Podbit · The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway
Patients in GLP-1 trials spontaneously reduced alcohol intake, gambling, and even online shopping without being prompted. Lilly is now pursuing a Phase 3 drug — brenepatide — specifically for alcohol use disorder, as the mechanism appears to quiet hedonic urges broadly.
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At 13:15 · chapter starts 10:10
What began as a diabetes drug keeps revealing new capabilities. Ricks walks through the cascade: inflammation reduction (GLP-1s appear to be powerful anti-inflammatories, relevant to arthritis, asthma, psoriasis), and then the stranger, harder-to-explain behavioral effects. Patients in trials spontaneously drank less alcohol, gambled less, and shopped less online — without being asked or prompted. The mechanism, Ricks theorizes, is that alcohol is chemically close to glucose, and the same brain signaling that reduces sugar cravings quiets alcohol desire too. Critically, he pushes back on the 'joy kill switch' narrative: people don't lose pleasure, they just find less appetite for excess. Lilly is now running Phase 3 trials on brenepatide for alcohol use disorder. On pain: retatrutide, the triple-acting drug expected to launch next year, showed the most powerful knee pain reduction ever recorded pharmacologically — a finding with enormous implications given the scale of chronic pain in America. Cancer connections remain observational but are striking: people on GLP-1s for 5–6 years appear to have lower rates of colorectal and breast cancer.
Lilly's triple-acting GLP-1 drug retatrutide, expected for launch next year, produced the most powerful pharmacological pain reduction ever recorded for knee arthritis. The finding was unexpected and points to GLP-1s as potential game-changers for America's massive chronic pain burden.
Lilly's triple-acting retatrutide demonstrated the most powerful pain-reduction ever recorded pharmacologically for knee arthritis in clinical studies.
Obesity is described as a 'nodal health condition' connected to more than 200 chronic diseases, making GLP-1 treatment uniquely high-leverage.
Lilly is pursuing brenepatide in Phase 3 trials specifically for alcohol use disorder, after observational data showed GLP-1 users spontaneously drink less.
US drug pricing is systemically regressive: the largest institutional buyers get the lowest prices, while uninsured or underinsured individuals pay the most. Lilly created LillyDirect to let consumers buy directly at institutional prices, cutting Zepbound's cost by 60% to $399/month.
Self-help fails because people are sold one universal cure by the hyper-responders who had a transformative result from it. The real problem is context: every method works for the right person at the right time, which is almost never you just because the author says so.
Spencer Greenberg was once so socially anxious his heart pounded just approaching a stranger. His therapist gave him homework: go to a bar alone, talk to 5 strangers. Starting with asking for the time, he worked up to asking men for hugs — and his anxiety fell dramatically in 6 months.
A person who flies regularly but obsessively checks weather forecasts before every flight is not doing exposure therapy — they're teaching their brain that flying is only safe with the ritual. Safety behaviors prevent the brain from ever learning that the feared thing is actually fine.
The worry-time technique assigns all worries to one scheduled slot (e.g. 5 PM). Every time a worry surfaces, you write it down and ban yourself from engaging with it until that time. When 5 PM arrives, most worries feel trivial and the act of batch-worrying exposes how little it actually accomplishes.
In a randomized study of 20 habit techniques, 'habit reflection' stood out: recall a past habit you successfully built, write down what helped you succeed, then apply those same strategies to your new habit. It works because it's self-adapting — it uses whatever worked for YOU.
The tiny habits technique — always having a minimal version of your habit you can do when life gets in the way — keeps the mental machinery of habit formation from breaking. Paradoxically, people given a tiny-habit fallback option were MORE successful at the full habit, not less.
Fears and worries act like playground bullies — they want to ambush you. But when you deliberately seek them out and choose the time of engagement, they lose their power. The volitional act of starting the fight on your own terms is one of CBT's most underappreciated insights.
Most downtime defaults are things you regret immediately after — phone scrolling, binge TV. 'Glad you did it' activities meet the same need for rest but leave you feeling like you spent your time well. The switch from a bad screen to a documentary, a book, or a walk costs almost no extra effort but compounds into identity over time.
You rarely control your first reactive thought. But you can train your second thought — the response to the trigger — by asking whether your initial reaction is the most helpful one and replacing it with something equally true but more constructive. Over time, that second thought becomes automatic.
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