Podbit · 2 Bears, 1 Cave with Tom Segura & Bert Kreischer
Kratom was once a sponsor on their podcast — they told listeners to take it before workouts. Looking it up live, they discover it binds to the same opioid receptors as morphine and oxycodone. Awkward.
Where this was said
At 49:50 · chapter starts 47:57
The drug discussion begins innocuously — Bert wondering why so many sober people in his feed are addicted to kratom — and escalates fast. Tom reveals they used to sponsor kratom as a pre-workout supplement, then they look up the science live: kratom binds to the same opioid receptors as morphine and oxycodone [1] — Tom Segura "Kratom was once a sponsor on their podcast — they told listeners to take it before workouts. Looking it up live, they discover it binds to …" 49:50 . Tom then relays Dr. Drew's brilliant cocaine-vs-PCP behavioral split: cocaine users see cops and run, PCP users see cops and charge [2] — Tom Segura "Dr. Drew's best drug insight: coke people see a cop and bolt; PCP people see a cop and want to fight all of them. The difference between st…" 48:25 . The stories get wilder: a hotel guest returns from breakfast to find a cleaner passed out in their bed after mistaking a bag of ketamine for cocaine; British kids in a park dose an Irish traveler and film his K-hole. Bert concludes he'd consider ketamine only if it helped with his flying anxiety. The chapter closes with Tom referencing Matthew Perry's ketamine death as a sobering data point.
Dr. Drew's best drug insight: coke people see a cop and bolt; PCP people see a cop and want to fight all of them. The difference between stimulant-driven paranoia and dissociative invincibility, explained through pure chaos.
Tom and Bert looked up that kratom's active compounds bind to the same opioid receptors targeted by morphine and oxycodone, acting like a stimulant at low doses and an opioid at high doses.
Bert referenced that actor Matthew Perry died from ketamine use, noting it as one of the drug's real-world dangers.
A photographer at Bert's magazine shoot casually mentioned she'd 'fallen' — then revealed she jumped off a 10-story building during a ketamine treatment for depression, broke both shins, required a tracheotomy, and woke up 4 weeks later in a hospital with no memory. Didn't even scratch her face.
A photographer at Bert's photo shoot revealed she jumped from a 10-story building during a ketamine treatment, broke both shins, required a tracheotomy, and woke up 4 weeks later in hospital.
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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