The Dr. Junkie Show

Today I continue a series of interviews with recently incarcerated people who are doing some great things in the community. Taylor Doucet was sentenced to 28 years in prison for two attempted murderers in 2013. While inside he found a different version of himself and worked to overcome his past. Now he is a peer recovery coach, a personal trainer, and a bad ass academic. We talk about prison tatto...

This week I host another interview with a previously incarcerated student who is doing some great work in the community. Sean Mueller was sentenced to 40 years in prison in 2010 after being convicted of running a "Ponzi Scheme" and losing a few million dollars of investors' money. Since his incarceration, he's worked to become an artist, an author, and an academic; he is curren...

This week I share a story from another previously-incarcerated person who is doing some incredible work in the community. Geordan Morris was one of my students in the CU-Denver Strategic Communication program, and since his release earlier this year, he's worked with others who have struggled with addiction, trauma, and incarceration to help them define recovery on their own terms and to embo...

This week I sat down with Colorado's David Carrillo, who was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole thirty years ago, when he was 19 years old. Since then, David has accomplished some incredible things behind bars. He enrolled in college, completed his Bachelor's and then his Master's Degree, and then got hired to teach for a local college inside prison while...

Today is the first episode in a series about people who are justice impacted and who managed to break out of the trap of recidivism. I start with my partner, Dr. Erin Boyce, whose story winds through 20 years, 5 drugs, 4 states and 3 felony arrests. We discuss religious trauma, addiction, role models, prison transports, check fraud, the lost art of gas-and-dash, and we zoom in on education as a wa...

This week is about the evolution of drugs and the role of big pharma (#Capitalism) in creating and exploding the war on drugs. From Cannabis to Marinol to Spice/K2... From coca leaves to cocaine to crack... From willow tree bark to Aspirin to Ibuprofen... From eucalyptus to amphetamine to methamphetamine to Adderall... From PCP to Ketamine... From tea to barbiturates to benzos to SSRIs to glutamat...

Email us at DrJunkieShow@gmail.com Why does everyone in the 2020s seem to have their own version of reality? And why does truth seem to be up for debate in every area? Marshall McLuhan explained why 50 years ago. This week I answer the question, "why don't you host commercials?" I also discuss the larger, related issues of capitalism, neoliberalism, and Marshall McLuhan's claim...

Email us at DrJunkieShow@gmail.com This week I talk about Karl Marx's claim that religion is the opium of the masses. I also talk about Friedrich Engels's concept of exploitation by wage labor, Friedrich Hegel's dialectics, capitalism, globalization, and the religious values of different eras (and why they always align with economic values of that era).  Support the show

Email us at DrJunkieShow@gmail.com This week I dive back into some philosophical theory related to why we are so prone to struggle with anxiety, addiction and alienation in today's world. Guy Debord wrote The Society of the Spectacle more than 50 years ago, and in it he explained the current state of so-called "Western Cultures" as having moved from the importance of being  to a cul...

Email us at DrJunkieShow@gmail.com This week I dive back into some philosophical theory related to why we are so prone to struggle with anxiety, addiction and alienation in today's world. Guy Debord wrote The Society of the Spectacle more than 50 years ago, and in it he explained the current state of so-called "Western Cultures" as having moved from the importance of being  to a cul...

Email us at DrJunkieShow@gmail.com C. Dreams, Dr. Christina Perez's moniker while incarcerated, joins me today to talk about addiction, recovery, reentry, education, stigma, social movement, reappropriation, colorism, plus she shares her story of doing interviews (including for this show) on a contraband cell phone smuggled into her prison cell. Check out C. Dreams' work at Filter Magazi...

Email us at DrJunkieShow@gmail.com This week I revisit a topic I've discussed repeatedly on this show: the reported success rates of 12-Step programs like AA and NA. I talk about the reason these programs persist as the norm despite an odd lack of data to verify their success, and I walk through the reasons AA and other 12-Step programs are highly religious while almost always claiming (and a...

Email us at DrJunkieShow@gmail.com This week I talk about the medication shortages across the United States. Drugs used to treat ADHD, chronic pain, and other conditions have been in short supply lately for reasons unexplained. Different groups have blamed the shortage on one anther: the manufacturers blame the DEA, while the DEA blames manufacturers. But as usual, the problem comes down to a desi...

Email us at DrJunkieShow@gmail.com This week I wrap up a multi-part discussion of Foucault's theories of panoptic power, institutional knowledge, and discourses used to endorse awful ideas and beliefs about drugs and drug users. I also talk about Michel Foucault's car accident while high on opium, the notion of panoptic power, Jeremy Bentham's panoptic prison, discourse, stigma and...

Email us at DrJunkieShow@gmail.com Captured Words/Free Thoughts is an annual, non-profit publication packed with art, poetry and prose inspired and written inside US prisons. Every year a group of volunteers records some of the submissions in audio form to share with the world. An online version of the full magazine (and all previous volumes) is here . If you or someone you know (in prison or out)...

Email us at DrJunkieShow@gmail.com If we wanted to design a culture from the ground up to maximize both the potential and severity of addiction, we would build it exactly like the United States today.  Once upon a time, humans received contentment and fulfilment from their work, and they often went home feeling connected to their communities and identified with the service or goods they offered fo...

Email us at DrJunkieShow@gmail.com This week I dive into neoliberalism and oligarchy, 2 systems the USA has repeatedly rejected despite their current resurgence of late. The war on drugs is part of a larger move to privatize public systems like medicine, post office services or policing, and to allow profiteering by rich folks who can step in to provide gear and services for these new markets once...

Email us at DrJunkieShow@gmail.com  Why do humans have such an odd fascination with criminals and outlaws? What happened to all the kings and queens who used to be in charge of everything...where did they go? Why? And what does any of this have to do with drugs? In this episode I pick up where I left off last time by introducing Michel Foucault's concept of panoptic power, which explains why...

Email us at DrJunkieShow@gmail.com Have you ever thought, "dang, I just got out of work and I already dread going back tomorrow!"? Most of us have, and in response we did something to make ourselves feel better, something to take the edge off: we treated ourselves to an ice cream cone or binge watched our favorite Netflix series. That's the norm of 21st Century capitalism. Today&apo...

Email us at DrJunkieShow@gmail.com This episode is all about America's unhealthily relationships with work and drugs. We live in a world where we are increasingly distracted and secluded, and our daily schedules often consist of punching a clock and returning home. It's no wonder we feel so compelled to use drugs. We are torturing ourselves with capitalism. Benjamin Fong's book, Qui...

Email us at DrJunkieShow@gmail.com Colorado's state prison budget has grown by almost 1300% in the last 35 years; it's now more than a billion dollars-per-year. This week I talk to Christie Donner, founder of the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition . We discuss the current state of prisons in Colorado and across the US, and we spend some time digging into a few specific bills curr...

This week my partner Dr. Erin Boyce joins me to talk about one of her areas of study, attachment theory. We discuss childhood development, identity formation, the important of strong attachments to parental figures, authenticity, depression, repression, and lots more. For more on Attachment Theory, check out Mary Ainsworth's work. For more on attachment, authenticity and addiction, check out...

This week I share a summary of my new book, The Spectacle of Punishment: Lessons from a Century of Prison Films . I discuss cinematic outlaws and lawmen, and I cover the three main prisons used in every movie: prison as a playground, prison as a paradox or prison as penance.  For more on Bill Yousman's work, check out his book Prime Time Prisons on US TV. Check out Ear Hustle and DU-PAI'...

This week I follow the trail of the US War on Drugs from 1970-2020. I cover Reagan's Iran-Contra scandal, the CIA's importation of cocaine into low income communities, Freeway Ricky, crack-versus-powder sentencing disparities, fentanyl, xylazine, and the role of media in all of it. You can find links to citations in the episode descriptions of sampled audio.  Support the show

This week I share part 2 of The War on Drugs: 1920-1970. If you prefer the video format with lots of images and videos, you can find it on YouTube at The Dr. Junkie Show channel. I cover Harry Anslinger, the origins of the war on drugs in the early 1900s, alcohol prohibition, stigmatization, and the recipe used by every politicians since to ramp the war up a bit more. Support the show