A (2:56)

Yeah, so honestly, the. So I am a journalist. I have this podcast blocked and reported. But the majority of my adult life was spent drinking. I was a drinker. My identity was tied up in drinking. Even when I was sort of drinking secretly and I was no longer drinking with other people, I thought of myself as a drinker. It was. The alcohol was the longest relationship of my life. I started drinking when I was an early teenager, maybe even 12. I was in middle school when I had my first drink. And, and that relationship lasted a very off and on relationship, very toxic relationship, really lasted until I was in my late 30s. So I was, you know, I was writing, I was working on this podcast. I had a career in media. But most of my, I would say that most of my brain space was really taken up by this sort of alcoholic chatter. And this was something I was completely secret, secretive about. I didn't tell anybody. I think the, the person who knew sort of the most about my consumption in the, the later years was like the, the woman down at the 711 or the various 7 11s I would go to because I was always, you know, staggering my, staggering my purchasing habits. Cause I couldn't have her have one person know the truth about how much I was drinking.

C (4:09)

That's, that's a clear indication of where you live. If alcohol is available at a 7:11, you're like, okay, I can sort of pinpoint where this is in the country. That's so funny.

A (4:17)

This is not, not the Northeast.

C (4:18)

Not the Northeast. It's such a, it's such a personal story, right? Going in, I actually felt like I knew some about you from listening to your podcast for the past few years. You're really open about a lot about your life, but I had no idea that this was happening to you simultaneously, that you were producing like this vast amount of content. Like you were really. And a lot of things happened to you during this time. Like you got canceled, like all these things happened. But you were also, you know, having this really problematic sort of like all encompassing relationship with alcohol. To me, that was very surprising to learn. And I wondered if it was uncomfortable for you to reveal these parts of yourself.

A (5:00)

Completely uncomfortable. This was not something I wanted to do. Now I'm kind of used to talking about it because I've done a lot of interviews for this book. But this was not something I ever wanted to write about. This was not something I ever wanted to talk about and not because I was worried about the reaction from strangers and from readers in the, and from the public. I honestly don't really care what strangers think about me. It was because I was, you know, I kept a secret from my family and from my wife and from my friends and almost everybody in my life. And, and so, you know, I wrote the book. I got, well, I wrote the proposal, I got the book deal. I didn't tell my, my family that this was happening until like six months after because. And I was just like dreading it. It was like, it was like coming out of the closet all over again. Although nobody gave a shit when I, you know, when they found out I was gay or they figured it out themselves. I didn't even have to come out of the closet. They just looked at me. But, but this was, I mean, I still feel a lot of shame about my behavior for years. This is definitely not something that I, that I wanted to be associated with. I don't want, you know, my, my Google results. I do not really want alcoholic to be the first thing that comes up when people googly Google me. Luckily there's way other worse shit that comes up instead. But I felt like I just sort of had this obligation like once I discovered naltrexone and specifically in the Sinclair method, which is what, how I got sober after decades of really struggling with drinking. I got to the point where I just felt like I was doing something irresponsible by not telling people by gatekeeping this treatment that I was convinced, I am convinced can save people's lives and just save people heartache. And that started to weigh on me as well. And so I think my desire for privacy and my own shame around this was weaker than my desire to sort of get the word out and frankly my desire to tell a good story. So there's a lot of stuff in the book that is like pretty embarrassing. And it turns out that my impulse to self preserve is weaker than my impulse to tell the best story possible.

C (7:08)

I mean that's pretty extraordinary, but you know, to be so honest and to kind of confront your shame. But I think that's a great way to actually render it a little bit less powerful. Right? But it's not just a personal story of like the problem and the suffering and like the issues with it. It's also this really personal story of healing and recovery, which, as you said, you achieved with the help of naltrexone and what you call the Sinclair method. We're gonna talk about that in a second, but really quickly. Maybe you, maybe you said this in the book and I just missed it. But like, what period is your naltrexone journey taking place in?

A (7:42)

It was recent, so I started taking naltrexone in 2022. Um, so I started, I started drinking as a young teenager. I, I sought all sorts of, of treatments over from the age of like 24 to basically like 38. And then nothing worked long term. Someone asked me recently how many times I tried to quit drinking, and the answer is literally thousands. Because I, every single day I tried to quit drinking. Whether I was in therapy or going to meetings or reading quit lit or listening to podcasts or doing yoga or cleanses or whatever, literally every from the age of like 24, you know, until my late 30s, today was gonna be the day. And it was never the day, which I think is a really common experience among, among problem drinkers and drug users. And then, so I started during COVID My drinking just really accelerated because I, you know, I was alone, I was working on the podcast, but I didn't really have any sort of structure or responsibilities beyond that. My wife is a nurse, so she was gone a lot. And so basically every time I was alone, which was a lot, I was just drinking and I was doing it mostly during the day. I really, I really like day drinking. That was like my favorite thing to do during the day was just like, that's how I spent Covid, just like day drinking and scrolling on my phone. Honestly, not that bad.

C (9:07)

No, there's worse things to do.

A (9:08)

I never got sick. It really kept, kept me safe. And then, so, but, but about two years into Covid, and I live in Washington state where lockdown was a real thing. And it's almost, it's, it seems like so long ago, but like, yes, we, we, you know, we had to have the vaccine cards to show and to get the businesses. All of everything was shut down. You know, social distancing, really the whole nine yards. I, I was laid off from my job because of the, you know, financial effects of, of the lockdown. And so it was like two years into that when I, when I decided I would, I needed to do something and I decided to take naltrexone and it was really a last ditch effort. So at that point I was. My options were either come Clean, like, tell my wife, go to rehab. I called Hazelden, Betty Ford, and I got an estimate. They told me it was gonna, you know, cost me, I think, $28,000 I needed to go to. For.

C (10:03)

For how long? For like, 20.

A (10:05)

20, 28 days. Yeah.

C (10:06)

Thousand dollars a day. Wow.

A (10:07)

Yeah. And I need. And, you know, the treatment is. Would have been mostly peer support. Yeah. And. And maybe, you know, with maybe some sort of medication for withdrawal, which I did. Yeah. And then. And so I needed to do the full 28 days. They wanted me to go to Minnesota. And then. And then, you know, intensive outpatient for. I can't remember how many days. 90 days, something like that, which was 90 was 90 minutes and a ferry ride from my house to the nearest clinic. So it was going to be completely disruptive. So it was just. It was. It was not an option. And I also, you know, I think my wife would have noticed if I. If I went to rehab for. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know if they would have let me continue to podcast from. From rehab. So. So naltrexone was really kind of the last stitch effort before. Before I. Before that was the next step.

C (10:59)

Wow. And how did you. How were you introduced to naltrexone? How did it come into your life?

A (11:06)

So I actually found about. Out about it a couple years before, so I had read an article. The article came out in 2015 in the Atlantic by Gabrielle Glasser called the Irrationality of Alcoholics Anonymous. And this article had. It was really about aa, but it did have a section about naltrexone, specifically the Sinclair method, which was this. Developed by this American researcher living in Finland. And the thing that made naltrexone or the Sinclair method so appealing to me was that it didn't require abstinence. And abstinence had always been the barrier to me because, you know, no matter how many AA meetings I went to, going to meetings did not extinguish the desire to continue drinking. And so I would leave meetings and I would oftentimes go to the bar talking about booze made me thirsty. And so this. I thought, you know, this. When I read this article, I thought this could be the thing. And then. So I went. I took the. I took the article to my doctor and I got a prescription for naltrexone. And.

C (12:06)

And this is just your general practitioner, right? This is just like, not a specifically addiction doctor. This is. This is someone anyone could go to.

A (12:12)

Yeah, totally. And she'd never heard of the Sinclair method. She'd heard Of. Of naltrexone, I assume. And. But she gave me a prescription. I told her I was gonna. What I was gonna do. She was fine with it. And I went home. And on my way home, I stopped by, you know, that. The 7 11, wherever, you know, nearest my house there. And I got like. Like a big can of beer, and I went home and I took the pill, waited an hour, and then drank. So this is how the Sinclair method works. You continue to drink while you're on naltrexone. And I had really bad side effects, so I felt nauseous, depressed, anxious. And then I thought I was. I had been so hopeful, like, this is. This is gonna. This is gonna save my life. And it just didn't. I just hated the way that I felt. So I just. I stowed the bottle, and I. Bathroom or closet somewhere, and I. And I just sat on it. So I had it for, like, four years before I. Before COVID And then my drinking. Yeah. And then my drinking was just getting to the point where I was having health effects. I was just miserable. And so I just took it out of the. Took it out of the closet and thought, I'm gonna do this one more time.

C (13:17)

Good advertisement for the lasting. The lasting potency of naltrexone pills. They can just hang around for, like, almost half a decade, and they're fine. Still works.

A (13:24)

It. You know, it might have technically expired, but it still worked. I mean, it could have. This whole thing could have been the placebo effect. I don't know. It still worked.

C (13:30)

It's totally fine. But. But you're right. It's super counterintuitive. Right. Naltrexone treatment. The Sinclair method, which, as you said, it was developed by, I think it's David Sinclair, American researcher. You write all about. You detail all of his findings, but he's in Finland, which is, you know. Right.

A (13:46)

Well, he's dead. But. But he has a sentence.

C (13:49)

RIP David Sinclair.

A (13:51)

But.

C (13:51)

But his lasting legacy continues on. And it requires you to drink to essentially extinguish this behavior. It's not just like, you leap into abstinence and everything's easy. Like, you actually mentally extinguish the desire to drink. And that is. That is really crazy. Was it hard for you to believe that at first?

A (14:11)

I was. Well, initially, when I first read the article, I was thrilled because this is what. This is what I had been looking for. And then when I had a negative reaction, yes, I was skeptical, but. But then, you know, I spent the intervening years digging into this, like, really researching this, it was always kind of in the back of my mind, like this would be an option. And so the second time around, during COVID when I decided to commit to it, I, I, I did it differently. I armed myself with information. So I had been in these Facebook groups for years where people were talking about their Sinclair method experience. I knew what to do to alleviate side effects. I needed to start with a low dose, titrate up, take it with a full stomach, drink with a full glass of water, and I just knew what to expect. So this, so the second time around when, you know, I started to feel a little nauseous or headachy, I didn't think, oh, screw it, I'm not going to do this. I thought, okay, this is part of the process and this is, this is going to get better. Because I had read other people's experience. So, you know, part of me was skeptical for sure, because it does sound too good to be true. It sounds like an excuse to keep drinking. I think that's one of the barriers for a lot of people's families. You know, you're telling them, or doctors, you're telling them, I need to, you know what, I want to quit drinking, but I need to, I need the medication. I have to keep drinking. You know, it just, it sounds totally crazy. So. So, yeah, part of me was skeptical, but I also was desperate, right? When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans, send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom 60th and never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end to end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp message privately with everyone. Learn more@WhatsApp.com this episode is brought to you by State Farm. Insurance may all seem the same on the surface, but having insurance isn't the same as having State Farm. It's like getting a speech from your third cousin's plus one at your wedding when you needed a speech from your best man, you wouldn't settle for just any speech. So don't settle for just any insurance. When it comes to getting the help you need, State Farm is the real deal. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

C (16:36)

Right? I like how honest you are about the process, how it's not linear, how it can take time. There's a lot of, like, peaks and valleys, how the side effects. I'd never really heard the process of taking naltrexone. Like Described from the user end. Right. And it is, it is a journey. Right. You've got to go on it. And like, if you're not armed with the knowledge that you, that you armed yourself on by lurking on these Facebook groups. Really. But I totally, I work on methadone and buprenorphine Facebook groups. I was doing that when I was researching my new book and it like, they're so helpful because you really are finally hearing like the user end, uh, like they're, they're receive for part of the process. Um, but it also helped. Might not work for everyone. And was that also important to you? Right. Like to, to kind of explain like, hey, this is, this is what you're signing up for when you sign up for this.

A (17:25)

Yeah. So writing a self help book as a journalist is a bit weird because self help is normally the goal is to sell something. Right. You want to sell the method or the, or the pill or whatever the slogan, whatever the thing is that you're pushing. But I have an extra responsibility to be as accurate as possible. I think everybody who writes self help should feel that way. But you know, this book is not the only thing that I'm going to do in my life and I didn't want to destroy my own reputation by getting the science wrong or the data wrong. And I did. I learned in the process of writing this book, like there are these sort of platitudes that you will read or that you'll see in naltrexone groups about how this works for 78% of people. It's really well tested and clinical, clinical trials. That's not really true. There's just a lot of nuances there. Like if you search PubMed for the Sinclair method, you're not going to find anything. And I was really surprised to find that out. If you search for targeted use of naltrexone, you will find studies in. Naltrexone itself is extremely well, well studied. It's been tested. There's been something like a hundred clinical trials of naltrexone. But the information that I was absorbing from these Facebook groups was oftentimes not completely accurate. And so I was. So that. That was sort of a struggle to like, I was relearning a lot when I started talking to researchers and clinic clinicians. I was, I. It sort of made some of the information, it made me question some of the information that I had absorbed in the groups. So for one thing, one of the messages that I absorbed in the Facebook groups was that there's only One way, right. Way to take naltrexone. And that's the Sinclair method, right. If you take it daily, which is how it's commonly prescribed, it's not going to work that you have to take it in conjunction with drinking, with drinking where it's basically non effective. That's not true. I don't think that taking it daily would have worked for me because naltrexone is an opioid blocker. It basically prevents your brain from getting endorphins. And so it doesn't. The experience of taking naltrexone, for me, it sort of dulled the world, you know, like, besides the physical side effects, I just felt kind of, kind of bland and icky. And I think if I had been required to take or expected to take that every day, I think I would have quit doing it because I didn't like the way that it made me feel. Taking it in this really targeted method where I'm the Sinclair method. So only taking it before drinking, not taking it on days when I wasn't drinking, it really targeted the behavior that I wanted to extinguish, which was drinking. So that worked really well for me. But for some people, naltrexone itself just eliminates their alcoholic cravings and that works for them. So I just. I learned so much in the process of writing the book that was really unexpected. I actually forgot your question.

C (20:15)

It's all good, but how honest you are about this process and the fact that yeah, it really does have a dampening effect. And I think that's become so much a part of the backlash against naltrexone. And people who just are really vehemently against it, they really hate it. Which I want to talk about in a minute. But I also want to talk a bit about your own process, as you say. You used it in this really targeted way to eliminate a specific behavior. And do you do take it at all anymore?

A (20:39)

No, I stopped taking it because I stopped drinking.

C (20:42)

Right.

A (20:42)

I was going to drink, then I would take it. And I think for, for people like me who have a, you know, I have like three of the four risk factors for alcohol use disorder. I have a genetic predisposition. I started young and I drank a lot. I don't have any trauma in my background or anything like that. But I do have these other risk factors. I have demonstrated over and over again that I have. I am very good at slipping into bad patterns of behavior. I think for me, like if I went, if I just decided, you know, I got over my Addiction. I'm fine now. I'm gonna start drinking it, I think, really quickly. I would find myself exactly where I was before. But I stopped drinking three years ago, and I haven't. I haven't taken the pill since because I don't drink.

C (21:26)

That's. That's. Congrats. That's huge. Three years is huge. And I. That's. You talk about that right at the end of the book. You say something that I thought was really cool about language. You don't say that you're in recovery. You say that you're recovered. You write, I didn't feel like I was in recovery. That was too active a verb. I felt like I had recovered, like my brain had reset to the time before the addiction took over. And I really liked that twist on language. So I wanted to ask what being recovered looks like for you today.

A (21:57)

It looks so normal. Like, I mean, this is the thing, you know, my identity as a drinker, which was all wrapped up in sort of in the beginning, like, fun, you know, I was sort of the fun girl. I was a party girl. And then later, in later years of my drinking wasn't social. It was secretive. It was all wrapped up in shame. That's gone now. And I. I. The thing about the Sinclair method that, to me is so different is that I have this sense of freedom. So I write about this in the book. But after I'd been sober for, like, a year, I started going to AA meetings, basically out of boredom and a desire to meet sober people. And I sort of enjoyed the meetings. I had always hated AA when I was actively drinking because it was just this, like, reminder that other people could do it and I couldn't do it. And it made me want to drink more. And I just never felt like I found my place in those meetings. And when I went back as a sober person, you know, I could. I could enjoy the sort of ritual and the storytelling. You know, AA has some great storytellers. Although if you come back the next day, you'll also. You might hear them sell the same stories, same people.

C (23:07)

It's a great story. I tell it every time.

A (23:09)

Yeah, I've been telling it for 30 years. But what I. What I noticed was that I would go to these meetings, and there would be people there who had been sober for, like, a month or a year or whatever, and they were still deep in their addiction, right? They were struggling with the. With the physical desire to drink, and sometimes they would slip up, and then they would have to start the count all over, and they were just consumed by addiction. Whereas I literally do not think about alcohol. I think about it because I wrote a book about it and because I'm doing interviews about it. But it does not cross my mind on a daily basis. And my life was for years consumed. My brain, all of my brain space was taken up by addiction. By wanting to drink, knowing I shouldn't drink, making the decision whether I was going to drink or not. The only thing that quieted that chatter was drinking, temporarily of course, and then it would start right back over and I just don't have that anymore. I can be in places where people are drinking. It doesn't affect me at all. I enjoy it actually. I like going to bars and having a soda water and being around drinkers. It's fine. And I really thought that. I never thought that would be possible for me in my life. So. Yeah, so that's kind of, that's kind of what my life is like now. It's really like I, you know, looking at my life now, if I were 25, I would thank God you're a loser. But, but like I'm not 25, you know? You know what I mean? I'm married, I have a dog, I live in the woods. My life is very quiet, but it's also very peaceful.

C (24:42)

And that's a hard fought piece. You fought hard for that piece and I love that for you. The book really does have this happy ending. Like naltrexone worked for you. And the ability to have that total extinguishment, that's incredible. That's a huge, huge achievement. So congrats hardcore. That's amazing. But unfortunately you're in the lucky minority of people with aud. Right. Instead most people who struggle with this, they don't use naltrexone. They don't even know what it is. They don't know how to get it. This is not a well known substance. So can you tell us a bit about what it is and where it came from? Like what is naltrexone?

A (25:17)

Yeah. So naltrexone was, is actually not new at all. That's sort of the crazy thing about this is that it's been FDA approved for alcohol use disorder for over 30 years before that. It was initially developed as a treatment for opioid addiction. So it was first synthesized in the 1960s. It was FDA approved in I think 1984 for opioid use. And I talked to A. So DuPont is the company that first developed. It was another like small kind of family owned pharmacy company. Your mom and pop Pharma.

C (25:52)

Not Big Pharma. Mom and pop Pharma.

A (25:54)

And then, and then they got bought by big Pharma.

C (25:56)

So pre evil and then post evil.

A (25:59)

Right. So. So dupont, when they developed this drug, when they first started marketing it, they thought this was going to be sort of blockbuster drug for opioid addiction, which at the time would have been, you know, morphine and heroin. Not less so, less so fentanyl.

C (26:15)

And 30 years it'll be, It'll show up.

A (26:18)

Yeah, yeah. And. And so I talked to a drug rep who had been part of selling this drug to doctors and he said that they just could not, they could not sell this drug. They, they. And he was so hopeful. He thought that this is going to be, this will be the gold standard treatment. Because the thing that is different about, about naltrexone than something like Suboxone or methadone is that it's non psychoactive, so it's non addictive. There are, you know, there are these sort of minor side effects, but it's generally well tolerated and you can continue to do. It's not a controlled substance and you can continue to live your life basically as normal on this drug. So it doesn't require. You don't have like a doctor. In the, in the, in the early years, they found that, that naltrexone worked really well for. And this is, I think, still true for specific populations. People who are highly motivated.

C (27:08)

Mm.

A (27:10)

In the early days there was like doctors, surgeons, nurses, pilots, people who couldn't take meth, who might be suffering from some sort of opioid addiction, but couldn't go take methadone and get a. Go fly a plane. Right. And so naltrexone was less sort of destabilizing to the other parts of your life. And so they were really hopeful that this was gonna, this was gonna take on and it just didn't. And like they, they basically could not give it away and because of that, literally started giving it away. So they started giving it to researchers. And so it became extremely well studied. And, and so it works by, you know, it's an opioid blocker, pretty simple. It blocks the endorphins and then indirectly, you know, the dopamine, serotonin, other. Other neurotransmitters that affects your brain when you drink alcohol or do. Or do other do opioids. And it just, it stops you from getting the pleasure, the high associated with those drugs. So these specific researchers, one, same as Joe Pacelli, he was at Penn There's a woman at Yale named Stephanie o'. Malley. They started looking at naltrexone for, for the treatment of alcohol use disorder. John David Sinclair in Finland, he was doing the same thing. And so it was FDA approved in 1994 for, for use with AUD. So it was, I guess, second after ant abuse in terms of being, you know, pharma medical approved by the FDA for aud. And, and it just never, it never took off. And treatment centers weren't interested, clinicians weren't interested, nobody was interested. Rehab centers, definitely not interested in this. And, and at the time, they weren't prescribing it via the Sinclair method. I think that's still pretty uncommon. And you can see why, like you are asking doctors to tell people to continue drinking. And that might make sense from the addict's perspective. Right. But from a doctor's perspective, that kind of goes against everything that they've been taught about addiction, which frankly, is not much. And I think that gets to. One of the reasons, one of the primary reasons that naltrexone and other medication assisted treatments have really not been utilized nearly as much as they should have in the American healthcare system is because medical training is, has just failed students and later patients when it comes to addiction.

C (29:39)

Yes, I saw a study and this is from 2018. So it's, it's a decent, it's a decent vintage now, but it said 15 of the country's 180 medical schools had addiction treatment programs.

A (29:52)

Yeah, it's so rare. It's so rare. Yeah. And so, and so I talked to doctors who, you know, in four years of, of med school, four years of residency, and then whatever special specialized training they did after that, they would have had between like 0 and 1 hours of training on addiction. And oftentimes that training was the instruction to attend a single AA class. Now this has changed. So, so in, in, in psych rotation now, students are learning about, you know, the three FDA approved medications for aed. That's Anabuse, Naltrexone and Camperol. And so everyone, so when they take their boards, they're all gonna be asked about this, but it's still a pretty minor part of medical education. And I think the reason that this has changed in part is because of the opioid crisis. There's just, you know, there's. I think the moment has passed when people within the treatment world thought, you know, we can just will our way out of that, especially in light of things like fentanyl.

C (30:56)

Right. Significant evidence to the Contrary presents itself on a pretty regular basis on most like city streets. Right. There it is.

A (31:03)

You just don't want it enough. That's the problem. You just need to give up your.

C (31:06)

Higher power, that's all that is the issue. What I like too about it's very difficult to research naltrexone because there's these studies, but there's just not a lot else out there. But you found pretty much everything that's there and you really talk to the people. Joe Volpicelli is a big part of this. He's great, a good Philly boy and lots of other people. So could you tell us a bit about your researching process and how you went about. You felt the compulsion to be as honest and as correct. Right. If actually correct as possible. Which is. Which is great. So how did you go about achieving that?

A (31:39)

Yeah, so I read as much as I could. I read studies, which is hard to me to do. For me to do. I'm a lit major. I. I ended up hiring someone to sort of distill studies like re. Rewrite studies for me into. Into. Into language that even a lit major can understand. And then just talking to people who are. Who have been in this world for as long as possible. And it's like any other reporting project where you talk to one person and they connect you with other people. So in my case, Claudia Christian was instrumental. So she's a. Yeah, so Claudia, she's an actor. She's probably most famous for Babylon 5 and she. She was a hardcore problem drinker and she discovered naltrexone like at this point almost 50. Yeah, probably 15 years ago. And she was in. So had been in and out of treatment like just had. Had done detoxes in and out of treatment. Really, really struggled with her drinking. It sort of destro her life the way it does so many people's. And at a. She did a. She did a detox and while she was. She checked herself out of detox before. Before she had actually detoxed. But while she was there she saw a pamphlet for Vivitrol, which is the. The extended release form of naltrexone. It's a shot. You get it and send you for. For you get. You get it once a month and it's seen the whole time. So she started, she went home and she started researching this and she found out about the Sinclair method and. And she. So she started this. She did this. She basically successfully treated herself and she did this ted talk in 2016 I believe. TEDx talk in London and the title was something like How I cured my Alcohol Addiction. Something, something like that. And, and this went semi viral. And she has, I think whatever the SEO she used, whatever, whoever titled the, titled the talk did a very good job of like when you were googling how to get sober without aa, this, the things that comes up. And she's been absolutely instrumental in just spreading the word about this. She has a foundation or an organization called Options Saved Lives. And Claudia from the very beginning was immensely helpful to me. There's a woman named Katie Lane who also did tsm. She's a coach. She connected me with Joe Vicelli. So it was just, you know, sort of standard reporting process. You talk to one person and then you talk to more people. But I, I, I really learned so much from the book that, or while writing the book that I, I sort of thought that I knew about TSM and naltrexone before I started writing it because I had done it myself and I had been in these online groups. But talking to those people absolutely changed my perspective in, in some ways that complicated the writing of the book. It was very inconvenient.

C (34:23)

Oh, I hate research experts, man. They're the worst. Well, if, if I were interested today in becoming an ad coherent of the Sinclair Method, how would I go about it? How, how do I access naltrexone?

A (34:37)

So there's a couple ways to do it. The easiest way is just to go to your doctor. If you have one, go to your gp. Most practitioners will prescribe it, especially now. I think this has changed in the last 10 years or so. Most doctors are probably aware of it and, and just ask for it and you know, you don't have to tell your doctor that you're going to do the Sinclair method. I think a lot of doctors would rightfully or understandably try to talk people out of it because it requires drinking and that sounds cr. But there are also specialists. So thanks to Covid. Another great thing that came out of COVID besides my podcast, was the rise of telemedicine. Right. So.

C (35:14)

So true. It's so true.

A (35:15)

Yeah. So there are companies now that really specialize in this and you can just, you know, there's Sinclair method.org there. You can basically Google the Sinclair method or naltrexone. And there's one company that has done something I find really exciting. So this is, or they're based in New York and they just announced last week.

C (35:33)

Or like, like this or that or like, or like I'm rowing a boat.

A (35:36)

Rowing a boat? Yeah.

C (35:37)

Okay.

A (35:38)

So they have, they announced last week as of this recording that they have developed a fast acting naltrexone mint. So naltrexone, the standard way of taking it, it's a very cheap drug if you get it through insurance, even without insurance. It's generic, it's very cheap, very accessible. But you ha, you take it and then you have to wait an hour and you drink. And that hour, I found that hour to be very valuable because was the first time I was sort of required to wait to satiate my craving. And even that I think was, was valuable to me. But it can be a barrier for people. If you have a craving for alcohol, sometimes that hour is impossible. So what this meant you pop it and you can go have a drink immediately. Yeah.

C (36:26)

Wow.

A (36:27)

So I think that could be an absolute, I've never taken it myself. This literally just came out last week. But I think that could be, might be an absolute game changer. So one of the things I think that has kept naltrexone from being more widespread, like more adoption, more, more awareness is because it's generic. No drug manufacturer is marketing it because they could be manufactured, they could be undercut by the drug manufacturer down the street street. But this mint by or is patented. So they have a fund and I don't know how much it costs. It's, I'm sure it's more expensive than, you know, getting the generic pill. But they have, now, there's, now, you know, I, I, you know, I've got a tiny bit of a libertarian within me and people respond to incentives and they now have an incentive to, you know, get this pill on in the pockets of every over drinker in the country. And I think that's great. Like if they make a billion dollars on this, I will be happy for them. So I think the, I think the, I think mint could be, I think this could be an absolute game changer.

C (37:24)

And I think a mint followed by a beer is like a gross combination too. So maybe the mint is purposeful. It's like when you brush your teeth and then drink orange juice. It's gross.

A (37:34)

Maybe it should be a beer flavored mint.

C (37:36)

A beer. Mmm. Yeah. It's my favorite minty beer.

A (37:39)

Yeah, but that does sort of tap into like, you know, weed mints are huge. I think it taps into this idea of like, oh, you're doing something kind of fun. You know, try a pill.

C (37:48)

It's an Altoid, but with so many more beneficial effects. Right. Well, so why do you think naltrexone has been so quiet and so underground for 40 years. Right. If it's been available for, I mean, about 30 years, I guess, for alcohol, but, like 40 years for opioids still has been around. Like, why? What has taken 40 years for it to actually come out of the closet of naltrexone?

A (38:12)

Yeah, I think part of it goes back to medical education, like we already talked about, but a big part of it is cultural, and part of it is because 12 steps in AA have had sort of this stranglehold on American culture. And I. And.

C (38:27)

And they do not support the use of naltrexone. Is that correct?

A (38:29)

They have no. They take no stand on this. This is. You cannot get. You can. Like, if you write AA and you ask for an official position on this, they will. They are incredibly diplomatic about it. They say they take no stand on anything outside of the rooms. You will find resistance within specific meetings. And every AA group is different, you know, an AA group and like, people who do. Who do ketamine and go to aa, you know what I mean? Like, and that's fine within their group. Like, it just. It depends.

C (39:00)

Ketamine for fun or ketamine to achieve sobriety.

A (39:03)

Ketamine for sobriety and for. For therapeutic uses. I think in general, most people, hardcore AA users, are against drugs for fun, but. But in terms of a therapeutic treatment. But, you know, I also know people who have left AA because their sponsors were judgmental of them taking SSRIs and things like that. So it really. So every AA group is. Is different. And so officially, they take no position on this. The thing that makes AA incompatible with. Not naltrexone, but the Sinclair method is that the Sinclair method requires you to continue drinking. And so if you go to an AA meeting and you say, I'm. I'm like, not sober, but I'm basically, you know, but I'm, like, in control.

C (39:46)

I'm working on it, right?

A (39:47)

I'm working on it, but I'm still drinking. You're probably gonna get not just side eye. People are gonna come up to you after the meeting and tell you you're fucking crazy. But now Truck Zone itself, that's so harsh for.

C (39:59)

For what's supposed to be like, what a mutual aid community. That's such a Right.

A (40:03)

And. And Bill Wilson himself, you know, the founder of aa, I think that he would not just be in favor of this. I think he would champion it for a couple reasons. One, because in the Big Book, the. A. The, you know, the bible of aa, there's A sentence in there about one day science make a, a normal drinker out of, of an alcoholic. But science hasn't accomplished that yet. Science has actually accomplished that. You know, they did it 40, 1984.

C (40:28)

Yeah, right.

A (40:30)

But Bill, and Bill Wilson himself was also incredibly open minded. So he was experimenting with LSD in the 1950s and this was of course a huge scandal within AA. But I think that AA has sort of the reputation of being dogmatic and moralizing and that, that is, it just, it depends on the meeting. It depends. I just, I think it's sort of, it's easy to, I don't know, misclassify what AA as an organization actually believes because they are pretty quiet about outside treatments. But AA has had this, it's been hegemonic. You know, it is the dominant, the dominant, dominant protocol for treating alcoholism and less so drugs but alcoholism and has been in this country for decades. And the Sinclair method goes against the basic tenets of AA which are, you know, once you have crossed this invisible line from normal drinker to alcoholic, there's no going back and even one drink can, will, will spin the, the, you know, the problem drinker into, into hell or whatever. So that's part of it. And you know, I think also there's this. When I was seeking other forms of treatment, I would go to, I would go to counseling, I would, I did some group therapy. And the people who were working in this field had gone through recovery themselves. Almost all of them were recovering addicts and they had all gone through, they were in the rooms, right? They had all gone through 12 steps and they just thought that the way that they got sober was the best way. And I don't think that's a conspiracy. I think it's natural and the Sinclair method is a challenge to that. So there's going to be some pushback there. And I think, I like, I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with that. To me, the problem with the dominance of AA is that it's like, I think it's great that there's an AA meeting in every town. I really think that's great. AA has helped millions of people save millions of lives. I know many people who have, who absolutely credit a with saving their lives. But AA is also used in the court system, it's used in professional life for professional licensing organizations. Sometimes when you get out of prison, you're required to go to, you know, go live in a sober house that it requires AA meetings. So it has just been, I don't know, just People rely on it. Court systems rely on it.

C (42:55)

Right. And it's been so much more centered than any sort of, like, any consideration of naltrexone whatsoever.

A (43:01)

Right.

C (43:01)

And I totally agree with you. Right. Because it seems like this. The. The controversy over, like, AA versus naltrexone versus whatever other form kind of centers on these differing views or maybe definitions of what addiction even is. Right. Like. Like, as you were saying, AA says, like, you have one drink and like, it's. It's, you know, straight to hell. It's like this very moral argument, a lot of arguments for opioid addiction is that it's entirely physical. Right? It's like diabetes and you need methadone the way you need insulin. And what you're suggesting and what previous researchers for decades have suggested, like, like Abraham, the Addiction Research center in Lexington, Kentucky, said, no, that's like a behavioral issue, and one can extinguish the behavior if no one is. If one is no longer receiving the anticipated reward. Right. Like, we're like, this can happen and it can be really effective. And it's true, like, when you have those three different, like, different definitions of addiction, like, butting heads against each other, and everyone's, like, super obsessed with their own vision of it, which is. And this is how, like, medications like naltrexone get buried. Because, like, AA becomes centralized in our court system and our legal system, in our medical system system, in our medical education system.

A (44:07)

People also, especially people who have been through, who sort of got sober the hard way, they're like, looking at people.

C (44:13)

Like Ozempic, and they're like, come on.

A (44:15)

Come on. Yeah, I had to do it this way. Like, why are you. Why are you taking the easy. The easy route out? Right, Right. And I think that's totally natural, too, because it also. It just that sort of tells you that your way didn't necessarily have to be as hard as it was. Right. And I.

C (44:31)

You suffered for nothing.

A (44:32)

You suffer for nothing. And this. And you know, in drug addiction, isn't it self suffering? It is. Like, there's so much suffering and shame and physical suffering and emotional suffering tied in it. But people think that the. That the recovery must also be suffering as well, in part because our addictions make the people around us suffer. And shouldn't you be punished? But the thing is, the addiction itself is punishing enough, and people who haven't experienced it themselves don't understand this maybe. I mean, it should be pretty easy to tell. Like, when you walk into any city street and you see people Living on the streets, like doing the Fentanyl lean or whatever. It's hell.

C (45:11)

Right? Right. You don't need to pile on more additional punishment or shame or stigma to something that has already put the person through the wringer enough.

A (45:18)

Absolutely right. But we want people to suffer because they have created suffering around them.

C (45:23)

Right? Right. Eye for an eye. Totally. Well, hopefully this book will help promote an alternative vision to this real hell of addiction. Right. It's a very real problem and it's widespread and it's growing and we don't do enough to actually remediate it. But your book can help do that. Because what I really liked about it is I don't think there's a hardcover version. Right.

A (45:45)

It's just paperback. I wanted it to be cheap as possible. I want this to be something that everybody can afford, although I have realized. So it's this red. It's this bright red book that says drink your way sober. On the horror, I'm like, people aren't going to read that in public.

C (46:03)

But it's great. I mean, it's affordable. It's written in this really, like, you know, crisp way. Like your journalism background is very apparent. There's like a question and answer session. It's also really funny. Like, there are these little jokes laced throughout that really reward close reading. I think my favorite one was like this. This Christmas party you went to sober. It's like one of the first parties you went to sober. And because you didn't drink, you wrote that you didn't have to worry about who you offended because you knew who you offended. And he deserved it.

A (46:32)

He worked for Tesla. Come on.

C (46:34)

Oh, God, did he ever get. Yeah. So I think I wrote in the marginalia, I was like, oh, her humor, her new lifestyle is very dry. But it's really funny and it gives these moments of levity to what's otherwise, like a really serious story. Was that important to you to give kind of a jokey and irreverent take to something that's serious and often deadly?

A (46:56)

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. You know, there are. Anybody who's gone to an AA meeting will verify that. There are very funny moments when it, you know, in recovery and in addiction and, you know, a lot of us got into this in the first place, develop this problem because drugs and drinking are fun in the beginning. You know, that's simply what it is, is these things are fun for, not for everybody. My wife is not like, she has not no addictive bone in her body. She would never, never find it fun to drink. 17 beers, but good for her. That's great. Yeah, I know I'm jealous. But, you know, I think for those of us who. Who. Who have found ourselves in this positions, bringing some levity back to what is a really shameful experience, I think is important. And also, you know, I don't think I could have written this 10 or 20 years ago. Not just because I wasn't sober, so that would have been weird. But also because addiction has been totally normalized. Sobriety has been normalized. People are drinking less now than maybe ever before, and at least in the last, in contemporary American culture. And I think there's less shame wrapped around that. It's just not weird to be an addict in a way that it was, you know, 20 years ago when I was first starting to get clean.

C (48:16)

Hmm. Well. So final question on naltrexone. If you could wave a magic wand and transform one aspect of AUD treatment, what would it be?

A (48:27)

Options. And that's it? That's it. I just think that there should be. When you go to your doctor or your therapist or whatever, there should be an array of options. So when I was seeking treatment in the early days, I was told, go get your ass to aa. That was the option. Rehab if you have to. Rehab if you can afford it. I just want people to know that there are many options out there. There. Naltrexone is just one of them. It worked for me. But, you know, there are other pharmaceutical treatments that work for other people. And there are these apps now, like, I keep getting. I keep getting ads for these apps that I think work for people. Things like Reframe, which I know has worked for some. Some friends of mine. In term. It's sort of, as far as I know, it's sort of based on these principles of cognitive behavioral therapy. You sort of think your way out of drinking. I don't think that would have worked for me. I was way too driven by compulsive drinking.

C (49:21)

But it's based on, like, the success of Noom and things like that, right? Yeah, totally.

A (49:25)

Yeah. So just so just being aware that it doesn't. There is not a one size fits all solution to this problem. Everyone's addiction is different. And also, you know, I think one of the criticisms I'm gonna get for this book is that people, including a lot of former drinkers, think that, you know, there's. There's. Addiction is always filling some hole, that there's something else at the root of your addiction. Maybe it's trauma or depression, and you have to get to the root of that in order to. To cure your addiction or treat your addiction. I don't think that's true. I don't think it's true for me, and I don't think it's true for a lot of people. My addiction developed because I drank a lot. I really liked it, and I just did it. I drank my way into addiction. And so, you know, maybe there's not a hole in. Maybe there is. Is. For a lot of people, there is. And, like, yeah, you got to get to the roots of that. But I don't think it has to be this deep introspective process for all of us. Some of us just need to get over the physical cravings and the sort of emotional addiction and mental addiction, and then you can live your life as though you weren't addicted in the first place. And I know that's anathema to a lot of what recovery communities preach, but that's been my experience.

C (50:38)

But I think that's a really valuable story, even if it's. Even if it goes against what the more traditional preaches from these more traditional recovery communities, because it's like. What's interesting is about a podcast that's ostensibly about books on drugs, addiction, and recovery. I don't really interview that many authors about recovery because there just aren't that many books about it as there are about drugs and addiction. But yours is one, and yours is about your own very real and very successful recovery process. And I think that's a perspective that's valuable and important. You know, we were kind of talking before over email that, like, addiction is a really complicated subject, and human stories tend to get the point across more effectively than, like, reams of scientific studies. Right. So I really want to thank you for being on the show today and for talking about your new book, because, like, I really benefited from reading it. You know, like, you made me rethink a lot about my drinking. I didn't need to use naltrexone. Like, maybe, you know, like, if I had a bottle stored. Stored away for four years, maybe I would have. But, like, I was able to just really cut it down, because I think seeing someone else really laying their experiences out there and being like, oh, there's definitely a day where I kind of did something a little similar to that, and you kind of think about it, and it was very helpful for me to take the leap to be like, okay, maybe I should actually reconsider my relationship with alcohol. So thank you. It certainly helped me. So now I'll ask you the traditional last question on New Books Network, which is what you're working on now and what we can expect to talk about with you next.

A (52:07)

God, hopefully nothing ever again. Yeah, this is it. I wrote the book. I'm done. I'm working on the podcast. I have no, I have no plans to write, write any, any books in the future. And I have really no plans to write anything else in the future. Maybe an email or two. But really, really, I'm just, just doing the podcast.

C (52:27)

Very cool. Where can people find your podcast? Where can they find more of you?

A (52:31)

Yeah, so the podcast is blockedandreported.org and it's all up on all sort of major podcast platforms and they can find me kind of there. I'm going cold turkey from other social medias.

C (52:45)

Good for you.

A (52:46)

That's an even harder addiction to quit.

C (52:48)

Totally. Well, we'll put all of the contact info in the show, notes and everything. But seriously, thank you so much for coming on the show. It's been so wonderful to talk about this book. Find, drink your way sober and read it out loud and proud in public with its bright red cover. It doesn't matter. Read it anyway, but find it anywhere you get your books. Thank you again so much, Katie.

A (53:05)

Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

C (53:22)

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