carbon dioxide therapy. That seems like a really bad idea. Yeah, that being poisoned at all, it seems like that would be hard. Well, you could handle a little bit of that, but not a lot. And if you were a smoker, which a lot of people back then, and we're talking about the 50s, used to be smokers, that was pretty bad for you if we pump you full of carbon dioxide because you're just going to hang on to that and get really like you're going to go into respiratory depression.

Yeah, but you won't want to drink. Probably not because you're unconscious. They even started to develop neurosurgery and we've kind of gotten into this before where I don't know, let's go around and poke around and take a chunk out here and there. Find something that looks like a bottle and let's go. Remove it and see what happens. On the more mild side in the same time period, they were trying things like for some reason it was believed that eating red meat triggered a desire for alcohol.

Yeah, I actually, I could cough to that one. I think that's accurate. I guess that that's, I don't know, I want a hamburger and a beer, I want a steak come to that one. I think that's accurate. I guess that that's I don't know I want a hamburger in a beer I want a steak in a glass of wine Sure, I can see I can see where that came from So they thought if you could eliminate red meat it would cure it and then of course everything else was subject to hydrotherapy Why not alcoholism? Yeah, just put them in the tub Put them in the tub again. them in the tub. Again, I at least like

the one thing I will say about hydrotherapy, at least it's benign. Yeah, I mean, you will be relaxed afterwards. I mean, it doesn't work. And I mean, some of it was kind of weird where they were like, we're just going to, you know, spray water at your feet at a really high pressure. Hold still. Take that. But I mean, it's benign. You know, we kind of talked about the idea of, you know, an ebriot hospitals and locking people up. And one thing that we didn't talk about is that while they were locked up, you know, before they were released, they were kind of under the control of the doctors or whoever ran the facility. And one really sad part of this

is that women who were locked up in an ebria hospitals would be sterilized before they were released. Jesus Christ. History. Can we not have one episode that's just funny without you like sterilizing women in minorities? Can we have one funny episode that doesn't get ruined by your actual genuinely terrible practices? Just one. No, we have to find a way, every disease process is an opportunity to victimize.

I just wanna, I just wanna, I just wanna, I just wanna, I just wanna, I just wanna, I just wanna, I just wanna,

I just wanna, I just wanna, I just wanna, I just wanna, I just wanna, I just wanna, I just wanna, show for me now is just about finding one ailment that we didn't say like well have you tried sterilizing women in minorities that usually does it for us like that'll do it why not ah they didn't do that to men though so there you go I can't believe it the theory was that of course if you were an alcoholic you'd give birth to an alcoholic. Which are largely benign. Like yeah, it's too, like I don't know. I don't mean benign. It's just like, is that such a bad thing for society that we,

that's a different, but see like that's also, I think, we had a different sort of, there was a real demonization. I mean, this was our imagine in like the lead up to the prohibition, right? Like, well, it's, you know, yeah, because- Where was seen as like the source of all the societal evils when it's actually more of like a, you know, there's a systemic problem. Right, yeah, precisely.

I mean, it's true that at the time, you know, the idea of like the greater good and we're talking about a time when you know eugenics was a thing. And so to do things that would hurt the individual in pursuit of like creating a healthier society was I don't want to say it was acceptable, but it was certainly a theory at the time. But obviously sterilizing people is wrong. Unless they ask you to, unless they like, you know, come in and they're like, hey, I'd like to have my tubes died. But otherwise, it's wrong. Yeah. You know, of course, we've talked about it before, but of course, they tried frontal lobotomy on alcoholics. And it usually, again, didn't work.

But there was a great quote. I found this. They'd rather have a frontal lobotomy than a bottle in front of me. Did you just make that up? No. Oh, that was pretty good. me. Did you just make that up? No. Oh, it was pretty good. Thanks, I didn't make it up.

Who are you quoting? I forget. Oh, okay, good job. Thanks. I'm gonna quote somebody. It was something I heard on Dr. Demento when I was 13, so it got me some slack. I'm gonna quote somebody.

So I found a great book called Slaying the Dragon. Is it Morgan Freeman? Because if you found that quote attributed to him, it's probably not correct. No, it's not. OK. It's attributed to William White, who wrote slaying the dragon. And this is a book that's actually

about kind of this topic and more. It's about the history of addiction treatment, so not just alcohol, but other substances, but I found a lot of interesting stuff from his work. But he describes, after one frontal lobotomy that you may remember the name Dr. Freeman, Dr. Watts, we talked about them in the lobotomy episode. So one time when they tried this, this is how he described what happened afterwards. Following the procedure, the patient dressed and pulling a hat down over his bandaged head, slipped out of the hospital

in search of a drink. Freeman and Watts spent Christmas Eve 1936 searching the bars for this patient who they eventually found and returned to the hospital in a state of extreme intoxication. So tune into the hallmark channel. It's Mario Lopez, started it. Run away Christmas. That was... Sorry, sorry Melissa Joan Hart as Dr. Freeman and what?

Now where could he be? Christmas is coming. They fall in love at the end and also there's an angel. Surprise. You know continuing our our kind of trend of drugs being used to treat other addictions are kind of trend of drugs being used to treat other addictions. In the 1960s, LSD was given to patients who are alcoholics. Cool. You know what's actually kind of interesting? Is it may have worked a little bit? Wow, really? This actually may have, and they've kind of reinvigorated research into this area in more

recent year. I think 2006, somebody was publishing stuff on this. But basically, the idea is that they notice that when you take LSD, the experience you have is kind of similar to when a patient is going through the DTs, Delirium Tremens, alcohol withdrawal. So they thought may, and the idea was that when they saw a patient go through DTs and kind of hit rock bottom, so to speak, that usually, well not usually, but it was more likely that they would stop drinking afterwards because of

that experience, because it's so scary and terrifying and it's kind of like a version therapy. Let them go through that and they don't want to drink anymore. So since LSD kind of mimics this experience, they thought, well, maybe instead of letting them go through very dangerous DTs, which can kill you, let's just give them some LSD, and maybe then they won't want to drink after that. It actually worked a little bit. There weren't enough patients that they tried it on, that they could really call it a success, but there was enough interesting stuff that it probably would have been researched further

if LSD didn't become a legal drug after that. There's a lot of research like that with flu syngenics that was sort of abandoned despite some some promise. I remember on stuff you should know hearing episodes about that word, like genuine treatment that could be generally beneficial for people, but. Yeah, absolutely for like different

psychotic disorders and stuff. Yeah, that's the truth. What are we doing now, Nielsen? Well, now we're doing obviously stuff that you've heard of. You know, in the 1930s, AA was founded in the 1950s. We defined alcoholism as a disease. And there are medications and support groups. There's inpatient and outpatient treatment programs.

There's therapy. There's all kinds of different treatments. If you want more information, obviously talk to your doctor or check the newspaper Where they always have local AA and in a group meetings listed so there are lots of real things I will say that even now there are a couple weird things out there that I found There is a wellness site that you can find that promotes injections over several weeks that will instantly cure your alcoholism the injections are made of glucose, water, and alcohol,

and they will cure you in 30 minutes. And then, um, Kudzu. So you know that vine that's growing all over your house that you want to get rid of that has invaded your yard? Well, don't get rid of it. Grind it up, get some extract and sell it as a cure for alcoholism I think that I was I was kidding when we started this episode But it does even now in these modern times. I think that there's a a truth to

curing addiction and that is science can Support you, but I don't think there will ever be a substitute for actually making the decision that you are ready to quit. There's nothing that is going to do that for you. That's absolutely true. Making that decision isn't, it's not going to fix everything on its own. I mean, that's the important thing to remember with any addiction.

You can't just decide to quit and then quit. You're going to need help. There's going to be a way to do it, you're gonna need a lot of support, but making that decision is always the first thing you gotta do. And hey, we believe in you. New years coming up, let's kick this thing together. Absolutely.

All right, so. And thank you so much for listening to our inspirational podcast. It took a weird turn there at the end. It took a weird turn there at the end. We'll try to be more cynical next week. Well, no problem. Thank you again so much for listening. Thank you to iTunes for choosing us as one of the best new podcasts of 2013.

Yeah. It was pretty nice. It was really awesome. It was very nice. If you think someone you know would enjoy the show, please give a link to our iTunes page. It was really awesome. It was very nice. If you think someone you know would enjoy the show, please give a link to our iTunes page or just burn them a CD or something. That's the only way that we can grow is by you sharing the show.

You can also go to our Facebook page, it's facebook.com slash, solbones show, I think, or solbones. You'll figure it out. And like us there and share the stuff there. You can tweet at us. You can tweet at stall bones, which is our show. Obviously, you can tweet at Justin McAroy or at Sydney McAroy.

And that's s-y-d-n-e-e. Thank you, everybody. Tweeting about the show, like Mandy, Dan May, Scrooge TK Nolan Nick Koran Kia Stacey Lorenzo Nick rabbit Chris McIris Gihad. That's kind of mouthful But thank you to everybody to you about the show. Thanks for the pictures of cloud busters guys Yeah, that's what I wanted. I appreciate that

and That's gonna do it for us make sure you check out other shows on the maximumfun.com network like Jordan Jesse goes, stop podcasting yourself, winbamp out one bad mother throwing shade. My brother, my brother and me. Thank you so much Cindy. And many, many others. Good over there. Go have a listen. And have a very, very happy holiday. Yeah. And a very, very safe one. Yeah, be safe. Don't drink too much. No and hug each other a lot. Yeah lots of hugs and be sure to join us again next Friday from in there. So until then I'm just Macroi. I'm Sydney Macroi. And it's always dope.

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