Joe Rogan Experience #1077 — Johann Hari Transcript

Transcript

0:00 Johan Hari, I got it right. What went down with your arm? No surrounding narrative that would make that an interesting story, sadly. And all my doctor did was tell me a biological story, the world on what causes depression and anxiety and what solves them and what i discovered is the There are these nine causes of depression and anxiety for which I could find scientific evidence, seven of which in the way we're living and some of which are rising, which explains this kind of epidemic.

2:45 right it's that spreading further but i think one of the things i learned is a deeper way of be alive today but our culture has been getting less and less good at meeting these deep underlying psychological needs for lots of people. Gallup, the opinion poll company. Massive detailed study took a couple of years. They found the Fear it and dread it.

4:52 studied this I discovered an amazing Australian social scientist called time you don't feel like your life has meaning you don't feel like you it disrupts your ability That's what's going on here. And one thing that something not working but actually you're not a machine with broken parts right you're a human I went to Baltimore and I interviewed a woman called Meredith Keogh,

7:24 But she just felt like she just couldn't bear the thought the next 40 years of her They decided to do an experiment. So at Baltimore Bicycle Works, they take all the big decisions together about their work. They vote. is how many of them talked about having been really depressed and anxious should work in this top-down, controlled way people, the job of fixing this is basically on you, buddy, right? Maybe if you're lucky,

10:12 people who work for themselves, people who make things or make furniture or what have you? And then just give you the paint. And I remember him saying to me, look, I know people need paint, right? do work like that they're basically the margin for them to change their lives is really narrow right? He'd fished, I think, 20 of the 50 states. And he'd recently been to Florida. And he said,

12:36 It was a wistful longing. And one of the things that really troubled me was why are so... well so just like we all know junk food has taken And he went back and he came out and the whole staff had bought a fucking massive Christmas card for me. but it's not an exact quote from confucius but that's the gist of what he said right right or you play the piano because your parents really want you to be a piano maestro i don't know

16:06 will become depressed and anxious by quite a large margin there's loads of studies that show this You smell great. You're doing fine, right? The more you're extrinsically motivated the more How are these people in this room thinking about my piano playing? for you to be satisfied and happy is not a good recipe for getting by in this life smoothly. to absorb it um so he actually

19:39 going on here so he went away and he started he started to work with i think it was about 350 extremely that no one expected there's a woman i'm going to call susan to protect her medical confidentiality And he said, well, tell me about the day you cracked, right? For her, it was when she was 11. And so he's like, like well what happened when you were 11 that didn't happen when you were 10 that

21:44 like a sign of madness. It was actually performing a function that we couldn't see, right? And it is a pathology in one sense. Being extremely overweight will kill you. Suddenly didn't look like a sign of madness. It was actually performing a function that we you had migraines, you had schizophrenia, anything, And at the last minute, they added depression, right?

23:06 what vincent says now but beyond what the science says and this comes it brings it back to to my that sense of power over me I didn't want to I didn't want to think about that stuff I wanted So if you'd indicated on the form that you'd experienced one of these forms of childhood trauma, incredible there was a enormous fall in depression and anxiety just from the

25:36 I'm like a pinball being smacked around a pinball machine because I can't stop this happening from this people like professor jim pennebaker have shown it shame is a catastrophe for human She had been sexually abused when she was a kid, so there seems to be most scientists agree not all of them and there are some people who dissent from this but most scientists agree low serotonin correlates with

27:57 There was never a time when half of the scientists in the field believed that. And to give you a sense of what movement on the Hamilton scale looks like, if you move six points on the Hamilton scale, sorry, if your sleep patterns get better, you'll gain six points on the Hamilton scale. but it's not solving the problem for most people. I thought I was, was you know weird for being on antidepressants

30:00 five americans will take a psychiatric drug in their lifetime right it's a sign of a a cultural madness that we are doing this right whether now this is not to say 10 billion dollar industry and that doctor giving you drugs that's a crazy number yeah so and and i think billion and he explained and they said oh we don't need them we've already got antidepressants and he said what do you mean he

32:01 explained they went and sat with him they listened listened to him. They realized that his pain made sense organization has been trying to tell us those cambodian doctors knew intuitively what they knew He's a general practitioner, he's a general doctor. reason they feel so shit right so he tried a different approach he noticed that one of the Yeah, more people in the United States have nobody to turn to when there's a crisis than any other option, right? So you think about what life must be like when you're alone. That is not

34:48 deep in the weeds here what do you say to someone who is happy with what they do the World Health Organization is the leading medical body in the world, right? there's some social and psychological component. no one's told like do you feel controlled at work well okay it's a fact that could be making you make you depressed but in terms of the people who who um who are depressed

37:01 I've got a husband who doesn't beat me. So for example, when I speak to people who say, I've got everything I could want, but I feel like shit. We feel like shit. And rather than than question the script we think there must be if you try to make yourself happier consciously, and obviously I spend a lot more time here, You try to help your friends, your family, your community.

39:41 you're going to be happy by trying to make other people happy well this is the thing so intrinsic values are not about just goal of making yourself happy. That seems That's not why they do it. Think about our ancestors, where they evolved. It's implicit, but this script that we have this idea that the way you make yourself happier is as an individual

41:40 But what they do equate success with is an alleviation of debt and alleviation of problems and alleviation of a lot of the issues that people face. to pursue something that's more likely to happen. than people who don't. seems to genuinely have been random it's a town called dofan it's um anyone who knows uh canada called dr evelyn forge to see what happened and loads of interesting things happened people spent

44:29 We should expand our idea of an antidepressant to be anything that reduces depression. So you're talking about that's a huge drop. And again, that's really important to explain to people who are being told they've got chemical they're told they've got chemical imbalances in I have friend she's very smart smart, and she's one of the people that will very aggressively debate this idea that it's anything but a chemical imbalance.

46:49 i think you're probably being pretty honest but you really do want to you want to eliminate context some people will do what's a it called, stomach stapling, liposuction, or liposuction, right? Those are the things that are getting people fat. too much right and to eat pretty shitty food. I gave everything you think you know about addiction is wrong, which I'm grateful.

49:18 is most people think, you know, addiction, explained to me in britain if you get hit by a truck and you know you break your hip and you're it's changed how we think about addiction i think is very relevant to what you're saying about food You put the rat alone in an empty cage where it's got nothing to do except use these drugs. they do use it but none of them used it compulsively and none of them ever overdose so when they're

51:55 these people that were on this diamorphine. because they were like my god when the war ends we're going to have all these heroin addicts on that you're taken over by the chemical hooks, we do now right and then when we come back to our lives when we have meaning and purpose had his nose broken and uh they fixed his nose and he got on some i think it was oxycontin

54:33 people the chem because it's the addiction is caused by chemical hooks we're going to give But it still leaves 83% where something else is going on, right? that comes from the delivery method, become addicted that's it yeah it's a relatively small proportion now because so many people in as well as in Chasing the Scream about addiction. get rid of these evil people selling this evil drug gin this problem would go away now when we

57:20 taken him over he'd been a college athlete right and he was in a i think he was about 21 he was in a terrible car accident and they gave and they gave him loads of opioids psychological pain physical pain do you see the point i'm making so i think one of the reasons why we're so committed to these Of course. getting over the flu he goes that's what heroin's like everyone wants to pretend that you're gonna

59:38 the the the physical um withdrawal is you know a flu is not a nice thing but it's not the most is just slipping through his fingers he took oxy for quite a long time he actually contacted me because now maybe individual weaknesses of course we all have flaws every human being has flaws first time wanted to standardize how depression is diagnosed across the u.s because up to then

1:02:20 something it was called the grief exception which basically said use this checklist to diagnose depression unless the person has lost someone they love in the last year, in which case none of this counts. context and that was so inconvenient they just got rid of the grief exception. That doesn't exist. That's a fascinating fact. And that seems to be a huge issue.

1:03:27 Whether it's a job, a financial stress, relationship stress, loneliness, friendship It just shows we don't understand pain in this society. is grief for your own life not going how it should right it's grief for your own needs not being met we want to do scientific experiments now, in london at ucl uh in sao paulo and in norway and loads of fascinating things and we found about

1:05:59 I thought about my mother a lot because my mother is a chain smoker. Isn't it funny how they try to blame you? 80% of them stopped smoking, right? important thing and a lesson for people who don't want to use psychedelics as well is a sub-finding. the doses i can't remember but it's in the that's pretty significant though it's a very important rainforest later this year and i want to use ayahuasca for the first time in the amazon you've

1:08:49 So as much as it is a spiritual experience, it's also a dissolving of the self. And your brain reboots with a fresh new desktop. and lighting that cigarette up You're totally right. takes the side of cyber and he had this really intense experience They've done a good job, which I think is one of the slight differences between us, shitty seaside town where you just can't live compatible with those insights right she just

1:11:59 But a lot of people have such a small margin of change But it's far easier than changing society. Imagine even can't imagine people being stuck. It's big it makes it very difficult. It makes it very difficult, but she's not in jail about my friend Andrew Sullivan, right? a crazy utopian idea that he thought this is never going to happen i'm never going to live to see

1:14:33 way, that president is going to be black, right? That would sound like ridiculous science fiction. basic income, for example, right? We're getting, we're going to another subject here. So let me There's patterns that people are, that they have in their mind that they can release. that we're experiencing now because of the internet. I think because of the fact that

1:17:15 You know what I mean? if obviously if you change every individual you change. But it's far easier to change one person than it is to change 350 million. depression and anxiety and most mental health in fact all mental health problems although social factor you're totally right we should deal with well i think we should deal with the psychological factor and I'm saying we should deal with the social factor. You're totally right. We should deal with both. Well, I think we should deal with both.

1:18:57 unfulfilled lives, living in job or working in jobs that they don't enjoy where they're Well, there's no greater version of wealth inequality than the difference between the CEO of a massive company and its lowest worker. change an individual's path and to tell this one person hey man what do you really want to do do why wouldn't you be able to do it? I think about one of my closest relatives, right? She's,

1:21:03 Most people are obese. This is in England You think more can be done by individual will alone than I do probably and I would say going to take this anymore and fought for something better I can explain that it's a longer story but poetry of the ruins right i mean it's shocking and we were on this street in an area called slavic they'll kick your ass

1:23:15 at one of my shows he lives in Cleveland No, no, I understand. They're on Oxycontin. She talked about what the area used to be like for her parents and grandparents, right? rates right um and this professor i got to interview professor michael chandler did this tightly with the amount of control they were able to regain over their community the amount of

1:26:12 Actually, that initial step is quite hard because we're so broken up, right? They get addicted to food and cigarettes and drugs and antidepressants and they get into bad relationships. task, and it's very intimidating to them. And they don't feel like they can make it. They don't feel You have to say, I am better than I was yesterday. saying about work if you are spending nine hours a day being controlled one of the things you do to get through that is a process of internal

1:29:23 baltimore they were working class people you know who who had not had fancy educations they set up a democratic cooperative He needed to change his life, but he also needed someone to buy him a cow right he couldn't have bought that cow on his own is a significant component alongside other components. the different things that become a real hindrance as you get older, move towards a direction that

1:31:23 What you choose to do, you can get better at things. having a great time and he just released his new album and you both started out together in high school and now here you are at different of. Elon Musk said that recently as well. I don't know. and everyone else employed to give them massages, right? That's not going to exist in 10 years from now, probably, right?

1:34:20 connections addiction and depression anxiety both of them required me to go all over the scream and for lost connections addiction and depression anxiety both of them required me to go Right. One percent of the population was addicted to heroin. It was incredible. take all the money we currently spend on fucking people's lives up, So, you know, say you used to be a mechanic.

1:36:42 when it first happened right he said He said, this is fucking madness. better choices but they're making those better choices in a context a context where the society resistance to what we know of as safe alternatives to pharmaceutical medications like cbd that's another one about jeff sessions primarily but my other worry is it's not well i'm worried about jeff sessions primarily

1:39:02 to criticize big pharma about I'm very critical of them. the opioid addictions are also concentrated girlfriend but kind of pisses me off because i think she's even better than mick jagger if we want to understand why there's been this huge increase in opioid use we have to understand these things that i'm writing about so absurd that it's not just that it's why would you think that you could tell a grown adult what they can and can't do with their body?

1:41:22 but the more liberal argument, kick-ass female president called ruth dreifuss who explained to people, look, when you hear the word legalization, what you picture is anarchy and chaos, right? What we have now is anarchy and chaos. When you prohibit drugs, what you get is unknown criminals selling unknown chemicals to unknown drug users, all in the dark, filled with violence, disease and chaos. What she proposed to do is legalize heroin, right? And it's important to understand that what that doesn't mean doesn't mean there's like a heroin aisle in the cvs in in switzerland right so different things

1:43:00 is legal so the way it works is if you've got heroin problem in switzerland you're assigned to a clinic i went to the one in geneva where the former president now lives across and then they give you loads of support to figure out why you're in such pain in the first place. It can last more than 24 hours. He would be a great guest for you. Does he live in England? No lives in vancouver but he comes to la fairly often you should definitely talk to him i would really recommend people look

1:45:01 kind of badass you're monitored by a by a nurse but the results are really incredible right right so um the headline most important fact But actually what happens is almost everyone chooses to cut back over time and stop, right? lives like the choice that you make and the paths that you take and the people you surround with and We know of needs for water.

1:47:24 families a lot of times the But he had this really That's how deeply we are resistant to loneliness. Right. where no one knew each other and they came together to protest. She'd grown up in Turkey and she'd come to Germany, I think, when she was 17. people notice when you're not there right and a lot of us And he says, you've just got a malfunction in your brain, right?

1:50:49 If you think that, it disconnects you from the source of your pain. That is the conversation we have to have. I think the figure is 30% of old people in retirement homes are being given antipsychotic drugs to shut them the fuck up because they're rebelling against the way they're being treated. ritalin and various various stimulants that they give to children um what's that about what's the

1:53:08 and you feel controlled all the time, Whatever shit would have been on the TV. One of the things that was most challenging to me is this evidence that the people with not least because i just re-watched witness but uh the the but but you know they i They know our world really well. know who my neighbors were and he said this very challenging thing he said you know weight watchers

1:55:53 I don't even think it's about having less. involved in a lot of physical labor because they don't use electricity. They don't use power tools. There's so many factors involved in their happiness Build each other's houses. It's the same thing, yeah. don't seem to develop ADHD, right? I wondered if it was that. I think there are. deadening work the reason our schools are shitty and deadening there's a guy called alfie cone who

1:59:25 bashing these kids to prepare them for this economic system that's making us feel miserable themes that's come up all through our conversation joe these things that we're told are pathologies make sense in understand that they make sense that opens up a totally different way yes of responding to them How the fuck did he pardon that guy? done a lot reporting from prisons and guards always don't want to show you the bad things

2:02:29 addiction problems doesn't work that's way too soft on it it makes the problem worse right those they just make the problem worse. You just said that's brilliant. I mean, I didn't think that that was a part of my life. that would come along that would give you like some spark of happiness and love. And you'd go because you were going to be working 40 hours a week plus overtime doing something that you hated and this is what you had

2:05:59 wants a big wedding and then you get a big wedding and a big ring and all this and now you're fucking We don't have to have a culture where people are controlled, deadened, and isolated. Actually, as I said know imagine if every corporation was like robot workers, you know, just passively receiving orders. That requires a big systemic discomfort. It's not a sign of craziness. It makes perfect sense you feel this way,

2:08:51 in such an unequal society if you if you have a society like norway where if your kid doesn't do them compete you know i mean i've got a friend who's a wall street banker who um put his kid on initially it works really really well and then gradually you have to give higher and higher a young relative of mine i'm trying to phrase this ambiguously who um she was drugging with

2:11:20 Required by the school and mandated by the doctor. off from understanding the thing that's right in front of them and sometimes i think with with both about the criticisms of your work and how have you how have you taken that in if you debated anyone If I had said that, it would be totally right to criticize me. take them right she's got very limited margin of change she's not experiencing extreme side effects

2:14:07 Another criticism, which I have more sympathy for in that I understand where it's coming from, talk and say well i can't fucking go and democratize my workplace. because for so long we've been trained to not think in social terms. I think a lot of people just literally don't get what I'm internalized this individualism that i think people understand and again they were riffing on the extracts these are not people who read the book in the main but

2:16:32 social role right the whole society deals with the problem of car accidents and what i'm saying I also think people work way too much. Maybe it's like that, and just that's the way we live life. bad example he hated his daughter maybe the golden girls right it's a really shit film actually You have an imbalance. I entirely agree. have noticed there was some stigma against leprosy and aids why do you think saying something is

2:19:56 but I think it's worth explaining. to me right then you're told the experiment's beginning come through to this room and you're What they found was you were significantly more like, you zapped the person more and harder if you thought their problem was just due to their biology than if it was due to things that happened to them in their lives and anxious will also improve your life right that's to me a much more powerful message it's something on a continuum and actually the fight that will help these people who are depressed and anxious

2:22:22 people living unhappy lives but the state of being depressed as being a indigestion is a sign from your body you're eating too fast you don't want to you don't want There's an industry that they many times. Those were done by advertising agencies. They've actually created names So everyone knows, if you think about, I don't know, You know, you use the one where you look good, right?

2:25:17 and they only published the results for 27 of them So there's this huge... in which they say, it had very powerful side effects on me i gained a huge amount of weight it has all sorts of side i mean i remember interviewing a clinical psychologist dr lucy johnson and who's a One of the scandals is the FDA, So that means you could commission 3,000 studies, and if two of them, it's not that the FDA would take the balance of the research.

2:28:34 And as a result, where are all the new ones? She's a hardcore Chilean. she did a lot of work with bonobos both in zoos and in the wild and she's got really good stories swaying uh elephants will grind their tusks down to nothing um uh and and she basically argues with green space become much less depressed Right. So this thing about, as Isabel says, we are animals that were designed to move through nature

2:31:44 hillary clinton to tucker carlson to Elton John have said about the book. dot com