The Megyn Kelly Show - 20210921_dr-drew-and-paulina-pinsky-on-radical-honesty-hard

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Sept. 21, 2021 - The Megyn Kelly Show

01:36:31

20210921_dr-drew-and-paulina-pinsky-on-radical-honesty-hard

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Facts Over Feelings 00:08:04
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	Welcome to The Megan Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.
	Hey everyone, I'm Megan Kelly.
	Welcome to The Megan Kelly Show.
	Today, I'm excited to be joined by Dr. Drew Pinsky.
	He is an internist and addiction medicine specialist.
	He's host of the Dr. Drew podcast and author of the brand new book out today, It Doesn't Have to Be Awkward.
	Which he co wrote with his daughter, Paulina, one of his triplets.
	And she's going to be joining us in just a bit.
	We've got all things COVID to discuss, and Dr. Drew will be taking your calls too.
	That's exciting, and answering your medical questions just a bit later in the show.
	So let's get things started.
	Welcome, Dr. Drew.
	Thanks for coming back.
	Megan, always a privilege.
	Great to have you here.
	All right.
	So before we get to COVID, I wanted to ask you I've been following what's happening down in Texas and in Del Rio, where we have these 10,000 migrants from.
	Haiti, underneath a bridge.
	They've crossed our southern border.
	Our border patrol is down there trying to manage the situation.
	I have sort of a left field question for you on it.
	Because what happened down there was these folks come.
	They're coming across the border in record numbers.
	And they say it's because they believe they have a better chance now than ever before of being allowed to stay under Joe Biden.
	And we're not equipped to handle them.
	You know, we don't have resources down there.
	They have no running water.
	These guys are bathing themselves in the water down there.
	It's very unsanitary.
	Women are giving birth.
	I mean, it's just.
	It's a nightmare situation for those involved, those trying to keep the peace and keep things.
	These are people who are going to have to be processed and, for the most part, deported.
	So the Border Patrol is trying to keep an eye on them and not let them make a run for it.
	And the people themselves are trying to manage their children and so on.
	Well, yesterday, the big story broke that these guys were using whips, that the Border Patrol, who are on horses, are using whips against the migrants.
	And Jen Psaki went to the White House lectern and said, It's horrible.
	That's not who we are.
	What are we doing?
	Blah, blah, blah.
	So I was like, Well, that does sound terrible.
	So I took a look at it, and the video does not support that.
	The video shows Border Patrol on horses using reins on the horses, the way one uses reins on horses, and also twirling, twirling the reins right next to the horse.
	But at no point do I see one of those reins touch a human.
	I see them trying to like run the horses around so that the people don't run, you know, sort of block the path.
	And I have no idea how law enforcement is normally done when you're trying to control 10,000 people and you've got horseback, you know, riding cops to do it.
	But my point is even when it came out that these are not whips, that these are Border Patrol agents put in a terrible position by our government, you know, these guys are just trying to do what they've been hired to do.
	You get reports that are now saying whip like devices are being used on the migrants.
	Like, you mean reins used by cowboys on horses who are Border Patrol agents?
	And to me, it speaks to something in the human psyche that just refuses to let go of a narrative that one has chosen to embrace, right?
	Border Patrol agents are bad, migrants are good.
	Any attempt to stop migration across the southern border.
	Is racist, is bigoted.
	You know what I mean?
	And it's like it all sort of plays into this pre existing narrative.
	And I'm watching the media refuse to let it go.
	And your thoughts on that?
	What makes one incapable of wrestling with new additions to one's factual knowledge?
	Put simply, it goes under the rubric of cognitive dissonance, right?
	There are cognitive distortions of all types, but cognitive dissonance is so alive and well today, it's unbelievable.
	When you come up against an opinion that differs from your own and you find yourself unable to adjust your priors, blaming the source or blaming the ad hominem individual who happens to be giving you that information, those are all signs of cognitive dissonance.
	And to me, there's a more simplistic way of looking at all this.
	It's simply how fake news is generated and perpetuated.
	I get to see this all the time.
	Anyone who's been the object of a story in the press, and particularly in social media, Knows what this is because you know how far the story escapes reality, and then you see it swirl as though what has now escaped reality is the reality.
	And that is what makes fake news fake.
	I would argue that cognitive dissonance is an evolutionary glitch in our brain.
	But this idea of stories that are divorced from reality becoming the reality, I think that's a thoroughly modern phenomenon of social media and this propagandistic media in both directions.
	That seems unable to get off these things they call narratives.
	I remember when I was arguing with a journalist friend of mine, she kept saying, Well, what's the story?
	We have to find the story.
	Sometimes stories distort.
	There's not a story always, there's just the facts of the matter.
	Facts, unfortunately, in a post structuralist world, don't seem to matter, do they?
	You're so right.
	I mean, I've seen people on both the right and the left, young reporters say, I don't understand the angle I'm supposed to take on this.
	Well, why don't you just try reporting the facts rather than trying to figure out the angle that will please your audience?
	Yes.
	What happened to the truth?
	What happened to it?
	It's just gone.
	Objective reality is gone.
	And I understand that in post structuralism, the only truth is subjective and political.
	But, you know, I had to laugh to myself.
	I was listening to a podcast with a very fine French philosopher.
	A young woman was saying, the Americans confuse us so much.
	They're preoccupied with French philosophers from nearly 100 years ago, 70 years ago.
	Who have been sidelined as completely irrelevant and wrong, and we have adopted those as some sort of a crucible around which we're going to organize ourselves.
	The French are just shaking their heads.
	And it's so irritating to me when I.
	And look, if pictures emerge or videos emerge showing that clearly, then they should be condemned.
	That's not okay to do.
	But we're not there.
The Vaccine Decision 00:15:25
	It's amazing.
	As you see the videos, people just refuse to let it go because it reaffirms the same thing with that Covington kid on the steps of the Supreme Court.
	For me, a rational way to do that is to go, boy, that's an image that is tough to digest and think about how it makes us feel.
	It makes us think about all these other things as opposed to going, that's the fact.
	How we feel has become a substitute for fact.
	And that is a very dangerous place to go because feelings are often quite a distance from anything factual.
	Whip like devices.
	You mean rains?
	I'm like, I'm a city slicker, but even I know what rains on a horse look like.
	Okay, let's talk about COVID.
	There was a study out just hitting the news this week, and it was roundly criticized on Twitter.
	And this one was from the CDC.
	And it didn't go along with the narrative that a lot in the media and on the left like, which is that we like lockdowns and we like mask mandates and we like vaccine mandates.
	We like things that are more restrictive if it's in the name of fighting COVID.
	But the CDC put out a paper that Found the BMI, the body mass index, this sort of measures how fat, how much fat you have on your body amongst 430,000 children.
	This is a big old study.
	430,000 children rose significantly between March and November of 2020.
	It rose at nearly double the rate before the pandemic.
	Kids got a lot fatter during the quarantine and the pandemic, and even post quarantine, because we ended quarantine, let's say, you know, May, June, especially among elementary kids.
	As well as those who are already a little overweight or obese.
	And another study said the numbers are especially bad for kids who are Hispanic, Black, publicly insured, and low income.
	One expert said the trends here are, quote, staggering.
	So, yes, on Twitter, people were like, oh, you're trying to downplay, you know, this is ridiculous.
	So kids got fat, they'll lose the weight.
	No, this is a real health risk to children.
	Well, not only is it a real health risk to children, it's the primary health risk of COVID, right?
	And so if they're really interested in reducing the consequence of COVID, that has existed.
	Significant impact on that.
	The other thing that people rarely talk about is that these sorts of parameters like BMI can really be a sign of emotional distress and trauma.
	And I would argue that this is just the beginning of data that's going to begin to pile in on the profound emotional impact this all will have had on our children, particularly as I think you and I have talked about before, the eight to 15 year old age group has just been profoundly affected.
	And I don't know how we get back from it.
	Who knows what the long term effects are going to be.
	But to me, this is just more evidence of the effect, which is something I've been screaming about from the beginning, which is please consider the risk reward analysis.
	Whenever physicians do any sort of intervention, just because these are non pharmacological interventions, the so called lockdowns and whatnot, don't mean they can't have deleterious consequences that could outstrip the benefits or at least prepare for those adverse consequences and don't pretend they're not happening.
	So, all last year, my daughter, when she was in school, had to sit at lunch and not speak.
	She was not allowed to speak for an entire year at lunch when she was in the fourth grade.
	They would put on a movie.
	It's like, oh, what do you have to complain about?
	It's a movie.
	I don't want my kid watching a movie at school.
	Half the reason you send them there is to deal with social situations, figure out how to navigate those with other children.
	Now, this year we've graduated to, she can speak if she screams at the top of her lungs because there are thick plexiglass walls between her and the other students at lunch.
	Same for my sons.
	And all of my three children who are in that age group you just mentioned, between eight and 15, they're actually between eight and 12, are having the same thing where if they want to speak to friends at school, they have to scream through plexiglass and they get in trouble if they try to lean back.
	To talk to the kid behind them, right?
	Which is the only way they can find to socialize.
	You can't tell me this isn't creating permanent damage.
	And these are kids from a mom who's very like, this is bullshit.
	We're going to have to do it.
	Like, don't panic.
	They're not COVID scared, but they're annoyed.
	And they, you know, this is going to have some effect on my kids, never mind the ones whose parents are terrified.
	Right.
	So there we go.
	So we don't yet fully know the full effect.
	And the other thing I would ask people is to, again, when you're trying to figure out a risk reward, you know, what is the reward?
	What's the benefit?
	I don't know if you saw Scott Gottlieb's interview recently, but he reported that when the whole six feet distance thing emerged, that was completely arbitrary.
	There was no scientific evidence for that.
	There was something for 10 feet, but even that, they didn't really have much good resources to justify.
	So they just picked six feet as something that people would probably be willing to swallow and probably would work.
	It's incredible.
	These are capricious, random recommendations, limited benefit, massive effect.
	And the same, listen, I'm not anti mask.
	I have no problem wearing a mask, but Everybody, masks aren't 100% effective.
	The data ranges between 9% and about 15%.
	Not zero, but 9 to 15%.
	Don't behave like it's 80 or 100%.
	It's maybe 20% at best.
	And so, again, fine if you want to risk all these adverse emotional impacts that are necessarily going to happen.
	What I'm doing today by Dr. Drew Prinsky.
	He's hosted so many great shows.
	It's hard to list them all.
	Loveline among my favorites.
	And he's got a new book out today with his daughter, who's going to be here in a moment, called Eternal.
	Doesn't have to be awkward.
	Can I ask you about the new Pfizer news that they're now testing the vaccine on ages five through 11?
	Again, I've got three kids right now in that age group.
	They're saying Pfizer says its initial results show it's safe and robust, seeing robust antibody response in kids of that age.
	The data is not yet peer reviewed nor published.
	Pfizer plans to submit it to the FDA for emergency use authorization soon.
	Could be authorized for younger kids in a matter of weeks.
	They studied about 2,200 kids in that age group.
	They said no instances of myocarditis, the heart inflammation that we've seen in the older group.
	But when we've seen that in the older groups, it's about one in every 5,000 kids receiving the vaccine.
	So they didn't even get to the number where they would likely see it.
	And I have to tell you, I have real hesitation about giving this vaccine to my littles.
	I understand that.
	And personally, as an internist, someone who doesn't deal with pediatric age group, I'm in no position to make recommendations.
	I've had difficulty, I have found it challenging.
	In terms of making the decision on behalf of 15 to 18 year olds, I think that's an interesting age group to sort of struggle with.
	But as you get younger, I get more and more and more uncomfortable for one reason.
	Obviously, the effects of this virus on those age groups become less and less significant.
	The only motivation to do it is to reduce the replication of the virus.
	In other words, we do have an issue internationally in terms of the volume of replication and the potential for some variant to emerge that can get around our vaccines or get around our natural immunity.
	That's the great risk right now.
	And if somebody wants to make the case that it's necessary that we have no replication going on in young kids as well, I'm willing to listen to that.
	But to make that decision for a given child, that's a tough decision to make.
	We just, listen, and just if you understand the context of how I make these decisions, back when the chickenpox vaccine came out, my children were of age to get it.
	I didn't let them get it because I didn't think we had enough experience with it yet.
	Now I would have them get it.
	But it was about a three year old vaccine at that point.
	I was like, chickenpox is not that big a deal.
	I'd rather just get chickenpox, which they did.
	And there have been some reports of some things in Japan.
	I thought, why make that call?
	Let's see how it goes first.
	And I kind of feel the same way about this vaccine.
	Unfortunately, the mandates are pushing things in a hasty manner where it's hard to make those decisions.
	It really is.
	And the shaming.
	Okay, so I had this dust up with David Fromm, now of The Atlantic, on Twitter yesterday.
	It was just absurd.
	He is absurd.
	As soon as that news broke about Pfizer and the five to 11 year olds, this is what he tweeted If regulators approve, That 5 to 11 year olds can be safely and effectively vaccinated against COVID.
	Let's not repeat the mistake of allowing space and time to anti vax extremists.
	States should immediately make anti COVID vaccination a requirement for schools, sports leagues, et cetera.
	The anti vaxxers get a big thing right.
	They understand that a vaccine mandate is not merely a requirement, it also expresses a social stigma against the unvaccinated as ignorant and antisocial.
	That stigma is very powerful, which is why the anti vaxxers resent it so intensely.
	So that's what he wants to foist on parents who have some doubts about this experimental vaccine that's not even yet approved and may get emergency use authorization.
	And I wrote back to him you don't have to be an anti vax extremist to have concerns about vaccinating a little one who has very little risk from COVID.
	You do have to be some kind of an asshole to demonize any parent concerned about forcing minor kids to take a vaccine that had no long term testing.
	Good for you.
	I like that.
	Oh, screw him.
	I'm so sick of the demonization.
	He wants it, he's baking it into the cake.
	Yeah.
	And I don't understand why that's not at least somewhat perceived as racist because here in New York City, I'm in New York right now, only 35% of the African American community has been vaccinated.
	And that community has been ill served throughout medical history.
	And their resistance is a function of that history, not some personal choice.
	And we should be really addressing that in a systematic way, which does not include shaming.
	Listen, Megan, I work in the world of trying to get people to change behavior, don't want to change their behavior.
	If I go to a drug addict and say, you need to stop doing drugs, don't you know what you're doing?
	That's the opposite.
	Shaming and guilting is the opposite of how to change people's behavior when they have resistance.
	And so it's bizarre to me.
	The other thing, the idea that the FDA dictates behavior from on high, we have got to address this.
	The FDA does not determine how physicians practice medicine, period.
	They determine guidelines for what companies can bring to market.
	What doctors do with that is between the doctor and the patient.
	And the FDA has no authority and no business involved in the practice of medicine.
	It never has.
	It never will.
	Same for the CDC.
	They're not designed to do that.
	It's one of the things that Gottlieb brought up in his interview.
	This idea, and certainly the government shouldn't be practicing medicine.
	So we should be talking to the pediatric community.
	Where are they?
	Where's the American College of Pediatrics?
	What's their opinion on this?
	I'd like to know because they're the ones that should be making these decisions.
	Dr. Drew is an expert in many things, including.
	Narcissistic celebrities.
	And we'll talk about them and their role in all of this in about one minute.
	Stay with us.
	We'll discuss.
	Welcome back to the Megan Kelly Show, everyone.
	I'm back here now with Dr. Drew Pinsky, internist and addiction medicine specialist.
	Not to mention, host of the Dr. Drew podcast, co authoring a book out today called It Doesn't Have to be awkward with his own daughter and they cover everything, which you would think it's awkward.
	I'm going to ask them why it wasn't when she joins us in about one more block.
	But first, I want to ask you, Dr. Drew, about the disgusting hypocrisy we're seeing now amongst our leaders, amongst our public figures in dealing with COVID.
	We've talked ad nauseum over the past few days about AOC at the Met Gala and Mayor de Blasio and Upper West Side Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney without their masks on, trying to lecture everybody on social justice values and how to be better citizens.
	Meanwhile, There is a mask mandate, even if you're vaccinated inside the Met, but the rules don't apply to the rich and famous.
	You got San Francisco Mayor London Breed.
	That was the greatest thing I've ever seen.
	I mean, like her hypocrisy, not wearing that mask inside of the Black Cat nightclub.
	And the excuse was, I was feeling the spirit when I heard Tony, Tony, Tony.
	Like all you have to do is just say, I was feeling the spirit when you listen to Tony, Tony, Tony.
	And apparently you can take off your mask or have a drink, have a cocktail within 50 feet of you, which is very likely in my case.
	So great.
	Then you have the Hollywood Emmys and all these acts.
	Despite the indoor mask mandate in LA, not wearing it.
	Meanwhile, the kids in K 12 all over LA have their masks on, even if vaccinated.
	And I look at all of this and think, why aren't the regular Joes and Janes rising up?
	Why are we okay with this?
	I don't think they are.
	I think people are taking note.
	It's, of course, where everyone's in tribes, right?
	And so if your tribe violates one of these mandates, Well, they had a reason to.
	That's cognitive dissonance, right?
	You're reasoning your way from conclusion to try to justify what that person did.
	But I would argue that Governor Newsom at the French Laundry without a mask in close quarters with friends at a dinner party indoors during an absolute lockdown was case one of people rising up and having had enough of it.
	I mean, the recall effort was directly related to that event.
	So people have had it.
	They really have.
	The problem is, though, they're still in their tribes.
	And they're still reasoning from conclusion.
	And so those that have had it are coming up against people that are continuing to tell them, look, you're just unenlightened.
	You don't know better.
	We know.
	We're going to tell you.
	It's such a horrible, you said, narcissism, but we would talk about it.
	And it is narcissistic, but it's also histrionic.
	Everyone's almost delusional in their thinking.
	There's a rigidity in people's thinking now that, for me, has moved past straight up narcissism, which is, hey, listen to me.
	I know what's going on here.
	Usually a narcissist, at least, is sly enough.
	To follow their own mandates.
	This has become something a little bit different and it's a little more out of control, it seems to me.
	You know, Nikki Minaj was all over the news, of course, last week for saying she didn't want to go to the Met Gala because she didn't want to have to get a vaccine and then told some story, alleged story about her cousins, friends, testicles, and alleged impotence after the vaccine.
	Unverified, but that's what she said.
	And boy, oh boy, did she take it from all corners on the left.
	I mean, the right sort of was, I think, bemused that the left was attacking one of its own.
	You know, previously she was this goddess.
	Because she's done these very sort of R rated songs about women and so on.
	Now, suddenly they attack their own because you can't buy insurance from the woke.
	And she got mad.
	She was ticked off.
	She got a dose of sort of what happens to you when you cross these arbitrary lines that are drawn.
Women in the Fields 00:13:30
	And here's just a little bit of what she said she thought was going on.
	Listen 80% of the artists that y'all are following right now feel like I feel about the vaccine and are too afraid to speak on it.
	If they assassinate me and assassinate my character and make me look crazy or stupid, guess what?
	No one else will ever ask questions again.
	It's disgusting that a person can't speak.
	About just questions or thoughts they're having about something that they're going to have to put in their body.
	Well, she's not wrong about that.
	She couldn't be more right.
	God bless her.
	God bless Nicki Minaj.
	I don't know if you saw the other, her famous Marbles tweet too, which was also fantastic.
	Yeah, if you're a Black person and a Democrat, you'd have to put marbles up your ass if the party told you to do it.
	If they tell you to, that's it.
	And so it's like she is so right.
	It's sort of an interesting movement that.
	That particularly many African American friends of mine have been pushing for for a long time, but just think, think for yourself, raise questions, talk about things.
	And poor Nikki has gotten caught in the maelstrom.
	And I, listen, I don't, I don't, I would love to get her straight on the testicle story.
	And I would love to deal with her.
	I would love to talk to her about vaccine hesitancy because I bet you I could get through to her.
	I know how to deal with resistant people.
	That's my job when I'm dealing with addicts and alcoholics.
	The way you deal with them is not the way Twitter deals with them and not the way the world is dealing with them.
	Poor Nikki, right now.
	You could get her to come along and get a vaccine and maybe even be a vaccine advocate.
	This is not the way, everybody.
	Case one, how bad a job we're doing.
	And by the way, totally defend her right and privilege to say anything she wants in the meantime.
	She did not come out and say, hell no, never.
	She came out and said, I don't know.
	I still want to do my research.
	She's thinking about it.
	I know.
	She's thinking about it.
	The research is done.
	What are you doing?
	And it's like, well, maybe Nikki Minaj has been a little busy and didn't look at all your studies and really has to just kind of postpone this because she's a young and healthy woman.
	But She is 100% right that if they make an example out of her, then others are expected to get in line.
	She's got 160 million Instagram followers, 22 million Twitter followers.
	So if she can be shamed into silence, so anybody can be.
	That's right.
	That's right.
	And I think she is fighting on behalf of others who don't have the same position of power that she is in, who would like to be able to speak their mind.
	And it is this whole phenomenon that we've moved into.
	I don't know if you and I have really talked about this.
	But the idea that you can't speak, you can't talk.
	I'm so shocked that we live in a country.
	You know, I just got back from France and it's really interesting.
	In France, first of all, they've got the, what they call the pass sanitaire, which is their pass for vaccine.
	For the pass, you can either show antibodies for natural immunity or go get a test.
	They're everywhere.
	You get a test for 20, 30 bucks or you show your vaccine and they're apologetic, like, sorry, we have to do this.
	We're trying to get everybody to say, what's your choice?
	What would you rather do?
	Would you rather do testing or vaccine?
	Not, You're an idiot if you don't get the vaccine.
	They don't do that.
	Then, what's fascinating that's happening is 18 to 28 year olds are getting up every weekend in massive demonstrations against mandate.
	It's funny, my French is pretty good, and I was talking to a lot of young people.
	And to a person, they go, Look, we were told this is not a serious illness for our age group.
	Now they're forcing us to do something that's wrong.
	And I would always say to them, I go, Vive la liberte, right?
	Yes.
	They become absolutely, I had a ticket, a woman at the ticket counter at the airport.
	Come out from behind the counter, go raise her fist to go.
	She was 23 years old.
	And she goes, Vive la liberté.
	I thought, wow, that is so different than here where they're doing death outs, where they're lying as though they're going to die if they don't wear masks at the college campuses unless they get more stringent mandates.
	It drives me nuts.
	Why?
	Why?
	I don't get it.
	I see the French.
	I love what they're doing.
	I am vaccinated.
	I love the vaccines.
	I recommend all adults, if it's safe for you and your doctor didn't give you a reason not to, to get the vaccine.
	But I don't like these mandates.
	And I don't think that they're particularly American, especially on a brand new vaccine that is.
	Very low risk the younger you are, or the virus has very low risk the younger you are.
	And to be fair, let me co-co-to that by saying: hey, look, we do have an issue.
	I mentioned it before, which we've got to decrease the replication of this virus.
	So, you might want to take some risk for you, your children, above and beyond the individual benefit you could gain from it to try to get this thing suppressed more so that the government can get it.
	I think that's why most people in New York got it.
	I mean, whether they felt like they needed it or not, they got it because the city just got so hammered and you felt sort of a responsibility to do it.
	Okay, fine.
	But that still should be a personal choice.
	So, why?
	You tell me why the French who gave us the Statue of Liberty, Liberty, they're out there protesting and we still haven't learned our lesson all these years later.
	It's so crazy.
	And by the way, France is a socialist country.
	And the young people have, I mean, they have, and they are, the way they express themselves in this topic, it really is echoes of the 1790.
	It really is.
	They see a direct correlation with the excesses of government now and the excesses of the royalty, the aristocracy in 1790, and they won't have it.
	I don't understand.
	It's funny.
	I don't know where we're missing it or if we're missing it.
	I don't either.
	The fact that young people, I don't see it for me, Megan.
	Here's the thing I don't understand the individual who wants to tell other people how to live their life and manage their body.
	And here I'm somebody that's getting people to stop doing drugs and alcohol all day.
	And I'm there because they want help, not because I want to tell them what to do.
	I know how to help them once they ask for that help or once they're available for that help.
	And to tell people how to live their life is the strangest impulse to me.
	Especially in this country.
	And I don't understand why it's so appealing to somebody, and particularly to young people.
	It's very strange to me.
	It's turned into, like everything else, virtue signaling now.
	And it's beyond personal health.
	It's really got, it's crossed over into politics.
	And that's why we cling so, so desperately to our political tribes.
	And that's what this is all about in a very weird way that we haven't seen.
	Italy, too, by the way, is now instituting effectively vaccine passports for everyone to work and so on, but recognizes natural immunity.
	As an exception to the vaccine mandate.
	So we're seeing our European friends be honest about natural immunity in a way the United States has not.
	By the way, Europe too has said that 12 to 15 year olds should not get the vaccine.
	They don't think there's the evidence for it yet.
	And for 16 and up, they say one dose, one shot to deal with the vaccine.
	And let's be clear to hang a little lantern on that.
	That's science.
	That's the digesting of science and having opinions based on currently available wisdom.
	This is not.
	Fet accomplished.
	We know exactly what we're doing.
	There's one way to go and no other way.
	And this is where a lot of the resistance is coming from.
	People are aware that things are capricious and fluctuating and are mandates based on okay, but maybe spurious considerations where they're not giving the worst thing you could do to people that are resistant is not give them all the data.
	That's this idea that they can't handle it.
	Terrible, terrible idea.
	It makes them more resistant.
	You look over here, it's like, okay, so why am I a terrible person if I just want to pursue the same policy that's in place now for 27 million, you know?
	Brits or what have you.
	Like, I see countries that we know and trust and whose data we use to come up with our own policies making a totally sane, different choice.
	Doesn't make them all bad, doesn't make me bad just because I happen to have been born in America.
	But the people pushing these mandates on us won't deal with that.
	All right, let me shift gears because I want to talk to you about Maureen Dowd's column that came out over the weekend.
	You don't need to have read it.
	I'll tell you what she said, and it's something you've heard before.
	She's always got an acerbic pen, which is super fun unless she's turning it against you.
	But she was taking care of it.
	How do you stand up to all this stuff?
	Your attitude is always so good.
	I find myself worn out and worn down and getting depressed.
	Well, the disgusting negativity out there.
	How do you handle it?
	It's like, I got a good life.
	I got a good husband.
	I got good kids.
	What more do I really need to worry about?
	I hear you.
	I take a You know, a walk through some of these fields, the anger fields, the, you know, concern fields, not really so much the anxiety fields, every once in a while.
	But then I come back to center.
	Okay.
	Which is why everybody out there needs to build up their own, you know, build up the people around you who you can actually touch and be around.
	This is what she says Our culture is awash in people who get called out for their behavior and then retreat behind some victim y excuse.
	She says, if you're going to go for it, go for it.
	Now, she was picking up not just on AOC, who got blowback for the reasons we just discussed and her tax the rich dress.
	And she says, if she wanted to get glammed up and pal around with the ruling class at an event that's the antithesis of all she believes in, she should have just gone for it.
	And what AOC had said when she got hit was, and I quote, honestly, our culture is deeply disdainful and unsupportive of women, especially women of color and working class women of color.
	She said, oh, then Maureen Dowd said, really?
	The working class card at the Met Gala?
	Then AOC says, the more intersections one has, the deeper the disdain.
	I am so used to doing the same exact thing that men do, including popular male progressive elected officials, and getting a completely different response.
	Dowd writes back to say, I found this statement to be at the intersection of disingenuous and hilarious.
	It was cynical.
	And it wasn't the first time she has failed to consider that people can disagree with her without disagreeing with her identity.
	So many people throw the identity card down as a shield against criticism of legitimately controversial behavior.
	Right.
	Yes.
	And I, it's funny.
	I remember I was, I had a nightly news broadcast in Los Angeles for a year during the dark days of COVID.
	We were sort of analyzing what was going on.
	And we'd occasionally talk to the members of the school board or the school union.
	And some union officials came in and were sort of laying down all these requirements for going back to school.
	And I said, great, let's do them all.
	Let's do it.
	What's the delay?
	Let's go.
	Let's get back to school.
	And she announced I was racist.
	And no, I was sexist.
	I was sexist.
	How dare I?
	I was like, I'm supporting you.
	What are you talking about?
	It's such a crazy default.
	Position and it's cognitive dissonance again, and it ends any meaningful discourse that could perhaps get us to a better place.
	I would like to hear what AOC has got to say about what that really is.
	Your thoughts?
	Was it a mistake?
	Would you wish you hadn't done it?
	What are you thinking?
	How about all those other people you're around who are paying?
	Do you think they're not paying taxes?
	Do you think all those people they met don't pay taxes?
	Is that what you think?
	What did you mean by tax the rent?
	What does that mean exactly?
	So Maureen Dow goes on to take issue with Elizabeth Holmes playing the victim, saying she was basically controlled by a man all the years she allegedly committed.
	Fraud while running this company.
	Theranos takes aim at this squad member, Representative Pramila Jayapal, I actually don't know her, of Washington, who reportedly defends her, calls herself a defender of the working class, but treats her own staff like dirt and so on.
	And her chief of staff came out and said, Women of color are often unjustly targeted and held to a higher standard than their male colleagues, always put under a sexist microscope.
	So to me, as you see this pattern of like, I get hit for being a bad person or for doing something stupid or shitty.
	It's like finding money in my pocket.
	It's like finding, you know, little jewels hidden in my Levi's five pocket jeans in the tiny little pocket I used to show off to my neighbors, which is, oh, I've got something amazing and valuable with which to distract you, to deflect this entire conversation and to give me the moral high ground.
	You know what?
	And I get it.
	I just think about it.
	Think about if you were in that position and this is something you do, you would think to do the same thing.
	I hope you wouldn't because it is not of, High character to do that.
	But you would think of doing the same thing.
	I think it's perfectly a human impulse to, because these attacks are quite vicious and people really are scared and anxious and hurt.
	And they go, they retreat to their sort of natural zone of safety.
	I get that.
	You can do better.
	You can do better.
	That is absolutely a straw dog that you've built, and it needs to be looked at, and you need to get honest.
	Rigorous honesty is something that is in short supply these days.
	And so is Bayesian reasoning.
	Bayesian reasoning, where you adjust your thinking based on currently available knowledge.
	You adjust, and you go, I've changed my position now based on current.
	And by the way, I kind of feel like I've seen AOC moving a little bit.
	She has been adjusting her position on certain things.
	And I said, good, good for her.
	But when the shit really hits the fan, not so much.
	You cannot be shielded from the consequences of your own choices by your intersectionality card.
	That's just not how.
	And that's not to say that there is never criticism that's sexist or that's based on, you know, like it.
	But if you play that card every time, you undermine its value.
	And, you know, she seems to be oblivious to that.
Adjusting Positions on Issues 00:15:38
	I'll give you the last thing.
	This is Maureen's final word on it.
	We shouldn't reorient our society so that people can simply wrap themselves in an identity cloak when identity is not the issue.
	Virtue should not be defined by who you are, putting you beyond reproach and preventing judgments about what you did.
	That would leave whole sectors of society exempt from moral evaluation.
	Nailed it.
	It's so fun when you can read great writers, really sort of nail an issue that's important to you.
	So she did that there.
	Okay, Dr. Drew is coming back in one minute.
	He's going to be joined by his daughter, Paulina, to discuss their new book.
	It doesn't have to be awkward.
	If you've ever wondered about how to talk to your kids about sex, dating, the awkwardness of turning into an adult, can you imagine if Dr. Drew was your dad going through the sexual changes of life?
	The Pinskys have answers.
	Don't miss this.
	Next.
	Welcome back to The Megan Kelly Show, everyone.
	Dr. Drew Pinsky is back, and he is joined now by his daughter, Paulina Pinsky.
	She's a Columbia graduate, she's a writer, and they are co authors of the new book just out today.
	It doesn't have to be awkward.
	Paulina, thank you so much for being here.
	Thank you so much for having me.
	All right.
	So I have to tell you that this book makes me feel better about life.
	Because if Dr. Drew can raise somebody who's as open and honest about their struggles as you, I feel like I can totally fuck up my kids and they're going to wind up just fine.
	I think that's just, you can live by that phrase generally.
	Generally, that is true.
	I would say the 10 years of therapy helped.
	Oh, how dare you.
	Well, so I love this.
	Okay.
	So, first of all, you were born a triplet.
	And let me just kick it off there because triplets are still rare.
	Even with IVF, they're still rare.
	And how do you think that affected your life?
	I have theories about this.
	As the youngest and at the top of the stack nearest my mother's ribs, I feel like it must have been traumatic for me to have my two womb mates exit the womb before me.
	So my first interaction with the world was my brother's leaving me.
	That is my theory.
	It's true.
	Gosh, I never really considered that.
	But you must have been traumatic.
	I must tell you, I've got to interrupt you, Megan, that there was, Paulina, there was literally 55 seconds between.
	Those guys being out in you.
	Yeah, I always imagine it's like pulling noodles, except it was pulling babies.
	Oh, no.
	Yeah, you, right?
	That's a lot.
	Really, the true trauma was your mother's.
	And so I'm sure she's addressed that.
	Absolutely.
	Yeah, every Christmas, she would say, This wouldn't have happened if I didn't love.
	Like, you, you be grateful for Christmas because I'm the one that brought Christmas.
	Well, and to be fair, to be fair, we were faced with reduction.
	Our obstetrician sat down and said, Hey, don't have triplets.
	Don't do it.
	He goes, here's the data.
	The marriages don't survive.
	The mental health of the kids suffer.
	Don't do this.
	Have twins, and I'll send you out to UCLA and we'll reduce down to two.
	Oh, my God.
	That was a heavy, heavy, heavy thing we sat with for a couple of days and then just went, we can't do that.
	Forget it.
	Right.
	Right.
	It's like, so we have to end the pregnancy with one baby or end our marriage.
	Right.
	Like, what kind of a weird choice is that?
	That's so false.
	It's not true.
	I mean, maybe it makes it tougher.
	Statistically, it was, you know, it was, it was actually, he just handed me the papers and I said, okay, I'll look at him.
	And statistically, at the time it was.
	And I literally felt like a poker player who just took all the chips and go, it doesn't, I'm going all in.
	We're just going all in.
	That's it.
	And it turned out to be a good bet for us.
	Oh, my God.
	I mean, I had, we did IVF and thank, Thank God I was able to use all of our embryos, but that is a tough choice for any parent to have to make.
	Okay, so let me talk to you about growing up Pinsky because your dad, in addition to being a triplet, that should have been the title of the book.
	I know.
	That would have been a better title.
	Which poses its own interesting challenges being a triplet, but you've got a famous dad.
	And you talk in the book about sort of growing older and realizing that you have a famous dad, and then he's getting more famous and he's getting busier.
	And you are pretty honest about, forgive me, Dr. Drew, sort of an absentee dad situation and how that was not.
	That was not easy for you.
	So, back to the title of the book, it doesn't have to be awkward.
	Is it awkward to write about that and talk about that with him sitting right there and sort of say, Yeah, I needed you and you weren't there?
	Yeah, I, well, I've been working on a memoir for the past five years.
	So, writing about my life is, you know, routine for me at this point.
	And ultimately, because we have open discourse, I've been very vocal about the fact that his workaholism did impact all three of our childhoods.
	We were, you know, obviously provided with privileges that are, you know, Incomparable for a lot of people in this country.
	And for that, I'm grateful.
	But ultimately, you know, there was sort of this opening maw hole in which, you know, dad wasn't there.
	He did show up for ice skating competitions.
	He did show up for football games.
	You know, he was there for the big events, but the day to day was a little bit more mom's purview domain.
	That's the word I'm looking for.
	So, Drew, did you know that?
	Well, I was aware that I was a workaholic.
	When she's talking really about when they were younger, before I started doing media, when I would get up at five in the morning and I would Struggle to get home by 10 at night.
	And that was, you know, I had.
	Or midnight.
	Or midnight.
	Yeah, well, later it was midnight.
	But it was, I had multiple careers going simultaneously.
	I had intensive care practice at a hospital.
	I had an inpatient medical practice and outpatient medical practice.
	I was running medical services in a psychiatric hospital.
	I was running their addiction services.
	It was super, super, super crazy for many years.
	And that's the part where I feel bad that I might have been able to balance things out a little bit better.
	But that's, you know, that's not fair.
	Back to the radical honesty.
	Do you think it had anything to do with the fact that you had triplets at home?
	That is hard.
	And I mean, I joke, I used to be married to a doctor.
	Before there was Doug, there was Dan.
	He was a doctor, my first husband.
	And one of his doctor friends, and it's tough to be a doctor, but one of his doctor friends was saying when he leaves his house in the morning and sort of hits the security code, leaving the kids, all the many kids he had inside, he used to say, Ah, time to go to that spa called work.
	I didn't feel that way so much as I was in a panic.
	I had.
	You know, I had a depression era dad that sort of traumatized me around finances.
	And I lived in a panic for many years that I wasn't going to be able to support this family.
	All of a sudden, like I said, all the chips were in.
	We were this family of five all of a sudden.
	We went from this young, cool couple, we were, you know, on our own.
	All of a sudden, family of five.
	I just put the pedal to the metal.
	And I kind of knew there could be consequences.
	You know, it wasn't that I was without awareness that my absence could have an issue.
	So I did the best I could.
	I just did the best I could.
	How do you think it affected you, Paulina?
	One therapist would say, no, I'm just kidding.
	No, I think for me, I think it played out in my romantic life.
	I think for a long time, I was just a radical honesty, let's go.
	I would, you know, pine over people who were emotionally unavailable, ultimately because I wasn't used to having a parent who was there to meet my emotional needs every single day.
	What age were you when that stopped, do you think?
	Because some, I'm asking only because to some extent most adolescents do that kind of stuff, you know, but did it go well into adulthood?
	I would say like 26, 27 was around the time that I sort of.
	And she's doing what every daughter of an unavailable dad does.
	Thank God I wasn't abandoning, I didn't leave because that would have been the preoccupation.
	But, uh, Which is what?
	Put more meat on those bones, Drew.
	What?
	She's doing what every daughter of an.
	Which is the.
	There are various ways of sort of talking about this and thinking about it, but there are things called, some people call love maps.
	They're things that we're fitted with in our family of origin to create those romantic fittedness.
	And if they were insufficient, the drive to fit that becomes even more powerful.
	And, you know, therapy is the way out of that.
	So I'm grateful that you did that work, too.
	Well, in your case.
	In fact, by the way, I am, there's nothing, you know, I.
	I know I'm not a perfect parent.
	And when Paulina first told me she was in therapy, I was like, oh my God, I'm so, oh, that's so great.
	And you're participating.
	You can't imagine how many people there are in this country that do go into mental health services, but don't participate.
	You have to be in the experience in order to get something out of it.
	And I was just curious.
	I thought you were going to say, I was like, oh, thank God you're going into therapy where they'll definitely blame it all on your mother.
	Well, there was that.
	It did happen.
	But it was more that I was just, I would rather than feeling guilty and sad, I was grateful that, oh my gosh, she's grabbing onto this good.
	I know I'm not perfect.
	Totally.
	I love therapy.
	I've been in therapy for years and I recommend it if you're at all interested.
	It's just sort of a gift you give to yourself.
	But it is one of those things you only get out of it what you put into it.
	So if you're going to hold back and you're not really going to put cards on the table, you're not going to get much out of it.
	And you definitely put cards on the table in the book, in your writings prior to the book.
	I've read a lot of them.
	And one of them is can we talk about virginity?
	Because I'm like, this girl, she's fearless.
	So you talk about.
	You knew it was coming at some point.
	Obviously, you're going to lose your virginity.
	And you have your dad is Dr. Drew.
	Awkward, awkward.
	It doesn't have to be awkward.
	But tell us what your mom said to you that stayed in your head from eight years.
	I have an eight year old from eight years forward.
	We were driving to ice skating practice to Burbank, California.
	We were on the 134 freeway.
	And my mom looked at me and said, When you lose your virginity, your father's going to broadcast it on the radio.
	And somebody consulted me about that.
	Well, I understand the impetus behind that, right?
	She was trying to communicate to me that because I was a girl, there were different pressures on me.
	I would be a topic of discussion.
	If I messed up, I would be ridiculed.
	And, you know, I kind of experienced that.
	I mean, to a certain degree, when I first started writing about my bulimia, you know, the reason it went national is because the New York Post pulled out the hook of it and was like, Dr. Drew's daughter has an eating disorder.
	And in that moment, it was, you know, almost worse than.
	My virginity being broadcasted on the radio.
	It was like, yeah, it was kind of the same phenomena, but a deeper secret.
	But ultimately, yeah, because one is like everybody eventually loses their virginity, and one is like, shame, shame in some corners, still, unfortunately.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	And, you know, I think because I have proximity to my father's platform, it's been very important to me to speak honestly and authentically about these experiences because I can't be the only one, you know, dealing with purity culture or dealing with eating disorderslash body image issues.
	And so, It's been sort of foundational in my writing practice to practice radical honesty and really be transparent about, you know.
	What I've been through and what it means to be in proximity.
	And I was just, I was smiling to myself, Megan, because I'm, and I've gotten used to it.
	I just sort of tighten my gluteal muscles and prepare, prepare, prepare for the whatever punch comes my way.
	Yes.
	But you have a more authentic relationship.
	Oh, absolutely.
	It's been great.
	And listen, this is forging those adult connections, right?
	And again, that's what our book ended up being about.
	We really, it's not about all this stuff so much, although this does get in the book.
	That will be in the memoir.
	Yeah.
	That's more of the memoir.
	This is, It's more about it was written.
	This book is written for sort of, well, we say 14 to 20 year olds, 14 to 20, and how helping them navigate relationships.
	It really was originally about consent.
	It's a primer on sex, on relationships, on crushes, on bullying, on teenage life.
	Um, I thought it was actually really eye opening.
	All right, we're going to pick it up there when we come back, and also we're going to be taking your calls.
	Uh, call us at 833 44 M E G Y N 44 M E G Y N. That's 833 446 3496.
	Don't go away.
	Welcome back, everyone, to the Megan Kelly Show.
	Joined today by Dr. Drew Pinsky, and he is joined by his daughter, Paulina Pinsky.
	They are together with me today.
	She's a Columbia graduate, a writer, and they are co authors of the new book, It Doesn't Have to Be Awkward, out today.
	In about 20 minutes, we're going to be taking your calls at 833 44 Megan, M E G Y N, 833 446 3496.
	So let us know if you've got a question on your mind today.
	But I want to I want to go back to Drew and Paulina with the story, Paulina, of you as a competitive ice skater.
	That was a big, big piece of your life for many, many years.
	And not surprisingly, it, I don't know if we can say led to, but involved what ultimately became an eating disorder for you.
	Very open about that.
	Would you say caused?
	I would say that is, it is in the fabric of the ice skating culture.
	I would say, you know, your friends are your competitors and your competitors are your friends.
	You know, I was actually speaking to a childhood friend of mine last night who's actually in one of my writing workshops.
	And we were talking about how dieting was a means of bonding with your friends and how you would dole out secrets with each other.
	I think ice skating, honestly, is on the track of needing sort of an exposure like gymnastics.
	I'm sort of waiting for that moment to happen because I think that it's a really toxic culture.
	But ultimately, you know, it really fed my performance spirit.
	And that's really where I learned how to be a performer.
	But ultimately, you know, I couldn't talk about it for years and I couldn't write about it.
	And it was a very incredibly painful, complicated relationship, ultimately because ice skating was the foundation of my identity for 13 years.
	And some of those relationships were very powerful and important.
	The coaches.
	Oh, yeah.
	I mean, my coach, Erica Shore, and Barbara Sussman, you know, they are mothers to me.
	And, you know, they fundamentally helped me move through my childhood, my adolescence in a way that, you know, really fostered my spirit.
	And then, you know, there were the coaches who were like, You know, you gain weight here and you know, you got to lose weight and all that stuff.
	But why couldn't you talk about it?
	Was it the culture of ice skating?
	Like it's shameful to talk about it, or because you didn't want to let it go?
	You know, if you talk about it, it's the first step toward letting it go.
	Yeah.
	I mean, I think that weight loss and thinness is sort of the subliminal messaging of the entire culture.
	Well, I mean, you're trying to get off the ground with, you know, and do these incredible things that.
	Yeah, you're hurdling yourself off the air on a tow pick and then landing on a tow pick and then landing on a razor.
	It's like insane.
	It's such an insane thing.
	You shouldn't be doing that anyway.
	Yeah, no big deal.
	Yeah, I mean, I just have memories of mothers being like, How much do you weigh?
	My daughter weighs this, you know, like there's very much a toxic, specifically, you know, I, Tanya is my favorite ice skating movie because Alice and Janney, excuse me, is the quintessential ice skating mother, you know, just like the kind of shrew like woman with a parrot on her arm, you know, like that is the, you know, when I would walk into the ice rink, there would be a pack of mothers smoking cigarettes.
	And, you know, they would stop whispering when I would walk up and I'd be like, are you talking about me?
Patriarchy and Ice Skating 00:12:41
	And these are grown adults.
	And I was, you know, 14.
	And so this is why I'm waiting for ice skating to have its day in the sun.
	Ultimately, because I think.
	You could write a book about that.
	That's really interesting.
	You should write an expose.
	You should go contact other ice skaters and get them to talk to you.
	I'd read that.
	I'd put you back on.
	Okay, fantastic.
	Yeah.
	I tried to write a piece about it last spring and nowhere would pick it up.
	Ultimately, because I think there's an investment in keeping ice skating sort of this pristine.
	Princess like sport.
	Well, what's interesting to me is the mom thing.
	That's an interesting observation because what I saw was a way for moms that were immigrant or lower middle class to try to propel their daughters into a different strata.
	Yeah.
	And they would not let go.
	They were just wild about it.
	So, well, yeah.
	I mean, one of my dear friends, Ryan Agatsu, who landed the triple axle at the Olympics, you know, we were in the same preschool together.
	And there's video footage of us at the Esmeralda dance recital.
	And, you know, I'm like twirling around.
	Flirting with the camera and Mariah's, you know, doing beautiful tandus.
	And so to me, there was always like a very clear distinction of like who was going to make it.
	And for whatever reason, I was like, Mariah's going to the Olympics and I'm going to college.
	Like, that is our trajectory.
	But going to college for ice skating is good too, right?
	I mean, is there an ice skating at college?
	I don't know.
	Is that one of those sports you take to?
	There is.
	It's a club sport.
	And originally, I, you know, when I was 14, I was like, I'm going to go to Columbia and be on the ice skating team.
	And then I kind of gave up on the Columbia Gym, went to Barnard, didn't realize that it was part of Columbia, and then I joined the rugby team.
	So, different to that.
	That's hilarious.
	Wow.
	Yeah.
	Probably very few people have that exact line.
	So, can you talk about this?
	Your mom was not.
	I don't know about that one.
	She was not sort of the working class mom looking to sort of make it for the family through you.
	You guys had already made it.
	And there was some conflict there.
	Like you write about how when you told your mom that you'd been forcing yourself to throw up and One time it was eight times a day when you had stayed home on spring break.
	Her response was, We're going to get your teeth checked.
	And I wondered, man, you are so honest.
	Like it's very brave of you to talk about this, given that your dad's famous and famous for mental health talk and so on.
	So, what of your relationship with your mom and how that played into the eating disorder?
	My mom and I were both invested in ice skating, it was the foundation of our relationship.
	She would drive me to You know, every ice rink in Southern California, which is the largest network of ice rinks in the country, five o'clock in the morning, five o'clock in the morning.
	You know, I have memories of being nine and her waking me up at 4 a.m. and just dutifully combing my hair and me, you know, manifesting early signs of OCD that would eventually manifest as an eating disorder.
	But I would make her do my bun eight times and I would just scream at her.
	And, you know, that was early anxiety playing out, but it was kind of this routine that we were in, right?
	And the singular goal being we got to get her on the ice, we got to get her to full form.
	And for a long time, it really was, you know, as a triplet, I needed my thing, right?
	My brother Douglas was playing piano, my brother Jordan was good at math, and I was the ice skater.
	And so, what became a hobby.
	Or, an activity was swiftly an identity.
	And, you know, I write about my relationship to my mother, which is, you know, leaps and bounds more communicative and stronger because I have written about it.
	And ultimately, I think it's a privilege that my parents allow me to write about it and don't disown me.
	And, you know, I think also what was unusual about my situation is I was sent to a childhood nutritionist from ages 12 to 18.
	And I think that was really where the nexus of the eating disorder.
	This culminated ultimately because I was getting waved every week.
	I was being told what I can and cannot eat.
	And ultimately, I have a lot of resentment for that nutritionist because there was never a moment in which she questioned my motivation or checked in with me or anything.
	Ultimately, she was invested in a paycheck, which is a symptom of diet culture.
	So ultimately, I had my go around with diet culture in a very extreme way and figures hating.
	Was the motivation for that?
	Exacerbated at least.
	So, how did you get out of it?
	Because it's so hard to break an eating disorder.
	I, my freshman year of college, started watching other people eat.
	And I realized that other people were able to feed themselves based on instinct rather than controlling portions or, you know, obsessively weighing themselves or whatever it was.
	And so, it was because I was taken out of My childhood context that I was able to see that I was the unusual one.
	And as you cited earlier, you know, it was my freshman spring break.
	I went home and the emotional reality of being home and, you know, trying to differentiate myself as a New Yorker and being in Pasadena and kind of forced back into the space in which I felt like I was a different person.
	Ultimately, I perched eight times in one day.
	And that was when I was like, oh, something is wrong here.
	And so I went to my school's mental health services.
	They gave me a list of referrals.
	And thankfully, I was paired with an amazing therapist who incorporated feminism into my care.
	And ultimately, I feel really lucky because a lot of the ways we teach, not teach, treat eating disorders is by, you know, sending them to a clinic and sort of focusing on gaining weight and focusing on meal control.
	And I had none of that.
	It was more like, how do you feel?
	How do you remain neutral?
	How do you, how do you, Feed yourself based on instinct.
	And for a long time, that meant eating spicy tofu pad thai every single day.
	But then, you know, that didn't feel good anymore.
	Right.
	And it was because I had spent so many years abstaining and restricting that I kind of went overboard.
	And then once I started really feeling better about myself and more attuned to myself, I was able to learn how to feed myself based on instinct.
	And so, intuitive eating and feminism were central ideologies in my recovery.
	I've never heard anybody say that before.
	How feminism.
	Like, what?
	Just helping you see how this objectification of you as an ice skater, as a young woman, was feeding into unhealthy body images or what?
	Absolutely.
	The way in which I was internalizing patriarchy and performing for patriarchy, right?
	The idea of Eurocentric, thin standards being held above all else and trying to achieve that.
	Like, even as a cis white woman, I wasn't able to achieve the standard without, you know, fully breaking myself.
	And so ultimately, feminism, intersectional feminism, allowed me to understand the way in which I was perpetuating a system that I wanted to break free from.
	Oh, that is fascinating.
	So, you know, I'm sure your dad's told you, or you know, I'm not woke and I'm not really into the whole woke thing.
	But I love hearing that it worked to perform some radical good in your life.
	I can hear how and why.
	Absolutely.
	I think feminism was central to my evolution of self.
	And, you know, I went to Barnard, which is like feminism mecca.
	And other than Smith, maybe they're tied.
	And, you know, freshman year was the first time I encountered feminism.
	And it was before that that I never felt confident enough to have an opinion, I didn't feel smart.
	And being introduced to feminism and really thinking about the social strata of the country, of the culture, of the world really helped me find my voice.
	Did it give you more compassion for your mom?
	It did give me more compassion for my mom.
	It did.
	I think ultimately, before I went to college, I was very much like, I'm only friends with guys.
	And ultimately, that was kind of a misogynistic belief to keep perpetuating because ultimately, At Barnard, I learned that women and non binary people and everyone is affected by feminism.
	Feminism isn't just about pushing a female agenda, it's about equality for all.
	And in order to really achieve equality for all, we need to be realistic about where everyone is situated.
	Can I back up and ask you about the patriarchy you mentioned and the ice skating?
	Because I get what you're saying.
	Trust me, I've definitely dealt with the patriarchy, capital T, capital P.
	I also think women do it even more so, if not as much, if not more so than men to other women, right?
	Like these crazy beauty standards that we're setting, we're doing it to ourselves.
	But that's sort of the internalization of patriarchy, right?
	I think because patriarchy is sort of the superstructure of our lives, the only way to survive is to internalize that structure and repurpose it.
	And so misogyny is real.
	Misogyny is real.
	And a lot of women, I think we need to come to terms with the fact that they have internalized misogyny, whether that's how they view other women, whether that's how they view themselves, whether that's just how they move through the world.
	It's our default as a culture is misogynistic.
	And the internalization of patriarchy is sort of a perpetuation of that misogyny.
	So I had a guy on the show yesterday who I really like.
	His name is Leonidas Johnson, and he's a Black man who's.
	Got heterodox views on BLM and, you know, sort of these race discussions that we've been having nationally.
	And he was saying he gets accused of being sort of a supporter of white supremacy.
	And I was saying I get accused of having internalized misogyny if I'm ever critical of a woman.
	And I've kicked that around.
	I'm wide open to any possible criticisms of myself and the possibility that I've got some issue.
	But I genuinely don't think that's it.
	I genuinely think that I'm just sort of a journalist whose job it is to comment on.
	People in the news, and sometimes it's men and sometimes it's women, sometimes they're white, sometimes they're black.
	But whenever I say something about a woman, I get accused of that.
	Whenever he says something about this movement, he.
	So don't you think that those labels get overused?
	They sort of get weaponized against people as well.
	If I could jump in, I think we need a new vocabulary because I think words like white supremacy have, or they're so loaded that, and they're absolutely weaponized.
	I agree with you.
	I think there is a language that we could generate.
	Where everyone could grab onto these concepts and kind of understand more generally what we're talking about.
	I feel like anything has the potential to be weaponized when it's put in the wrong hands.
	I think even if we had a new vocabulary, it would be weaponized.
	And I think it's about America.
	I think it's, well, yeah, America.
	I think it's simplistic to say if you're a woman and you criticize a woman, that's misogynistic, right?
	Like, that's just reductive and not necessarily true.
	To not criticize a woman because she's a woman is misogynistic.
	So, yes, that's how I feel.
	That's how I feel too.
	It's like, don't baby her.
	Like, she can take it.
	You know, I don't like it when people treat women like they're delicate flowers.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	And I, you know, ultimately, all of the verbiage comes from an academic perspective.
	Background.
	And I think because the verbiage is so academic that it can feel inaccessible and it's easy to kind of ascribe your own meaning to it.
	And, you know, I think that all words can be weaponized.
	And, you know, it's hard to say that a new vocabulary would rectify that situation.
	So, Drew, can I ask you?
	I noticed that Frederick Douglass was struggling with this in 1870.
	He really was with a language for this.
	And I'm scouring his rhetoric right now to see if I can figure out if he got to a place that we could use today.
	He too was a white supremacist.
	Well, no, but he thought Abraham Lincoln was a white supremacist.
	And when I first read that, I was like, what?
	Why Abraham Lincoln?
Weaponized Words and Rhetoric 00:10:45
	No.
	And then I thought, oh, I understand what he's talking about.
	I get it.
	Just the words struck me wrong.
	Well, so can we let's dial it back just a little?
	Because when Paulina was talking about, you know, your wife, her mom, the struggle she went through when she realized she had an eating disorder, she went to a therapist, you know, not to you.
	How does that, how do you square all that?
	Like, how's that making you feel when you realized all of it that your daughter had this eating problem?
	How did what did that bring up for you as a guy who's been a therapist and encouraging therapists?
	I had an immediate reaction.
	I had an immediate reaction.
	My reaction was I was sad that she had an illness, right?
	I was sad that she was not well.
	But I was so grateful that not only had she on her own gone out and gotten treatment, she was clearly benefiting and embracing treatment.
	I was so grateful.
	Listen, psychiatric illness, mental health issues, medical illnesses, we are human beings, we're biological entities.
	Shit happens.
	It happens to all of us.
	It happens to all of us.
	All of us.
	The difference is, and by the way, then people came after me, well, you didn't even know your daughter has eating disorders.
	Like, yeah, that's the point.
	They don't hide it.
	There's no way you could know if you're the parent, especially.
	And the fact that when people embrace treatment, that's the difference for me.
	Then I'm just like, oh, this is going to go okay.
	I know this will be okay.
	We just got to support the treatment.
	And it's not going to be fun.
	It may be painful, but I just was so grateful for that.
	I just, That was what I felt at the moment.
	So, can I tell you, I totally relate to this because, first of all, I have two very good friends whose daughters have severe eating disorders and watch them go through all of that.
	And in my own family, and I haven't been given permission to talk about this in more detail, but someday I likely will get that permission and then we'll do so.
	But I have a very close family member who got swept up into the opioid crisis.
	And when it was happening, we didn't realize that it was a national crisis.
	We didn't realize that this was a thing that a lot of families, millions of families, as it turns out, were experiencing.
	We just thought, oh my God.
	You know, this person's a drug addict.
	What on earth, right?
	And all the judgments that came with it, because drug addicts tend to lie and they tend to steal and they tend to do a bunch of things that you don't, you know, like.
	And there was a fair amount of shame connected to it shame, anger, and definitely was personalized, you know, by us against this person.
	And now with time and understanding it's actually a big national crisis that we all went through.
	I mean, so many people.
	And same for an eating disorder, same for all these things that we carry around, like our own personal burdens, whereas.
	Every family has this shit.
	You're not alone.
	It's not your effed up family.
	It's life.
	It's being a human.
	And please, if you do get to a point where you want to discuss it, let me help you discuss it because it's something I know very, very well.
	And to your point about the stealing and the bullshitting, that's a symptom of the illness.
	That's not the person.
	That's a symptom of that person's illness.
	And yeah, there's a lot to be said, but we'll leave it here.
	Go ahead.
	I was just thinking about my first media sensational experience, which was back in 2013.
	The sort of mantra that I kept.
	Pitching again and again was like, you know, even Dr. Drew's daughter has an eating disorder, right?
	Like, even this person who, you know, advocates for, works towards mental health, it can affect his family as well.
	And ultimately, like, I just, there's so much silence around eating disorders.
	Like, it's a fundamental aspect of the disease itself.
	And so, the more that I can talk about it, the more I feel like I'm in service of someone else's healing.
	And to your point, like, in your defense, Dr. Drew, just because you're in the mental health field does not mean.
	You will raise perfect children who will have none of these issues.
	That's absurd.
	Absolutely not.
	And I assure you, having been around reams of leagues of psychiatrists, their family have stuff too.
	It's just the way it is.
	And good ones, good psychiatrists were accepting of it and work towards good treatment and good outcomes.
	And other psychiatrists pay for their thoughts on the shams.
	Now, there's a great line in the book talking about dating and what to look for.
	For in your mate and how to tell whether this is a person you ought to be with.
	I'm going to read it after the break because I want people to remember this.
	It was like one of the best summaries of sort of how to know whether you've got a good person or not.
	Dr. Drew and Paulina Papinsky are staying with us.
	If you have any parenting questions or eating disorder questions or any questions at all that you want to discuss, give us a call.
	833 44 Megan, M E G Y N. That's 833 446 3496.
	Welcome back to The Megan Kelly Show, joined today by Dr. Drew Pinsky and his daughter Paulina Pinsky, both here talking about their new book, It Doesn't Have to Be Awkward, out today.
	These conversations, drugs, sex, alcohol, whatever it is, you can talk to your kids about it.
	You can talk to each other about it.
	It doesn't make you bad.
	In fact, it's going to help you have a better life.
	And if you have a question for our guests, for me, or if you just want to talk parenting, life, what have you, give us a call, 833 44 Megan, M E G Y N. That's 83446 3496.
	Okay, so you guys in your book talk about discussions when it comes to parenting, when it comes to sex, when it comes to dating.
	One of the things you say is number one, talk to your parents and parents talk to your kids about sex.
	Being open about it may save you from doing anything prematurely, but man, it's easier said than done, right?
	I mean, it's hard to have that.
	It's like, okay, safe sex, this is what you should do.
	I think most parents understand they should discuss that.
	But beyond that, I don't know a lot of parents who want to go.
	Into, so have you done it yet?
	How'd it go?
	What did you use?
	What did you feel?
	Right?
	I should, how detailed do we get?
	I'll give that one to you, Dr. Drew.
	I don't believe you should get detailed at all unless the kid is asking for it.
	I, in fact, my whole philosophy is to create the environment where the child can bring you their questions and an environment where you can express your values.
	So, in other words, your goal is not to give an entire plumbing lesson when a child has a simple question about kissing.
	You know, like, oh, here's my chance.
	A lot of parents for a while there that was sort of the parenting thing.
	Are you familiar with the vulva?
	No, yeah, no, that's right.
	And it should be did I just answer the question?
	Did I answer it to your, you know, is that all you need?
	Do you want anything more?
	Do you have any other questions?
	I hope you'll come back to me with more.
	More questions.
	And oh, by the way, here's a little more information.
	Here's how I feel about this.
	Here's how I hope you'll, you know, consider whatever.
	Yeah.
	For instance, one of the things that I think is important to communicate to kids early is that, you know, if you have sex before you're 16, our brains really aren't developed for that yet.
	They just don't handle it well.
	And so 16 is a good threshold, just sort of.
	And oh, by the way, if you do have sex, here's, you know, what I feel about relationships and what context that should happen.
	I have a question.
	I have a follow up for you on that because my kids actually asked me the other day when I lost my virginity.
	I was like, what?
	Look over there, something shiny.
	Right.
	So, this is, I'm glad you brought this kind of thing up because I haven't answered this one in a while, which is whatever you did or did not do, you are not under any obligation to share with your kids when they are under the age of 21.
	Never lie.
	Don't ever lie to your kids.
	But if it's something that you wish you'd waited, let's say, then your response should be, we're not here to discuss what I did or not do.
	Here's what I expect of you.
	And that's going to, what you're going to get back is, oh, that means you had sex.
	It's like, I we're not, it has a totally different impact than going, Well, honey, let me tell you, when I was 15, everybody wasn't so good, and here's what happened, here's how I felt not good, not good, get out of bounds because you're what, whatever you did, if you share that with your kid, you're issuing them a license to pick up where you left off.
	Okay, so this is a follow up question because you and I had this discussion last time about underage drinking, and you said with your triplets, and now I've got one of them here, so I can verify this.
	Um, that you basically said, If I ever find out that you were at somebody else's house.
	Boozing it up, and the parents know about it.
	You better pray that I don't find out because I'll be outside with a megaphone calling the cops and put the fear of God into your kids about that scenario.
	And God forbid you would never be the house hosting such a party.
	Paulina, the parents had to actually serve the beer.
	So the kids, then I'd be hauling the parents out.
	The kids I know are going to do their thing.
	But did I say that or did I not say that?
	You said that if you get arrested, I'm not getting out of jail.
	I really internalized that.
	I mean, I was terrified.
	Before the age of 18, I was that was unfortunately, as I told you, because of my experience, that was my goal.
	I just got to make sure we get through adolescence.
	That's what we got to do.
	I mean, when we have, you know, a drug and alcohol talk at school, it was my dad giving the talk.
	So, you know, it didn't make me popular at parties, right?
	Yeah, we didn't really get invited, the sad fall, which was painful.
	But ultimately, you know, I went to college, I started experimenting, I started pushing it too much.
	And, you know, I really hear the The importance of weeding developmentally.
	Like, I'm glad that my brain was booze free for the first 18 years.
	But ultimately, with this book, I also wanted to give advice on how to engage with it in a harm reduction sense, right?
	How do you move through these substances?
	Because inevitably, a lot of us choose to partake.
	And so, you know, we have guidelines in here about how to, you know, enlist people to surround yourself with, how to check in with yourself, how to take your temperature and really tune into reality and what is happening.
	And the big piece of this, remember, this book started as a consent book on the heels of me too, when there was a lot of confusion with young people about navigating consent.
	And we emphasize again and again and again, you cannot render consent when you are intoxicated.
	You cannot do it.
	It's not possible.
	Now, you talk about dating and how to figure out who to date.
	And I like that you talk about focusing on yourself, pursue your own passions.
	I've said this to the audience as well.
	Like the way you become a more attractive person just in life to yourself, to your friends, to a potential mate is to be interesting, to be interested.
	And to be interesting.
	And so that's really the number one thing you need to focus on.
	But you talk about that too and say, you know, real friends and romantic partners, though kind, worth having, will come if you do that and you're not big on hookup culture.
	But here's the line I loved how people treat you.
	Shows you how they treat themselves.
Trust Compassion Boundaries 00:03:16
	If they treat you like dirt, you best believe their internal monologue is intolerable.
	I love that.
	That's going to make me feel so much better whenever somebody gives me a hard time from this point forward.
	That's so true, too.
	It's obviously true.
	If they're hateful to the outside world, they're hateful in their own heads.
	And I would argue that those are like, that was me.
	Yeah, I was going to say those are your words.
	And, but I would say, and we live in a time when people are.
	Projecting hateful impulses onto everybody when really it's something they worry about in their own heart and they're seeing it everywhere else, all to the point of delusionality, as you and I have discussed before.
	But be careful when you see hatred elsewhere outside of your body, look for it inside.
	That seems brilliant to me.
	One of the things you sort of base the book around is TCB, trust, compassion, and boundaries.
	And these should be the rules basically for all of our relationships trust, compassion, and boundaries.
	Can you just expand on that a bit?
	Well, let's tell a little history on this.
	So, TCB has been in my life for the past 20 years.
	I was obsessed with Elvis Presley from a very young age.
	Right.
	And his rhythm section was called TCB, and he gave them all TCB necklaces that had lightning bolts.
	And in the third grade, when I became obsessed with Elvis, you know, reading all of the biographies out there, I decided I needed the necklace for myself.
	Speaking of feminism, how accurate were those biographies?
	I mean, yeah, I mean, Problematic fave.
	Elvis is very problematic, you know, marrying a 14 year old, stealing black music.
	We tend to gloss right over that.
	Yeah.
	What about Jerry Lee Lewis?
	Jerry Lee Lewis.
	Yeah.
	He.
	Some problems.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Also, it's better just to listen.
	Just listen.
	You don't have to look too closely.
	But yeah, so I pray to Elvis before everything important.
	So he is more like a deity to me than a human, which is probably why I do the mental gymnastics of forgiving him in my mind.
	That is how I feel about Judge Judy.
	Judge Judy, she's my Elvis in that way.
	I love her.
	Oh my God, what she says.
	That's so funny.
	I did not know that.
	That's fantastic.
	RuPaul.
	RuPaul is hers.
	And America.
	Hello.
	All right, keep going.
	Well, the fracking isn't great, but RuPaul has done in terms of just expanding LGBT representation in this country is phenomenal.
	But the fracking, not so great.
	However, she's lost.
	RuPaul is a fracker?
	Yeah, he fracks on his private property.
	Oh, how funny.
	I didn't know that.
	My God, we took a hard turn there.
	Let's talk to him about that, see what he's thinking.
	Okay, keep going.
	Keep going.
	TCB.
	TCB.
	So, Elvis brought TCB into my life, and this book brought trust, compassion, and boundaries into my life.
	So, we took TCB and we morphed it into an aphorism or an acronym for what we thought would be sort of headlines for maintaining good relationships.
	Ultimately, you can't give consent if one of those factors is missing.
	So, if you don't trust that person, You can't consent if you're not offering compassion to that person, you can't consent.
Family Addiction Interventions 00:12:17
	And if there are boundaries that are not being respected, then you obviously can't consent.
	But ultimately, the foundational idea of this book is that if you trust yourself, have compassion for yourself, and know your own boundaries, then you can trust someone else, offer them compassion, and respect their boundaries.
	And it sounds sort of almost glib and easy, but it's a complicated landscape, particularly the landscape of boundaries these days.
	Boundaries people don't fully get how important that is, how there are obvious physical boundaries, there are emotional boundaries, but there are deep boundaries too that we have.
	Between and amongst ourselves, that may not be all that apparent to somebody navigating a relationship.
	I do think when it comes to trust and compassion, frankly.
	It's one of the reasons why parents should try very, very hard to control their anger and try not to scream at their children and express the anger to the children.
	Because I do think it just erodes trust and makes a child in particular feel very unsteady.
	Not to say I'm perfect at this, but it's definitely a priority in my life to check my own anger, walk out of the room rather than yell at my kids because I do think it erodes trust and it certainly doesn't sound compassionate and it doesn't create a relationship that either party really wants to be a party to.
	Let me jump to some of our callers because they're.
	They're firing up right now.
	This is Dave from Ohio.
	He's called in and he's been dealing with weight issues his whole life.
	Hey, Dave, what's your question for?
	Hang on, Dave.
	Dave, you don't mind one quick second.
	I just want to put a code on something that Megan just said, which is if you are yelling, consider that a symptom of something that happened earlier.
	Some parenting intervention should have been manifest earlier.
	And that's why things get out of control and emotions escalate.
	So yelling is inevitable as a parent, but it's a symptom that something went wrong a lot earlier.
	Just think about it.
	I like that.
	Sorry.
	That's good.
	Dave, what's on your mind?
	Hey, I have.
	I'm 58 years old.
	I've been struggling with weight gain all my life.
	I lose it.
	I go all the way down to where I'm supposed to be.
	Then I'll gain it.
	I see this in my younger son who's 24.
	Very proud of him.
	Great kid.
	But I watch him pick on the bounce, and I'll say something to him, and it automatically gets into an argument.
	I mean, he takes it like you.
	Very personal.
	And I don't know how to fix it, but I want to fix it because I don't want to see him struggle like I've been struggling my whole life.
	Good question.
	That's a toughie.
	So, the first thing that comes to my mind is the book Health at Every Size by Dr. Lindo Bacon.
	I'm of the belief that you can achieve health at any size.
	And ultimately, what that book explains is that every time you put your body through extreme dieting and say you lose the weight, your set weight, which is your natural weight, rises.
	So, every time you lower your weight, your set weight goes higher and higher and higher, which is why when you lose weight, sometimes you gain weight.
	Plus more.
	And so I think ultimately what I would advise for you is trying to find a way out of the dieting cycle, learning how to feed yourself intuitively.
	And ultimately, you know, it's hard as someone who has had the conversation of you're gaining weight and we need to talk about it.
	I think ultimately how you interact with your son and how you interact with yourself is going to do more than telling him to lose weight.
	Right.
	So, if you can find a way to find balance in your life, maybe that can be a model for him, which is why I recommend Health at Every Size.
	That's a foundational text in terms of my own eating disorder recovery.
	My father probably has a different perspective, but I really believe Health at Every Size is possible.
	True.
	It's complicated on so many levels.
	You know, for Paulina's, the complexity of an eating disorder puts it all in a certain context.
	It sounds like Dave has a particular biological, genetic context for these things.
	And, you know, I don't want to over medicalize it, but I would just say that Paulina's advice that if you can, like, it's like for me, it's like a family where addictions in the family, the parent in recovery does more than anything else.
	And so her advice of you coming to terms in a more balanced way with your eating, I think, is a reasonable way of modeling something for your son.
	To get into it with him like this, you see, creates more trouble than not.
	I also do believe that it's good to get allies in other non parents.
	Talking to the child if it's important, the pediatrician, whatever, coaches at school, that kind of thing.
	But you're coming at him directly will be very difficult.
	I see.
	I agree with you on that because I.
	I don't know that I have to be honest, Paulina.
	I don't really believe in health at any size because I come from a family that's been dealing with obesity on many levels and I've seen what it can do to people's health, you know, actual physical health.
	But I also think we live in America and everyone here understands the pluses and minuses of waking, right?
	Of being overweight, of having a high BMI.
	I mean, like, this is not difficult information to receive as a person who grows up in America.
	And I would say, like, as a mom of young kids, I'll help them understand these are healthy choices.
	This is what You know, this is what this food will lead to, whatever sugar, not so great, blah, blah, blah.
	But once they've gotten that information, I would not intervene.
	Like if my daughter, let's say, I'm going to pick my daughter because we have different standards for women, of course, when it comes to weight.
	If I saw her getting chunky, I would not say, You're getting a little chunky.
	I would keep my mouth shut.
	I wouldn't say it because she knows.
	And one thing I can tell you, having grown up with a family of obese people, they know.
	They know.
	They know.
	And maybe they're good with it, maybe they're not good with it, but they definitely don't need people to sort of remind them.
	Of how to lose weight or that they, whatever the consequences are of being overweight.
	Okay, that's my own two cents.
	I like this.
	This is fun.
	I like different opinions too.
	Okay, let me get to, oh, this is kind of interesting.
	Terry in Missouri, she's got a question about therapy.
	Terry, hi.
	Hi.
	First, I want to say, Megan, I'm so happy that you're on your system.
	And I'm glad you have Dr. Drew there and his daughter.
	And okay, so Dr. Drew, your daughter hit on something which is wonderful at her age because I'm 62.
	And I'm trying to figure some stuff out.
	And my problem is finding the right therapist, I guess, with whatever specialties in their title.
	This is my situation.
	So it's taken me a long time to figure.
	I reflect a lot.
	I was married 26 years.
	I was married to a workaholic.
	And while I didn't think that was a bad thing, I thought, oh, that's a good, he works hard.
	My father was an alcoholic, right?
	So through the years, though, I found my problem, and I understand what your daughter was saying.
	I, okay.
	Now you got to cut to the chase.
	I've learned this from Dr. Laura.
	Okay, okay, okay.
	What I, Oh, I'm sorry.
	I know I love her too.
	Okay.
	So I just need to know what therapist, because Dr. Drew, you said a person has to work through that.
	Where I quit picking people that are unavailable, okay, really, for a relationship, whether they're a workaholic, alcoholic, and I have a lot of who.
	All right.
	Let him answer.
	Let him answer.
	Right.
	Two things.
	I do believe that trauma informed therapy is extremely important if you have alcoholism addiction in your family and you've had unavailable or abandoned parents.
	I think that's traumatic enough that trauma informed therapy can be very helpful.
	So Ideally, you want somebody, in my opinion, LCSW PhD, after their name, Psy D. LCSW PhD, Psy D, with training who specifically says they have trauma informed therapy, ideally with alcoholic family systems.
	And then you yourself should go to a program called Al Anon or Adult Children of Alcoholics, and you'll find people who have very, very similar histories of your own.
	You'll sort of understand the landscape a little better of what you're dealing with.
	I like that.
	Okay, Shane in California has got a question for you, Dr. Drew, about COVID alternative medicines.
	Hey, Shane, what's your question?
	Just want to say I was raised in the 70s by bra burning feminists.
	So faux feminism really does disturb me.
	One of the things, double standards, is it's okay to make fun of obese men, especially politicians.
	And why is it taboo?
	An obese president received alternative treatment, but it's taboo to even discuss those alternative treatments.
	You mean Trump?
	You're talking about Trump.
	What alternative treatments did he get?
	Oh, you mean the hydroxychloroquine?
	On BBC, it shows about a half a dozen treatments.
	I know one of them is cost prohibitive, but it's pretty much forbidden to even discuss that.
	I mean, I had to really search.
	You're not allowed to discuss ivermectin.
	You'll get kicked off every platform if you discuss even the data on that.
	Hydroxychloroquine went through a similar phase.
	Both are medicines that I've prescribed throughout my career.
	In fact, the CDC has a mandate for every, all the Afghanis coming in will have to be put on ivermectin for roundworms, that every, every refugee that comes to this country gets put on ivermectin.
	That's not a vaccine mandate.
	It's crazy.
	We all have to get the vaccine.
	But not for COVID, for roundworms, to be fair.
	And hydroxychloroquine, I've been using for lupus for decades.
	And it's the only medication I know of that the American College of Physicians recommends that women stay on during pregnancy.
	Because it's so safe.
	So it's weird to me that these medicines have had all this energy around them.
	Medicines that I've been using for decades, you just learned how to pronounce and people have opinions about.
	That's crazy.
	The only thing I know that Trump got that worked really was steroids and monoclonal antibodies.
	That's what got him better.
	And those work to this day.
	They kept me out of the hospital.
	Monoclonal antibodies.
	Anyone with moderate, severe COVID who is in an age category that can get to trouble should be getting monoclonal antibodies.
	Period.
	That's fake now.
	Yeah.
	I also think it's unacceptable to make fun of anybody for their weight.
	Yeah, I would think you'd say that.
	You know, and I also think that feminism has come a long way from the 70s.
	It's much more intersectional.
	The feminist first, second wave feminism was reductive and really only for white women.
	And so I would encourage you to educate yourself on the way fourth wave feminism is going.
	But isn't it kind of annoying, Paulina, about how like now at some of these schools, you can't even have a white guy in the syllabus, like the reading that's handed out?
	Like it does seem as the mother of two future white men and a white Girl, I do worry.
	I don't like the demonization of men in an effort to sort of lift up women.
	It seems unnecessary.
	I don't like it.
	And I don't think we should be banning works by guys who have offered a lot to human history, never mind American history, just because of the color of their skin or their genitals.
	Your thoughts?
	I think, you know, there should be a balance.
	To deny that this country was founded by white men and their foundational texts, and to deny that history.
	Is wrong.
	But I also think that it's wrong to deny the aspect of colonialism and the ways in which we enacted genocides on Indigenous people and people of color.
	And so I think it's about a balance.
	It's about incorporating both aspects of those.
	No one wants to deny the history and that these were not perfect people, but it gets upsetting when you see, like, we did a story last week about how they want trigger warnings all over the National Archives before you read the Declaration of Independence.
	It's like this, I mean, that speaks to something else entirely, to be honest.
	It's sort of this.
	This, I don't know.
	My husband called it coddle culture.
	You know, everybody needs a trigger warning before they see the Declaration of Independence.
	We got bigger problems on our hands than our history.
	All right, I stole the last word, Paulina, but we're going to come back.
	We're going to come back in one minute.
	We're going to squeeze in a quick break, and then Dr. Drew and Paulina are going to, well, no, they're leaving us now.
	So actually, we're squeezing in.
	Sorry.
	I guess we're getting rid of you.
	We can keep going.
	I don't realize that.
	Yeah, oh, if you can stay, then stay, and we'll pick it up on the opposite side of this break.
	Okay.
	Yeah, because you can, yeah, it's called It Doesn't Have to Be Awkward.
Middle School Conversations 00:02:25
	You got to buy the book today.
	And by the way, you should also check out their website.
	Premier Collectibles.com slash awkward.
	Love that.
	Calls are coming in and we'll take more right after this break.
	833 44 Megan, M E G Y N. 833 446 3496.
	Welcome back to the Megan Kelly Show.
	Dr. Drew Pinsky and his daughter Paulina Pinsky are here talking about their new book, It Doesn't Have to Be Awkward.
	Phone lines are open at 833 446 3496.
	3496.
	I want to ask you on the subject of how much is too much.
	You know, you're saying you don't have to share with your kids when just because they ask when they're minors.
	A woman down in Austin, Texas went off on her school board this week.
	Her name is Kara Bell.
	She was very angry during a school board meeting because she found out that there was a middle school library book that was apparently very sexually explicit.
	And they use the word, forgive me, this is a little R rated, but they use, she's talking about.
	Which is a game that we play in our backyard in the summer, but also is a reference to a certain kind of sex that, you know, let's just say, you know, comes from behind.
	But it's for those who didn't know that, I didn't know that before today either.
	Here she is talking about the book.
	Take her out back, we boys figured, then hand on the titties, put it in her coin box, put it in her cornhole, grab a hold of that braid, rub that calico.
	You can find that on page 39 of the book called Out of Darkness, which you can find at Hudson Bend Middle School and Bee Cave Middle School.
	All right, not gonna lie, I had to Google cornhole because I have the game in the back of my yard.
	But according to Wikipedia, cornhole is a sexual slang, vulgarism for anus.
	The term came into use in the 1910s of the United States as verb form to cornhole, which came into usage in the 1930s, means to have anal sex.
	I do not want my children to learn about anal sex in middle school.
	I have never had anal sex.
	I don't wanna have anal sex.
	I don't want my kids having anal sex.
	I want you to start focusing on education and not public health.
	Stone, you're on.
	That was a lot of information.
	A lot of information from Kara.
	Yeah.
	You're right.
	But you know what?
	I have to say, yeah, I feel the same.
	Middle school is a little young for that.
Educate Not Public Health 00:02:26
	Your thoughts.
	Listen, you're trying to, the most important thing you're trying to educate in, particularly again, as I said earlier, under the age of 16, your brain is not really processing these things.
	The concept of sexuality is very vague and very poorly formed.
	You're more than anything else trying to educate kids about decency and values.
	They see tons of stuff.
	The average age of exposure to porn now is age 11.
	Trust me, they've seen stuff.
	Sometimes nine.
	Sometimes, oftentimes nine, unfortunately.
	And it's about processing this material, not amplifying it and making it normative necessarily, just creating a sense of decency and values and how to navigate relationships.
	All right.
	Well, good for her for speaking up.
	All right.
	Let me get to Vicki in Arizona, who's got a question about her daughter.
	Hey, Vicki.
	Hello.
	Thanks for taking my call.
	So, Dr. Drew, my daughter is a young infant, kindergarten, what have you.
	She would remove herself from toxic situations and calm her down.
	And I was told that was great.
	But as she grows older in high school, she would have friends.
	But then if they didn't treat her the way she felt to be treated, she would just cut them off.
	And I find her doing that in college too.
	Is that typical or is she negative in her mind?
	And then I need to get her help that way.
	I just find it's hard for me to.
	Tell based on what you're saying.
	I mean, I would need a little more information.
	I mean, on its surface, it sounds like a perfectly healthy way of self empowerment, right?
	I don't, these people aren't treating me the way I want to be treated.
	I'm out.
	On the other hand, if she's unable to maintain friendships and sustain them, she needs to learn how to express her dissatisfaction in a way that allows for continued connectedness with people that actually care about her.
	There's just because somebody disappoints her doesn't mean that they need to be abandoned and rejected.
	That kind of all in, all out thinking can be problematic.
	You guys, this has been so fun.
	I have to say, I think, Pauline, you may be the first truly woke person that we've had on the show.
	And so it was brave of you even to do that.
	And I love hearing your perspective.
	I love your relationship.
	Thank you guys both so much.
	And good luck with the book.
	Thanks, Betty.
	Thank you for having us.
	It doesn't have to be awkward.
	Tomorrow, immigration.
	Dennis Michael Lynch has been covering the border for years.
	Love him.
	Download today's full episode on the podcast and go to youtube.comslash Megan Kelly and subscribe.
	We'll see you tomorrow.

Chapters

00:00:00 Facts Over Feelings
00:08:04 The Vaccine Decision
00:23:29 Women in the Fields
00:37:00 Adjusting Positions on Issues
00:52:39 Patriarchy and Ice Skating
01:05:20 Weaponized Words and Rhetoric
01:16:05 Trust Compassion Boundaries
01:19:22 Family Addiction Interventions
01:31:40 Middle School Conversations
01:34:05 Educate Not Public Health