What did Dr. Steven Radowitz describe about ketamine-assisted psychotherapy for alcohol use?
In April 2023, I spoke with Dr. Steven Radowitz, an internist who does the medical and psychiatric intakes at Nushama, a center offering ketamine-assisted psychotherapy. We talked about a structured program called the KARE protocol and about why people reach for alcohol in the first place.
Early in the episode, he explained that the center began about two years earlier with a focus on mood disorders. Many of the people who came in also had alcohol use disorder, and that is how alcohol became part of the work.
This is an archive episode, recorded when the show covered addiction and recovery broadly. What follows reports the guest’s views as he gave them.
Why is alcohol so hard to see as a drug?
At 1:10, I said that alcohol dependence is one of the hardest problems I see. At 2:30, I added that people stop, do well for a while, and then go back to it.
From 3:09, Dr. Radowitz offered his explanation. Alcohol is legal, it is part of how we socialize and relax, and it even appears in religious ceremonies. So, in his view, people simply do not think of it as a drug.
Is drinking a disease or a message?
Dr. Radowitz does not see depression, anxiety, or trauma symptoms as diseases in themselves. He compared them to the pain of a broken leg, which is a messenger telling you something is out of alignment. Unfortunately, in his account, we often numb the message instead of listening to it, whether with alcohol, hours on social media, or other escapes.
At 7:27, he spoke about shame. When a label becomes a person’s whole identity, he said, every day without a drink feels like being someone they are not. He would rather ask a simpler question: is this tool still serving you?
What does spirituality mean in this setting?
At 9:09, I asked him about his center’s approach. It brings in a spiritual element, which I had not heard of before.
From 10:06, he explained what he means by that. Spirituality, for him, is interconnectedness, and it does not have to be religious. In fact, he sees mystical experience as science we have not yet learned to measure.
How does the KARE program work, step by step?
At 18:09, Dr. Radowitz described the KARE protocol, which he said came out of the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom. First, a nurse asks how much the person drinks. The question is whether stopping could bring on withdrawal. People have to be able to go about two days without alcohol and without acute withdrawal before they start. If there is a risk, he said, they are referred to a detox program first.
Next come his own medical and psychiatric intake, a psychotherapist, and preparation calls with workbooks about triggers. Each of three weekly treatment days includes a preparation session, an intravenous ketamine session, and time to come out of it, followed by an integration session over Zoom. A fourth week closes the program with therapy alone.
What happens during the ketamine session itself?
At 23:21, he explained the difference between two approaches. Some clinicians use lower doses and talk with the person during the session. His center does not. People wear an eye mask and headphones with music, a therapist sits in the room, and the talking happens before and after.
From 25:06, he described the integration coach. The role, as he put it, is to hold space, to help people set intentions beforehand, and afterward to bring what came up into everyday life.
What did he say about aftercare?
At 26:55, Dr. Radowitz was clear that, in his view, a person cannot sit back, receive an infusion, and expect everything to be fine. If someone goes back to living exactly as before, he said, they return to their default. His center encourages what he calls aftercare: meditation, yoga, a spiritual practice, reading, and above all community.
He was critical of centers that offer only a drip on a stretcher, with no music or support, which he said could be very traumatic. Of course, this is one physician’s account of his own program, and he said himself that much of the science is still theory.
What do purpose and connection have to do with substance use?
From 30:10, he recommended a TED talk by the writer Johann Hari about addiction. He described the rat experiments it discusses, in which rats in a bare cage kept dosing themselves while rats with wheels and company mostly did not.
At 33:02, he went on to Portugal, which in his account decriminalized drug use while helping people find work instead of punishing them. His conclusion was that purpose, community, and connection are the real key. At 34:17, I agreed that people cannot really survive in isolation.
Where does the Sinclair Method fit?
At 45:15, I explained the Sinclair Method, also called pharmacological extinction, which rests on Pavlov’s work with dogs. Keep ringing the bell without the food, and the response slowly fades.
I asked whether the two approaches could complement each other. At 46:18, he said he did not see why not, though he added that he did not know enough about the Sinclair Method or its studies to describe it in detail.
What can a person do when a craving comes back?
At 48:05, I described what I have seen after people stop drinking. They feel great for a while, and then cravings return days, weeks, or months later. Still, those moments can be met with tools.
From 48:59, Dr. Radowitz offered one of the simplest. Take a slow, deep breath and hold it for a few seconds before acting. In his view, that pause gives back a moment of free will, so the choice is yours rather than an automatic reaction. At 51:27, I connected this to polyvagal theory and the idea of calming the nervous system through the vagus nerve.
Who is Dr. Steven Radowitz?
Dr. Steven Radowitz is a Canadian physician trained in internal medicine. Early in his career he worked at an inner city hospital, including as medical director of a heroin and alcohol detox unit. As an internist, he grew concerned about patients who came back from referrals on several psychiatric medications at once. He now does the medical and psychiatric intakes at Nushama.
What can listeners take away from this conversation?
Dr. Radowitz described a structured program, not a single infusion, and he named its limits himself. People must be able to stop drinking safely before they begin, the work continues long after the sessions, and, as he said at 36:19, it does not work for everyone. However, anyone considering a program like this should ask what screening, therapy, and follow-up it includes, and should make any decision about medication together with their own physician.
How do I approach this today?
My thinking has kept developing since this conversation was recorded. Today my practice is built on one idea that runs through all of it: when the body has adapted to a substance, the safest way off is usually gradual, with the smallest steps the person’s nervous system can tolerate. Physical dependence is not addiction.
For alcohol dependence I use the Sinclair Method. The person takes naltrexone about an hour before drinking, and over time the drinking itself becomes less rewarding, so the urge fades gradually instead of being fought every day. It does not require stopping on day one, and it does not rely on willpower or meetings.
Like a slow taper, it lets the brain change at its own pace. For many people that makes it a more humane path than a sudden stop, which can also be medically dangerous for someone whose body depends on alcohol.
Call 911 or go to an emergency department if there is a seizure, confusion or hallucinations, or thoughts of self-harm. For thoughts of suicide or any mental health crisis, you can also call or text the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
This page is educational. It is not medical advice, and listening to the episode or reading this page does not create a doctor-patient relationship. Decisions about starting, continuing, or tapering any medication should be made with your own physician.
Full transcript
A note from Dr. Leeds: my guests speak from their own experience and expertise, and the terminology they use is their own. Whatever the topic, this show holds to one distinction: physical dependence on a prescribed medication is not addiction. This transcript is educational content, not medical advice, and nothing here creates a doctor-patient relationship.
Read the full transcript (53 minutes)
Dr. Mark Leeds [00:02] Dr. Steven Radowitz, welcome. Welcome to the podcast.
Dr. Steven Radowitz [00:05] Thanks for having me. Thanks for having me.
Dr. Mark Leeds [00:08] So, yeah, you’re involved with some really interesting stuff. I believe the topic we’re going to talk about is mainly alcohol addiction and how alcohol addiction can be treated possibly with ketamine therapy.
Dr. Steven Radowitz [00:25] Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And we’ve been, yeah, we’ve been, we, you know, we started this center about, it’s getting going on almost two years now. And initially, you know, mostly for mood disorders, depression, you know, treatment resistant depression, anxiety, OCD, PTSD. And within that, a lot of people had co-diagnoses of, you know, of alcohol use disorder and other, you know other addiction issues issues with addiction and we found that people were doing really well you know those those issues although they weren’t our main focus actually improved greatly when we start to treat some of the other treat people for the other issues with ketamine with our ketamine protocol so
Dr. Mark Leeds [01:10] Yeah alcohol is a particularly difficult addiction something I’ve been finding out more and more in recent years. And that, you know, in the beginning, when I first started working a lot with addiction patients, it was mainly opioid addiction. And if you can get a person to start treatment, you know, medication-assisted treatment with buprenorphine, they do really well, especially, you know, if they stick with it. You know, that’s the biggest battle is getting them started and getting them to not be talked out of it by their family or friends or people on the street and whatever. But if they stick with it long-term, they do unbelievably, incredibly well.
Dr. Steven Radowitz [01:45] I agree. I treat people with buprenorphine. I have a number of patients. I’ve been treating it for years, and I think it’s one of the wonder drugs, I have to say, one of the most amazing treatments out there I’ve ever seen. And I’ve had none of my patients revert if they have the support. The only time they have is someone people tell them, you know, they worry about being addicted to something else, but they have no, they, I’ve had a chief of police who was shot and ended up getting addicted to sleeping, to opiates through that, and then eventually had to buy them on the street. He’s been clean for years, back to his life, doing incredible. I had an art dealer, a woman, you know, was an art dealer who did well. Just amazing, amazing, amazing transformations with that medicine. So, yeah, I agree.
Dr. Mark Leeds [02:30] Yeah, yeah. The success stories are really incredible. And now we’re hearing so many great things about psychedelic therapy and, you know, treating PTSD. And ketamine has like a whole list of things that it can help with. I think it’s depression, OCD, PTSD. There’s a whole list of things. And I hadn’t really seen alcohol listed before, but it’s really intriguing because it’s so difficult. You know, there is a list of medications we can use and different approaches with alcoholism but people just seem to they get off of it and they do really well and they go back to it and it’s like it’s frustrating
Dr. Steven Radowitz [03:09] Right I mean alcohol I think the issue is it’s so part of our culture you know it’s accessible it’s been legal for years it’s even in a lot of our even religious ceremonies it’s part of that and I think it’s just the it’s part of the way we socialize the way we relax so it’s and people don’t see it as a drug and it’s not men it’s not it’s always like listen when we do our medical even my medical intakes you know we do you know drugs and then alcohol is a separate thing where a drug is you know alcohol is a drug and one of the most significant drugs out there that we have if you think about it if I took a pill and give you the same effects of alcohol I mean I would say like that’s a pretty crazy drug you know but again we’re socialized we have different taste we’ve you know we’ve made alcohol so accessible now you know you have those those drinks now you don’t even taste the alcohol in them they’re just these sort of seltzer all those hard seltzers you know it’s like so insulin And it’s great for children, too. You know, it’s flavored. You don’t taste the alcohol. So I think it’s a big issue. So and the reasons I think, you know, all those things when you talk about how ketamine and psychedelics are used for so many different things. I think there’s a common source, a common seed to all these different conditions. And I think we tend to think of them as a separate entity when they’re just sort of symptoms. I don’t see depression, anxiety, PTSD as disease processes. There’s never been found, like there’s no gene for these things. There’s no gene. Although people would argue with me like about even addiction. I think for most people, it’s just a way of coping. It’s not a disease in and of itself. But there’s so much shame placed on that. Like I am a depressive. I am, you know, all these things that we label people with this disease. We pathologize it. And then we don’t listen to it when it’s just like, you know, like pain. There’s pain and disease. If someone breaks a leg, you know, and there’s a bone out of alignment, is pain a disease? No, the pain’s just a messenger saying, hey, you know, fix it. There’s a bone out of alignment. You know, let’s put something, let’s do something about it. But what we do is we just load people up with pain medications and say, okay, continue walking on the leg. And eventually, you know, you can walk on it and you know something’s off and you might need more and more of the pain medication, the more for you to keep on functioning. And eventually you’re going to have to deal with it. The same thing with depression and anxiety. They’re just symptoms that letting you know that there’s a sort of, I call it a psycho-spiritual misalignment, that we’re not living our life in alignment with where we want to be or where we want to be. And different things will sort of jolt us out of alignment, different, you know, could be different life situations, traumas, whatnot, that could jolt us out of alignment. But those things are not there that we don’t want to suppress them. We want to listen to them. Of course, there’s a place, you know, when someone has a broken leg, you know, we have to take some pain medications, get them in, put a cast on. And then once the leg is healed the pain goes away because it’s no longer necessary the same thing with those with but what we do is we numb we use alcohol or different substances summing through instagram for hours watching porn all these things are just ways of escaping of sort of trying to not listen to those difficult messages that we’re you know when we’re not ready to make the changes in our life so yeah I don’t know yeah
Dr. Mark Leeds [06:15] It makes sense and it does seem like all these things this list of things that psychedelics and ketamine can help with it, there does seem to be like, probably like a unified theory behind it all, like, like even chronic pain, and depression and addiction, you know, that they’re, you know, maybe all like, different sides of the this 12 sided coin or whatever, you know, like, you know, they’re just all like, somehow related in the brain of how and they’re not exactly the same. I mean, a perfect person could have chronic pain, and not have an addiction at all. But, you know, there does, there does seem to be a connection. And yet also all of these conditions, you know, in fact, bipolar, you know, even migraines, I think ketamine can help with migraines also. But there’s a lot of stigma with a lot of these things, you know, like, like someone, you know, could be having an episode with being bipolar, and someone says, well, you know, snap out of it, you know, just just stop it already. You’re just looking for attention. You know, or maybe even with a migraine, it’s like, you know, come on, it’s a headache, you know take an advil I was like well no that doesn’t work but you know so there’s that’s one thing I think all these different conditions have in common is the stigma and the misunderstanding of you know that these are real things that people are suffering with
Dr. Steven Radowitz [07:27] And the shame I think the big problem with I think addiction is like people get labeled as I’m an addict you know and this is who I am and there’s a shame so you know it’s always a fight against because well if I’m an addict and I’m you know so it’s all you’re always trying to become something you’re not if that’s who I do how I define myself so I drink I try and prevent myself from drinking but really I’m an addict right so every time I’m not drinking I’m not really being myself but I don’t buy that whole thing I think you’re a pure beautiful soul that’s using alcohol like someone would use instagram to thumb through or porn or gambling or when any of these other things it’s just a tool that you use and the question is you have to ask yourself is it is it serving you? Is it really helping you in the long run? Or is it suppressing you? That’s the only thing you need to ask. And once we get out of this whole mindset of I am that disease, I am the pain, I am the drug addict or the alcoholic, then we can work with you. Then, you know, then it’s a process. And so, OK, let’s find some other tools that you can use that are healthier, that work for you better than the alcohol. But you’re not bad because you drink. You’re not a bad person. It’s just that’s what you’ve been taught. Some people grew up in a house where that was a tool that they were exposed to. And that’s where they go to numb themselves. And that’s what we see everywhere. So how could we get to a place where the alcohol or these addictions are no longer necessary, that they don’t serve you? And that’s what we’ve been seeing with the psychedelics, is that people, once they’re open, they reveal, they get a taste of who they are. They realize it’s just not necessary anymore. Like there’s other ways. You can be high without a substance. You can be yourself. Yeah, definitely.
Dr. Mark Leeds [09:09] Now, that’s one thing that really stands out with your approach. And I don’t know if I fully, maybe you can talk about this a little bit, that I’ve seen that there’s ketamine centers that they really focus on just administering ketamine. You know, they say, you know, we’re, we’ve been doing ketamine forever, you know, or administering it to people forever. And, you know, we make sure it’s done properly and medically correctly. You know, we put the IV in the right way with nurses and anesthesiologists and everybody gets their ketamine infusion. And there’s brain growth and brain development and all these physical improvements and healing. But some of these places don’t do therapy on site. You know, they’re like, well, yeah, therapy is important, but go find yourself a therapist. And then there’s other places that integrate the therapy which seems like a good idea to me to have have on-site therapy but it seems like like your approach is to also integrate spirituality which I don’t think I’ve heard before and that seems like a really good idea
Dr. Steven Radowitz [10:06] Right yeah no I mean I think my take is a little more when we talk about spirituality or mystical because a lot of you know in psychedelics a lot of the experiences are described as sort of mystical it’s hard to explain we just don’t have a words to describe or the science to describe them I think it’s just a science you know when you talk about a soul or mystical experience I think it’s just a science we’re not we just haven’t discovered yet we don’t have ways of measuring in our current state we’re not that advanced we think we’re so smart not so smart we’re just we’re children trying to you know just sort of discovering this it’s like you know if I took an iphone and showed someone I brought it back in time 150 years they look at that as a mystical device they couldn’t even handle seeing it. It would be too, it would frighten them. The same thing with some of these experiences that people come up, although we’re much more open to understanding right now, you know, we see an iPhone and we know, we don’t exactly know how it works, but we just accept it. It’s the same thing with mystical experience. I think we’re more open today to accept or to, you know, understand that we might not, there is an understanding, we just don’t get it now, but maybe we will at some point in the future. So I think that it’s important to maybe believe or be open to things that we just don’t quite understand but that there’s a bigger picture and that’s spirituality to me it’s a sort of this interconnectedness it doesn’t necessarily mean religious people often associate spirituality mysticism with religion and there could be and it’s a nice when it’s balanced and some people find their way through religion and I think that’s amazing there’s other people who don’t But it doesn’t mean you can’t be, you know, you can’t use the power of these spiritual experiences to help heal.
Dr. Mark Leeds [11:42] Oh, yeah, I agree. I mean, spirituality is a real thing, whether whatever the substrate of it is where it exists. I mean, whether it’s, you know, magical from our point of view or not, you know, there could be centers in the brain that are spiritual that require to be fed. You know, just like, you know, we have to feed, you know, we have to feed ourselves. We have to breathe. You know people have have needs and they have spiritual needs whether that’s you know supernatural or not and you know it’s like he said you know with the with the phone analogy you know like […]
Dr. Mark Leeds [12:26] But yeah I mean so we don’t know like what the technology is I mean you know you see you know birds flying in formation that’s like how do they know like where to place themselves you know maybe there’s a mathematical explanation or physiological thing or physics or whatever but yeah I mean someday we may fully better understand you know what spirituality is and why we have these experiences but yeah I mean just right now, I mean, we have access to some of this, you know, like they’re now, what is it, psilocybin is being talked about as becoming legal and decriminalized in some areas. And I guess they’ve used it with end-of-life patients to allow them to feel better about, you know, where they’re going.
Dr. Steven Radowitz [13:13] Right. Yeah. I mean, it’s beautiful. Yeah. You get to a place where you sort of stand outside of yourself and you realize that there’s a part of us that preexisted, that existed before we were here and will exist afterwards. You step, yeah. And I think you get that with ketamine as well, or a lot of these psychedelics is you get a bigger picture of your essence. I always see that I see all these psychedelics, no matter what they are, as, as different keys to your, your ego, to your mind, to this brain. And just a dimmer switch. I’m not trying to kill the ego. The ego is a sort of, I see the brain and the ego is sort of as, as the same synonymous. They’re just, you know, they’re here to help protect us, help us exist in this world. The problem with humans is that we want to do more than just exist. We want to live. And existing, our chair or rock exists. It’s heavy. It just exists. But humans, we have this desire to give purpose to life, to have meaning, to have joy, to have love, to appreciate the interconnectedness of life. And that’s what makes us light, boys. It allows us to remain upright and walk rather than be on the ground and there’s a heavy corpse and it’s always about that balance we always have to have that balance I think that’s the key in this world is to find and we and that’s always it’s a tricky thing it’s like you ever take two magnets of opposite polarity and sort of put them on top of each other yeah I want to touch they sort of repel each other right but if you get a nice like amount of pressure they sort of hover they have like float over it’s very sort of satisfying and so I think that it’s like all of those you know those magnetic levitation trains in oh yeah indonesia they work on that concept like the trains float over the track you know and the track has an opposite polarity to the train but if you know if the train was too heavy you know too much existence too much ego the train was too heavy it touches the track you don’t go anywhere it’s like too much friction the train was too light too much magnetism you know it flies off the track too much spirituality too much you know living and not enough existing we can’t survive in this world too but when you find a nice balance like a nice equilibrium between these two forces there’s no friction that’s grace that’s where you just float you know you just go through life and it’s that’s what it is it’s just life is just this constant you know almost like a fluctuation between these two forces and trying to find a nice balance between them and yeah Yeah. So I think that’s where psychedelics come in. It’s like it sort of it lowers the effects of this existence maintaining machine, this ego. And then you get more of an access to this unbelievable power of our essence, of our soul or whatever you want to call it. And the creativity and the new ways of thinking and the openness and the eternal nature of it. And then when the mind comes back online, hopefully there’s a better balance. You know, we rebalance, you know, and that’s the key without needing alcohol to do it. And I think people use all these substances as sort of as a way to rebalance that. When you do you and you drink, there is a sort of a removal of yourselves in a certain way or smoke marijuana. You’re getting away from the overthinking. The problem is it’s sort of more suppressive. It’s not really enhancing who you are. It’s suppressing where I think psychedelics is about enhancement. It gives you access. It gives you a taste of our essence for a period of time.
Dr. Mark Leeds [16:35] Yeah, it’s really interesting. Now, alcohol, it’s kind of like heroin in a way. In fact, well, heroin is probably a safer drug. If you had medical controlled, regulated, measured, and you knew exactly how much you had, alcohol is a really dangerous drug, is a harmful drug. You know even when you know exactly where you’re getting it from and what percentage of alcohol there’s no good amount of alcohol for anyone now as far as like someone who wants to get get off of alcohol or they you know they realize like you know maybe this isn’t good for me you know I’m hearing I’m living in for example living in new york city and there’s all these you know great I could be seeing broadway shows I could be walking through central park you know doing all these fun great things I mean it’s such a great place but instead they’re sitting in a bar sitting in their house, just drinking day after day and, you know, drinking their life away. And at one point, maybe they have an awakening, or at least a, you know, a thought about it, you know, like, maybe, maybe I need to try something different. And, you know, they become aware, somehow, maybe the listening guests on this podcast, they become aware that there’s a Nushama down the street, you know, maybe I can call and make an appointment. Now, suppose a person is drinking every day, you know, they’re drinking morning and night, you know, they don’t want to have a hangover so they drink in the morning and they just keep drinking through the day. Now there’s something that I see called the KARE protocol. Yeah, so what does that mean? What happens when someone calls? What’s like the next step from that first phone call?
Dr. Steven Radowitz [18:09] Right, so the KARE protocol was developed out of Exeter University in the UK and Cecilia Morgan and David They created a program that uses, that combines these psychedelic experiences, ketamine infusions, or I am ketamine treatment with intensive psychotherapy. So people, so if someone, let’s say someone was interested in our program, what they do is they would first call our center. We have a nurse who will do the initial intake. They’ll go through a number of sort of an intake to find out number one, their level of acuity, like how much they’re drinking. Is there any risk of going into withdrawal? Should they stop? Because people have to be clean and be able to stop drinking for about two days before they enter our program without going into acute alcohol withdrawal. So if we determine that there is a risk of withdrawal, we might refer them to a detox center, a detox program. And we have a number of detox programs that we have relationships with that we can refer to, or they can go through their own way. And once they’ve, you know, they’re stable and they can be clean, you know, they can be off of alcohol for two days without any withdrawal symptoms, then they would set up an appointment with myself to do a medical, like a psychiatric and medical intake. And we go through their, you know, very detailed history of their medical history, psychiatric history, alcohol or substance use history and make sure that number one, this is a good option for them and a safe option for them. Once they’re cleared through me, then they would be assigned to a psychotherapist, a psychotherapist who would develop a relationship with them. At that point, they would set up before they start the program, they have up to four 30-minute, they’re called support calls, where they sort of optimize, get them ready. We send them these, there’s sort of workbooks almost to you know, explain them to the program, go over their past history, go over some of their, you know, some of their triggers, some of the issues that sort of led up or their reasonings for maybe using alcohol, and then some exercises to do. So we get them optimized. And then once they are optimized for the program, we set them up for their first treatment. Each treatment, there’s three treatment days for them. And each treatment day involves 60 minutes of psychotherapy, which is also, it’s not just psychotherapy going into their past, but also mindfulness techniques. And we give them tools and ways that they can use, ways to deal with their triggers. And that’s the tools they can use to sort of redirect when they, you know, some people, we don’t want to just take away the alcohol and they’re not replaced with anything else. We want, you know, sometimes people need, they’re not using alcohol as they want to, obviously, they’re using it because they feel they need to. So what could we do to replace the, you know, alcohol with something else that’s healthier, whether it’s mindfulness techniques, exercise, you know, different types of other techniques. So once they do that, they have a 60 minute pre sort of preparatory session, then they go into a, there’s 60 minutes of ketamine, the IV ketamine treatment, and then another hour afterwards for sort of, they do a very short integration and just ease people out of the experience. And then a day or two later, they do another, what’s called an integration psychotherapy session. That’s 60 minutes that’s done by Zoom the day after. We repeat that three times, three weeks in a row. And then there’s a fourth week where there’s no dosing of medicine. There’s just a continuation, a sum up, a summation of what they did with a psychotherapy session. And that’s the general program, the KARE program. This has been studied well studied and it was shown at six months to have about an 86 percent clean like the six 86 percent of the people who went through the program were clean at six at six months which is pretty amazing I mean half of that is amazing
Dr. Mark Leeds [22:15] Yeah the 86 is huge I mean that’s
Dr. Steven Radowitz [22:19] I was in their study protocols you know in a very structured study for how much we’re really following, we’re following that study protocol every day. Like they all show for each week, they also get workbooks and there’s very specific, there’s work. They’re very much involved in the program. So we really stick to the structure of that program and hopefully we’ll have the same. I think those are really, those are reachable rates. I really do.
Dr. Mark Leeds [22:44] Yeah. Yeah. That’s so, yeah, I didn’t, I didn’t realize that was a, studied and established protocol like separate from your clinic, you know, because there may be different clinics that say, well, we do a little therapy here and there, but you’re doing like something that’s proven. And, you know, and it sounds very extensive. So is there, just to go back to what you’re saying, is there’s definitely therapy and integration therapy the day after and extensive for like a full hour. Did you say that there’s also some therapy? Is there any therapy done during the actual ketamine treatment?
Dr. Steven Radowitz [23:21] So, you know, that’s very important. So they are, there is a therapist in the room that sits in with them, but there’s different ways of doing, you know, that, you know, ketamine could be administered in two different ways. There’s what’s called CAP or ketamine assisted psychotherapy. And then there’s ketamine assisted therapy. The difference between it is that some people use a psycholytica, so a lower dose, usually done given in laws with lozenges, oral or nasal spray, and they get people into sort of a sort of an altered state, but not a psychedelic state. And the psychotherapist might work when they’re in these sort of more relaxed states. They do some psychotherapy during those sessions. We don’t take that approach. Nushama, we do more of the ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, the therapy where we give them a psychedelic dosing. So it’s a higher dose. And it’s a very inward experience, a very personal experience. They’re wearing an eye mask, earphones with music. And this is more of the traditional psychedelic type therapy where people get the answers you wouldn’t want to talk to someone during those treatments and then it’s just not a place and I think a lot of the answers come from within and we wouldn’t want to interfere with that process as they’re going deep and so we wait until after they’re done so we do the therapy before and a little bit of integration after they’re fully out of the experience and then we try to make sense of some of the things that come up during their journeys. Yeah.
Dr. Mark Leeds [24:47] Okay. What is, and I see that you actually have on the website, I was looking through the staff, you know, meet everybody. And there’s a lot of people there that do different things, which is great. Someone I saw there has a position of being an integrationist. What does an integrationist do exactly? Like what does integration mean?
Dr. Steven Radowitz [25:06] We have a coach. They have a coaching, you know, you know, the green coaching, life coaching. It’s really to hold space. You know, I think the whole idea of, you know, after, we’re not here to do, a lot of people come in with their own psychotherapists or their own psychiatrists. So they’re already seeing a mental health thing. So we’re not here to interfere with that process for most people. We’re here just to hold space, to have a safe place where people could, number one, we can help them prepare for the journey. You know, so we give them mindset, set their mindset, work on their intentions of what they want to get out of it. So it’s not really going back and doing therapy and then after the experience to sort of make sense of what comes up try and take what comes up in the in during the journeys and reframe frame it in a way that they can use it in their day-to-day life so we’re not doing it’s not about going back necessarily and going a deep dive into their you know into their past or it’s more about presence it’s more about bringing into a presence and using and helping them sort of integrate the experiences into their everyday life.
Dr. Mark Leeds [26:08] Yeah. I mean, I think a really great thing about that approach is that when they talk about the physical brain healing effects of ketamine, they talk about how there’s dendritic growth. The connections between neurons will grow and you get new connections forming. And it sounds like a great thing. It’s like, well, my brain is healing. It’s growing. Connections are forming. But I actually on the podcast had a brain scientist from Rutgers University and we talked about that about dendritic growth and he said well that’s how addictions form also it’s not always a good thing it should be guided you know guided in a positive way to get the right outcome so it makes sense that during that physical healing phase with the ketamine that you’re also helping to guide it with the proper mindset
Dr. Steven Radowitz [26:55] 100% and I think you have to see it’s just not not just the ketamine it’s also what you do afterwards is that you’re really it’s not like you sit back and you’re going to have this infusion of ketamine and everything’s going to be okay it doesn’t work that way it’s a very active process and people are part of that process and for really for it to work you have to reprogram so when you’re opening up there’s a sort of neuroplastic process you’re opening up the your your your state of mind the brain is more open you’re removing you’re changing the dendritic connections or you know whatever it is you want to say we and as much as we think we know we don’t know all of it you know these are just a lot of it is theories but you want to reprogram with something new if you know if you go back to living your life the exact same way as you did before you’re just going to go back to your default and all those little dendrites are just going to go and reform or form if you go into worse behaviors they’re just going to reform into bad behaviors so we try and encourage people we call it like aftercare psychedelic aftercare it’s like doing things that are more in alignment with where you want to be you know whether it’s meditation doing yoga picking up some spirituality you know getting into some spiritual practice we recommend books to people we forming community I think community is very important you know where you’re joining a community whatever that means to people you know finding the ways to live your life in a more aligned in more aligned so the all the like the alcohol or the depressed thoughts or the or the or the addiction issues are no longer necessary they just don’t see you realize they don’t serve you there’s a better way yeah that’s that’s and we’re seeing I think very good because of that I think we see better outcomes a lot of the studies that were done out there with ketamine were looking really at the ketamine as a drug itself like they were they were taking out all those other factors they want to see does this substance you know treat depression and so they would remove all there was like often there you know some of them do have some integration but most didn’t even the music was very you know limited and because they didn’t want to interfere They just want to see, is this compound responsible for the outcome? But I think, you know, if you really put some more work into it, I think the outcomes and they still had some good outcomes. You know, there are some centers where they’re going to give a drip. We know a lot of we know of a number of them where they you know, that’s how they see it. It’s just a it’s a drug. You come in. They don’t even ask. They don’t know music. They line a stretcher and that’s it, which could be very traumatic, to be honest with you. I mean, I’ve done, you know, these journeys and I think it’s important. The music is a huge part of it and the eye mask and the integration. So, but I think that experience is more important actually than the ketamine itself.
Dr. Mark Leeds [29:29] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Ketamine is essentially anesthesia. I mean, it’s, you know. Yeah.
Dr. Steven Radowitz [29:36] Yeah. It’s like a, it’s a light switch. It’s a switch. It’s just an experience. Yeah.
Dr. Mark Leeds [29:40] Yeah, I mean, the way I sometimes think of it is that you have, you know, normally you get anesthesia when you’re getting surgery or a procedure like colonoscopy or your wisdom teeth pulled out or whatever. And when you get anesthesia, just for the sake of getting anesthesia, it’s kind of like a cruise to nowhere. You know, you get on the cruise ship, but there’s no destination. You’re just kind of floating around out there. But, yeah, I mean, it’s nice to actually go somewhere, you know, and be guided to, like, you know, go to a nice place, too. So it sounds like
Dr. Steven Radowitz [30:10] Behind it like there has to be intentional purpose it’s interesting I was listening to this you know Johann Hari you ever listen to his book the lost connections oh no okay and he just actually there’s a ted talk I encourage people to look it up a TED talk Johann Hari on addiction on you know we’ve been getting I think I forgot that the what the actual name of the act the lecture was something like we got all addiction all wrong or whatever you’ll see the Johann Hari addiction in ted fox and he talked about this there was this old this experiment with rats where they would give them like they put in the water they put some heroin in the water and they found there was just a plain cage with a rat and heroin and they gave him another water and they and of course the hair the rat would go and keep on you know self-dosing the heroin until it died okay but there was nothing else in the cage. And someone said, you know, maybe there’s something else like why, you know, in real life, you know, some people have had pain or they, you know, they’re given morphine, not everyone becomes an addict from doing, you know, from one dose of morphine, of course, and morphine can be more intense than heroin in certain way, you know, than purified heroin. So they did it, they did another experiment where they had this cage with all these amazing, like purposeful exercise wheels and things that rats love to do, you know, other, other things, you know that gave them more purpose and in that experiment the rats did not go to the morphine that much they actually went and they were more involved with the food and the other things that were were keeping them purposeful you know and I think that’s the right I think a lot of people go to addictions because they’re looking not just because there’s a lack of maybe purpose or the lack of other options in their life and they’re using it’s not the addiction themselves and if we created more you know there’s more community more other issue you know other ways of living our life or living more in alignment, we wouldn’t go to those things as much. It wouldn’t be necessary. So I think it’s an interesting TED talk I recommend.
Dr. Mark Leeds [32:12] Yeah, I think I’ve heard about that, the thing where the rats socialize and they don’t really need the drug anymore because they’re getting a fulfilled life. Exactly. They won’t. It reminds me, I don’t know if I’m remembering it exactly right, but there was an experiment in the 60s where they worked with LSD and prisoners. And the outcome of the experiment was that they had 100% success rate. None of the prisoners that they worked with went back to prison. But people who criticized the experiment said, well, you know, you guys formed a relationship with the prisoners. You helped them. You helped them find jobs. You looked after them. And it’s like, well, how is that cheating? I mean, that’s, you know, who thought the drug itself all by itself was going to solve the problem? It was the drug plus extensive connections relationships and ongoing support
Dr. Steven Radowitz [33:02] 100 he talks about that in that ted talk also about the need and you know instead of labeling like we label addicts you know they’re bad and we punish them we put them in jail and instead of that we don’t rehabilitate they don’t have purpose we gave them and in this study actually portugal he talked about how in portugal they had a big drug problem so you know what they did is they just legalized all drugs, everything. There’s no, like they decriminalized all drugs, heroin included. They decriminalized, but they also at the same time give program for people who became addicted. They gave them pro they would help give them micro loans to help them get jobs. Like they didn’t stigmatize them for their use. And a lot of these people didn’t go back and their drug rates actually there went down after that. You know, it just tells you that it’s not the drug itself it’s our purpose we need purpose community you know connections that’s that’s the real key to all this and I and I think psychedelics open us up to this interconnectedness that’s when we talk about spirituality what is spirituality it’s an acknowledgement that we’re all connected and we strive for that’s what we’re trying to go back to that’s what spirituality is and once we have that we’re not going to need those other things when we feel you know it’s only when we disconnect it yeah we
Dr. Mark Leeds [34:17] That’s that’s that’s a great way to define spirituality very straightforward and simple like where you don’t really have to think about is it real is it supernatural no it’s just connection between people being a part of something and being connected and accepted having relationships you know it’s you know it’s a real thing and it’s something that people need you know people can’t really survive isolated
Dr. Steven Radowitz [34:42] No more so than ever I think covid highlighted that like the whole pandemic you know and yeah so I yeah you read about quantum if anyone wants to know about science we do have a scientific model for quantum for spiritual you know read about quantum physics ever read books on quantum physics there’s easy books on it I mean you feel like you’re reading a spiritual novel it’s like it’s it creeps out even the physicists who know the theory this is you know the way things work and how the interconnectedness between all all matter it’s all one you know so it’s fascinating
Dr. Mark Leeds [35:15] Yeah yeah it’s definitely interesting you know you know the idea that we might all be living in a simulation and then you know you think that’s well that’s just a matrix that’s just like crazy people believe that but then you know legitimate scientists you know say well it could be you know there’s some things that point towards that you know some unusual coincidences that point that direction.
Dr. Steven Radowitz [35:35] But I think it’s an important, I think even if it is a matrix, I think there’s a purpose to this matrix. I think there, and that’s where religion came in to fill some of those holes and that I think there is something good about all this. Even if it is a matrix, it’s okay. Yeah. Sort of a game and almost like a movie for our soul to experience things, to witness things, to live out, try and figure out what it is. Sometimes what is not you know so
Dr. Mark Leeds [36:04] Yeah definitely so can you tell me tell me a little bit about yourself like how did you what brought you to Nushama and ketamine therapy the KARE protocol like what brought you to where you are today
Dr. Steven Radowitz [36:19] Yeah so years ago I’m I you know I went to medical school and went into internal medicine because I loved I always wanted to know how things work. It was very, you know, more structural. And as I got into medicine, I started to see, you know, things aren’t so, you know, science that can explain everything. There’s actually a beautiful art to medicine as well. I worked, I worked, I had the option, you know, I was, I’m Canadian. I worked at an inner city hospital to get my green card. And I got to work with a lot of very difficult, you know, difficult situations. I worked at, I was a medical director of a heroin and alcohol detox unit worked with sort of inpatient and an aids unit and I saw you know a lot of very different interesting experiences during that time I also studied some one of my patients gave me a book on jewish mysticism like kabbalah you know he wasn’t even jewish he said yeah you should read this book and I was going through you know maybe a little bit of a difficult personal issue at the time and I started reading this and it was like that was my real psychedelic experience let me see the world in a very beautiful way it was like my spiritual openness and I didn’t grow up so much religious at all you know traditional but not religious and that just took me on a whole tangent away from from the sort of more mechanic mechanistic view of medicine I start to see patterns and the way people’s consciousness and thought actually manifest not only in their mental health but also their physical health and had this one woman a beautiful woman who is I think of too much information she was one of the people who discovered who started sesame street and she had developed a cancer very like an inoperable stage four cancer and she went to this retreat I guess a psychedelic retreat that was legal somewhere in Arizona so it was the craziest thing she ever did and they told her after like six months she had a shaman and everything and the shaman told her in six months you’re gonna be you’re gonna be cured and she said okay and she’s a very spiritual woman herself six months later I have the chart to prove it I kept I have no paper charts this chart I kept she completely cured cancer completely gone completely gone you don’t survive that she did also she did treat herself with chemotherapy things but you don’t survive this type of cancer and I was like amazed by that I started doing more research on that and saw the power of the mind and it was really her mind actually you know it wasn’t just the psychedelic actually because her husband developed cancer years later and did the same ceremony and he didn’t it didn’t do anything for him and she told me that he just wasn’t he didn’t believe and he did it because she did it but it was her belief she said I really believed in this treatment like I really believed in it. And the power of the mind to heal is incredible. So, you know, my partner started developing headaches after first son was born. And we didn’t know. We tried everything, sinus surgery to acupuncture to medicines and everything. Nothing worked. So we were introduced to a sort of a psychedelic retreat where they used as different agents and during the retreat it came up that exactly where this where the source of the headaches were it was like a trauma and it was shown and the headaches completely dissolved went away off treatment everything I’m like whoa okay this is very powerful and this is about a year before COVID hit. And over COVID, one of the people I met there decided to start one of these center. And I said, you know what, I just felt it was right. I saw that this coming, I knew there was going to be an epidemic of mental health issues, this sort of loneliness and detachment over the COVID. And I felt like I needed to do something different. Also during my, as a doctor, as an internist, I also saw the overuse of a lot of antidepressants. And I stopped sending to my patients who are psychiatrists because they come back on four or five different medications and sort of numb to life. You know, they’d be put on an SSRI, an antipsychotic, a stimulant like Adderall, and then they’d be put on a, you know, they couldn’t sleep at night. So they had to take a benzodiazepine, like, you know, Valium or something at night. And then a mood stabilizer, like Lamictal, they were on like, most of them were on five different medications. And you look at them and there was like you look in their eyes and there was there was nothing there was black black I’m like there’s something wrong this is not right so I started taking care of my own patients for a while if they needed antidepressants I would put them on you know but I would take them off it at some point like I would also encourage them to do meditation to do yoga to talk about I would talk about spirituality whatever that meant to them and started you know guide them towards other things and I saw really good results and I saw that it just really aligned with the type of work, you know, I saw through ketamine and through psychedelics, I can really help people do really be a primary care doctor. And that’s what I am, you know, I want to get to the seed of disease. And I felt this is this is my way. And I feel I mean, I’ve been doing this for about two years now. And it’s really special. It’s humbling. Does it work for everyone? No, but I think it’s, it works more than better than I expected to if people are open to it. And I think it’s the future, if it’s done well. And we’re also learning. I’m learning. Every day I walk into a patient’s room, I humble myself to know that it’s different every time. And every experience is different. And every member that comes here is different. And you just have to be open to what comes up. Yeah.
Dr. Mark Leeds [42:09] The way you just described it reminds me of the story of Stone Soup. You know, the, you know, the person said, you know, let’s make soup, but all we have is a stone and that’s going to make the whole soup. And they’re like, oh, we have these other ingredients. Let’s throw a little bit of this and a little bit of that vegetables and seasoning and whatever. And next thing you know, like, like it tastes delicious. But, you know, you start out, you know, like maybe ketamine is the stone. And, you know, not that it’s not doing anything, but it’s maybe like a starting point. But by itself, you know, it’s not going to make a very flavorful or pleasant soup. But now once you put all these other things in, the therapy and spirituality and connection and all these different kinds of guidance. Plus, I love that there’s some real science. I mean, this is all real stuff, but there’s solid science there, too, the KARE protocol.
Dr. Steven Radowitz [42:59] Yeah, the KARE protocol is science. And then we got into the addiction end of things. We have two programs here. We have Nushama like our regular program it’s more it’s geared towards more mental health issues and lower levels of addiction where we you know our protocol is actually two infusions they go through the same medical intake and all that and then they do two infusions a week over a three-week period and then there’s a booster a seventh booster that happens anywhere from two to six weeks after and the same integration less psychotherapy involved so but we do the, you know, the preparation and integration after each, each experience as well. And then if they need therapy afterwards, you know, some people, you know, so we can’t force everyone into therapy. Many of our people, many of the members who’ve come here have been through years of therapy. They sort of know all the theory. The problem is they don’t feel it. They don’t internalize it. They know what they need to do, but they need to bring this into their heart. I mean, or there’s, you know, they have to feel it and that’s what they get. Like they come here and they go oh my god like suddenly I know like after all those years of therapy now I understand like I feel it rather than just knowing it you know sometimes when you go ahead too much it’s intellect you know there’s something much deeper than intellect there’s an inner wisdom that’s just endless you know
Dr. Mark Leeds [44:16] Now you mentioned you’re canadian and there’s an organization a canadian organization that’s really incredible that I can’t remember the name of the doctor that founded it, but it’s a Canadian alcohol use disorder society. And yeah, they talk about like, there’s like five or six different medications that they just want to make doctors aware that there are medications that can help, you know, everything, anything from like naltrexone. And I think gabapentin and, you know, there’s, a variety of different things, you know, that they can help in different situations and maybe they should add ketamine to that list. You know, that, which would be great, but now, but that, naltrexone is something that I wanted to ask you about just to, there’s something called the Sinclair method. You’re aware of.
Dr. Steven Radowitz [45:02] Yeah. So lower, it’s like, it’s not an alcohol abstinence program. It’s sort of more harm reduction where they use low doses of naltrexone with decreased use of alcohol to form moderate use of alcohol. Yeah.
Dr. Mark Leeds [45:15] Yeah. And then the official name, you know, not the sensational name was Sinclair Method, but the official name is pharmacological extinction. It’s like the, what’s his name? What’s that guy? The scientist with the salivating dogs, Pavlov. Yeah, Pavlov. Yeah, it’s based on the Pavlov’s dog. Pavlov being like the first Russian to ever win a Nobel Prize for his experiment with dogs and ringing a bell and to salivate. And the second part of the experiment was, you know, let’s keep ringing the bell, but never give them the treat anymore or the food. And eventually they salivate less. And this Sinclair method, I guess, as they take the pill and it blocks the opioid flood of endorphins and they take a drink, you know, that naltrexone plus alcohol, little by little, they drink less and less and less. Is your protocol, is the KARE protocol or ketamine therapy, can that complement, Can those two complement each other? Can a person do both of those, the Sinclair method and ketamine therapy?
Dr. Steven Radowitz [46:18] Yeah, I like them to be off. Yeah, they can. I mean, I don’t see why they’re not. You know, I’ll tell you with ketamine, it is more of an experience in the drug itself. I mean, the drug definitely has some biochemical or neurochemical effects on the brain. But it’s just you know what I find everyone comes in here and says that like they just don’t feel like they like that the ketamine is no longer like it doesn’t serve them anymore like I don’t think you need the naltrexone with this I mean it could be used as an adjunct I wouldn’t use it while you’re on it but I’m fine with that but I think it just gets to a point where you realize who you are and it’s almost the antithesis of the psychedelic experience when you get in touch with who you are realize like why would I drink something that’s going to inhibit that like it’s almost like that like wow it’s like it doesn’t make sense I mean myself like I’ve done a number you know different psychedelic experiences including ketamine and I don’t do that often I you know I try to and I find that I can’t drink like I don’t I not that I can’t I just don’t I’m not drawn to at all I was never a big drinker but I enjoyed it I could drink you know as anyone else and now I’ll do it you know in a social setting but it just doesn’t serve me I can’t describe it but I don’t the high from it is not it’s actually doesn’t it actually makes me feel worse so I still enjoy like I like the taste of wine sometimes you know when you’re eating your meal but even that like I rarely even get wine now I just don’t have a taste for it’s the weirdest thing and a lot of people it’s not that’s a very common theme you know so yeah yeah I it’d be interesting. I don’t know the studies. I don’t know enough about the Sinclair method. I know about it, but I don’t, you know, it’s not something I can describe.
Dr. Mark Leeds [48:05] Yeah. Ideally, a person shouldn’t be drinking a huge amount of alcohol. Like you said, ideally, you’d like them detox first. And that’s another interesting thing that, you know, we’ve worked with a lot of people with alcohol detox where we safely get them off of alcohol, you know, doing a detox protocol. And they’re great, you know, for a while, you know, they’re like, wow, I’m alcohol free. I feel great it back to normal and get back to life again. And at some point it hits them, the, you know, the cravings, you know, it comes back, whether it’s days, weeks or months out, out after their detox, but, and they can either have a good support system and deal with it, you know, going to therapy, going to support meetings, having people to talk to, you know, finding ways to not take that first drink. But sometimes those cravings can be overwhelming. And, but you’re offering something that a person can do after detox, you know, they go through the detox and now a couple of days after now they can can go and do the KARE protocol right
Dr. Steven Radowitz [48:59] They do the KARE protocol and then we also give them you know there’s techniques and they we give them tools that they can use also when they do have the crave the cravings come up to identify them and to replace it with other tools even breath techniques and there’s some of them are so simple but so powerful even when I like I mean you know when you’re triggered and you see a piece of cake just take a deep breath like you breathe in four seconds to hold the breath and then the breath hold you just you have you have free will to decide like how am I gonna do I really need that cake like I can go to it and automatically eat it but if I take a deep breath and hold it just even that few seconds like I know I really don’t need it and then you just walk away from it just like a few seconds of free will like I choose rather than reactively going and eating the cake or having the drink or something through instagram I choose if I choose the cake that’s fine I choose a drink but at least I have free will I think that’s the problem is we feel like we don’t have free will we don’t have we’re reactive it’s just sort of this automatic you know program in our brain that’s making us do these things but we’re more than that and we can step out
Dr. Mark Leeds [50:00] Yeah yeah there’s a technique people can take home with them right now anyone listening right now next time you’re about to do anything pleasurable you know you might be questionable as far as it’s if it’s going to benefit you or benefit you or not whether it’s like eating the cupcake or going on social media taking another drink hold your breath take a take not hold your breath take a deep breath
Dr. Steven Radowitz [50:25] Like they call it the four seven eight breath it’s like four seconds in hold so four seconds in you hold your breath for seven seconds and then you slowly let it over eight and it doesn’t have to be exact you don’t have to count the not you know to the t but and it just it actually activates our parasympathetic nervous system our nervous system that’s where we’re relaxed so we’re out of this fight or flight mode when we’re in fight or flight like this sort of adrenaline mode you know our body needs our brain needs to work in a very efficient way if we have a bear in front of us you know and we can’t start thinking oh is this brown bear black bear is this gonna hit me we need to act you know so our brain goes into these automatic very efficient ways of reacting to that situation but most of the time when we don’t we have time we can respond you know we’re always in this sort of when we’re in a stress mode we’re in when we’re really stressed out our brain is automatically in this more efficient mode in this more reactive mode so we could pull ourselves out by some of these techniques. We can pull ourselves out into this, get our parasympathetic, our nervous system more balanced into a relaxing state. So we can choose, we can have choice in how we respond to any situation.
Dr. Mark Leeds [51:27] Yeah, it sounds like the, I don’t know if it’s the same thing, but I was reading about this thing called polyvagal theory of accessing the vagus nerve to get out of fight or flight and get into like a feeling of safety.
Dr. Steven Radowitz [51:39] Yeah, it’s exactly when you take the deep breath and you hold it does activate the vagus nerve. So it does. Yeah, it works along those.
Dr. Mark Leeds [51:45] Yeah. Oh, that’s that’s really that’s really incredible. So, yeah, just to finish up, how can people get in touch with you or get started if someone’s interested in the program at Nushama?
Dr. Steven Radowitz [51:57] Yeah, so they can reach us. They can look us up online at Nushama, N-U-S-H-A-M-A, nushama.com. […] But you can go to our website and there’s a lot of information on our website. Great, you know, blogs and that can really give you some information about not only the KARE program, which is really important for addiction, but also our regular program, which also works for lower states of addiction, less acute forms of alcohol use disorder, but other types of addictions. And I consider them all. I mean, I think something through Instagram could be like heroin almost. If you see someone coming through Instagram for four hours, they look like they’re completely in another world. Yeah.
Dr. Mark Leeds [52:45] Yeah. And I usually consider myself immune to that because I don’t really have much interest in social media. But the other day caught myself doing for like almost an hour. I’m like, oh, I can’t believe an hour just went by. Like, what am I doing? You know, this is really these things are getting more and more refined. It’s like the crack cocaine of internet now. It’s like with these social media things.
Dr. Steven Radowitz [53:04] It’s well programmed. It knows how we think and it takes advantage of that. So,
Dr. Mark Leeds [53:08] Yeah. Yeah. So, okay, Dr. Steven Radowitz, thank you again for joining me today.
Dr. Steven Radowitz [53:13] Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Okay.
