Addiction: Why Can't They Stop?

0:00Through 25 seasons, 4 ,561 episodes, I believe The Oprah Winfrey Show is one of the greatest classrooms in the world. I really never thought of it that way. The aha moments, the breakthroughs, the LOLs, the connections, the occasional ugly cry. I miss him so terribly. I miss him every single minute. The moments that mattered. Maddie! The eye-opening life lessons. Never allow them to take you somewhere else. I'm bringing them back. It's time to open the vault. I've personally chosen these classic episodes to share with you again. Every single person you ever will meet shares that common desire.

0:45They want to know, do you see me? Do you hear me? Does what I say mean anything to you? You are listening to The Oprah Winfrey Show, the podcast.

0:59Chances are there's somebody in your life who doesn't want you to see this show because they think they got you fooled. And after you hear what these five people have to say, it just might expose their secret life. Rick, Cheryl, Crystal, William, and Tom are all drug addicts. And in a few minutes, we're going to show you the latest technology and really cutting-edge treatments that are giving hope to millions of people who are facing this battle. Okay? So I want to start with Rick. Let's start with your story. All right. Yes. Well, I was a television reporter for about ten years. I worked my way up through Las Vegas, finally went to a show called Inside Edition.

1:43Mm-hmm. Y 'all remember Inside Edition. Still airs today. Mm-hmm. We started that show in 1988. I was the senior correspondent on the show. I was able to go around the world, do the headline stories of the day, and made a lot of money and finally ended up marrying a beautiful girl and had a big house in Dallas. But I had to commute back and forth from New York to Dallas all the time, so I didn't get to see the wife and the baby that much. What nobody knew at the time was that I was a crack cocaine addict, a hardcore crack cocaine addict daily throughout the process. Daily? Daily. While you were on the air?

2:15No. It was overnight. It was usually overnight. I'm what's called a functional addict. I was able to go in, pretty much time out that I've got six hours to be high and then two hours to come down, then I've got to be at work. Like 1994, I went 186 days that year without sleep, without going to bed, just doing the crack at night. Really? What does that do to your brain? To your brain, to your body, everything. You know, my health is, it will never be the same because of what I've done to my body. I probably smoked over a quarter of a million dollars worth of crack in a period of ten years. Really?

2:49So it's done its damage. So Rick has documented his life ever since he got his first video camera, because you always wanted to be a journalist? Mm-hmm. Yeah. And so at 14, he even recorded his spiral down into crack addiction. And so I just want to tell you that this footage contains some graphic drug use. Today's my 37th birthday. And here I am sitting here, fiending to get these things out and get them into a makeshift little pipe so that I can get a buzz. and that's how horrible the addiction is and yet it takes over your mind. It's completely like a second life. You can't really believe that it's happening, but it is.

3:33It's just an addiction. That's it right there. It's a makeshift pipe, crack cocaine. I see the packets, crack itself. The terrible thing is you don't think about your family, your friends, your career. All you do is think about doing this.

3:57That's about all it takes. A little trip down the old block here when you live next to the projects.

4:05I don't know what sent me off my fist time.

4:14I don't know what got into me.

4:19But the last couple of days have been Smoking that cocaine, waking up at 2 in the afternoon. It pissed me off. I can't around. I got two kids. I just up in my head. The last seven years or so has just been so crazy. I've just kind of lost my mind.

4:46I just don't want to live anymore.

4:51Rick's story is part of HBO's acclaimed series, Addiction. So when you watch that, what do you think? All of the time I wasted, all of the good times I wasted with my young son and the second son that came along right in the middle of the addiction. When you were 37 years old, you had children. Oh, yeah. How old were your boys at the time? At the time, they were three and five. Three and five. Right. And, of course, my wife. I missed a relationship. I wasn't a husband. I wasn't there for her in any way. Mm-hmm. Did she know? She had the house, the cars, and everything else. She just didn't have me.

5:23Did she know that you were an addict? No. No. Not in the beginning. Who knew you were an addict? Nobody. Nobody knew? Nobody knew. Weren't you reporting about crack addicts? Oh, yeah. Oh, I was sent out on, constantly sent out on stories, you know, to make busts at crack houses and things like that. In fact, that's how I was introduced to crack, was through a police department. Mm-hmm. There was an elite undercover team that went out, and they busted crack houses wearing these black ninja suits. And so I went out with them on a few occasions. And finally, one day, one of them had said, Rick, you know, this is powerful stuff.

5:54It's dangerous. He just basically said, here, you should try this to see how bad this is, why people don't need to do this. And I tried it, and the next day I was on the same streets buying it myself. And I was an addict from then on. Wow. Well, our producers tell me that there was once an interview that we'd be shocked to know that you had done crack just prior to doing that interview. And that interview was with? It was with former President Bush Sr., George Bush Sr., and then the, and ironically, Chuck Norris was having an event down in Houston. He sponsors, you know, Kick Drugs Out of America.

6:26Yeah. It was a tennis event, and the former president was there, and I asked, could I go up and interview the president? He said, of course, he wants to talk to you. He's seen the show. I had been smoking crack an hour beforehand. I was high when I interviewed the president. And so, you know, standing there high, interviewing the president, talking about not doing drugs... Exactly. ...and being at an event where you're talking about it, did you feel like a fraud? Hated myself. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely loathed myself. Could not look myself in the mirror. So why didn't you stop? You know... It felt so horrible.

6:58I really honestly, Oprah, I can't tell you why I didn't stop. It is a psychological addiction that when you go too high, you go too low, you go to the drug. And I honestly can't tell you why I couldn't stop. Meet Crystal. She says that she first tried crystal meth when she was 20 years old. For HBO's groundbreaking series called Addiction, she let cameras roll as she got high. Again, this footage is very graphic. Best feeling in the world. Yeah, it's just, it's like the biggest head rush in the world. Like, you can't hear for a little bit. You can't breathe. You can't see.

7:38People don't understand how we could get addicted to this, but I feel so good right now, better than any sober person has ever felt their whole entire life. That's what they don't know. If you're doing this stuff, you don't have aspirations to be anything else but a user. I mean, I was doing fine. I had a job, you know. I had a really nice truck, everything. My truck got re-pilled. I got kicked out of my apartment. I was fired, you know. Just, and it happened so quick. I can't even have a chance to realize it happened until it's already there. I gotta look in the mirror, man. I can't see. Oh, you're still in the neck, buddy?

8:17I burst the two veins in my arms before, so. Biggest veins. Three grams, four grams a day. Big shots, like half a gram for one shot. And then it's going on and on. Okay, explain to me why you're shooting in your neck. When I first started using meth, I started off snorting it, and the high wasn't good enough, so then I started smoking it. It wasn't good enough. Next thing I know, somebody introduced a needle to me. I started injecting in my arms. I blew both veins in my arms and it became so sore, I couldn't do it anymore, and I wanted to get high, so I went to the biggest vein that I knew, and it's my neck.

9:06And so what happens? You feel it more intensely? You feel it instantly? What? Yeah. Well, the way that meth works is that it works on your brain. And being that I inject into my neck, it hits me about ten times faster than anybody else that smokes it or even injects it into their arms. It hits me incredibly fast. And the euphoria that you get from it is just so overwhelming. I can't even describe it. It's not a good thing. It's not a good thing. No. And even as you watch yourself and then sit here and talk about it, does that trigger for you? Yeah, absolutely, it does. I mean, it's just incredibly hard to sit there and watch yourself do something that just, you know, tore your life apart.

9:53When's the last time you used? Last day of filming, which was a year and three months ago. A year and three months.

10:31Thank you. You lose yourself. These raw, emotional first-person experiences provide a rare glimpse into the broken lives of people who just can't stop. Eat your muscle. It's hardcore. I'm trying so hard! You tell me, how does it all end? So we just saw you, William, in that tape. How are you doing now? I'm doing okay. I still struggle from day to day. I have about close to a month clean right now.

11:09But it's very hard. But it's very hard. Very hard. Yes. Because is life better when you take the drug? Life is better. No, no. Life is no better when I take the drug. Absolutely. Life is no better to me. But you think it's going to be better. I actually don't even think it's going to be better. What I actually...what I'm actually doing when I use is trying to just escape for a minute. escape my reality. Okay. Or my perceived reality, actually. Okay. William is separated from his wife and has three children. So what have drugs done to your family? Drugs have always taken things from me. Actually, in the time I've been married to my wife, I actually, with the two and a half years clean, I married, relocated, had a great life.

11:55Using actually took my wife from me, in a way. Why can't you stop?

12:02I don't actually know the answer. Why can't you stop if you know, and I ask this of all of you, why can't you stop? Why couldn't you stop? You know you have your two sons waiting for you back at home. You know your wife is depending upon you. You know your wife is depending on you and your three children. Why can't you stop? I don't think that you don't have a choice. There's no choice. If it was as easy as that, I would have stopped in a heartbeat. You would have. I love my family so much. That's what we can't understand. That's what we can't understand is why is there no choice to it? Because it's a disease.

12:35And that's where we're, what I'm trying, and I think what everyone else here is trying to do, is try to explain to people out there who don't understand this is a disease. Yeah. It is a scientific fact that the brain changes when you put a drug into it like this. We don't have a choice. Crystal, you said that, or said to my producers, that you stayed up for three days after you tried meth for the first time. Yes, the first time. And after that first time, I swore to myself I would never do it again. And it didn't happen that way. I mean, it's more than just... How is it physically possible to stay up for three days?

13:08I mean, literally three days? That's a short stay. I mean, there was times I would stay up for five. What seems like 20 minutes is actually, like, six hours. I mean, time just flies by so fast. And then you just get to a point after being awake for so long that you can't even physically move. You're just so drained. Okay. So everybody who's dealt with this in your life, and everybody knows somebody who's had to deal with some form of addiction, or their children, or a member of their family, that is the number one question. Why can't they stop? Dr. Anna Rose Childress specializes in brain behavior at the Pennsylvania VA Addiction Treatment Research Center, and she's worked with William using the latest scientific technology available.

13:49And what did you do? So one of the things that we did was try to understand what goes on in the brain when people are engaged in this struggle. You've heard what a hard struggle it is. So we actually take pictures while people are seeing things that remind them of cocaine and try to understand that. Is it just cocaine or does it work the same for cocaine and meth? We actually do work with cocaine, marijuana, nicotine, heroin. So we work with all of these substances. And we take pictures of the brain when it's in its struggle. and when it's reacting to these cues that set off this state of desire that, as people have described here, is really powerful, really compelling, in the service of trying to find medications and treatments that might blunt that picture, that might take that craving down.

14:35Is it true what Richard just said? They don't have a choice? Because I think every person who's ever had to deal with an addict cannot understand why don't you just stop it. So if it were a simple matter of loving your family enough, no one here would have a problem. And if it were simply families loving you enough, you might not have the problem either. But because the brain is compromised, the person is actually not making choices in the rational way that you decide, I think I'll take a course at the university, or I think it's a better advantage to take this job or that job. There's a very different thing going on here.

15:12This brain is a different brain. And we think the brain may be different when you walk into the world in terms of your ability to manage some of your impulses. But certainly after it's been exposed to drug, there are important changes. Okay. Dr. Childress wanted to give us an idea of how quickly an addict's cravings are triggered. So tell us about these images we're about to see. So what we have here are very, very brief images that are coming by only a few milliseconds at a time. And even though for most of us, those images wouldn't really have much brain impact, for someone with a history of cocaine, there's an intense arousal that sets up in milliseconds.

15:49And it's as though the go system in the brain is off and running, off and running before your breaks have a chance to even kick in. Okay, so you're telling us in the time that those little pictures flash there is the amount of time it takes for an addict to... Begin to feel this feeling. To feel this feeling. Yeah, and that's pretty fast. That's why people who go to rehab or are trying so hard and they go back to the same neighborhood or they see the same things or see the same people, it's very, very, very difficult for them to overcome that. It's an uphill struggle, right? Because now you're surrounded by things that are reminders of cocaine.

16:27Okay, but this is what I want to know. Why can't you... You're smarter than the trigger. You're smarter than the trigger. You know more than you... So why can't you say, that's a trigger. That's a trigger. I know what that is. That's a trigger. And I'm not going to be pulled in by the trigger. So here's the unfair thing that's happened to the brain, is that from the brain's perspective, these cues signal the most important thing now. Now, because these drugs have essentially hijacked the brain, these cues say, this is more important than your children, than your spouse, than your job. Pursue this.

17:04From the brain's perspective, this is the important thing. Okay. All right. So what we have here are images... Actually... There's your brain. William's brain. Very nice brain. Nice brain. It's a great brain. And you can see that in response to very, very brief cocaine cues. And there's a very intense dialogue here saying, this is really exciting. You should go after this instead of going after your children. So tell me what I'm looking at, because what I'm looking at is... So this is an activity picture of the brain. And basically, there are some areas in the brain here that are very important normally for survival and for relationships, for connecting with your family, for pursuing all the good things.

17:38But they've been, and now, attached to the drug cues, so that now it's the cues that activate those systems. And they do it in a big way, in a fast way, and they do it... So, William's brain on cocaine. William's brain on cocaine cues. This is not even real cocaine. This is actually just pictures of paraphernalia, things that would be reminiscent of where he's purchased the drug, people with whom he's used the drug. So we call those cues. And then we can show over here that when it's neutral stuff, like desks and staplers and things that are not at all related to cocaine, that his brain is pretty uninterested.

18:15Uninterested. How can this new brain technology we've been talking about possibly save William's life? One of the things that we know is that we have a brain that's an intense go state over here. We have medications that we think can help take the red out, that basically can calm down this system and sort of bring it down into the range of stale chocolate, right? So instead of it being so compelling and something that would cause you to go away from your family and your children, with medication, you can get a brain now that's sort of back down to, this is not so exciting, I could take this or leave this.

18:53So the cool thing about these brain technologies is that for the first time in all of human history, we can see inside what's happening, see the targets, and see what we need to address. And so we're really excited that we can both calm down the ghost state, but also bolster the brakes, because one of the things that we've been able to see is that people with addictions, their brakes aren't so good. So two ways that you can help the car. One is to take your foot off the accelerator. Another way is to put on the brakes. So the hope for the future is that when we are able to actually target medications, we can take the red out.

19:32We can calm it down. Okay, take the red out. For the first time ever, researchers are now using cutting-edge technology to look inside the brains of drug addicts and alcoholics to try to understand why, that question that everybody who's ever had to deal with an addict asks, why can't you stop? Well, Tom, when did you start drinking? When I was in my mid-teens. And it's like, like most people when they first started drugs, it was weekends, then the progression. So alcohol is and was your drug of choice? Was my drug of choice. Was a drug. When did you realize you were an alcoholic? I think I realized I was an alcoholic when I first started drinking.

20:13I never made any bones about it. Really? My posture was I don't get in trouble with the law. Yeah. Financially, it's not that much of a burden. I don't get into altercations with families or friends or... Where's the harm? I heard you would wake up in the middle of the night and drink, though. Well, I didn't when I first started. It's only in the last ten years or so that I'd wake up in the middle of the night. And that you would drink a fifth of straight whiskey. Yeah. And drink it out of the bottle. Throw the cap away when you open it. Wow. No need to put it in a glass. Yeah. And... Now, when you say, where is the harm, you lost your wife and family because of this.

21:00I attribute alcoholism to my wife and I getting a divorce. Yeah. And... And I heard you used to tell yourself, some people fish? Some people fish, some people hunt, some people collect stamps. I just happen to drink as a hobby. Mm-hmm. And...but the hobby became as alcoholism or with, to my knowledge, any addiction with, It's progressive, and it'll finally destroy your life. Now, did you end up eventually taking some kind of drug or medication to stop the alcohol? Yes, I enrolled in a research program to evaluate several medications on it. And so you ended up taking a drug, a pill? It was a pill.

21:44Yeah, to help you stop having the cravings for drinking. Correct. Yeah. And that worked for you? It worked for me. Does it happen instantly? For me, when I first started the program, there was no delay. I, when I, when I took the pill, and I think part of that's a mindset, too. Yeah. Were you ready to stop your kid? I finally realized I was, it was killing me. Yeah. And, but I, I never, I never, haven't taken a drink since then. That's been two years ago. Right. So that's amazing. And so I often hear, or we've heard, that people have to hit bottom. Did you hit a bottom? Was...what was your bottom?