#401 Alisa Weilerstein

Classical cellist and type 1

#401: Alisa Weilerstein: Scott reveals his love for the cello when he interviews 38-year-old American classical cellist Alisa Weilerstein, who has had T1D since just before she turned 10. They discuss cello music and her career extensively, as well as a variety of issues surrounding diabetes including tight controls; avoiding lows while performing; high protein, low-carb diet; and changing technology.

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Visit AlisaWeilerstein.com and find Alisa on Instagram

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

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DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.

Scott Benner 0:09
Hello, friends, welcome to Episode 401 of the Juicebox Podcast. Today, I'm incredibly excited to tell you that Alisa Weilerstein is on the program. Now there are two, two cellist in the world whose work touches me very deeply. Yo, yo, Ma, and Alyssa. So imagine my surprise when one day going over social media, something popped up in front of me that made me think, doesn't Alyssa Wyler, Stein have diabetes? And she does. Alyssa was diagnosed with Type One Diabetes 28 years ago when she was just about 10 years old. So she's here today to talk about that. And also to indulge me as I asked questions about the cello. Now, I know that a lot of you might not be classical music fans, but I implore you spend the next hour finding out what I love about the cello. And you might just love it too. Plus, you'll hear about some type one diabetes stuff. I'm tricking you into learning about the cello. But it's not really much of a trick if I'm telling you. During this episode, you're going to hear cuts from Alicia's newest album, Bach cello suites. Many thanks to her record label pentatone for allowing me to use some of the music. You can find out all about Alyssa on our website. Alyssa Wyler Stein comm you can see her upcoming schedule, a little biography, and of course, all of our albums right there in one place with convenient links to Amazon, apple, and Spotify. Before we start, please don't forget to check out T one d exchange.org. forward slash juice box. T one D exchange is doing amazing things for people with type one diabetes by collecting data that helps people make better decisions about type one T one d exchange.org Ford slash juice box you need to be a US resident with Type One Diabetes with a parent of someone with Type One Diabetes from the United States takes less than 10 minutes to become part of the registry, adding your answers to their very simple and straightforward questions. The data they get from you goes on to help make decisions like setting a one c standards. Whether or not people get test trips from their insurance. And if Medicare covers things like Dexcom you really will be helping other people who are living with Type One Diabetes. When you visit T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox join the registry today. Okay, you're ready. This is Alyssa. I'm so excited. I have a podcast that is now 400 episodes old, all about type one diabetes. And I have been for the last well since the since the the royal wedding. I guess I've had it in my head that I could actually get a type one who played the cello. Because Yeah, because cello is is is my if you told me you were gonna lock me in a dark room for the for the rest of days. And I could take one thing with me. I would take I would take some on accompany cello piece with me. Yeah, good taste. Thank you. And I have no background in it whatsoever. I am an absolute novice. I only know how I feel. When I hear it. I can only tell you that a couple of years ago when yo yo ma said he was going to be touring his his last album. I drove from the middle of New Jersey to Washington DC to hear him play

Unknown Speaker 3:59
my

Scott Benner 4:01
night and I sat about eight rows from him at the cathedral, and it was really amazing. And while my wife sat next to me, I think enjoying it and at the same time wondering how because it seems incongruous my, my whole personality and the fact that this is what I don't think they fit together very well. That's great. I really love it. So I want to hear a little bit about when you were diagnosed with type one. How long ago was it?

Alisa Weilerstein 4:31
It was 28 and a half years ago. Um, I am 38 now and it was the month before my 10th birthday. Okay,

Scott Benner 4:39
so I was gonna say when you were 10 but I didn't want to creep you out by proving that. I knew how old you are.

Unknown Speaker 4:46
That's great. All right.

Scott Benner 4:48
Do your homework. It's all right. No, no, it's not just that. I saw I was following you on Instagram before I recognize that you had diabetes. Oh really? Yeah. Okay. And then one day you did something on Instagram that made me go home. My God, that girl have type one. Because if she does, I'm getting her on the spot. I'm not embarrassed at all, by the way, the people listening, who probably would never imagine this about me, but I don't know why it's such an odd thing to some people. But but we'll get into all this at some point. So you're 10 years old? Was there any type one in your family or other endocrine issues?

Alisa Weilerstein 5:22
Not that we knew of. My mother said that her grandmother, and her grandmother, her grandmother died when she was fairly young. So she wasn't fully aware, but that there was some diabetes there. She thought it was type two, actually, which of course, as we know, has no real genetic link to type one. But um, many years later, my first cousin came down with it, and she was 23. So that's definitely on my mother's side of the family there. There's some sort of genetic

Scott Benner 5:48
thing going on. I like how you say came down with it. I felt like yes, I went down with it dad freezing. It's like you got a cold? Okay, I'm 20. Let's see, 20 years ago is 28 years ago, eight years ago. 1990 ish in the middle.

Alisa Weilerstein 6:06

1992. Yeah, it was actually the year, I remember. Well, because it was the year that the dcct trials came out with a definitive statement that said that a tight control could greatly reduce the risk of complications. And so it was a very kind of, I mean, if one had to be diagnosed with it, it was a very sort of hopeful time. And so that was something that my doctors really made sure that my parents understood. And that that I understood also, and it was kind of motivation to, to really keep a good eye on the blood sugar.

Scott Benner 6:37
Well, even just a few years prior to that, the disease was all about just do your best. And let's see how long you can make it. You know, pretty much Yeah,

Alisa Weilerstein 6:45
pretty much. And so my mom told me Actually, many years later that I mean, we had a lot of Doctor friends, and I was already pretty serious about the cello. And then there was a great insensitive doctor friend who said to my principal, you know, you can forget about the cello. She's going to have neuropathy, neuropathy in her fingers when she's 25, she won't be able to play

Scott Benner 7:05
Oh, my gosh, yeah, I'm glad you didn't look very nice. Let me say, I'm glad you didn't listen to them. Because so so you're gonna, there's gonna be a lot of moments where I'm gonna ask you to correct me during this if you're anything that I say that's wrong, but I hear cello playing from artists to artists. And to me, it feels, I used to think of it as like, more masculine or feminine. Oh, like control of the strings or depth of the tone. I don't even know how to put it. But you're the you're the first, like, female artist that I've heard that plays like a guy i think is the way I think. But I could be completely wrong, like my intuition about what that is, could be wrong. But you're you get more of a resonance out of the strings, then it feels like, like, I don't know what I'm talking about. It feels like some people have a harsher touch. And some people have a lighter touch. Am I anywhere near right about that?

Unknown Speaker 8:01
Yeah, I mean,

Alisa Weilerstein 8:03
although Have you ever heard Jackie do pray?

Scott Benner 8:05
No.

Alisa Weilerstein 8:06
Should I? I Yes, definitely. She was one of my issues, probably my primary role model as a child. And she had this no holds barred. Complete natural command of the instrument and strength and sensitivity. I mean, like the perfect kind of combination of that and passion. And so I was really, really attracted to that and attracted to her her approach to the instrument into her sound into her kind of into her instinct. There's something very raw about it. And so I think that's part of a part of kind of my, my own makeup with, let's say, my son, my earliest sort of sound concept, right? Um, but But yeah, I mean, I actually I feel pretty lucky because there, there is a kind of gender imbalance with jello. There are a lot more famous male cellist and there are female jealous and the female jealous that I, I mean, the challenge that I gravitated toward actually was I met and I listened to many and I admired many, but the one that I really related to was female, okay. And, and she played in such a way that I didn't think about her gender at all, not for a second I Oh, she was she wasn't a role model because she was a woman that she was just she was a role model because I just adored the way that she played.

Scott Benner 9:25
So let me give you what I think is an amazing compliment and maybe I'm out of my mind. Okay, a lot of people listening, I'm going to put the music your By the way, your record company sent me the music so I can put it in right in here what I'm talking about, but around a minute and 52 into the prelude of sweet one. Okay. It gets quick, it starts to speed up.

And then after that, I cry when Mark plays it, and you play it and no one else Oh, why is that? Like it pulls tears right out of me. And I don't know how to. I don't know how to explain it because I can listen to someone else play it and hear it and think, oh, that was done well, and it feels clinical to me. But my eyes filled with tears, and they fall down my cheeks when you play it and when he plays it, and I don't know why that is. And I just, I'm happy about it. Thank you.

Alisa Weilerstein 10:52
I'm happy. I'm happy to hear that. Thank you for telling me.

Scott Benner 10:55
Why does it happen? What what what is it like so? So for people who don't understand the cello? Yeah, there's a couple of functions about it that absolutely light me up. There's a way that the the tones lift you and keep you up.

And then there's a way that they lift you and drop you.

And then there's a way I feel like I'm being pulled forward and let go and then pulled forward again. But I don't know how to quantify any of that.

Alisa Weilerstein 12:11
But that's good. You should you shouldn't try to quantify it because it's, there's a very I mean, I think, a person's response to listen, listening to any music not only the cello, though, I'll get to that too. I mean, to why the cello also always moved me and why we're so attracted to it but there's something even if you don't know anything about what you're in the center you don't know the history you don't know who the composer is, it doesn't matter there is there is a very primal very direct and very emotional response that I think everybody has to music. babies have it to music. I mean, I remember when I might my daughter is now four and a half but let's say when she was like a newborn and I was traveling with her already, I mean there were certain things I would sing to her that would if she was fussy would immediately calm her down and you could feel her feel the rhythm you could feel her heart rate slowed down. I mean it's it's really within us I think as human beings to really have a very direct and visceral response to music that we don't to that we don't even have the spoken language as for the cello, and of course your your ma you that you've brought up before it has has said this that it's and many many others have said it but the range of the cello and the tambor of the cello is the closest to the human voice of any certainly any stringed instrument, okay. And, you know from from the, you know, from the deepest sort of Basile profunda voice into like this coloratura voice and every and almost every in every cello masterclass, you can hear the the teacher saying, Well, you know, you have to imagine the voice and how would, how would a singer go for that, you know, kind of go for that interval? How would the singer kind of go for that leap? And we are always trying to mimic the human voice and how somebody would sing. And so I think that I'm you know, I was four when I did when I told my parents in no uncertain terms that I wanted to pick cello. And I mean, I can't tell you in any intellectual way why, but that was I think, I think that was the emotional, Primal visceral

reason why I wanted to play cello

Scott Benner 14:22
I only have one other like physical. So there are lower notes with the cello that I feel take the tension out of my spine up into the neck. It just it relaxes me.

Besides being physically touched in a sexual way, I have no other competitor. And for how like the cello can make me feel like seriously like, I mean another person reaching out and touching your skin somewhere. You don't I mean,

Alisa Weilerstein 15:06
yeah, no, it's very human.

Scott Benner 15:08
Very, very. I don't know how I found it. And you know what? It's funny. I don't, I try to trace it back in my mind, because I like an eclectic mix of music, but it's a younger person. I was growing up in the late 80s. Like, we were all listening to Guns and Roses and Metallica and stuff like that. Like, you know, there wasn't really, yeah, well, I still love it. But nobody was coming up to me and saying, hey, you should really listen to this. Other than I do wonder if Peter in the wolf wasn't my first introduction to it.

Alisa Weilerstein 15:39
It's a lot of people's first exposure to classical music during the wolf. It's fantastic.

Scott Benner 15:43
Right? I feel like that may be it. But and then after that, the West Wing, an episode of The West Wing, where yo yo ma comes on in place the

Alisa Weilerstein 15:52
place the first week, right? Yeah.

Scott Benner 15:53
Right. So I mean, I can't I can't find another, but I can't remember. I'm 48. Now, I can't remember it not being it's it's my go to music constantly. And I like it and other forms and fashions. But why is why is Bach. Is there something technically about Bach that makes it? Is that the pin ultimate piece tie or no?

Alisa Weilerstein 16:19
Well, I mean, every composer that came after Bach was indirectly or directly influenced by what he did. He was a groundbreaker. He was, in every way, in terms of the polyphony that he created the rhythmic, the rhythmic language, I mean, really, pretty much everything you can think of. Um, he also, I mean, like, if, let's say, if we're speaking about the cello suites versus before, we're talking about the cello. cello suites of course, we know they were written 350 years ago or so. And yet they feel like they were written yesterday. There's a timelessness about Ba, which is an A universality. And yet it's still you know, some of the high church, some some literally church music, but this is not this is not religious music, but this is

intellectually emotionally.

It's, it's the music. That is I think it's the most satisfying and

pleasurable to listen to.

Scott Benner 17:26
Yeah, I always thought up until a couple of years ago, that it was a technical thing that all people playing it were striving for, like trying to get it exactly. I mean, quote, unquote, right. And until, until this latest yo yo ma album, where he kind of said, like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, like, lean into it in different places. I never heard anyone tried to do that either. And now I'm excited for people to try that.

Alisa Weilerstein 17:54
But he This is his third recording of the bob sweets. Yeah. And he recorded it in three different stages of his career. And that was in a way, you know, I, I just, that's my last album actually was all about sweets. terrifying. Oh,

Scott Benner 18:06
by the I sorry, I've been listening to it for a while yours.

Unknown Speaker 18:09
Okay.

Alisa Weilerstein 18:10
I mean, I was I was terrified to record them. Actually, you know, even though even if you had told me that I was going to do it even five years ago, I would have said, Oh, no way, I'm going to wait until I'm 60. Because that's, it's, um, I suppose Bach, for us, musicians is kind of that they say the equivalent of what Shakespeare would be to two actors. And this is kind of it's very, it's it's stuff that you feel like, okay, you need the experience, you need the life, the life experience, and the wisdom to really do justice to it. And what I kind of realized, and I talked to you about this, actually, about a year ago, no, was it you know, two years ago or so, when I was making the decision to, to set down recording dates and recording times as well. And he said, and he gave me really, really amazing advice. Actually, I've known him for a long time. And it was more or less something which I was kind of wrestling with, but he, which he kind of reaffirmed, which is that Bach is living music. And I was I finally had the courage to put them down onto takes when I realized, okay, this is how I am thinking about this right now. This is I'm I was 37. Yeah. And I was in a certain stage of my life, and I lived with the sweets for, you know, my whole life basically. And in 15 years, I might record them again, and they might be very different. And that's great, because Bach is truly living music. And it's something that evolves in one's mind and one's heart and everything else. And so, that's how, that's how I kind of got the courage to do it. It's just it's you're creating something from no recordings. And and when you think back to when they were made, it's not like, it's not like he was scoring a movie when he made those things. Those sounds they just keep going It came through a pencil from his head, I would imagine. It's an it's just, it's really stunning. Okay, I should ask you a diabetes question to keep people. Or this is just gonna turn, your listeners are gonna be like, is this a diabetes podcast?

Scott Benner 20:14
I asked her about the cello and forget about the diabetes stuff. So I'm hoping people listening will be drawn to try to try your album like I really do.

Alisa Weilerstein 20:23
Thank you, that would be great.

Scott Benner 20:25
I'm just thrilled that I found it honestly. So when you're when you're diagnosed, is it pens? Do you get pens? Or do you just get insulin? While?

Alisa Weilerstein 20:33
No, ours was directions? It was syringes with NPH and regular and regular, right?

Scott Benner 20:39
How long do you do that? For? Do you remember how long you did that before you went to a faster acting insulin?

Alisa Weilerstein 20:45
Uh, yes. It was about I mean, before human long, it was maybe three years, okay. And that was a revelation that I didn't have to take my, my shot, you know, half an hour to 45 minutes before I ate a meal. And so much less planning. Thank God wasn't, was involved. And so then I switched to remember I switched to ultra lenti and lenti. And then we had Then there were the pens and then when I was 16. So I'd had I'd had it for almost seven years, I switched to a pump. Well, electronic mini med.

Scott Benner 21:20
Everyone started with that one, I think

Alisa Weilerstein 21:22
I actually just got off it I was very loyal until like five months ago, I switched to the tandem.

Scott Benner 21:27
Oh, the are using control IQ.

Alisa Weilerstein 21:30
Not to control IQ because I don't like the target. Set it set. I use the basal IQ because it doesn't keep me between 110 and 160. I want to have better control than that. So I hear people put it in sleep mode all the time to get tighter control.

Scott Benner 21:46
Things I hear, okay, my daughter uses the DIY loop loop. The the open the open APS one. Oh, like she's getting like Auto boluses when her blood sugar goes up and, and all kinds of crazy stuff.

Alisa Weilerstein 22:01
It's very well, I might have to pick your brain about that. Okay.

Scott Benner 22:05
So using the Dexcom g six, yes. Yeah, that's a big leap from how you started. That was

Alisa Weilerstein 22:10
that was huge. That was probably the biggest difference, because during my pregnancy, which was in 2015, and 2016, I was on the G five. And it wasn't as it I mean, it was it was great, but it's not it was not as accurate. There was still you know, a lot of things a lot of finger sticking. So yeah, I mean, not now. It's kind of a new life and, and even even now without, I mean, of course, I mean, I work hard to keep my blood sugar under control. But I mean, I know, I could get it better. But it was it's like it's easy to hit like six now are easier to hit six now than it ever has been.

Scott Benner 22:44
Yeah, no, I completely agree. I think that people who listen to this podcast would agree with you as well. So this show is mainly about like how to use insulin. And so most of the people who listen to the show probably have agencies that are closer to six if they've been listening for more than a couple of months.

Alisa Weilerstein 22:59
Fantastic. Really cool.

Scott Benner 23:00
Okay, and I'm really proud of but I'm wondering, that's amazing. That's absolutely amazing. Yeah, so. So I'm thinking back to middle school, where they burned us all in the cafeteria and brought all the instruments in the world in front of us. And I was like, I'm gonna go get that cello. And then I moved by the way, it would not have worked out. I, I just I know, I couldn't have done it. I'm a little like, I can listen to it, I can appreciate it. I don't think I could have created it. But anyway, I'm moving towards the cello. And this girl steps in front of me and takes the last one. And I end up with a saxophone in my hand. And I'm like, this isn't what I wanted to do the same. So anyway, I don't play an instrument. I hope that girl still does whoever she is. I hope she

Unknown Speaker 23:42
gets to. I hope

Scott Benner 23:44
she took it and did some really great stuff with it. Yeah, but if I would have found it and had diabetes, what's the what's that? Like? Like? Like? I mean, I can I think it must have taken. It must have. I mean that that yo yo ma concert I went to must have been three and a half hours long or more, and he didn't get up and move or walk away. Yeah. So how do you do that with diabetes? Well, I'm

Alisa Weilerstein 24:09
I'm very proud to say I've never had a single low on stage. And the entire 28 years that I've had it, I've always I've always wanted it. And so then even way before the technology was there to where it's much easier to avoid a low now than it was certainly in the 90s or the early the early aughts. I before the CGM, I would test my blood sugar. And I always tested quite a lot. I mean, I was not you know, I've been luckily most of the time that I've had diabetes, I've had very tight control. But the hour in the hour before a concert, I would test my blood sugar at least maybe six times. So an hour before, you know 45 minutes before, half an hour before 15 minutes before and then like twice, twice more to make sure that I was I was never below 130 before I went on stage, like we'd like between 130 to 150 is kind of my sweet spot that, you know, just, you know, a reasonable number, I mean, not like an ideal number, but a place where I had to kind of special to drop, because just the kind of the physical effort of playing, and kind of the concentration required would always, would always make me go up a little bit. Okay. And so for for that for a Bach marathon, I would, the way the way I structured

those clusters, which were three and a half hours long,

I would do the first three sweets, that I mean that the three out of six weeks, right, so the first three suites are about 765 70 minutes. And so I would make sure I was about, you know, around 140. And then there would be a 15 minute intermission at 70 minute mark, and then where I would just make sure that I was, you know, I would I would keep some protein, and maybe a few grapes backstage, right.

Scott Benner 26:00
I'm a little slow acting a little fast acting carbs, right.

Alisa Weilerstein 26:05
And of course, having glucose tablets around, you know, in case I will, you know, case, I walked the state of walked off stage with like, 65 or something, right. Which almost never happened, actually. I mean, I want to I was, like, 110 or so when I when I walked off stage after that, and then I would just rate you know, I would I would take like, I don't know, four grades or something, and I would get myself back up to 130.

Scott Benner 26:24
What's the adrenaline like, while you're playing? Is it something you control? like a, like a baseball player trying to hit a baseball, it's there, and you have to quell it? Or do you? Are you kind of Zen when you play at this point?

Unknown Speaker 26:36
Um,

Alisa Weilerstein 26:39
then the adrenaline. I mean, I'm very grateful that I that I have it and that it's not, it's not something that gets in my way. Um, I've always I in people have asked me, you know, did you get nervous? And I and I always say no, because I mean, I feel the butterflies, but it's a kind of positive rush. like, Okay, I'm ready to go. And it's, I find it that it really focuses me. So I've never had a kind of adrenaline high. From a concert, I, where I've had adrenaline highs was when I was really nervous about something else. Like, for example, my husband had to have an eye surgery, and my blood sugar shot to 320 and would not come down. But I was like pumping and pumping and pumping. The corrections were like water, they didn't do anything until he was out of the bar. And I knew he was fine. And that my blood sugar plunged.

Scott Benner 27:33
Good if you had Pre-Bolus for two meals.

Alisa Weilerstein 27:36
Exactly. Exactly. So I mean, you know that the liver was just going so

Unknown Speaker 27:41
um, so Yeah,

Scott Benner 27:42
wow. Yeah. No, I just I, I mean, what's the biggest collection of people you've played in front of ever? Do you know?

Alisa Weilerstein 27:50
I think it was 80,000. I played a concert in the park. Wow. So like, like, like a pop concert. But I mean, that that's unusual for a classical sure concert. I mean, they're one of the most enjoyable experiences I had actually was during the Boston Marathon to the Alfa lamoni in Hamburg, which it's a Toyota Hall. That is the same acquisition who did the Disney Hall, okay in LA. And it's just absolutely gorgeous. And what they also what they did with the lighting was incredibly special, like, there was a spot around the piano bench because of course, in a Bach marathon solo Bach marathon is just me on the stage, and there's a and it's um, and so I mean, to do it to do that kind of in a in a huge hole, if the lights are fully on doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. And so they were able to create a kind of intimacy, where I was very aware of the people around me, but yet it was it was it I felt like I was kind of in a room with them, like having a direct conversation the way we are now. And I just felt like I was playing kind of on a mountain on the under the stars. That sounds that was for 2200 people it has it is a capacity hole. So that was, yeah, that was really, really enjoyable.

Scott Benner 29:04
So I learned something about people at Carnegie Hall once and I wonder if you agree with this or don't I? I noticed that when people are told to be quiet. They can't be and when they don't need to be quiet. They have no trouble with it whatsoever. And it's always throat clearing. Yep. Right.

Alisa Weilerstein 29:25
And they can the gum. Sorry that the cop drivers like, right?

Scott Benner 29:29
Yeah, it's um, so I've seen here my number of times, but one of the times as was it at Carnegie Hall, and he finished playing and there was a break. I think we were seeing the goat road stuff maybe got ready. Oh, yeah. Yeah, the goat rodeo stuff and, and during the break, the places silent everybody's sitting around, sort of like you know, like they're in church and being quiet and everything. And then the lights dim a little and they start to play and that's it. It just happens everywhere. And I'm like, I like bad. This is like the most interesting psychological look into people's minds. Like as soon as they thought I have to be quiet. They couldn't be. So I'm not wrong about that, right?

Alisa Weilerstein 30:13
Oh, god, no. Well, it's like, it's like children. I mean, as I said, I've, you know, I have a four year old. I mean, and if I tell her, she has to be quiet, she's like, and if not, you know, and if I totally leave her alone, she's like sitting quietly, you know, reading book or doing a puzzle or something like that. It's totally

Scott Benner 30:32
fine. I so have always wondered what that is. Because that's the first time I noticed it. And now I noticed it everywhere.

Alisa Weilerstein 30:38
I think we're I think we're just very contrarian beings.

Scott Benner 30:41
Honestly, I just find it really fascinating.

Unknown Speaker 30:45
I think, I think it's right.

Unknown Speaker 30:47
I love it. I'm like, now it's now. Okay.

Alisa Weilerstein 30:50
Well, I think it's an interesting point. I think it's a it's also people are generally uncomfortable with silence, particularly in New York, by the way, where there's just more silence at any time. So you find very often with if there's a pause, like, for example, I don't know if you're familiar with Shostakovich first Cello Concerto?

Scott Benner 31:10
I know I have it. It's in my giant group of cello music, but I don't know if I could recall it right now.

Alisa Weilerstein 31:17
Sure, sure. There's, the third movement is a cadenza, which means that the cello is playing entirely alone for about seven minutes. And then, um, and then, of course, the orchestra comes in for the lesson. And there are these really, really quiet moments and moments of silence and pauses that are that are written in the music. And playing in a New York where it was the rhythmic pauses, you know. And it was literally I would be like, blank. And so there was no silence at all. And so at a certain time, and there was this guy who was, I think he was having kind of a problem. But I mean, he didn't have the problem when the music was actually kind of covered up. And it was, I mean, it was hard to hard not to kind of break character, as it were.

Scott Benner 32:03
Everybody needs to look deep into their soul about why they open up their phone when the movie starts. And then we're looking at it during the preview.

Alisa Weilerstein 32:13
I think there is a kind of anxiety about being in a quiet spot.

Scott Benner 32:18
It must be I need it around around the cello. Specifically, I need the quiet because I don't know how to explain this to people. I'm not listening to it, and trying to absorb it. And I don't know another way to say that really. So

Unknown Speaker 32:31
Oh, that's, that's fair.

Scott Benner 32:33
I need to be in a like, I think the best thing you could happen to me is a deprivation tank. With a cello, I think that I would

Alisa Weilerstein 32:41
be careful what you wish.

Scott Benner 32:42
That might not be great, right? Hey, our instruments. Like, I'm assuming they're all different. But can you pick one up? Play it pick up another one and play it? It's not the same? Like, I'm sure you have one that you use, but I mean,

Alisa Weilerstein 32:58
another type of instrument? And yeah, I mean, I yeah, I could I could pick up any cello and play it? Yes. But um, no. I mean, my cello is a very wonderful, rare Italian instrument, which I'm lucky to lucky to have. So.

Scott Benner 33:16
So how do you? I don't how would you? How would a person categorize you? Like, you know, like, if you were a football player, are you? Are you like an all star? Or are you like, like, do you like how did what like how does somebody who's as good at this as you are? Like, how many people in the world even do this, I guess in a notable way?

Alisa Weilerstein 33:36
Well, they're not that many professional classical musicians. It's a, it's a kind of specialized. You know, that they're there. It's definitely it's a kind of, it's a limited audience. And we are always trying to expand our audience, but let's face it, they're they're not not everybody's as new classical music every day. As much as I would like them to. I mean, I think it's the greatest music there is, but we're, we're all trying to struggle to get that message out. And yeah, I mean, it's it's a lot of it's like dancers or athletes. I mean, it as you were saying, I mean, it's a it's a huge amount of discipline and discipline, hard work, and blood, sweat and tears, in training, which, you know, not everyone wants to spend their time doing and so they're not that many people who will go go into it professionally.

Scott Benner 34:26
How? That brings me to the question of how long did it take you like, however, whatever proficiency you feel like you're at now, how long does that take to accomplish?

Alisa Weilerstein 34:36
I mean, I feel like I'm, it's a lifelong thing. I mean, I always I still feel like a student. In many ways. I mean, certain things certainly get easier or and I and I hopefully feel like my understanding of certain music, which I keep returning to deepens over time. And sometimes, sometimes I feel like Well, I mean, I used to do this right naturally, and now I don't feel like it's so natural anymore. Therefore, maybe I should put it away for a while and then come back to it later. It's that kind of thing. I mean, it's ongoing.

Scott Benner 35:06
It's an ongoing kind of evolution. I can't where you said you wanted to do it when you were four. Yeah, were people looking at you like when you were six going, Hey, Wow, she's way better at this. And the other six year olds like getting better at this the eight year olds? And I'm like, is it was there a did your parents like, tell me the story that your parents taught everybody? When they're like, Oh, we know. Like, when was that?

Unknown Speaker 35:24
I can't tell you that. No, you don't know.

Unknown Speaker 35:27
What to say.

Unknown Speaker 35:29
You have that? My parents? Okay. Where

Scott Benner 35:33
did they come from? Yeah, like some musical background?

Alisa Weilerstein 35:37
Yeah, actually, my parents are fantastic professional musician. So my, my father was the first violinist of the people quartet for 20 years. And, and from 1969 till 1989. So he left when I was seven. And my mother's a fantastic pianist. And, but but they were, you know, so many people asked, well, oh, so therefore you have to do you have to do music. And that's actually the opposite is true. They were very hands off about that. I wasn't I never felt in, in any way, any pressure coming from them. As far as becoming a musician, when I mean, they were they were they were kind of hippie parents. They were like, oh, we'll follow your heart and

Scott Benner 36:19
right? Well, I'm really glad that your heart didn't like happy lead you to like accounting or something like that, you know, that they would have been supportive of it, which is telling you I would be upset. I'm sure you all would be happy. But But my life wouldn't be as good. So I'm thrilled. I mean, I can't imagine that, you know, that it's not. I mean, there's I'm sure it's not a terrible living, but it's also not, not a not crazy ladies like money falling out of the ceiling or stuff like that. So you

Alisa Weilerstein 36:51
know, I mean, as I said, it's it's a

you know, it's not a it's not a mass marketed product. So, so no, I mean, we're not, we're not making popstar money. Gotcha question.

Scott Benner 37:07
Yeah, no kidding. So we should be, let me say that before I move on, you really should be doing something that just so few people know how to do in a way that evokes people would love it, if they listened. I know that I know. It doesn't strike some people immediately. And there's no word so they can't learn it quickly enough to stick with it. It requires.

Alisa Weilerstein 37:31
I mean, some, it requires you to sit down and as you as you were saying, absorb it. Because it's a long form. Yeah, it can't be wrapped up in three minutes. You know, it's a, it's definitely it requires more from the listener than right. Another time. Yeah,

Scott Benner 37:48
it's, um, there may have been years where I listened to certain pieces before I went to bed every night. And it just, it's how you except for people listening. Like, you know, if we just pick some random like Diddy that you can like, you know, it's on the radio and you you can just it sticks in your head right away. Yeah. Like, it's like, it's like sound crack it just like right away you. But absolutely. It happens with classical music, too. If you just you have to hear it more often. So you give it a chance. Yeah. It really does. You said you had a four year old child. Is that right?

Alisa Weilerstein 38:20
I do. I do. Yeah.

Scott Benner 38:21
I wonder how much thought goes into having a baby. When you have diabetes? What did you think about before you did that?

Alisa Weilerstein 38:28
A lot. And I read a lot of books and spoke with a lot of doctors and did plenty of freaking out and everything else. Yes. It also, I realize I had to be selective with who my with whom I chose to talk about it. Just because a lot of people had kind of outdated concepts of what it meant to be diabetic and pregnant at the same time. Right.

Scott Benner 38:55
Those are not fun conversations to have with people who think they understand this whole thing and just naysay and like, like, you got it early on. Like Don't forget the cello, you know? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Now, you don't have to forget anything. And it's, especially with this technology. I mean, honestly,

Alisa Weilerstein 39:12
exactly. It's really, it's a very different story. And, and even even before, I mean, like, even, you know, five years ago, when I was pregnant, there was it was still it was an earlier generation of the dexcom. And I didn't have a smart pump. But I mean, I achieved between 5.8 did 6.281 C's and my baby was born completely healthy. And I was you know, I had a great pregnancy. Yeah. And, you know, a lot of hard work of course, and, you know, very restricted diet. I've always found for myself that low carb works. works much better for me than I mean, I I just, my body just doesn't process carbohydrates. Well, I'm, I'm just not I'm not one of the lucky ones with that and so I found having a not not quite ketogenic But let's say very heavy on protein and fat. diet has always worked better for me. I

Scott Benner 40:06
have an episode going out in a couple of days. Paul Saladino, he's a doctor who has a podcast about eating carnivore. He just I just recorded with him. Because on the show, we do a lot of different things. But Excuse me. One of them was, we're doing like a how you eat kind of series because people eat in so many varied ways. I will tell you that that at the core of this podcast, I, here's what happened is my daughter was diagnosed when she was two. And I was a stay at home dad, okay. And for the first couple of years, I was so bad at it and hurry once, he was always like, almost nine. And I didn't know what I was doing. You know, she had a seizure when she was little bit of a mess. Yeah. And so I wrote for years about it, I had a really popular blog, and I wrote for years on it. And one day I said to my wife, like after I had her her hurry once he was dialed in, and like, it was just easy. Like, I could just do it. You know, I said to my wife, I'm like, there's a system in here, like inside of these ideas, you know? So I put them together. And I wrote about them for a while. And then one day, almost seven years ago, I started this podcast. And I started telling people like, I started putting diabetes into like, easy to understand ideas. Right? And my goal was always I don't care how you eat. If you understand how to use insulin, you could have a one c like this as well. Right? Yes, absolutely. That that has been my whole goal. And now I'm trying to have people in who talked about the way they eat. Whether you're you know, your high protein or your your I don't know, you're a vegetarian. I don't care. Yeah.

Alisa Weilerstein 41:35
Anyway, many ways to do it. But I found for me that if for myself that a Yeah, let's say ketogenic light diet works best for me.

Scott Benner 41:46
I listen, I don't have diabetes, but if I have too much sugar, or flour, I will start retaining water like a pregnant lady. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 41:56
Nobody wants that.

Scott Benner 41:56
No, I've seen myself both ways. This is this is a better way. But But no, seriously, like, I could eat what what most people would consider to be a very reasonable set of meals for a week and be 10 pounds heavier at the end of the week, and it's all

Alisa Weilerstein 42:09
just wonderful. Absolutely. I mean, I think, you know, for for most people, I mean, most people should lay off the flour and sugar. I mean, it's just, it's a it's an unfortunate fact of life. But it's true, right?

Scott Benner 42:21
Which is terrible. Because a cookie is nice, but and I don't care what people say, I don't want a cookie made almond flour. You can keep that. What am I doing? What am I gonna do with that?

Alisa Weilerstein 42:30
And I've always found like, if I have I mean, I would I will have a cheat meal once every 10 days. That's that's something I need to do for myself. I mean, not not during pregnancy, but during normal times. Um, and my visor actually pancakes. buttermilk, gooey.

Scott Benner 42:48
Butter. Yeah,

Alisa Weilerstein 42:49
yeah, butter brown maple syrup. That works. Yeah, I find that having that once every 10 days is far more interesting and better and more satisfying and makes me eat better the rest of the time than having these kind of diet pancakes, which are keto pancakes. I mean, which just tastes like cardboard to me. So yeah, I prefer to have the real deal once and then, you know, be really strict.

Scott Benner 43:14
No, it's it's all doable, like so my daughter's 16. Now, wow, her a one sees been between five two and six, two for six and a half years maybe I think

Alisa Weilerstein 43:23
that is amazing. And

Scott Benner 43:24
she eats whatever she wants. Like she had graham crackers and some weird Cool Whip with pumpkin recent like this afternoon. It's just, I just know how to bowl. So listen, if you had me with you, I could take care of those pancakes for you if you need me to.

Alisa Weilerstein 43:37
Does it? Well, Pre-Bolus

Scott Benner 43:38
will make a little Temp Basal increase will do things in there.

Unknown Speaker 43:43
Walk me

Unknown Speaker 43:44
through that right over?

Scott Benner 43:47
How? So when I was getting this set up, someone said that you were hoping to get a little more involved with diabetes stuff. Is that something you're thinking? Yeah,

Alisa Weilerstein 43:55
actually. Oh, I mean, I mean, I'm in. I'm now I'm an official spokesperson for jdrf. Oh, cool. And also, I'm also an official kind of spokesperson slash consultant for Genesis, which is a I mean, they research not only type one diabetes, but they're there. They're basically cloning organs. And so they're, they're in a very specific angle for curing diabetes, for research. And so, so yeah, I'm working with and we're kind of now no pun intended. No pun intended, but we're kind of working in tandem. Together with Dr. Anthony Genesis with Clinton pop. Oh, so yeah, I'm um, I'm getting much louder about my advocacy.

Scott Benner 44:42
Did you ever as a child or younger person's you ever hide it? The diabetes?

Alisa Weilerstein 44:47
Yeah, a lot. Actually. I started playing professionally when I was 14. So I signed with the management and I was I wasn't doing that much. I would maybe one week per month. I would I would be doing like a concerto with orchestra. So a couple of recitals here and there. But especially because I was so young, and, you know, it was a new management and they didn't. And this was still in the mid 90s. So the preconceptions of diabetes, they were definitely changing by that point, but they are not what they are now for sure. And so my I remember speaking to my parents about it and saying, I'm not going to tell my tell any professional conduct about this. So I did hide it, I, I kept it hidden from from, from everyone who was really not, let's say, a close family friend, or very few sort of trusted person. And so I kept it a secret from my manager for three years. Well, until just because I mean, I was I was very driven, I was quite ambitious. And I didn't want anyone to treat me with kid gloves. And from any sort of preconceived idea, and she actually found out because when I was 17, I traveled I started traveling by myself a bit, but I didn't stay in hotels, of course, at that age, I stayed with host families, okay. And I remember going I went up to a family in Maine, they were wonderful family, and I stayed with them for about five days. And they that there was a girl about my age who was living there, and she had type one. And then of course, we you know, we compared notes all the time. And, and so my manager found out this way, they said, Oh, yes. And and both of them have type one and how wonder, you know, how, when or how wonderful, but how crazy. Yeah, and then I and my manager, who was very New York style, tough, but very well, actually very warm and fuzzy on the inside. She said, I don't know you're diabetic. Why didn't you tell me?

Scott Benner 46:44
You tell her why. Or did you just play it off and keep going?

Alisa Weilerstein 46:47
No, I

Unknown Speaker 46:50
she is

Scott Benner 46:51
you broke up? Hold on a second.

Unknown Speaker 46:53
Oh, sorry. No, don't worry.

Scott Benner 46:54
Can you hear me? I can, but we got a bad. I'll cut my video out and see if that helps us a little bit.

Alisa Weilerstein 47:01
Okay. Can you hear me now? Yeah. Okay. Well, she said, she said, Are you really diabetic? And I said, Yeah. And then she said, Well, why didn't you tell me? I said, I don't know. Just because I didn't I mean, like, why would I tell you? I mean, this is irrelevant? She said,

Scott Benner 47:20
sorry. I was gonna say was it freeing to tell somebody?

Alisa Weilerstein 47:24
It was definitely writing to tell her when I realized that I didn't have to hide anymore. Yeah, cool. Definitely. So definitely,

Scott Benner 47:33
I can understand why you did it. And a lot of people do. And it makes sense to me, you don't want somebody to limit you or make a decision that Oh, you definitely can't do this before you get a chance to.

Alisa Weilerstein 47:45
Exactly. I didn't want anyone even to have an even an unconscious bias. That was that was really impossible. And I mean, even a bit later, I remember when I would want to do sort of athletic things. where, you know, and I was it, I wouldn't say was I mean fully out with it. I mean, I wasn't shouting it from the rooftops. So people knew. And they would say, Well, are you sure that you want to do that? Like, did you eat it up before? Or you're not going to, you know, get low or something? or pass out? Are you the sort of insensitive things like that,

Scott Benner 48:22
then all the questions start and all the judgments and the side? Yeah, and all that stuff? Yeah.

Alisa Weilerstein 48:26
Yeah. And there's just like, Well, all right. I don't think I'm gonna talk about this anymore. And but then there's the other side of it as well, which is that? Oh, well. I mean, I always forget that you have it, because, you know, you handled it so well. It's so easy for you. And that's also not I mean, I prefer that perhaps to the other but it's that that's also a bit you know, it.

Scott Benner 48:50
Yeah, we we have an idea. Let's just put it that way. I have an episode about how to about how a layperson can understand diabetes, and it's just sort of an explanation of it. And it's, it's a very common thing is that most things that people think to say that they believe are comforting, aren't really it, you know, when they come from the outside, they just don't recognize it. I do think they're trying to be Yeah, kind about it, you know?

Alisa Weilerstein 49:15
Absolutely. I mean, there's, um, I, I don't I don't judge anyone for making a comment this way. And it's especially when it's not as a kind of encouragement. And it's just Yeah, it's a tough one. Um, you know, you you learn to you learn to have I mean, I'm sure your daughter can relate to this, too. I mean, one learns to have a pretty thick skin.

Scott Benner 49:35
Yeah, no, I I believe so. I think even parents might try my video again. I think even parents, and anybody your loved ones, it's hard to hear someone say something that burns in your chest and your and you have to be like, Oh, let me explain it to you. It's not like that where you have to decide I'm not gonna explain this. I'm just gonna walk away.

Alisa Weilerstein 49:52
I don't owe anyone an explanation. Yeah. It's just while I'm doing what I'm doing, and that's it. And you know, I love with it and that's,

Scott Benner 49:59
that's all Okay, what kind of music do you list? So do you for for enjoyment? Do you listen to music? Or is it like? Yeah, what do you listen to?

Alisa Weilerstein 50:09
I do? A, I was Hey, actually, may 85 90% of the time I'm listening to classical music because I really love it. And, and it's, uh Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's what it's what moves me it's what this what I really truly love. As for other types of music which I which I also love very much. I mean, I I went through a queen phase recently, actually, I mean, I listened to Queen growing up and but I found that again, I love it. Yeah. Freddie Mercury is one of my heroes. Bjork, I loved as a teenager, and then kind of, I went a little cold on it. Now, I know, I adore her again and again,

she's amazing. She's doing a

you know, the Beatles Of course, too. And

Scott Benner 51:00
I jump through stuff, too. I have to tell you that one of the things I listened to more than I am comfortable telling people but Sarah Burrell as I listened to her a lot, and I don't know why I'm laughing. She's got such a wonderful voice and, and I just I love how she writes. And, and I don't, again, people listening are gonna learn a lot about me today. But I do. You know, I go the other way. I'm kind of all over the place. I've been listening to a lot of more. Oh, gosh, a little more jazzy stuff once in a while. And Gary Clark Jr. I really love how he plays the guitar. It's a interesting mix of Southern and not Southern. It's I don't

Unknown Speaker 51:42
know, I've never heard it.

Scott Benner 51:43
He's, he's, he's a little more like Jimi Hendrix than, than anything else. So good, you know. But yeah, and I also do this thing where I'm very careful to, and I'm glad about Apple Music lets me follow my kids. And what they're listening to. That's very cool. And I like my kids a lot. I think they're decent people. And so when they're listening to things that I don't get, I try really hard. That's good. Have you right to do it, so I do no. Pop smoke. In case you're wondering. I'm sure that rap might have missed you. But But I'm, but I'm trying to I've learned to like Meek Mill. And I just it's just some my son listens to a lot of rap music. And he's a great bright kid. And I'm like, you know what, there must be something in here. So I talked to him about,

Alisa Weilerstein 52:30
well, it's good for you for being open minded. That's great. Plus, I

Scott Benner 52:33
don't want to be an old person one day, I was like, what's that you're listening to? I don't like it. You know, like, I don't want to sound like that ever.

Unknown Speaker 52:39
out of touch.

Scott Benner 52:40
Who's coming up in cello that I should be paying attention to?

Alisa Weilerstein 52:45
Well, you mentioned the royal wedding. I mean, you heard check and kind of Mason, who was wonderful. And it was super sweet guy. And, yeah, definitely keep an eye out for him.

Scott Benner 52:55
Okay, I keep messaging him privately, and he will not answer me back. I'm sure I just I'm like, I must come. I'm like, please come on my podcast anymore. But he won't even answer me. It's fine. He seems busy. It's okay, though. But I would I wonder too, if people don't sometimes want to mix their professional with their diabetes, too, which makes sense to me.

Alisa Weilerstein 53:14
I yeah. I mean, he's very young.

And I mean, I mean, I think he's, he's probably type one diabetic. I mean, he's, he's not hiding it. But, you know, people go through different stages with how much they want to talk about it. And it could be that

Scott Benner 53:29
makes sense to me. He and his family did something like his sisters and I maybe abroad, I can't it's all the siblings, something on Facebook recently. I was like, this is as good as a concert I've ever been to, like they were like pulling it off in their family room. It looked like really something. Have you tried that whole thing since COVID? Have you been like, Hey, I'm gonna play on my Instagram.

Alisa Weilerstein 53:50
Actually, yeah, in fact, right when it's when we were truly in lockdown. I did a I did a project called 36 days of ball. So this was it was it actually went from March 17 until April 21. That was 36 days.

And because there are 36

movements of buffering for cello, so six weeks, six months, six movements each and I posted one woman per day and I went through all six weeks and I would end at the end of each week I would do a live Facebook session actually. But it was it was posted on all of my social media channels

Scott Benner 54:29
people can find it still them and

Alisa Weilerstein 54:31
that was a it especially kind of when when it when the reality hit that we were not going to be congregating in any concert hall anytime soon. Yeah, it was. You know, as performers, we are trained. And what we want to do is just to give, we want to share, we want to communicate in that way. And so that was that was my way of doing that of sharing. Well, I'll make

Scott Benner 54:53
sure to put links to your social media in here so people can find it but you are playing in public just in Europe, right?

Alisa Weilerstein 55:00
Yes, I did. I did kind of five solid no three solid weeks of work in Europe just it just now she's like September October, because they things are things are happening in Germany and, and Switzerland and to certain very, very modest extent in the UK there. I mean kind of recorded streams, kind of the way they are here in the US. But I did yeah, I mean, I kind of had this burst of activity, I had maybe two, how many, like 10 concerts in the space about three weeks. So that audiences that was a big was a big deal. Yeah,

Scott Benner 55:37
this gap of time this year is going to cause gaps in the future that we don't realize yet. People, people not performing and honing their crafts and, and getting better you think about like bands that have to go out and just bar tour to get good enough that somebody will pay attention. None of that none of that's happening right now. It's hard. Yeah. I appreciate that. You did that and you want to keep going and just try to find some. I think everybody feels that way.

Alisa Weilerstein 56:07
And actually, I've been doing quite quite a lot of recording. I mean, as soon as I arrived back in San Diego, kind of mid October and recorded all five Beethoven's almost right away at the Conrad Conrad pepper Center, which is a glorious chamber Jeremy's I call it's just the acoustics are unbelievable. Like, I mean, you want once this is all over, you've got to go and listen to some concerts there. It's really pretty amazing.

Scott Benner 56:36
I'm sorry, me to cut you off. Do you ever? Do you have a recording of a volley? I find that to be the most joyous of the cello.

Alisa Weilerstein 56:41
Yeah, no, fortunately, I'm sorry. No, don't be sorry. One

Scott Benner 56:44
day you're apologizing? Apologize. I was just that, to me seems the closest to like, the holidays. I don't know what that Oh, yeah. Is that right? You know, okay. I don't know what I'm literally a neophyte. I don't know anything about it. I can't be technical or specific. I can just tell you, it's the greatest thing ever. So,

Alisa Weilerstein 57:06
but this is what, you know, there's no need for that. I mean, we, you know, I'm thrilled that you love it. This, it makes this making my day. Great. I'm glad.

Scott Benner 57:15
What, What is there? Is there any modern music that fits? cello? Like, are people still writing for it now? stuff that I don't know?

Alisa Weilerstein 57:25
Oh, yeah. Yeah, no, for sure. There's actually it's a very special time, I think for for contemporary classical composers. Because there, it used to be that there was kind of certain styles that were acceptable, quote, unquote, to write in, you weren't taken seriously, if you wrote something that was too, let's say, too easy on the ears too accessible. Whereas now, I mean, kind of anything goes, either. And that means that there are a bunch of different languages that that people are writing, and some are writing very great kind of tonal way that kind of looking to the past. Like pretty melodies and things like this, and others are writing in totally a tonal way very dissonant. Very kind of complicated rhythmically. And I mean, I think it's all really and sorry, and others are kind of relying on technology on electronics, special effects, and it's all super, super interesting. And so I feel lucky, because I have a lot of relationships with several contemporary composers, and they're all very, very different from one another. And so um, so that's, that's something

Scott Benner 58:31
I have a lot more to find. Can I ask a question like, to the real nuts and bolts question that I've never quite been able to make sense of in my head? The bow is nothing more than horsehair.

Alisa Weilerstein 58:42
No, it's it's a wooden stick and with with horsehair and, and then the frog is? Well, I mean, some of the older bows were made with an endangered tortoise shell. Unfortunately, they both are not made that way anymore. And actually haven't been for quite some time. But um, and then there's some some metal too, to tighten the hair.

Scott Benner 59:02
But then why can you pick up one bone? Another bone make the same sound with it?

Unknown Speaker 59:06
They're not exactly the same. They're not.

Scott Benner 59:08
Yeah, so do you hear the difference in the bow and then change?

Alisa Weilerstein 59:12
Uh, I mean, I have two bows. There's one bow that I really play with and one kind of one bow that I just I have is kind of an extra in case my bow needs to be to have a kind of serious repair or

something bad happens to it basically No kidding.

Scott Benner 59:28
See, that makes more sense to me because I if you've ever watched someone like I don't know what the terminology is, but you the Bogot's role during while it's making notes and you're like, you're more on the side of it, you're more in the center of it like and it's and I just thought like how can it be the same for everyone? So

Alisa Weilerstein 59:44
she makes it? Absolutely that's a very good question there. That's absolutely not the same. And those are, no bows are all over the place in terms of the weight is always slightly different. The and even the type of horsehair that some people prefer just in case It can be different. How do

Scott Benner 1:00:01
you choose one is that like Harry Potter? A little bit. I just find you. I love

Alisa Weilerstein 1:00:07
those broomstick scenes are the are the ones you know?

Unknown Speaker 1:00:10
Like choosing an instrument?

Scott Benner 1:00:12
No kidding. So you've Wow, that's really listen, I don't know how else to tell you that I think what you do is really genuinely amazing. And it feels magical to me. It really does. I don't I, I hope people I'm going to try to put enough of your music in this episode that people will want to go find the album and listen through Oh, also, that'd be me. I really want them to it just my life would not be the same. If people didn't write music for the cello

Unknown Speaker 1:00:41
then they wouldn't be

Scott Benner 1:00:43
I like it fine mixed with their stuff. But I it it doesn't get when it gets pulled out in front is is what I like. What's that? Um, there's a thing that your your mom put out recently, there's a track it's called Walt Whitman. Do you know that?

Alisa Weilerstein 1:01:01
I haven't heard that. Actually. I'm gonna I'm gonna have to listen to it.

Scott Benner 1:01:04
And but the violin is just kind of the it's it feels very American to me. Almost like folk folk music.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:12
Oh, yeah. Well, he puts out a lot of that.

Scott Benner 1:01:14
Yeah, but but the violin I can't think of the guy's name. This is so insulting Edgar.

Alisa Weilerstein 1:01:19
Edgar Meyer is the bait is the bass player

Scott Benner 1:01:21
is the bass and he's there. And then there's a violinist and maybe and it I can look Hold on a second. And it just it the violin takes over. And I love it. And at the same time, like could you shut up so I can hear the cello. And so I was like, I'm gonna find it for you. And then I'll let you out of here. I know you have a life. And I I do want to tell you a story. So we were supposed to record the other day. And it didn't it didn't go well. We just got timezone messed up like you said, You're the people who were helping you get this set up believed you to be your site. No, no while you were in I want to tell you the rest of it because the rest of it is hilarious. Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer and Chris feel alone. Oh, really? Okay. You anyway, it's, it's I love that. It's a short piece. I really love it. But anyway, so the night before I was going to record with you, I'll end with this. My computer, the one I'm using right now, the one that has 63 recorded, but not released episodes of this podcast on it just shut off and wouldn't turn back on again. She says so I spent the entire night. I literally found the courage to erase it and put it back on from a backup, which was, trust me I was like, I my wife's like you think you we're gonna throw up and I said it and so. And so I re backed it up. I got this computer online, five minutes before you and I were supposed to record at eight o'clock in the morning Eastern time. And I was like I did it. I did it. And then you weren't there. I was. I really? I have to be honest with you. I was relieved. But um, yeah,

Unknown Speaker 1:03:03
well, it worked out for the best and I'm

Scott Benner 1:03:05
100% that but in the so I woke up at seven in the morning to the to the the backup just about being done. And I started getting nervous and I put your music on and it calmed me down. And so I just stayed chill and I waited for it to happen. And then it all worked out for the better because I was probably exhausted. It probably wouldn't have been as much fun as I hope this was no this is great. I really appreciate you doing this. Pleasure a ton I I don't know just means the world to me.

Just a huge thank you to Alyssa Wallerstein for coming on the show and talking about the cello and type one diabetes. I just had the greatest time. You really should check her music out at Alyssa Wyler stein.com alisaweilerstin.com. I'll put a link in the show notes to her website, as well as Alissa social media.

I'd like to thank Alyssa his record label pentatone for allowing me to use cuts from her latest album Bach Cello Suite here in the podcast. For those of you who don't love the cello as much as I do, I want to implore you to just try the cello suites take a few hours and just absorb it. It's absolutely life affirming and life changing. And Alyssa does as good a job with it as anyone I've ever heard. I'll leave you now. With Alicia's version of the prelude from sweet one, please go find her in Apple Music Spotify, anywhere you listen to music weilerstein Bach, you won't be sorry.

If anybody's listening who knows Shay ku con a Mason, please tell him. I'd love for him to be on the podcast. Thank you so much for listening. I'll see you soon.

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#400 How We Eat: Carnivore Diet with Dr. Paul Saladino

Carnivore Diet

Dr. Paul Saladino is the author of the book, Carnivore Code and the host of the popular Fundamental Health podcast.

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+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

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DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.

Scott Benner 0:10
Hello everyone and welcome to Episode 400 of the Juicebox Podcast.

Just recently had my first episode was someone who was speaking specifically about how they ate. I believe it was with Jordan and she was a vegan. Since then I've been recording more and more episodes with people that are focused around their different eating styles. When the opportunity to have Dr. Paul Saladino come on the show. Now Paul has an incredibly popular carnivore podcast. So while he does not have type one diabetes, he can explain the concept of carnivore eating very, very granularly. So I thought I'd have him on to pick his brain. A huge group of people in the private Facebook group juice box podcast, type one diabetes, sent in questions for Paul, and we did our best to get through them. Please remember, as you're listening that nothing you hear on the juice box podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, please always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. And please remember this as well. I have no vested interest in how you eat. I'm just trying to shine a light on how we this show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries g voke hypo pen, Find out more at G Vogue glucagon.com forward slash juice box. This episode is also sponsored by the contour next one blood glucose meter, Find out more at contour next.com forward slash juice box to give you a little background. So you kind of know why I reached out to you. Because I'm the father of a child with Type One Diabetes. I don't have diabetes myself, my daughter was diagnosed when she was two. I wrote a blog about it for a decade. And as the years went by, I started recognizing I had a system. I had a system that I knew if I did certain things at certain times and understood how insulin worked, that she could eat anything she wanted. And I was able to maintain an A one C in the in the mid to low fives most of the time honestly,

Dr. Paul Saladino 2:20
what was the system Tell me about it.

Scott Benner 2:22
It just allbasis around understanding how man made insulin works. Okay, the problem ends up being I think, for most people is that they count their carbs, right. And then they say the doctor told me that I know I one unit is for 10 carbs, so I'm having 30 carbs, I put in three units, they don't recognize that the insulin doesn't begin to work right away, that you have to you have to get the insulin in in a pre bolus situation so that as the insulin is beginning to, you know, to work, it works as the food is starting to try to drive up your blood sugar. And then I noticed that people also didn't understand that their basal insulin was very important people with type one diabetes, right. So you know, they they be using a half a unit of an hour when they needed three quarters of you know, an hour, whatever it was to keep basic life body functions, you know, quelled. And then I think the third most important thing is that they don't understand the impact of food, the glycemic load and the glycemic index of some food. So they'll Count 10 carbs of watermelon and bolus at the same way they would count you know, 10 carbs of rice. And those things don't don't work the same, the rice stays in your system longer, it impacts your blood sugar longer, sometimes long after the insulin that you put in is gone drives your blood sugar up, they don't understand because they count their carbs, and they put in their insulin. So that's kind of the basis of it. I'm I I don't not believe that there aren't better ways to eat for specific people's bodies. And I'm certainly not telling you that I think that the standard American diet is in any way healthy. My goal was just to understand that there were going to be people who ate all different ways. And that none of them deserve not to have blood sugars that were in range because they didn't understand how the insulin works. That was pretty much it.

Dr. Paul Saladino 4:05
Yeah, interesting. I mean, it's tough to use man made insulin and mimic the way the body does it. But we do the best we can.

Scott Benner 4:12
Yeah. And it's coming out. I'll tell you that most people listen, this podcast achieve a one C's pretty easily in the sixes and the people that really work on it, get it into the fives. But more recently, because I really do come from a background of not telling people how to do things. I want to start shining a light on how different people eat. So I have recently recorded with a vegan I've recently recorded with somebody who did keto. And if I'm being honest, I always see you, you know about 10 slots ahead of me and the apple podcast charts in medicine and I'm always like, that guy's constantly they're talking about carnivore and my first thought was, I wonder if he could shed some light on what people with type one diabetes see we call it a fat and protein rise. So you know and I first thought that but then I Went back to my community online. I was like, hey, if I had this guy on, would you have questions and they just asked so many questions. So I'd like you to tell me a little bit about how you eat.

Dr. Paul Saladino 5:07
Well, where do you want to start?

Scott Benner 5:09
Well, I think that the first question that people said was, you know, you talk about a carnivore based diet, can you just define what that is?

Dr. Paul Saladino 5:17
Yeah, I think it can be different things for different people. And over the amount of time that I've been researching and talking about animal based diets, my own views have evolved. And changed. I think that the the basic premise that I've come to and people will hear this, if they listen to the recent Joe Rogan podcast is that if you look at indigenous cultures, and you look at human evolution, if you look at where humans have come from, which I think can inform the way that we should be eating, as humans in 2020 indigenous cultures, and anthropological and ethnographic evidence from our ancestors suggests that animal foods have been favored preferentially for millions of years. And probably you can make a really convincing argument that the inclusion of more animal foods in the human diet about 2 million years ago was probably the single biggest catalyst in the growth of the human brain and was a major selective pressure to make humans who we are today, I would suggest that the reason we are human is because we began hunting and eating animals more. There are tons of adaptations on my website, which is heart and soil Co. There is a show notes page for the Rogen episode, which has all this evidence and the anthropology and many of the things I'll talk about today, are linked there under headings, if people want to go back to those, so I made reference that a number of times we put a lot of work into that site, okay. But there's a lot of anthropological evidence there, you can even look at the way that the human eye is structured relative to a Champions Ei, the human throwing arm, a chimpanzee has a black or a dark sclera relative to the iris. And so you can't differentiate the direction that a chimpanzee is looking like you can with a human, we have a light sclera. And so the hypothesis here is that in in humans, as we were becoming more evolved, we were sort of deciding to become a cooperative species as opposed to a competitive species. And many of the things we cooperated on were probably hunting or evasion of from predators. So we were hunting, we were letting other animals know which direction we were looking without making any sounds with a lighter sclera. Of course, we don't know exactly why it happened. But it's a striking finding that a chimpanzee has a dark sclera. And you can't really tell what direction they're looking by looking at their eyes, and humans have a light sclera. Anyway, this is all to the point that meat and organs are invariably favored by humans as valuable food. And we if we want to thrive as humans, if we want to get the nutrients that we need, we should not listen to the mainstream rhetoric which is wrong, that meat and organs are bad for us, or that they harm us in any way. It's based on bad science that's badly done, and misinterpreted, and then parroted without actually digging into the interventional studies. Okay. So one of the people in the email you sent me asked a question, can you talk about the evidence that meat is inflammatory? It's it's a very short conversation, because there is no evidence that meat is inflammatory. And it wouldn't make sense for me to be inflammatory if humans have been eating it, as the majority of our diet, specifically meat and organs, eating nose to tail for millions of years. So there's no interventional studies that I'm aware of, or that I've ever seen that anyone's ever been able to show me and humans that show that meat or organs or animal fat are inflammatory. These foods are what are meant to be eaten by humans.

Scott Benner 8:36
And by job to be You mean, it's how we evolved? It's Yeah, yeah, it's just it's what happened enough times that are due. So do you think this is crazy? Maybe. But do you think if we ate Pop Tarts for a million years, our bodies would evolve to handle them eventually? Or do you think that would be too much for us, and it would overwhelm us?

Dr. Paul Saladino 8:52
Who knows what would happen there, but if there were selective pressures, and the only thing available for humans were Pop Tarts, maybe the people that do best on Pop Tarts would thrive if there were actually a selective pressure for that. But it's hard to see. But that's what you would have to do, you would have to select the genetics in the people who thrive we may be. It's also possible that we are so far from using Pop Tarts as optimal food for humans, that we will just die out.

Scott Benner 9:18
It might kill us before we got used to it. Right?

Dr. Paul Saladino 9:21
Yeah. And this has happened. And so I didn't talk about this on the Joe Rogan episode. We didn't have time. But if you look at the anthropological evidence, look, all this common fossil is thought to be Australopithecus, Australopithecus afarensis and other Australopithecus species. And it looks like Australopithecus diverged into at least two subspecies Homo habilis and Paranthropus and we don't hear about Paranthropus because Paranthropus went extinct. But there were hominid species from Australopithecus that appear to have gone extinct now in the literature and the links to this are all on the website. It looks like home will have or excuse me, Australopithecus was eating a lot of different foods eating some plants and some animals. And the Homo habilis direction of the lineage began to eat more animals. And the Paranthropus lineage began to eat more plants. So we went from chimpanzees and bonobos, which appear to be the common human ancestor to a split, excuse me to an ancestor, like Australopithecus, which was eating more meat, and some plants on the African savanna. And then a diversion again, into more meat eating and less meat eating, and the less meat eating species went extinct. So you would think that something about the environment wasn't suited to that. That species didn't work well on the plains and appears to have gone extinct. And we can tell this by stable isotopes from the teeth of the species. So the lineage of humans appears to have come from a group of our hominid ancestors that were specialized or well adapted to eating meat. So a carnivore diet for me has become about understanding these things. Where have we come from? What are we adapted to be eating red meat, organs, incorrectly vilified, these are the centerpiece of every human diet that we need if we're going to thrive? Now, the second piece of the equation is that plants exist on a toxicity spectrum and really, are not as benign. So it's the opposite of what we've been told. They're not as benign as we've been told they are, I just don't think that there's good evidence that plant leaves, or plant seeds are benevolent for humans. And there are many downsides of these foods that were never told about lots of different toxins in these foods. So the second piece of the equation is understanding that there is individual toxicity of plants and plants exists on a toxicity spectrum. And if we really want to thrive, we should understand the way that certain plants might be creating toxicity in a human. Okay, like what

Scott Benner 11:46
kinds like you're not telling me like romaine lettuce is trying to kill me, right? Well,

Dr. Paul Saladino 11:50
in a way it is actually. I want to hear you know, I mean, think about it from the perspective of a plant does it does a romaine lettuce plant wants you to eat its leaf? No, it's going to put things in there that are going to dissuade you or any other animal or bug or organism that he from overconsuming it now, humans have gotten pretty smart. And we've figured out ways to sort of breed the most toxic chemicals out of many of these plants. But, um, I would say romaine lettuce is one of the least toxic things out there. But it's just it's not a plant food that the plant is actually trying to get you to eat. It's purposely putting things in there that are bad for you. Kale is a good example. Kale has a great publicist, but it just doesn't love you back. Kale is a leaf of a brassica plant. And there are tons of things in kale, specifically goitrogenic compounds called isothiocyanates, that are found throughout the plant kingdom, that are specifically put there by the plant to dissuade animals from over consuming them. And they have many mechanisms in the human body by which they're acting in an in a negative way, specifically interfering with the absorption of iodine, the level of the thyroid, directly oxidizing phospholipids, etc. But the intention of the plant, and the the way it's acting with these defense chemicals is very clear. So the third piece of the equation, which will be important for your listeners, especially, but really anyone is that there are a few types of food that have crept into the human diet in a very subtle way that I think are evolutionarily inconsistent, and these are acting in a very negative way. We don't think of them necessarily as plant foods, but many of them are derived from plants. The things I'm thinking about here are specifically seed oils, things like corn, canola, safflower sunflower, soybean oils. And my concern with these is that they're very high in Omega six polyunsaturated fatty acid called linoleic acid, which appears to break both our mitochondrial electron transport chain signaling, the way that our fat cells are meant to signal and divide, and also our mitochondria at a membrane level, in both the inner and the outer membrane of the mitochondria, so evolutionarily, inconsistent consumption of food is what I'm talking about here. The overarching idea is, what is an evolutionarily consistent diet for humans? What is a species appropriate diet for humans? And how many ways have we gone away from that? Well, to summarize, we've gone away from that by eating less meat and organs, because we've been told they're bad for us, eating less fat from animals, eating less of the connective tissue of animals, by eating more plants, which are highly defended, and really not great sources of nutrients, mostly full of defense chemicals. And by eating things like seed oils, and processed sugars, which none of your listeners will be great fans of, I'm sure. There's a lot of evolutionarily evolutionary and consistencies in the way that humans are eating, that I'm really calling into question. So that's a long winded answer to your question about what a carnivore diet is or what it means for me and what I'm sort of driving out with my message.

Scott Benner 14:49
No, I think that's perfect to understand where you're coming from.

I have to say that after seeing her I'm gonnablank on her name, but I saw a woman on the bill maher show, maybe this A number of months ago talk about seed oils. And I took what she said to heart, like, like, and so I've eliminated every oil in the house. Um, you know, if I need oil, I'm using cold pressed, non processed olive oil. It's the only then I even I think maybe you would tell me not to use that. But I have eliminated all of the others out of my diet. And I don't understand how those oils are bad. And I think most people don't either. So is it really marketing that I believe in my mind that canola oil is the best oil in the world? Like, like, is that just somebody telling me that and I believe it after I hear it enough times?

Dr. Paul Saladino 15:37
Absolutely. And there's a lot of debate here. It's a deep rabbit hole. But I think that canola oil has been foisted upon us as Americans for the last seven years, hand in hand with the demonization of saturated fat. And that's a whole separate story about why saturated fat is incredibly healthy for humans. Why there are unique saturated fats like stearic acid in animal fat, or more complex named fats like penta decanoic acid and animal fat specifically, that seem to have very valuable and indispensable roles in the human physiology that are left out when we shun animal fat. This all kind of began with ancel keys in the 1960s. And with the demonization of saturated fat is the, the sort of praising or the adulation going to unsaturated fat polyunsaturated vegetable oils. This is all kind of corroborated or shored up by the notion that polyunsaturated vegetable oils lower LDL cholesterol, which has also been demonized for decades. But again, I would call that into question and say, what's the real evidence that LDL is a bad thing or the tracking LDL going up and down really is an indicator or associated with the development of cardiovascular disease, I think it's an extremely poor indicator. And if you really dig into that rabbit hole, you'll notice that if you fill yourself with polyunsaturated vegetable oils, even though your LDL goes down, more valuable indicators, like oxidized LPL or LP little a go up. And what we are learning, though it's not mainstream knowledge this time is that LDL is a horrible predictor of cardiovascular disease. But oxidized LDL, oxidized phospholipids on a fo B, or LP little a are pretty good predictors of cardiovascular disease, those things move in the wrong direction when you eat polyunsaturated fat, but nobody's really talking about this, because we've become so hyper focused on LDL. And again, it goes hand in hand with this long demonization for saturated fat for really no clear reason. It's it's been exonerated recently by the American Association of one of the cardiologic associations, but the mainstream is still very bought into this kind of propaganda, that saturated fat is bad for humans,

Scott Benner 17:53
this one indicator in your blood test has to be lower, you're going to have a heart attack. And that's that there's

Dr. Paul Saladino 17:58
single, a single blood indicator that's looked at in a very myopic way. Yeah, people are not thinking about it from a contextual basis.

Scott Benner 18:04
So I'm not I don't subscribe to any specific way of eating, although I can tell you that I booked you about a week ago. And as a test a week ago, I just started eating meat and nothing else for a week. And I will tell you, I am seven pounds lighter than I was last week.

Dr. Paul Saladino 18:21
That's amazing. That's not exactly how I would recommend you do it. But

Scott Benner 18:26
I needed something to talk about with you. So and I would tell you that I do notice a lot of what people talk about my energy is good. I don't miss carbs once they're gone. And I think of carbs mainly as sugar. Because be I have to be you know, beyond bread. I don't think I'm a really carb person. You know, like, I don't eat cookies. But if you gave me a cookie, I'd eat all of the cookies. I don't have like a you know, like there's no gauge in there. But I'm not I I am never going to be a person who's like, oh, my goodness, a cookie, I'll have this cookie and walk away. But what I what I learned years ago, when the Atkins diet was incredibly popular, and tried it and found it really valuable for weight loss. The one thing I had to keep telling myself while I was doing it, and I don't know if I was wrong or not. But I can't eat these other carbs right now. Because as long as I'm eating these meats, and the fats and everything, my body was processing it fine. But the minute you add in some sugar or some carbs or some flour, your body all the sudden it feels like it holds everything in and I don't know how to quantify that. And I wanted to ask you about it. Like, why does my body begin to retain water and my energy go down when I have like white flour and things like that in my diet? Is there a reason?

Dr. Paul Saladino 19:40
Well, probably I mean white flour is from wheat. Wheat is full of gluten, which is a lectin. There's both gliadin and glutenin component to gluten. And wheat is a grain, right wheat is a seed. It's very highly defended. And the lectin which is a carbohydrate binding protein in wheat is one of the more Highly studied lectins in medicine today, and it's a very immunogenic protein. So I do think this is a good segue into discussing carbohydrates. And I'm not dogmatic to the extent that I think that a carnivore or carnivore diet needs to be low carb per se. I think that low carbohydrate diets can be beneficial for some people, we should talk about it in the context of type one diabetes. That's one context where I think a low carbohydrate diet can be very helpful. And I'll come back to that, because I've specifically seen many type one diabetics do very well with animal based diets that are low in carbohydrates. But generally speaking, I'm not vilifying carbohydrates on their own, per se. I think there are certain types of carbohydrates, white flour, refined sugars, specifically wheat with wheat gluten and other lectins that do not play well with human physiology. There are just too many immunogenic antigens like gluten, like lectins, that are that are not going to be good for you with wheat. Now, whether or not you would have the same reaction to a sweet potato, or white rice, we just had the whole stripped away, and it's a grain, which is in some ways been detoxified a little bit is questionable. And that would be an interesting thing to look at whether you would have the same reaction to that. But you when you're thinking about carbohydrates, it's important or at least valuable to consider how ancestrally consistent they are, and how our ancestors ate them. Certainly seasonally, our ancestors did eat fruit when it was available. And if you think about a plant plant is living in the ground, it's rooted in the ground. It doesn't want you to eat its stem, its leaves, its seeds or its roots. And those are often very toxic on plants. There are many toxic roots out there like cassava, there are some roots that we find in our culture today that have been detoxified. But there are many toxic plants there are many toxic seeds. But if you look at fruit generally speaking, much more fruit is edible for humans than not there is some toxic fruit out there. But there's a lot of non toxic fruit in the world as well. And many ancestral cultures, indigenous cultures consume fruit or honey now, caveat for someone whose pancreas doesn't produce insulin, eating a bunch of fruit or honey may not be a very good thing frequently, right? But for for those whose pancreas is pancreas do work well, in the context of a pancreas that works well. Carbohydrates do not cause diabetes, I should say type two diabetes in my opinion, I think there's no evidence of that. And there are many indigenous cultures that took us into the Kitab ins etc, who eat moderate to large amounts of carbohydrates and remain metabolically healthy. Now, we're shifting a little bit here to type one type, excuse me type two diabetes, which is metabolic health and insulin resistance versus type one. But in your case, if you are eating just meat, that's really interesting. A lot of people will lose a lot of weight when they go to a ketogenic or low carbohydrate diet because the glycogen stores in their muscles shift and you could lose water weight. I do think that if you continue this diet, you will lose adipose tissue in a good way. I would not recommend eating just meat I would recommend eating organs eating nose to tail Okay, getting getting all of the pieces of the animal because our ancestors and indigenous cultures don't just eat meat they eat the bones and they make bone broth and they Oregon's there are unique nutrients in those things. An animal is essentially a huge multivitamin, but you must eat it nose to tail. Now, some people don't want to eat things like liver or heart or other organs, which is why desiccated organs are valuable. That's why I built heart and soil which is my company we make desiccated organs. I mentioned the website earlier it's heart in soil co if people are listening to this, and you want to include more organs in your diet, because they have unique nutrients that are not found in the muscle meat. But you don't want to actually eat the organs. If you can get the fresh organs. That's great. But a lot of people, it's they're not ready for that. So I want to bridge that gap.

Scott Benner 24:02
You're talking about supplements, like you're not gonna send me a bunch of calf livers in the mail or something like that, right?

Dr. Paul Saladino 24:07
I'm gonna send you what what I would send you in the mail is a bunch of calf liver and heart and spleen and pancreas that's been freeze dried and put into a capsule. Gotcha.

Scott Benner 24:17
Yeah, that that seems more palatable for the male system. At the very least.

Dr. Paul Saladino 24:20
It's more palatable for most people and many of those organs are difficult to obtain in general for people, but if you can get the fresh organs, they're valuable. And so just to drive that point home. Animal meat is very nutritious, but it doesn't have everything that humans need to thrive all the micronutrients. So weight loss is about a couple of things. Weight loss is about calories. It's about satiety. And for diabetics, they're thinking about macronutrients how much fat how much protein, how many carbohydrates, that's important, but thriving long term is really about micronutrients. Where are we getting Selenium fully? vitamin B 12 bio And riboflavin vitamin K to full spectrum Amanda Quinones, where are we getting zinc and copper and manganese and molybdenum? Well, this is where animal foods really shine and plant foods start to really pale in comparison. The nutrients we need as humans are in animals. There are some implants but they are, they're less robust. They are less bioavailable, and there are many that are missing from plants in general. So I'll say something controversial right now, but it's a very important summary statement up to this point in the podcast. And the statement is that all of the nutrients found in plants can be obtained in animal foods in more bioavailable forms. And the reverse is not true. animal foods contain many nutrients that are not found at all, or in any appreciable amount in the plant kingdom. Things like creatine carnitine, Coleen carnosine, k two b 12, bieten, riboflavin, the list goes on. And on zinc, iron, copper, there are so many minerals and nutrients that are simply either not found in plants, or found in very small amounts in very, very paltry bioavailable sources. So this kind of goes back to the first notion that I was talking about that there's a real inequality between the value of animal foods and plant foods in our diet, people think that they're eating plant foods for nutrients. But if you really animal foods, nose to tail, there are no nutrients that you cannot get from that. Okay. And I'll repeat that if you eat animal foods, nose to tail, there are no nutrients you cannot get from that. And so when I say that, immediately, people say, what about vitamin C, and the shocker is that there is plenty of vitamin C in animal foods. This is widely documented. Again, it's on the heart and soil co front slash Rogan show notes, there's a whole heading vitamin C, there's vitamin C in animal foods in fresh animal foods, there is vitamin C. And I think that it's if you really look at literature for vitamin C, it's just not clear that mega doses aren't any way beneficial for humans. And I think that the the needed dose of vitamin C is much lower than we think it is. However, the point is just that there are no nutrients and plant foods that you cannot get an animal foods, everything a human needs to thrive, you can get from animals. And so when I make that statement, there are all sorts of rebuttals and questions. What about fiber? What about polyphenols, we can go down any of those rabbit holes you'd like. But I just wanted to make the point that if you're going to eat this way, eating just meat is not the way to do it. You want to get Oregon's you want to eat gnosis Hell is a good start. But you need a little more. Yeah. And for people who have a pancreas that works, carbohydrates are not the enemy, but understand that certain sources of carbohydrates are going to be more toxic than others. And I'll just say this, that in someone who has type one diabetic, on a carnivore diet, I've seen people's insulin use go way, way down. There are also published case studies of reversal of type one diabetes in young children in who it is caught quickly. So there's a nine year old published case study of a nine year old, who they saw c peptide declining, they saw insulin declining, the child was shifted to a nose to tail carnivore diet, and they saw recovery of C peptide. Now, in many autoimmune diseases, whether it's autoimmune thyroid, or autoimmune type one diabetes, it has to do with how much of the gland is preserved. But the underlying question is, why is the gland being attacked by the immune system in the first place? Is there something triggering it and I think that that's a reasonable hypothesis to say there's something in the diet of these kids that is causing the pancreas to be attacked by the immune system. Now whether that thing is cow's milk, or an egg white or a plant is questionable, but I think that if, if kids start to have issues with this, and we put them on a simple type of animal based protocol without milk, without egg whites, and without plants, this can be very helpful. And we can understand why the body is attacking the pancreas or if someone has hashimotos. Why is the body attacking the thyroid? or, in the case of all the autoimmune diseases asking the question, why is the body attacking this organ, whether it's antiphospholipid syndrome or etc, like, it usually has to do with our diet. And there is something in the diet that is triggering the immune system. That's a very radical notion for Western medicine, but I think it's one that cannot be ignored. So taking all that into consideration, I'll just throw it back to you and see if you have any questions and ask you where you want to go next.

Scott Benner 29:30
Yeah, I'm gonna run through some listener questions if you don't mind. The first one is that a person heard that carnivore eating builds his insulin resistance and I wanted to know what you thought of that. g Volk, hypo pan has no visible needle, and is the first pre mixed auto injector of glucagon for very low blood sugar in adults

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dex comm touched by type one right there in the show notes of your podcast player, and it juicebox podcast calm. Alright, let's get back to Paul and the listener submitted questions. What was that very first question again. A person heard that carnivore eating builds insulin resistance, and I wanted to know what you thought of that.

Dr. Paul Saladino 32:51
Insulin resistance is a complex topic. It's usually used as a pathological term. So carnivore eating does not cause pathological insulin resistance or metabolic dysfunction. ketogenic diets, low carbohydrate diets, by necessity result in physiologic insulin resistance. And that is our body's way of partitioning glucose for tissues that need it like the brain, the testicles, the ovaries, the adrenal, the red blood cells, and sparing it at the level of the muscles. That's normal physiology. So if someone says low carb or a ketogenic diet results in insulin resistance, that's completely true. But it's physiologic insulin resistance, and it's glucose sparing. That's a very different physiologic state, then pathological insulin resistance or metabolic dysfunction. So there's nuance there, and I've talked about it I don't like the term insulin resistance, because without insulin resistance, everyone listening to this podcast would be dead. Many people developed some low low level of insulin resistance at the level of the muscle with an overnight fast, or if they've gotten sick and haven't eaten for 24 or 36 hours or so. physiologic insulin resistance is necessary for human life. And it has to do with which tissue is going to be most responsive to insulin. It's normal physiology. Yeah,

Scott Benner 34:14
I found talking to people because I don't use the term either for different reasons, because when I'm talking to people about how much insulin they need to combat a certain food, they, I find that they're like, well, I became insulin resistant. I usually say Well, I think what happened was you ate something that is that needs a ton of this insulin, and it didn't fit into your theory about how much I usually use for this many carbs. And I think insulin resistance in the Type One Diabetes community. The term gets a little bastardized away from the medical meaning of it. So

Dr. Paul Saladino 34:48
it's, it's complicated, right? Because then the real thing we're dealing with here is metabolic dysfunction and pathological insulin resistance. And I think that there's pretty good evidence and I've spoken about this on my podcast, which Just called fundamental health with a number of people, it's an ongoing discussion that I have. I think that in humans, when our fat cells become too large, this is a different side hypertrophy. There is there can be associated impairment of epigenesis, which is the expansion of the fat cell mass, and that's a dip beside hyperplasia. And there are compounds, specifically compounds from seed oils, excess omega six, leading to break down products like for HIV and other nine and 13 hode that appear to contribute to disordered signaling at the level of the fat cell. And if the fat cells become too big, they start to burst their buttons and spew out free fatty acids and other inflammatory mediators that signal pathological insulin resistance or metabolic dysfunction. Now, it is possible for someone with Type One Diabetes, or type two diabetes, to be consuming lots of linoleic acid, lots of seed oils, and potentially be having their fat cells grow so much that they are metabolically dysfunctional, they do have underlying insulin resistance. But there's a lot of nuance here in terms of how insulin responding at the cellular level. And I think that this gets back to another thing for both type one or type two diabetics, you want your tissues to respond to insulin, when it's around, that's very clear. And you want your body to decide when the tissues will respond to insulin and when they will not. If you are fasting, you want your bodies to not respond to insulin so that you can spare the glucose for other places, because as you suggested, people always have a basal level of insulin. Even when I checked my fasting insulin, and it's three, there's always a little bit of insulin around. And if some of my tissues were not partitioning, how they respond to that insulin, after an overnight fast, then all the glucose will get taken up by muscle cells or somewhere else. And there would be none left in my blood. And suddenly my liver would have to make glucose, it would be a major problem. Yeah. So there's a lot of partitioning of nutrients. And people can become metabolically dysfunctional or have this pathological insulin resistance developed if the diet is not correct.

Scott Benner 37:07
If we set aside carnivores eating for a second, and I said to you to make a positive change in your life, you should have less sugar or no sugar, stay away from grains and flour and processed oils. Would that in general, make most people healthier?

Dr. Paul Saladino 37:25
Absolutely. Yeah. That's a huge step in the right direction. Okay. Think about how many foods that would disqualify?

Scott Benner 37:31
Yes, I do. I think about I've been thinking about bread for six days, Paul.

Dr. Paul Saladino 37:36
Very soon, very soon, your your your connection with bread will be severed, and you'll be a stronger human because of it. And again, it's not to say that carbohydrates are the enemy, but my concern is that weed is particularly immunogenic. Okay,

Scott Benner 37:49
hey, people who have chronic kidney disease, if they were going to switch over to this way of eating, do they need to get a full checkup with their doctor before they start this person asks, because of high proteins in the diet, it could elevate creatine and people with kidney chronic kidney disease, is that something you'd know about?

Dr. Paul Saladino 38:06
Yeah, this is important to consider. So in healthy individuals, more protein is not bad for your kidneys, nor is it bad for your liver. And one of the breakdown products of creatine is creatine, and we use creatine as a surrogate marker for kidney function. The kidneys don't release creatine when they're hurt. It's the excretion versus reabsorption of creatine in the tubules of the kidney that gives us a sense of how well the kidney is filtering things, we use that to calculate a glomerular filtration rate. So sometimes when people are eating more protein, they will see the creatinine rise. But if that's the case, they should also get a stat and see, which is another measure of kidney function. Again, neither of these are direct measures of kidney function. They're both surrogates, you get to stat and see to get a sense of what the kidneys really doing. Someone with chronic kidney disease is a totally different story. The jury's still out here, but if you already have damaged kidneys, you may need to check your lipids or excuse me, your your, your blood markers closely, because it is possible that your body won't be able to handle that much protein in which case you want to do a slightly lower protein diet. You can still do an animal based diet but you may not be able to handle that much protein because damaged tissue is damaged tissue a pancreas that's damaged isn't going to start working kidneys that are damaged are not going to start working. If you have normal healthy kidneys you'll be fine with more protein damaged kidneys or like damaged pan cry, damaged thyroids etc.

Scott Benner 39:34
Right so definitely check with a doctor sothis came up a bunch and I found this in my own life like the idea of eating just carnivore How do I do that a in an affordable way. How do I do it for people who are maybe trying to make a change who are picky and talk a little bit about the quality of the meat I found myself this week. Overwhelmingly thinking about something I heard you say somewhere else about if a cow eats grain to grow. I am getting the grain through the cow's meat. Is that right?

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#399 After Dark: Heroin Addiction

ADULT TOPIC WARNING

Neva began her addiction with oxicotin at age 17. A decade later she is in recovery from opiates with the help of medically assisted treatment.

You can always listen to the Juicebox Podcast here but the cool kids use: Apple Podcasts/iOS - Spotify - Amazon Alexa - Google Play/Android - iHeart Radio -  Radio Public or their favorite podcast app.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

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DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.

Scott Benner 0:10
Hello, everybody and welcome to Episode 399 of the Juicebox Podcast. This episode of the show is actually the 10th in the after dark series. If you've been listening to the after dark series we've talked so far about type one diabetes and drinking weed smoking trauma, addiction, sex from both a female and male perspective, depression and self harm divorce and co parenting bipolar disorder, bulimia, and today, we're going to be talking about heroin addiction. You can find all the episodes of the show as well as those other afterdark episodes in your podcast player, or at Juicebox podcast.com. Please remember, as you're listening that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, please always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan, or becoming bold with insulin. So this episode is with Niva. She's going to do an incredible job of explaining her addiction to you how it began, how it progressed, how she's tried to fight it, and during it how she was diagnosed with Type One Diabetes. She has, in fact the most unique diagnosis story that's ever been on the show. The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Omni pod to boost insulin pump, the dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor the Contour Next One blood glucose meter, touched by type one.org and G Volk glucagon. Today's show is sponsored by touched by type one on the pod index calm, and I'll be telling you about them later in the show. For now, to get a free no obligation demo of the Omni pod. Just go to my on the pod.com forward slash juicebox to check out my favorite diabetes organization touched by type one.org. And of course you can learn all about the Dexcom G sex@dexcom.com. forward slash juice box.

Neva 2:12
My name is Neha and I live in Colorado.

Scott Benner 2:19
It's hard, isn't it? Neva? It's yourself, isn't it?

Neva 2:23
Yeah, so I'm 28 years old. I'll be 29 in December. And I am a type one diabetic. And I am also a recovering heroin addict.

Scott Benner 2:36
There you go. So now for everybody listening naevus email came? You probably were answered back in a split second. I would imagine it was it was pretty quick. Yeah. Well, I know a good story when I hear one.

Neva 2:49
Yeah. And I often say that to like, I feel like my life should be a movie sometimes. I knew it was a good one. So I thought I, you would like it. I thought you would like it. By the

Scott Benner 2:58
time I got to the fourth sentence and I read Suboxone. I just replied Yes, here use this link yourself the time and date that works for you. So and I know. Yeah. So you're you're doing a an interesting and very kind thing. And I want to tell you this before we started when we started, but I want to tell you this before we really started getting talking that you are the fourth former heroin addict who's wanted to come on the show, but only the first that had the nerve to go through with it.

Neva 3:29
Wow, really? Yes. So I knew that like, it's kind of a really niche persona, I guess, or I don't know what what you would call it like, so I know, there's not many of us out there. But I know they are out there. So that's why I figured you know, if I have a story that can maybe help somebody you know, like, because I would like to hear somebody in my situation on a podcast like that that's has diabetes and going through, like addiction is addiction. But heroin addiction is like a completely different ballgame. Yeah,

Scott Benner 4:01
we'll dig into it so that people can try to understand But no, yeah, I am. It's been over the last I'd say two and a half to three years. Every once in a while someone reaches out and they really want to tell the story. And then something gets in the way. Either they kind of change their mind. Sometimes it's legal issues that are still ongoing, right?

Unknown Speaker 4:22
Yeah. A

Scott Benner 4:24
lot of stuff that happens the behind the scenes part of this podcast is way better than the podcast just so you some of the the conversations I get to have like very privately, I'm like, wow, I wish people could hear these. Yeah. So so let's dig in a little bit. I guess we're gonna start by asking what leads So you see, you said you started with pills. You said that's pretty common for kids.

Neva 4:49
Right? Yeah. So basically, so I told you I was 28 I in high school. So my addiction started when I was about 17. It was like right at the end of high school, I got involved with a guy that I really liked in high school, he became my boyfriend and he used pills. And what he used was, I think it was like Vicodin, and like Xanax and stuff. And, you know, I was kind of at that age where our time in my life where I wanted to experiment, and I just kind of, I had the mindset, like, oh, try everything once you know. And so and I'm just a curious person, just in general. So I always want to just know what things are, like, just have the experience behind me. And so him being involved in those, and just using them made me want to try it was like, Oh, you're, you're using that. I want to use it too. And so I would try to vike it in and it would make me sick. I would throw up because I guess of the acetaminophen and like all the because I would take more than one like Viking

Scott Benner 5:55
anyone using the label?

Unknown Speaker 5:58
Um,

Neva 5:59
no, not not gonna not gonna go by the lake.

Scott Benner 6:03
You weren't like, let's see Billy's grandma's was take one of these were hip hurts. So I'll take

Neva 6:08
six. Exactly, yeah. So, so because the vikan made me so sick, we found other pet like he was like, Okay, well, if that makes you sick, try this one. And the one that he said to try was oxy cotton, and was the 30 milligram. And they had no Tylenol in them. So they, those were better. Those didn't make me sick. And so I, you know, started off, like, using a few on the weekends. And then it was a few every few days. And then it was like, one once a day. And then it was like, two every day and it just kept going on and on. And, um, so yeah, that was like 10 years ago. And I kind of knew right away that like, oh, like, I'm addicted to these things, because I'm using them every day. But I didn't. Like why it wasn't enough to make me like want to stop or just because like you would when you stop using, you know, and you're using that much and then you stop using them, you get so sick and you just do anything you can to not feel sick anymore. So I would just constantly try to keep feeling well, I guess.

Scott Benner 7:30
Yeah. Well, and so though, give me Just give me a second because we got to pace ourselves here, by the way, right? We have an hour scheduled but if this goes longer, that's okay. Right.

Unknown Speaker 7:42
Okay, right. That's okay. All right.

Scott Benner 7:44
Okay. So if you've just said 1000 things I have no first hand knowledge of I only have just kind of a tertiary understanding of so like, I remember about a dozen years ago, that what I heard people calling hillbilly heroin was was a huge problem. Right. Right. We didn't we didn't call it by its by its drug name until more recently, I think when there was some lawsuits, right? against like pharma. Yeah.

Neva 8:13
Purdue pharma, right. They, they would like, put out these commercials back in like the 90s saying, Oh, it's this breakthrough pain medication, it's non addictive, it's the best, you'll feel the best, and it'll take away your pain. And so they were just prescribing like crazy. Yeah. And that's exactly what happened is, people would doctor shop, you know, they would get multiple different doctors and get these prescriptions for oxy cotton. And these prescriptions would be like, for huge amounts like that you just bought, like, obviously, nobody that is just trying to take away you know, a little bit of chronic pain is even that is they're not going to take that much pain meds that these doctors are prescribing.

Scott Benner 9:01
You don't need 90 pills if your shoulder just feels like I don't know, when I roll my shoulder around. It seems to catch. Yeah, nothing like that. So right. Um, let's dig a little bit. Because I when you're 17 I mean, can you characterize your upbringing because people are going to think right away and even people are gonna think, well, she's brought up poorly she was always going to use drugs like so I want to I don't know that that to be true. And I want to understand what your what your launch into life was like, could 14 year old you have imagined what 17 year old you would be going through?

Neva 9:35
No, not in a million years. So that's the thing with me is it's so hard to imagine that I brought myself to such a place in got myself into what I did because I growing up I had like the best childhood I could have ever had. I have an older brother and an older sister, who are both quite a bit older than me. Brother is seven years older than me and my sister's nine years older than me. And we just always, are around family. I remember growing up and spending holidays at my grandpa's house with all my cousins, and we're just really close, big, happy family. Like, I always remember being happy. I was always happy as a kid. And

Scott Benner 10:26
then

Neva 10:27
it was in high school that I guess it just, I kind of wanted to. I think there was something in me that like, felt like, like, I wanted to rebel, because I felt like I was doing everything I should, you know, like, I was even like, in honors classes in high school, and I got good grades and all that. But there was something back there, like a kind of, like party animal that wanted to come out, I guess, you know, and there was like, no way for me to do that, I guess in like a

Scott Benner 11:06
in your own head

Neva 11:08
or a in a, like, not go big or go home kind of way, a moderate way. I couldn't do it in a moderate way. And I guess that's, I guess that's the addict part in me, you know, like, Yeah, because if I didn't have that addict gene, I could have been able to do you know, experiment with drugs when I was younger and put it down and not

Scott Benner 11:29
care on the pod? Yeah, it's just Yeah, you're gonna be okay. Through this.

Oh, yeah. All right. Cool. We're good. Um,

what was my question? On the pot threw me off. Sorry, no, no. Were you being rushed? Did you grow up with parents that were so restrictive? that were you like a be like a horse that somebody was pulling the reins back on? Like, were you like, had were? No. Do you know what I mean by that?

Neva 11:59
Yeah. Yeah. I do know what you mean. And I wouldn't say no, I, I wasn't but so when I was 10, my sister, so she would have been 19 at the time. And we were living in Colorado at the time. And she was going to college. And she was getting into some bad stuff. And she got in a really bad car accident that left her paralyzed from the waist down. And so I think kind of ever since that had happened. My parents kind of, I'm sorry, I'm just trying to make sure my stops beeping

Scott Benner 12:44
because we've hit on something here because my sister car accident, definitely a gateway to a problem. So

Neva 12:50
right, get into it. And so I think they kind of looked at me and thought like, Okay, well, we don't want her to get involved into that stuff. So we kind of need to shelter her a little bit more, but, but also, like, I looked up to my sister, you know, so it I always thought, Okay, well, she's in she's always been a party animal. She's always been crazy loved. being around people love partying. Still does to this day. So I think there was something about that, that made me want to experience that like, Oh, my older sister is doing that. Yeah. So I, so then this is like stuff I've never really quite gotten to the bottom of

Scott Benner 13:37
we're doing. Don't worry.

Neva 13:39
Yeah. Like to try to figure out why, you know, I'm an addict and all that. So. So this is interesting. All right.

Scott Benner 13:47
If you just as long as you feel like you're okay, we'll keep going. Oh, yeah. Yeah, no, I'm good. Your parents have any addiction issues at all? Is it in the extended family?

Neva 13:56
It is, so it is like, I can't even count that many alcoholics I have on my mom's side of the family. Um, all my uncles and aunts drink. Um, a lot. like not even just like social like, well, I guess it is mostly social.

Unknown Speaker 14:15
But

Neva 14:17
my, one of my aunts really likes her wine and she drinks a lot of wine. And, but then, so that's my mom's side of the family. But my dad said the family doesn't really have any. Well, it's so my mom said the family is really big. And my dad said a family's really small. But so his, my dad's dad was an alcoholic and he actually died. I guess it was from cirrhosis or something like that. When he was really young. I think he was only 50 when he passed away. I never got to meet him. Um, but other than that, there's not many Any addiction issues on that side, however, my dad all growing up, throughout my childhood was a really big pot smoker in there, and he tried to hide it, it was like a closet thing that he did, but he did it a lot. Okay, um, and so there would be times when I would like, walk in on him smoking or something, and he'd like, try to hide it. And so I think it's like little, little bits and pieces of like, stuff like that, that I got in my childhood that was kind of like, What is this, you know, like,

Scott Benner 15:31
it normalizing and it makes you feel a little like wonderment.

Neva 15:35
Right? Right.

Scott Benner 15:37
All right. Well, you have a You said you had like a third sibling?

Um, no, no, just the two of you.

Neva 15:45
No, no, there's three of us. But their older brother, an older sister.

Scott Benner 15:49
He's the brother like wrapped in, like bubble wrap somewhere? Is he just like, trying to hold on? He's like, don't let any of this happened to me, or is he?

Neva 15:56
Oh, he's I would say he's an alcoholic as well. He's got his, um, drinking issues, for sure. He drinks a lot.

Scott Benner 16:05
Let me ask you. I'm sorry, that may have nothing to do with anything. But I mean, any financial trouble growing up with your family pretty settled? Or where it was?

Neva 16:14
Yeah, growing up, we were all usually pretty, pretty good. I got pretty much almost anything I wanted growing up. We always had an I mean, we were I would say we were middle class. You know, we had a fairly nice house. Yeah. I wouldn't say it was like big or anything. But we were always like, clean people. And I would say we were pretty normal for the most part.

Scott Benner 16:37
Gotcha. You know, it's funny. I think the stuff was

Neva 16:40
a closet stuff. You know,

Scott Benner 16:42
I do imagine your father trying to hide in a small room smoking weed back before vaping or anything like that, you probably realize you're not hiding it. In case you're wondering.

Neva 16:51
Well, I remember one time. When I was really little, we went over to one of his friend's house and his friend had a daughter my age too. So we were upstairs playing and they were down in the living room. And I came down and I sat down on the couch. And I knocked over something, and it spilled. And I looked down there and he like tried to, you know, pick it up real quick and everything and wasn't a water bottle. So that was kind of weird, you know, was a bomb?

Scott Benner 17:23
Yeah. Well, so the so is the boy you met the gateway? Or is he the excuse? Do you know what I mean by

Unknown Speaker 17:32
Yeah.

Scott Benner 17:35
And why do we just want to have sex like, normal boy? Come on?

Neva 17:39
Well, we did that, too. But, um, yeah, so that is a good question. Like, I definitely think had I not met him? I don't think or, yeah, had I not met him? I don't think I would have gotten introduced into the stuff that I did. Um, so I don't think that I would have gone down the path I did. I think I would have experimented in the same way that I, you know, because we had like a raver thing that I did. And we like did ecstasy every weekend and stuff like that. But we always went back to the opiates. So I think I would experiment like with that stuff, but I don't think it would have got as like, deep and dark. Were you bored? Yeah, I think that is a big a big trigger for sure is, I think I was just kind of bored and wanting more something, you know, like, felt like my life was too normal or something. I don't know.

Scott Benner 18:45
I've long kind of held the idea that when you grow up around something like this, it does really just make it feel like, oh, everyone does this. Especially when you're younger, and you're answering your father's smoking and like, you know, this is going on, you're just like, oh, the whole world does this. This is what we do. Yeah. And it just makes you feel like I should start doing it at some point. Like, you know, if you're, I don't know that it would be any different if your family was just a bunch of like, you know, nose to the grindstone like way too hard workers 15 hours a day, if you wouldn't just grow up thinking like yeah, it's what I do. I get up and go to work and I work all day. It's too much. You know, no one ever dies saying they wish they went to the office too much, but I love it you like if you would just kind of be Yeah, you know, like, well, that

Neva 19:30
that is another thing about my family is they like my mom, I would say she's a workaholic for sure. Like she she's always like held down like three jobs at a time. It's constantly working and um

Scott Benner 19:46
well, someone's Yeah, everyone's addicted to something. Right?

Neva 19:48
Exactly. Yeah, I sign in. I'm sorry. You You did say something about like, Oh, this is what everybody does. So I do it too, or whatever. And that's the weird thing about me as I've never been much of a drinker. Um, so I wonder if that's because I've always had the drugs you know, so that's why I never really got into drinking is because I had the other

Scott Benner 20:10
vice were too busy

Neva 20:11
had I have you had I not had that maybe I would have become an alcoholic, I don't know,

Scott Benner 20:15
may ask you how you get drugs when you're 1718 years old.

Neva 20:21
So from other kids, it that's how it started was just through friends, you know that had it. And I don't know where they got it probably their parents medicine cabinet or something. And then they would give a number like, oh, we'll call this guy for this. And then that person would give a number and then you'd kind of eventually work up to like, the person that's actually like dealing the pills as their job, you know. And then so, like, a few years down the line after, like, I was 17 doing pills every day, you know, I was going to this drug dealer and getting pills every day.

Scott Benner 21:01
What do you get the money?

Neva 21:03
I had jobs I growing up. I Well, in high school, I worked at a sandwich shop. And I had that job for a while. And then I got into an office job and I've always had a job. So I've always had a way to um

did your to fund my habit?

Scott Benner 21:25
Did your entire existence was your entire existence about making money to buy drugs, buying drugs, using drugs making money to just go in a circle?

Neva 21:34
Yeah, yeah. And although I did it, like, I, it was a closet thing for me too. It was kind of like I did a double life, like I would go to work, go to school, do everything I needed to do. And then I would come home, do my drugs, wake up in the morning, do my drugs, go to work, go to school, come home, do it all over again, you know, so and I never did it like around people. It was always a thing. Or me. Like when I did when I was still with that guy. It was a thing we did together. And then we would go about her life. And then when I finally broke it off with him, I still had this addiction. So I still used um, and it was just a thing I did. Probably myself and then

Scott Benner 22:19
yeah, anybody in your family know, you were addicted?

Neva 22:23
It they do now. But did they then but they?

Sorry, my mom just peeked in the door.

Scott Benner 22:33
Tell you're busy telling the whole world about your addictions?

Unknown Speaker 22:35
Does she know? Okay.

Unknown Speaker 22:38
Hold on a sec.

Neva 22:41
Um, yes, they do know. But for a while they they didn't. Like, I would say, growing up, I'm like, or I keep saying growing growing up. But like when I was 17 1819, maybe to 20 they I think I held it secret for a while. But then things, you know, I I'd said I had a job to fund my habit for a long time. But the those funds only go so far when you have such a huge addiction. So I would do things you know that I'm not proud of to get money like I would steal from my family. And so when stuff like that starts happening, then they kind of start to look a little deeper and say, well, what's going on?

Scott Benner 23:38
wise money? Oh,

Neva 23:38
Perry. Right? Yeah. And then they were they would come out? It's funny.

Scott Benner 23:43
I would imagine that everybody who's listening had the same thing happened to me, to them. That just happened to me when you're like you said I did things I wasn't proud of my brain. Phil did what I thought you were going to say next. And oh, I wonder if everybody didn't think about 1000 different things like their their thing in their head? That would be too far, you know, right. I, when when they started noticing like things missing? Did they come to you?

Neva 24:13
Yeah. And they because and that is one thing that I have, you know, my family has always been very supportive of me, stuck by me through everything. So they just always wanted to help me, you know, so even though they were angry that I stole from them, they wanted to do what they could to help me so they, you know, they weren't, they didn't want to enable it. They wanted to, you know, get ahead of it and come to me face, you know, face me and say, Well, what do we need to do to fix this? And so that just kind of started a period of trying to get clean, relaxing, trying to get clean, relaxing, trying to get clean, relaxing. Like, I can't even count the many times and things I've tried.

Scott Benner 25:03
When you first tried, did you want to? Or were you doing it because you got caught?

Neva 25:08
I think I was doing it because I thought for sure, okay.

Scott Benner 25:12
How does it? I don't want to glamorize this, but I do want to understand. It's just is it addictive? Like an addictive property? Or is maybe my question stupid. But I'm sitting here as a guy who's like, you know, almost 50 whose back is hurt every day for the last 30 years in some way or another? And, you know, like, Is it just? Does it just make everything feel like you're floating on air? Or you gone? So what is what's the, what's the outcome of using?

Neva 25:44
It does, it does make your body feel really good. Like, I'm people. I've heard people describe it so many different ways. Like I know people say like, oh, it feels like Jesus has given you a warm hug. And yeah, it does feel good. I'm not gonna say it doesn't feel good. But there's so much other stuff that makes it feel so much worse, too. But, um, but what I was gonna say was it it does make your body feel good. But I think the appeal, especially for me, is what it did was it not only shut off my thoughts, and my racing mind, or whatever, but it it just made everything seem like it was good like it. Even though I had all these debts and these problems and these issues and this huge addiction. It just makes it makes your mind say, well, everything's fine. The world's fine, you're fine. You know, so it, I think that was a big appeal was to keep coming back to shut off the stops, right? Do you brain?

Scott Benner 26:55
Just for context, family background? What's your lineage?

Neva 27:02
Um, I am white. I, my dad is pretty much all German. And my mom is English, Polish and Irish. Okay.

Scott Benner 27:18
Are you mad at the guy? Or do you go through a time where you're mad at him?

Unknown Speaker 27:25
Yeah. I'm

Scott Benner 27:29
mad at yourself, which is,

Unknown Speaker 27:32
like,

Neva 27:36
I'm mad at him. Because, I mean, there's more to the story than just him introducing drugs to me, but he was also like, he had his own issues. So he would like, isolate me from my family, and all kinds of stuff like that. And so like, I'm mad at him for that stuff. But I think I am mostly mad at myself for just not being smart about it, I guess. Um, but also, I think, had somebody told me like, Oh, you have this addictive gene. Like, if there was a way to tell like, Oh, you have this addictive gene? Maybe I wouldn't have tried it in the first place, you know, or maybe somebody would have drawn it out for me how horrible. It can get, you know, like, not just

Unknown Speaker 28:33
like,

Neva 28:35
the stealing from family and stuff like that. But like the withdrawals, like not having it, how painful it is to go through the withdrawals. And

Scott Benner 28:45
yeah, I want to ask you about that. But I want to understand first. If that says really tough age for a girl at 17 So were you Was it a self confidence issue was just like, hey, this guy likes me. And that felt like good, or did you not have trouble with self confidence? And

Neva 29:02
so I always felt like I was pretty confident. But I think that now that you bring that up, that does make a lot of sense. Like, I think it was like okay, this guy does this, okay, he'll like, I want him to like me more so he'll like anymore if I do the same things he does. So yeah, I think that is it for and like just fitting in, you know, like, going to parties and trying to be the cool girl or whatever, you know, like smoking weed or taking ecstasy, trying to act all hard and stuff. And yeah,

Scott Benner 29:39
if I have to tell you, I do listen to the show.

Neva 29:42
Oh, yeah. I think I've heard every episode. Well, thank you and

Scott Benner 29:45
everyone else. But what are you saying you listen to every episode and so should everyone else. What are you doing?

Neva 29:53
Right That's learned a lot from it. So

Scott Benner 29:54
thank you. I'm a

Neva 29:56
podcast person. So I listened to works for you to begin

Scott Benner 30:00
Yeah, what I was gonna say is that everything you said to me, I mean, I'm grateful not to have an addictive personality around this. But none of it makes. It doesn't resonate with me at all. I don't want to be around a bunch of people, I don't want to go to a party. And people think about me, like, I don't have any of that if someone came up to me when I was 17 was like, Hey, I have pills. I'd be like, Okay, and then that would be the end of it. You know, I'd be like, well, I guess I could talk to you anymore. And then that would and I was not brought up with any. My mom won't hear this, right. Like, I was not really parentid as a, like, my, my father and mother split, when I was 13. And my mom went off to work full time, and I basically took care of my brothers. And no one was giving me any direction. As a matter of fact, I guess if I sit here and make a list of things I've done that I shouldn't have done. There won't be drugs and alcohol on it for any reason. And the only rules I ever broke were in the pursuit of helping my family like, I don't think I've ever said this on the podcast. But this is an after dark episode. And I think the years have passed by where it won't matter anymore. I have been a daily driver of a car since I was 13 years old. Yeah, because my mom didn't drive and we had to take in a boarder to offset some costs when my father left. And we needed to go to the grocery store. So I taught myself to drive a car so I could take my mom to the grocery store when I was 13. I drove every day picking epic. And it was, you know, that's incredibly illegal. It's not as illegal. Illegal as heroin. But I mean, it's, it's not a thing you would think of a 13 year old doing right. And yet I did not. I don't know. Maybe? I don't know. It's just addiction. Such a crazy thing. Yeah. And I think mothers

Neva 31:53
Yeah, that just goes to show you how different paths people can take depending on you know, what, how their life is shaped and stuff. And like you said, even not having that addictive gene. And yeah, maybe you don't have it. And so it just wasn't, there was no appeal for you in the first place. And

Scott Benner 32:15
it's just fascinating that everything you described to me that you were trying to get to sounded terrible to me. I was like, Oh my god, I'd have to go out and do drugs there then like I had done Oh, my god, it sounds terrible. I'd be around people see.

Neva 32:29
Now to me, that sounds terrible. Like I don't know if maybe like doing heroin made me a recluse and now I don't want to be around people. But that's been water. Sure. That's the

Scott Benner 32:41
next question then is when? A number. Yeah, hey, what's your Yeah, careful. You're on your clothes or your hair. Okay. Oh, okay. But yeah, how do you get from the pills to the heroin.

Neva 32:55
So I watched those pills go from like, $7 for one pill, to $30 a pill. And when you have like a five pill a day habit that gets really, really crazy expensive. You're telling me inflation drove

Scott Benner 33:14
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Neva 37:44
Yeah, um,

so when you're sick, and don't have enough money to feel good doing your five pill a day habit? And somebody says, Oh, well, I have this and it's much cheaper. It'll get you 10 times higher. And while you're sick, you think Well, yeah, give it to me. Oh, yeah. So I did kind of think at first, you know, I was like, Oh, this is heroin. I keep doing that. You know, like, the others was okay. Because it I knew exactly what I was getting where it was coming from how much was in it was from a doctor. So that's not bad. Even though I was crushing it up and snorting. It wasn't bad.

Scott Benner 38:32
He left him upside good.

Neva 38:35
So, um, yeah. So that first time when my boyfriend at the time brought back the heroin and said, Well, I have this so we're sick. Let's just do this. I remember thinking, Oh, well, what is this gonna open up? You know, like, Oh, my gosh, I'm gonna be a real junkie now. Yeah, you know, even though I already was clearly doing everything a junkie does. I just don't know why. I'm using pills. So I'm not a junkie, but I'm using heroin. So I am a junkie.

Scott Benner 39:11
Well, George W. Bush did this apparently to you. I just looked up on Google. He, uh, Oh, really? Whatever, though. Obviously, I'm kidding. But it's, it's interesting as hell that you could see the pills as not as bad because they were right. Somebody's got them legitimately even though they weren't yours. And like,

Neva 39:35
in a way, that's true. Because like with heroin, you don't know exactly what you're getting, or where it's coming from. Right. Whereas with the pills, I mean, it's I know they do make fake pills and stuff, but I'm pretty sure most of the ones I got were legit. You do you know, they're made in a lab. They have to be FDA approved and stuff. So like, in a way they are quote unquote, better, but I mean, you're it's the same thing. Really, it's, it's the same

Scott Benner 40:06
you literally cooking it a spoon and jacking it, how do you use it?

Neva 40:10
Uh, yeah. So at first, so the pills, I went from just taking them orally for probably about a year, maybe not even that much long, maybe like six months, and then I started snorting Um, and I probably snorted them all the way up until you started heroin. And I was living in California at the time. And so what they had out there was black tar heroin. And so I would smoke it on like tin foil. And so I used it like that for a few years. And then that wasn't getting the high anymore. And I knew some people around that, you know, just being in the circle of, like, I didn't, I didn't really have friends at the time. But from going to the dealer, I would see people you know, and we would kind of Converse or whatever, you know, you just know people that are in that circle, kind of, kind of thing. And so I knew some of them, use needles, and I knew that, okay, I'm smoking this stuff, just to get me well and feel normal. But I want to get high. So in order to get high, I'd have to shoot it. And I tried for the longest time to not use the needles, but you know, you get desperate enough you in addiction, you do things you would never thought you would do. And

so yeah, so I started shooting it up.

Scott Benner 41:45
So the draw, I want to try to understand, just make sure I got this right, smoking heroin to stay to keep from being sick. But that didn't make you high anymore.

Neva 41:54
Right, right. Yeah, you get to a point. When you use so much. And for so long, you get to a point where it doesn't make you high anymore. You it's just literally using to make you feel normal.

Scott Benner 42:05
Okay. And I guess it's probably difficult for people to understand that haven't done it. And I I'm gonna put myself in that category. But what is in that moment? This like, how, what does the sickness feel like? Like when you're when you're when you don't? You don't have them anymore? Because it because it makes you do? It makes you ignore things that you would normally Oh, yeah, right. So it may it

Neva 42:32
turns you into a completely different person, like you will do anything to not feel sick. And that just shows you how horrible the feeling it is. It is the worst feeling I've ever felt, although DK was pretty far up there. But um, I would say withdrawal is pretty

Scott Benner 42:55
physical pain.

Neva 42:56
Like it Yeah, so you, it starts with your so like maybe 24 hours after not having it, you, your nose gets runny, your eyes get runny and then your extremities like start to get cold and you start to sweat. So you're like hot, but you're cold at the same time, you get those cold sweats, and then maybe like 72 hours or 48 hours to 72 hours after you haven't had it, then you're you get restless legs and you can't sleep. And then you start vomiting and have diarrhea, you can't keep anything down, it's coming out both ends. You can't stay still your joints ache, your back aches, your bones just ache and your muscles ache. And then you can't sleep on top of it and you're throwing up and you're cold and you're hot and it is just a horrible horrible feeling. And then just to know that in that lasts for like probably about a week until you start feeling better. Um, and but just to know that the only thing that will take all of that horrible pain away is just one little shot or line or whatever, you know, just a little little bit of the drug and it'll just Oh, you'll feel completely fine again, and if

Scott Benner 44:18
you if you stayed medicated, like to a point where you wouldn't feel sick but wouldn't be high would you just be a useless person? Like if you had enough heroin and you had to just keep up like a steady like say you could you somebody could stop you from using more. Would you just be like a zombie? Or could you Yeah, you're spot in there.

Neva 44:43
So and that's what is a really hard thing about my addiction to is I did function for so long like that. And so I want you know, I definitely do say I was a functioning addict. But yeah, it was a zombie like life. Like, there would be times when I would go to work. And I would like not off at work, you know, and it just, and then when you're working to literally all your money is going to that it's like, there's more to life than just that. Yeah. So like, yeah, I think you could do it. But does anybody really want to do that? Like, what kind of life is that? You know,

Scott Benner 45:30
looking back, do you think that the people around you like at your job and stuff? Do you think they knew you were an addict? Like, do you think you thought you were hiding it? But you aren't?

Neva 45:39
Yeah, I think there, because there's no way you know, like, when I'm sitting there, like, not at all, like, there's no way nobody can not see that and think like, Oh, she's just tired. And that's what I would say, you know, like, I'm just tired, but

really, I'm just fooling myself.

Scott Benner 46:00
Well, okay. Give me a second. Let's pray. Okay, all right, here we go. I'm gonna take my sweatshirt off in a second. This never happened. Heating up as we're talking. So your see your parents kind of lead you to trying to get cleaned up, right. And the first try was, what what do they do first? Is it rehab? Or is it how do they

Neva 46:28
first try, I think, was when I was still using the pills. And I think I just tried to go cold turkey. And I think I lasted three days. And then I went back out using and then I think I I don't know if I was like, just a really good liar. Or if my parents just didn't want to like, um,

Scott Benner 47:00
know what to do.

Neva 47:01
Yeah, or, like, kind of

what is the word I'm looking for? Like, um, sweep it under the rug type of thing, like, wanted to not deal with it or something. So. So I would tell them, you know, I'm good. I'm good. I'm not using I'm good. Even though I was. Um, so that would go on, you know, like, Hey, I would tell him Oh, those three days, you know, okay, I'm good. Now. I got over it. Right.

Scott Benner 47:32
What but then I don't want to. I don't want to drag your sister's personal details in it. But at what part of her life is it while you're when they try to get like a she already had her accident by then?

Neva 47:44
Oh, yeah. Yeah. So she, I think her accident was in 2001. And we were still living in Colorado at the time. And I moved out to California with my family when I was 11. And that was in 2003. And she moved out there with us. And she she completely turned her life around after her accident. She started going to school, she got her. She went to school out there. Got her master's now she has a PhD. Um, and so she kind of had her own life off to the side where I was still living with my parents.

Scott Benner 48:30
So the reason I asked it was her accident, like, I don't need real details, but drug related.

Neva 48:37
Yeah, okay. Yeah, and alcohol, alcohol and drug. Okay.

Scott Benner 48:42
I'm trying to imagine your parents. They've got a their oldest girl is paralyzed from a drug related car accident. And now they found out their youngest is using oxy. Do you think they were just like, oh, we're good at this. Like, good. Like, what are we gonna do?

Neva 49:00
No. I I can't even imagine what I have put them through. Um, well, them. Yeah. Not even them just going through my sister nearly dying. But then. Yeah, what? I can't even imagine the stress that I've put them through,

Scott Benner 49:19
right. I just meant like, I'm trying to figure out like when you said you don't know, if they were trying to sweep it under the rug. I imagine they're in their bedroom with the door closed going. What do we do? Like, what do we do? I don't know what to do. I'm, you know, and

Neva 49:31
I yeah, they and they probably were like that, and they probably didn't know what to do. And I didn't know what to do. And so he was so

Scott Benner 49:45
Darden can pick out a new dresser for her room and my wife and I are like in the bedroom going oh my god, how long is this gonna go on? Yeah. So it's hard being like someone's parent and I'm not altered, which it sounds like your dad was and You know, it's just a lot of ending, you still gotta go to work. You don't mean like, try to imagine it's, you know, it's a Thursday, and your daughter comes downstairs, it's like, Hey, you know, I'm on pills, and you're like, I'm exhausted, and I just want to get high and then go to bed and go back to work, since I'm pretending to be your dad now. It's like, I was gonna go to bed and go back to work. And now this is just there's no time for it. And then, so the cold turkey thing. Did anyone try to help you? What was that? Like?

Neva 50:29
Yeah, they, um, they did for sure. And they tried to make me comfortable and all that in. But, you know, we said at the beginning, it was kind of like it was forced on me. You know, it wasn't that I really wanted it. So it was kind of gonna fail Anyway, you know, like, I didn't really want it. Yeah.

Scott Benner 50:52
So you've tried cold turkey you didn't want to you was you've tried Suboxone? Which I actually know what that is. Because this is gonna sound random to you. And something that the words may not mean anything to you. But a comedian that used to work on the Howard Stern Show was an addict, his name was already lying. And I remember

Neva 51:12
I know that is funny because I listened to another podcast that has to do with him.

Scott Benner 51:18
So rd, who, by the way, used to tell the greatest drugs stories on the radio, they were just and I feel bad, having been so thoroughly entertained by them, but he tells one, about being on the set of Mad TV, dressed as a pig in a full costume with like, teats and everything. And literally, like during a break and filming, racing across Los Angeles to get cocaine. And it's and it's I've never heard anyone tell a funnier story in my entire life. Of course, everything had happened to him after that. Very funny. But, but I remember Artie always saying, I'm using Suboxone, I'm okay, I'm using Suboxone, but I think he was I don't think he was I think he was using and telling people he was at different times. So but Suboxone is what tell people what it's supposed to be.

Neva 52:07
So Suboxone is a replacement therapy drunk. Or like, medically assisted treatment, I guess is what they would call it, which methadone also falls into that, which we'll get into that as well. But, um, so Suboxone it's the drug that it actually is is Naloxone, which bloods buprenorphine and Naloxone. And so buprenorphine is the drug that attaches to your opiate receptor. So it blocks it basically blocks the opiate receptor. So it makes your brain think that you're when you take it, it makes your brain think that you've got that you're high on the drugs, but you don't get high. And then if you were to try to use on top of using the Suboxone, you wouldn't get high, you would actually get sick. Um, which is kind of a weird thing with me. When I did start the Suboxone maintenance. I would still kind of use on the site too. And I actually didn't get that sick, like you're supposed to.

Scott Benner 53:13
Fully the system.

Neva 53:14
Yeah. And so I used it, like not in a therapeutical way. I would use it when I didn't have heroin basically, is how I would use this box.

Scott Benner 53:24
Gotcha. So you just you just use to make the sickness go away. But you still Yeah, at high. Right, right. And so and you said you've tried methadone, inpatient, outpatient, like everything what finally worked

Neva 53:39
well, so that kind of brings us into the diabetes? Um, yeah, nearly dying from DK i think is kind of what set it off. So I moved so my, when I moved out to California with my family, I went to high school there and everything started using drugs got into all those issues out there. And then in 2015, we thought okay, maybe you should move out to Cal to Colorado and be with like your because my whole extended family still lives out here like my grandpa aunts and uncles and stuff like that, um, maybe to move out there, you know, changing scenery and everything. Maybe that'll help you you know, since I had tried everything else. And so, I did that until I'm 15. And that didn't work I started using almost immediately after coming here, and I came out here and started living with my grandfather.

And

so then I

basically the same cycle started over again, here, as at the dare I would I say somehow found a dealer I think online somehow I found

Scott Benner 55:04
in dealer using, yeah. Almost anything, right? I'm trying to imagine your grandfather and his golden years, like, wait a minute, what's happening? My wife when I was coming to live with me

Neva 55:19
the whole time, you know, I'm telling everybody Oh, I'm good, I'm clean. I'm good. I'm clean. And I don't know if they believed me. They I guess they said they did. But there was always, you know that in the back of their mind, because everything else had failed and stuff that I maybe wasn't telling the truth. And then the same issues, you know, well, wasn't paying my bills and stuff like that. So then it would be like, Oh, well, are you really good Niva. And so then that's when I started, I had a job out here. I was working with my aunt in an office job. And I worked the front desk. I was like, a receptionist accounting person. And I dealt with the cash box. And so

Scott Benner 56:10
that's not a good fit for you. Right? Yeah. Even I know that.

Neva 56:16
But I'm good. Remember?

Scott Benner 56:20
To for you to for me one. Yeah.

Neva 56:23
And that is exactly what happened. So somebody there went and counted the cashbox, and, of course, it was short. And then they started investigating, and, you know, my ear, knowing my background comes to me and says, You know, I put my neck on the line for you to give you this job. You need to tell me, did you take this money? And so I told her, yes, I took it. And then my mom got involved. And she said, Well, we need to figure something out. Like, this still isn't working. What? What do we need to do to help you. And that's when I tried the inpatient. It was out here that I tried to inpatient for the first time, okay. And so I went to a detox out here. And, um, I was in detox for, I think, like, five days. And then from there.

Scott Benner 57:17
Sorry, I had to take a drink. Oh, you're fine. From there, don't apologize, you're great. I can tell you listen to a lot of podcasts. So you're doing terrific.

Neva 57:25
Thanks. And so from the detox, in order to get out of the detox facility, you had to have something set up for afterward, whether it be session like a appointment to meet with a therapist or a counselor, or to go into an inpatient program, or to go into an outpatient program, you have to have something set up. And so my deal like, they make you set it up while you're in there, you know, because you're in when you're in the detox facility, you're going to groups, you know, every few hours and conversing with the other people that are in there and stuff. And then you have some downtime. And during that downtime, you're supposed to be calling your insurance and setting up this aftercare stuff. And so I set up to go to this inpatient program, which was a two week program. And, of course, my family is telling me Oh, you need more than that you need at least 30 days, 90 days, something like six months, even some people were saying, I don't use that are down, I needed that.

But, you know, of course, I wanted to

get out in start living my life, you know, I didn't want to be stuck in there. And, and there was also a part of me that wanted to still, like, be an adult and take care of my, you know, go to work and I didn't want to be stuck in a rehab facility and somebody taking care of me, you know, like it just there was something in my head that well, I don't want to burden you with having to take care of me. So I guess I went for the two week program thinking I can like I I had it in my mind like, yeah, I can do it. I I think I got my head on straight now. But then, there was still something in my head that didn't want me to give up. I don't know if it was the, the comfort like knowing of that I have that that I can fall back on or there was something still in the back of my mind that kept me wanting to still use like not give it up completely. Like there was you know, they say okay, you never you can't ever use again. Yeah. And to me that just Like,

Scott Benner 1:00:00
you're like nah. Yeah. Like, I'll just start over, like when I was 17.

Neva 1:00:05
Tell us a little bit here and there. Fine.

Scott Benner 1:00:07
So the detox like when your Detox Detox, it doesn't take away. Whatever issue. I mean, do you buy into the idea that people using like hard drugs like this, or who are drinking a ton or are trying that they're covering some sort of emotional pain up?

Neva 1:00:26
I do, and I don't. And so that's still, you know, something that I'm still trying to figure out, you know, like, because like I said, in the beginning, like, I had a great childhood. Things, for the most part have been good in my life. And so what could it have been that I was covering up? But then like, thinking back, you know, okay, I had this boyfriend that I started using with, well, he would also, you know, be verbally abusive to me, and just, you know, stuff like that, that maybe I was trying to medicate, or something

Scott Benner 1:01:06
like, question around that. And I really, I don't know, the first thing about this. But my question around that just from listening to you is that some people like if you weren't being physically restrained, I don't understand that you ever saw him again? And and so I've been treated poorly by like, we've all been treated poorly by somebody at some point. And some people are just like, what is this noise? And they're gone. And some people are like, it's not that bad. He Yeah. So I mean, like that.

Neva 1:01:37
Yeah. And I do I totally know what you mean, because I've thought about this before, too, is, I think I was for a while addicted to him as much as I was the drugs, you know. And so I think he, from the beginning was like, a troubled Boy, you know, and so I had this idea in my mind, well, I can fix him. I can make him happy. And I'm, when he's with me, he's happy. And so

Scott Benner 1:02:05
it makes you feel good. Yeah,

Neva 1:02:06
it just Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:02:08
You're You're the you're his medicine. Not that much longer. Hey, I hope this doesn't seem out of left field. He's your first sexual experience or no? Yes. Okay. That seems important for me to know.

Neva 1:02:21
And and I think, yeah, and since you do say that there was this idea in the back of my head, like, oh, the high school sweetheart thing like, Oh, I have to have the high school sweetheart. Yeah, I have to have this guy that, you know, he was, you know, I lost my virginity to him. So, and I won't ever have to have sex with anybody else. Because he's my high school sweetheart. We're gonna live forever together, you know. And so I think that was definitely in the back of my mind that something I felt strongly about.

Scott Benner 1:02:54
I don't doubt that, you know, I don't doubt the idea of people having a tendency towards addiction. I don't at all, but I just, there's, it's hard not to feel like, you just got unlucky with the first person you bumped into as well. And

Neva 1:03:11
I think that is it, you know, and also unlucky that I had that addict gene, because maybe if I didn't have that added gene, I could have just put it down, you know, right. You could

Scott Benner 1:03:21
have like, like, no lie. If I'm, I don't mean this in a creepy way. But if if me at 17, and you at 17 met each other, we wouldn't have done drugs together. And and if you would have, I would have been like, hey, if you do that, I'm not gonna hang out. And I wonder if that wouldn't have been enough pressure for you to be like, well, I like this guy. And he doesn't want me to do drugs. So like, if that doesn't just sign a shirt. What a different path, you know? Yeah. You'd probably be a raging alcoholic by now. But I'm just saying at least we wouldn't have done pills together. Yes. I'm just saying with your family. I don't think you're getting away from this. Or are you read weigh 1000 pounds or something? You know, like, I think you'd just be like,

Neva 1:03:59
I'd have an addiction somewhere else. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:04:00
I gotta be addicted to something. Damn it. And that does bring up a question. Now that you're and let me ask How long have you been clean?

Neva 1:04:10
Now it has been two years. Just over two years. That's excellent.

Scott Benner 1:04:14
Good for you. Thank you. Yeah. How do you not I'm like what do you do to fill that need to be addict? Like, did you did you overcome it? Or are you just doing it with something like, are you doing like, I'm needlepoint or something like what's going on?

Unknown Speaker 1:04:31
I'm still um, I make scarves

Scott Benner 1:04:33
Scott, would you like a scarf?

Neva 1:04:37
I do have hobbies. I definitely do have a lot of hobbies. Um, but I am still in aftercare. Yeah, so I'm still in the methadone program. So I do.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:51
So I don't

Neva 1:04:53
do you want to jump into the diabetes thing because it does kind of,

Scott Benner 1:04:56
hey, listen to your story way better than me all. I can tell everybody Listening is we're an hour in, and you still haven't heard what I'm going to tell you is the best goddamn diagnosis story you've ever heard in your home. So just hold on, it's coming.

Neva 1:05:10
Okay, so. So after I got out of the, the inpatient, I think I stayed clean, maybe like a week or something and started using again. And then I met a boy, and he did not use and he despised my using. And I liked this boy enough to try to stop, you know, because my, you know, I? Well, so I ended up losing that job that I was taking the cash from, you

Scott Benner 1:05:39
would think,

Neva 1:05:41
yeah, and, um, and so I was jobless for a little while, and I ended up finding another job. And you know, I started this relationship with this boy. And then so that's when I started the methadone program out here. And so methadone, it's a replacement drug also. But if you don't have it, you'll, you'll get sick as well. Okay. And so that's kind of controversial to some people, they think you're just replacing one for the other. But there's a lot to be said about, well, if you're truly working like, you know, like, you don't get high from it. Like, if you're, if you're at a right dose, and you're working on, you know, the other aspects of your life trying to put the pieces back together, and then I'm working on like, coming off of it, like they slowly slip very slowly wean you off of it. Um, I think it can be used therapeutically to where it's not like, Oh, just replacing one for the other. Like, I don't want to be on this for the rest of my life, you know, um, but right now, it's a lot better than sticking a needle in my arm.

Scott Benner 1:07:05
So this methadone is keeping your body from going bonkers, putting you through a pain, all these withdrawal problems. Right? But it's not feeding your addiction, though. Right? Okay, so So what do you do, you still feel the pole or just the methadone keep you from wanting to be high to

Neva 1:07:24
the methadone, it does do a really good job at keeping your brain from not thinking about it. Um, but you know, I, I'm an addict. So and I'm always going to be and so I'm always going to think about it. I'm not going to deny that. But so when I do think about it, you know, I have people I can call. And that's, you know, I've always had a really good support system, and for the most part have been pretty honest with people about my addiction, and how bad it's gotten and stuff. And so I do have people I can turn to in those times of need.

And so

back in 2018,

it was, I had just gotten this new job that I had told you about, I've been going to the methadone program for a couple months, and things were going pretty good. And then I kind of started to lose weight a little bit. But at the same time, I also found out I was pregnant. And I was drinking a lot. I was super thirsty. I was going bathroom a lot. And so the methadone program, they pee test you ever once a month, and I had so I told my boyfriend It was so how I found out I was pregnant was I I my boyfriend has weird superstitions like, oh, if I have a headache, and he has a headache, oh, that means you're pregnant, like weird stuff like that, like so one day. He goes, Oh, my stomach. My stomach's been hurting. I said, Oh, my son is hurting too. And he's like, oh, you're pregnant means you're pregnant. I was like, no, it's me. I'm pregnant. And so he said, well, let's just buy a test and find out and I was like, no. And then he said, well, let's just Just do it. And I was like, okay, because I really didn't think I was pregnant. I was like, Okay, I'll humor you all. Let's just get the test. And I'll take it. And it's going to be negative, so whatever, you know, and so, took the test. And it came back like it almost immediately came back positive. And like, right away, I'm thinking like, Oh my gosh, like, and so I'm, like, start googling, like, how accurate are these things like, it's got to be wrong, it's got to be wrong and so on. Hear, I'm still thinking, you know, like, I'm not pregnant, I can't be pregnant, you know, like, I don't even get a period because I'm on this methadone. So like, I can't, can't be pregnant. And so I, then, about a couple days after I took that test, I started waking up every morning throwing up. And that's when I knew, you know, this is morning sickness. I'm definitely pregnant. And so, about a week after that, I woke up one morning in excruciating pain. And, mind you, I'm still losing weight going to the bathroom constantly super thirsty. All that? Yeah. Um, and so I wake up in excruciating pain. And I'm, I go to the bathroom, and blood, lots of blood just coming out of me. And so I cleaned it up and all that stuff. And then I kind of start thinking, well, this, this is too much blood to be normal, like, Am I having a miscarriage?

Unknown Speaker 1:11:09
And,

Neva 1:11:11
um, so I

kind of toyed through the idea, like, should I go to the doctor, what should I do? I don't know, I was still living with my grandfather at this time. So I thought, well, I don't want to, you know, tell him what's going on. Because I, like I, I didn't want to be pregnant. But I wasn't going to have an abortion, either. So I was, I'm a spiritual person. So like, I prayed to God hoping, you know, asking him, like, I don't want to be pregnant, you know, like, I just wasn't ready for baby at this time in my life, you know, and I've never really wanted to be a parent really, anyway, but I knew that this time, like, just wasn't right. You know, I'm still trying to put the pieces back of my life together and all that from my addiction. And it Yeah, it was just a lot to bring in a baby, you know. Um, and so I, I had hoped that I wasn't pregnant, but I, you know, my spiritual beliefs and all that I just, I couldn't bring myself to get an abortion. So I didn't know what I was going to do. But, um, when I had prayed to God, asking that I wasn't pregnant. I didn't know that that what was gonna happen, you know, have a miscarriage like that. But, you know, thinking back to it, you know, God knew that it wasn't the right time in my life, either. So I guess it happened for the best. Um, but so yeah, so that morning, I ended up passing, you know, the tissue and the blood clots and all that. And then never did go to the doctor. I know, people have told me that I probably should have and all that, but I just, you know, went through it. And my boyfriend, of course, he knew, you know, my reservations of not wanting a kid or anything like that. So when I told him that I had had a miscarriage, I told him because I wanted support, you know, because he was going through this too, because he wants kids and all of that. And so, because he was a part of it. You know, I told him thinking that he would be supportive. But of course, the first thing that he said was, what did you do to our baby? He thought I had got an abortion. But I didn't. Sorry. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:13:54
And so may I suggest something while we take a break here, because this got pretty soon, you should stay away from penises completely. That's my first thought for you. Okay. I don't know if you have any gay tendencies, but I'd follow them. And I would, I would, I would definitely if you get near a penis, I would wrap it up in like saran wrap and then put a condom over top of it, or saran wrap. That's the first thing. Second thing I and second thing. I hope you don't carry any guilt about the miscarriage because, I mean, I understand your faith and everything. But you know, I don't think Yeah, you didn't pick up the phone, make a direct call to God and be like, Hey, could you get rid of this pregnancy for him? Right? No, no problem. I wouldn't i

Neva 1:14:38
don't i think you know, carry a lot of guilt. Um, because looking back, you know, because I didn't know what had caused the miscarriage like now I do. But at the time, I felt I did. Yeah, I did think like, well, what did I do, you know, to? I had to have done something to like, was it the methadone What was it that was malnourished? What what, you know, it was something I did that made this baby die. Um, but that leads us into the next

Scott Benner 1:15:14
segment I was looking through while you were talking a little bit online and you definitely don't want to be on methadone and have a baby on purpose, that's for sure.

Neva 1:15:22
Right? Yeah, exactly. Cuz they, they could go through the withdrawals to when they're born because that methadone supply is completely taken away from them. So yeah, putting a baby see that just Yeah. But you

Scott Benner 1:15:33
haven't you had a miscarriage for a very simple reason, right? You were the Type One Diabetes and you weren't treating it? You had no idea? Right? Yeah. How long? And so scars? Did you figure that out?

Neva 1:15:46
Um, let's see, July, August. Two months, I guess. Um, so the miscarriage happened in July. And then I got diagnosed in September. And this was all in 2018. So like, 2018 was, like, the worst year of my life. Um,

Scott Benner 1:16:07
but that's saying something even. Sorry. I mean, really, that's a, that's really saying something because every year of your life seems like the worst year of your life. And, and, and it's just, it's terrible that it kept building on you. And also, by the way, fills you with perspective, doesn't it? Because because, really, you know, it could be worse, I guess, you know, and I guess I don't even know, I am so sorry that I left. I don't think it's funny. I just think it's, it's crazy. That Yeah, that you could after telling that entire story, we've been talking for an hour and 15 minutes, and you've been doing most of the talking which most people are going to be like, Oh my god, I can't believe Scott Shut up. So I need to tell her story. But I did. Okay. And so it um, that you, it just took me by surprise that you said that was the worst year of my life. I thought my God, like that's really saying something. So at this point, now, you fought through all this addiction. You're still I mean, you're using methadone to help yourself, but this isn't like, you know, for people who don't understand. It's not like you got the flu and it's gone now. Like you're still you know, you're you're fighting with if you didn't have that methadone, do you think you'd use? Yeah, yeah. Okay. And then you have a miscarriage. And I don't mean to tell you who to be with, but that whole thing your belly hurts. My belly hurts thing that makes me really question that guy. And so I'm,

Neva 1:17:41
and I'm still with the guy just so you know, I'm not gonna

Scott Benner 1:17:44
bad mouth and past that. I'm just saying, I want some more clear thinking. Then my belly hurts. Your belly hurts. You must be pregnant. I don't like that.

Neva 1:17:52
Yeah. Well, he, he, like I was saying he wants kids. He wants a family and stuff. So I think just any little excuse, you know, to

Scott Benner 1:18:01
you tell us. Okay, because we're not we're not new. It's not up to making babies yet. Okay. Yeah. Right. You You are, if you ever have a baby, you are going to look back on this moment right now. And the moments that came before this, and realize that you are 100% a different person. Because otherwise, you Listen, I've raised two kids so far. It's really, really hard. It's in sanely difficult. And you want to be at your best while you're doing it. Because the first because why? Because anything can, can knock you off course a little bit. And if you keep getting knocked off course over and over and over again, before you get before you know it, you're so lost. There's no way back. And somebody a child needs somebody to make the hard decisions. And the obvious decisions, when when they're not there. Like just imagine if your mom was in the room the first time you're like, I'm gonna take this pill, she would have been like, No, you're not. And you know what I mean? And, and, and there you go, and you're off on a, you know, a different path. So you need to be the best you possible to be a parent. And you know what I mean? And I feel like you know that I didn't feel like I was, like, scolding you right there. Like, I really feel like you understand that. But you tell this boy to calm down is what

Neva 1:19:28
gives if my boyfriend does listen to this then hey,

Scott Benner 1:19:30
yeah, listen to me, man. You're stopping. Yeah. Okay. It's enough. Seriously, get a hamster Jesus. Right. I mean, practice on a parrot first or something? I don't know. Wow. Okay. I'm so sorry. 2018 was the worst year of your life continue?

Neva 1:19:49
Yeah. So in September, I walk into the methadone clinic to get my dose and they tell me Oh, Your last ua came back positive for alcohol. And I look at them like, what? Like, I don't drink alcoholic? That's that must be a false positive or something. I don't drink. Do you

Scott Benner 1:20:11
think they got your aunt's pee by mistake? I'm just kidding, keep going.

Unknown Speaker 1:20:16
So

Neva 1:20:18
so they their protocol is to give you a breathalyzer before they when you test positive for alcohol, because if you come in drunk, they won't give you your methadone because there's like some negative reactions. Okay, with using both of them, I guess. So, you know, they give me the breathalyzer and I blow into it. And, well, I'm thinking, Okay, well, my, that test had to have been a false positive. So if I haven't drinking anything, so I'm gonna blow zeros, you know, no problem. So I blow into the thing. And, of course, I blow numbers. And I told the nurse there, I was, like, I haven't drinking any alcohol. And they're like, well try it again. So I try again. course I blow numbers again. And so I'm getting really frustrated. I'm like, Whoa, okay. I'm drinking orange juice. I'm drinking water, and I'm drinking coffee. Could any of those do it? And they're like, no, they're like, well, maybe it's the machine. And so the nurse, you know, tries it. She blows into she blows zeros. And then so that happened. They didn't give me my dose for that day. Okay,

Scott Benner 1:21:27
how long? Oh, that's a problem, by the way, not having the method.

Neva 1:21:32
Exactly.

So I come in, so I think, Okay, well, crap, that sucks. But what am I doing? You know, I can't they're, they obviously aren't going to believe me, you know, like, I'm an addict, believe me. Um, so I go through the that 24 hours, and then come back in the next morning. And the same thing, they give me the breathalyzer blow numbers. And I'm thinking like, well, what? I don't I don't understand. And so the nurse looks at me and he goes, Well, are you a diabetic? I said, No. And he goes, Well, we can't get it. I mean, that was it. Like he didn't elaborate on it or anything. And so he was like, well, we can't give you methadone. Sorry. And let me go out my way. And so by this time, I'm getting sick. And so I turned back to the heroin, because I don't want to be sick. And it had only been a couple of months by that point. So I wasn't, like, completely out of the game, or cured or anything like that. So, in fact,

Scott Benner 1:22:42
leave a real quick, that fast, you can get heroin again, just bang, like no big deal. Like, I'll just go get heroin. It's like, Did it take me an hour a day? Or?

Neva 1:22:50
Um, no, because I still had the person's number. So, um, that helps. Um, so yeah, I was just able to call them back up again. Because like I said, it was only a couple months. Like, now if I work to try again, I'm because these dealers that I deal with here, they like change their numbers quite often. So like, if I were to try to even call that number that I had before, I don't even think it would work.

Scott Benner 1:23:18
But it hadn't been long enough that you do any heavy lifting to, and I'm assuming you would have known people to talk to as well.

Neva 1:23:25
Yeah, I could have Yeah, it might it would have taken a bit longer, but I, you know, it's an addict wants something bad enough still, they'll find a way to get I'm

Scott Benner 1:23:34
just saying like, we bought a side table for Arden's room, and it took six weeks to get it. You're like I can have heroin in a week in a day? Yeah. I just really was I, I couldn't imagine. That's why I asked. I was like, oh, how long would it take to like get back in the game, but I guess not

Unknown Speaker 1:23:49
not long at all. So it

Scott Benner 1:23:51
took two days of not having methadone before you were like, I know how to handle this. And then what happens?

Neva 1:23:59
So that was on a Tuesday that I went back to using and this point I was, I didn't tell anybody, you know that I didn't get my methadone or anything. But I was rapidly losing weight at this point. Like my parents weren't, like sagging off of me and going to the bathroom 50 times a day and just drinking crazy amounts of liquid. And so at that point, I remembered what the nurse had said. He said, Do you have diabetes? And I thought, What are the symptoms of diabetes? So I googled the symptoms of diabetes. And of course, I had every single one of them. And so I called my grandmother who was a retired nurse, and I talked to her a little bit about, you know, my symptoms and stuff. And she said, Well, yeah, kind of sounds like you have diabetes. Um, but she didn't elaborate on the, like severity of DK or anything like that. So she said, we'll call your doctor make an appointment. And she didn't even say anything about type one or type two or anything like that. Yeah. She just said, Yeah, it sounds like you have diabetes, go to your doctor. And so that was on Wednesday that I called her and looked at the symptoms and all that. And so I called my doctor when I got off the phone with her and made an appointment with them. And I told them, You know, I think I might have diabetes. And here I am, I think I was 26 at the time, and they're on the phone with me, they can't visually see me or anything. So I'm sure they're probably thinking, type two diabetes, you know, since I'm 26. So they scheduled me an appointment for the following Tuesday to come in to get it checked. And so the next day rolls around, and my grandma sends me a message. And she says, How are you doing today? Also, one of the symptoms that I noticed on the on Google of type one diabetes, or DK was fatigue. And I didn't really have fatigue yet. At that point, I was just had thirstiness, the I'm going to the bathroom and the weight loss. And so you know, she asked me, she said, Well, how are you doing today? And I said, I'm doing okay, my fatigue is a little worse. But, you know, I have this appointment on Tuesday. So I'm good, you know. And so the next day rolls around, I think it was, so it's Friday, now, Friday morning, I get up and I go to work. And I am still maintaining, you know, my withdrawals from by using. And so I get up and I go to work. And by the time I get into work, I start throwing up. And so I go to my boss, and they say, Well, I, you know, just throw up in my trash can. So I'm gonna go home. And so I went home, and I, and I'm living with my grandfather. And so when I get home, I told him, You know, I came home early, because I wasn't feeling good. And he looked at me and he was like, yeah, you don't look very good. And I guess I was really pale. And so I go down to my room, and I tried to lay down. And I kept telling myself, Well, if I can just rest, you know, I'll feel better. And so I couldn't keep any, any food or liquids down at this point. And then my breathing started to get really, really heavy. And I forgot to say when my grandmother had messaged me the day before, when I told her my fatigue was worse, she had told me to go to the ER, at that point. Yeah. But I didn't listen to her because I didn't know the severity. You know, I thought,

Unknown Speaker 1:28:05
like, did this have

Neva 1:28:07
my appointment on Tuesday? I can make it till then, you know, I just need to rest did it it might

Scott Benner 1:28:12
be like sickness, like from the heroin. But no, I

Unknown Speaker 1:28:15
think

Neva 1:28:16
yeah, maybe because I had picked it up again after not using it for so long. I think that maybe I did think that maybe I was nauseous because of that. Because it can make you nauseous if you haven't used for a while,

Scott Benner 1:28:28
right. But you still were worried enough that you were gonna seek medical attention. It wasn't like you were because anything else about the drug use you just hidden. I mean, you hit like, you hit the miscarriage really. So like that you're thinking of going to a doctor's kind of a new thread to this conversation, actually. So I was just wondering if there's any overlapping symptoms, that's all?

Unknown Speaker 1:28:49
Well,

Neva 1:28:51
I was gonna like I had every intention to go to that doctor appointment on Tuesday. I just thought, like, I I'll make it to them. Like, because I keep saying like, I didn't know the severity, you know? I thought, Well, like I said, I thought that Yeah, maybe it could have been from the drug so it'll go away, you know? And then I'll go to my doctor's appointment figure this thing out. Yeah. So Friday night rolls around, and I ran out of drugs. So and I'm feeling really really crappy. And my breathing you know, was heavy. I had that like, the cold it panting you know, I was like, breathing in and out really, really hard. Yeah, happened. Yeah. So I am. I called up my guy met up in you know, we met up we picked a place to meet or whatever. And I went out to get some soup before meeting up with them. And my fatigue at that point was so bad I couldn't even walk 10 feet Without having to like, stop and take a break and catch my breath. And my vision was like blurry, and I should not have been driving. And I snuck out of the house to do this, by the way, because my grandpa thinks I'm sick, you know, if I tell him all, I'm gonna go get some soup. But really, that's not why I'm leaving the house, I gotta leave to go get drugs, you know, like, so I snuck out of the house to do that. And so at this point, my grandma's quite concerned. She can't get ahold of me. And so, my, and I think she called my parents, she had asked, you know, she said, Well, do you want me to tell your parents and I about the, you know, you might have diabetes thing? And I said, No, wait till I go to my appointment and figure out what's going on there. And then I'll tell them, because I felt like that was a big thing that I should be the one to tell them that, you know, okay. And so, um, my grandmother then calls my parents, and I'm out on the street, you know, driving around. And then my parents call my grandpa to ask to check on me. And he goes and checks on me, and I'm not there. And he, you know, tells them all well, she's not here. And nobody could get ahold of me or anything. And so what had happened was, I was driving, I was driving and shouldn't have been driving. I was delirious. I never did make it to meet up with my drug dealer. I had stopped to get gas. Well, no. So what happened was, I was trying to get to the gas station. And I turned down a freeway off ramp, so I was going the wrong direction. And there was cars coming at me and I saw the wrong way sign. I had enough coherence to see that and get turned around safely. But somebody must have seen me and called the cops because when I had finally made it, stop to get gas, I was ambushed by five cop cars. And they opened the door and asked me what's going on. And here I am, like delirious panting, throwing up. Probably, why does it ghost? And I tell them, I think I might have diabetes. And they start asking me questions like, what year it isn't stuff. And I know I got those ants. I answered those questions wrong.

Um, and

those cops

they must have seen in me that I really was not well, because they could have just thought I was drunk and taking me to jail. Yeah, but I credit those cops with saving my life that night, because they called an ambulance right away. They believed me. And they called the ambulance right away. And I got to a hospital. And they told me at the hospital that if I would have waited, if I would have fallen asleep that night at my house, I probably wouldn't have woken up.

Scott Benner 1:33:22
If I have to tell you I'm incredibly impressed that you got out that you thought you had diabetes.

Unknown Speaker 1:33:27
Yeah, you know, seriously, cuz

Scott Benner 1:33:29
you know, you easily could have said, Hey, I'm a heroin addict. That wouldn't have Right. Yeah.

Neva 1:33:36
You're right. And I never thought about that. But yeah,

Scott Benner 1:33:39
you said the right thing, because you could have been like, I'm just looking for soup and smack Can you guys help?

Neva 1:33:44
Yeah. Yeah, who knows what could have came out of my mouth holy.

Scott Benner 1:33:48
I'm sorry that this is an after dark because it's gonna have to be called like after dark, like heroin. That's what I wanted to call it after dark soup and smack just now.

Neva 1:34:00
That's a good, that's a good title.

Scott Benner 1:34:02
I'm getting close to it. Don't worry. I jotted it down on a piece of paper so I don't forget. Wow, that's insane. Okay, hold on. You got I've never not spoken so much on this podcast before in my entire life.

Neva 1:34:17
And I'm not a talkative person. So Oh,

Scott Benner 1:34:20
the art tonight. And it's and it's going your way because you're telling a really interesting and I think, to some people, foreign and to me kind of confounding story. It's just it's it's riveting. The entire we're an hour and a half into this and I don't think we're anywhere close to being done yet. So

Neva 1:34:39
might have to be a two parter.

Scott Benner 1:34:40
You know, it is a cheap way to get downloads, but I don't do that. The other podcasts that have trouble getting downloads, they try to steal a download from you by splitting stuff up. Me I give you more consent, don't you? So Wow. Wow, it was the worst year of your life. You're not wrong about that. I guess we get better at some point or just a story. Like you don't get to the hospital hospitals on fire or something like that, right? Nothing.

Neva 1:35:09
Definitely does get better. Good, good. Um,

so yeah, I got it, I made it to the ER, um, and, you know, I had been an addict for so long my veins were completely shot. So they had a hard time, you know, even getting an IV. I mean, I guess when I got to the hospital, they said my body temperature was 92 degrees. I weighed 90 pounds, and my blood sugar was 935. And I had abscesses on my arms, and my body was going septic.

So

yeah, if I didn't make it, if those turn of events did not happen the way they did that night, I probably wouldn't be here.

Scott Benner 1:36:03
It's ironic, isn't it? That the need for the drugs got you out of the house? house got you to the cop. Even the soup part, I think is kind of super you're going to get by the way. Chicken Noodle. Yeah. I mean, why not? Right, it seems

Neva 1:36:16
and I made maybe had like two bites of it. Like, I could not really eat it at all.

Scott Benner 1:36:21
Do you even get to have the soup? You know, I have to tell you, you know, by the you know, as we're speaking now, like I poked around the internet a little bit like, I feel like I found a picture of you. You're just like a very adorable, average looking person. And the story like, like, I was like, when I clicked on the photos, like, what is going to happen when this photo comes up, and you're just there you just do just that nice looking person. You know, like, I think that's a you're a ginger. So I mean, yeah. It was a couple points there, I think. Yeah, but but just kidding. By the way, everyone red hair, just calm down. I don't have anything against your red hair. It's just an easy joke.

Neva 1:37:02
That's funny. My a lot of my family calls me ginger. So

Scott Benner 1:37:05
yeah, well, you just tell them come down. ain't doing worse. I don't want to hear from them. Seriously, come on. Like, I'd be like I've been through enough. Leave me alone. Okay. But you said you're there in the hospital. Presenting like a junkie, right? But you're saying I have diabetes? They took you seriously? They checked your blood sugar. Yeah, you're moving along. But this but the lack of drugs is still a problem, or is this the decay? Is the decay so bad? It's overpowering the need for the drugs?

Neva 1:37:43
I think yes, the DK was so bad that it was over powering the need at that point. Well, and I don't believe at that point. I was in like full withdrawal yet. I just knew that I was out of drugs and needed more.

Unknown Speaker 1:38:00
But

Neva 1:38:02
I did tell them, you know that I was on methadone. So they, you know, got in contact with the methadone clinic and within a couple days or the next day, I was able to get my methadone dose. So if I did go through any withdrawal wasn't for very long.

Scott Benner 1:38:21
And the number on the when you tried to blow for for drinking that was ketones or what was the year for figure out what the breathalyzer so

Neva 1:38:31
the Yeah, the I did tell the doctor, you know that that happened and what they what he told me was my sugar and my blood was so high that it was basically fermenting and turning acidic. And yeah, so it was ketones.

Scott Benner 1:38:47
Wow. That's really crazy. I have to applaud you for a second. Let's take a second. Just to stop talking about all this for a minute. The ease in which you're telling this story is It's really impressive. And I don't, I don't know why. Because you just said you're not really a very talkative person. And we're obviously speaking about some things that you haven't really hammered through yet in your life. But you were just telling the story. Like you're like, you're telling the story with the confidence and calm as if I said to you, hey, Niva explained to us all how to paint a bedroom and you'd be like, oh, first you cover the carpet with plastic. And then you have to clean the walls and get paint brush. You're just I'm really impressed with how you're telling the story. Like it's you know, I've

Neva 1:39:30
told it a few times. So I've had practice you mean

Scott Benner 1:39:33
like in group?

Neva 1:39:35
Well, yeah, and like to family and just

Scott Benner 1:39:38
Yeah. Well, I mean, that's not the point though. The point is, is that it that you don't have any self I don't know that you're not embarrassed by it. Even I think is kind of fantastic. You know, you're making me think I'm, I'm way older than you. I can probably double your age basically. And I notice As I was coming out of high school, there were a few girls that I'm thinking of who were just headed in the wrong way, right. And we get separated and we don't see each other anymore. It's you know, some of them are just acquaintances, some of them are friends, you know, people go away, they start jobs, etc. And you don't understand this because you've been in a life where you can contact people easily with cell phones, and you know, online and things like that. But that didn't used to be a thing. And when Facebook got popular, and people, like old people started using it, to like, you know, set up their high school reunions and stuff like that we all sort of, like from our graduating class, and older people are gonna relate to this, we all just, you know, became Facebook friends. And it was interesting to see that every one of those girls that I can think of off the top of my head where attics like I thought they were, but I wasn't sure. And every one of them has a full life. Now. It's very interesting, they all found their way through, which I guess is just lucky. To some degree, but I wanted to tell you that just because I do think you could have kids and have a life and and like the way you want to. I'm thinking of this one girl in particular. She was just adorable when we were in high school and, and nice, but she just like, like you described like, she was just it was always looking for trouble. It felt like and always with guys that you were just like, oh, Why him? You know? And like, if you were friends, you'd pull her aside and go, I feel like you could do better than this. And and but now I can picture in my head a 50 year old woman who shares very openly about what she went through. And I don't know, it just feels like you're much younger than you think you are, I guess is what I want to tell you. Yeah, there's a lot ahead of you.

Neva 1:41:57
Yeah. And I've always kind of thought of myself as like an old soul. But also like my drug addiction has kind of left me at like a perpetual like 17 for

Scott Benner 1:42:12
10 years, you know, so not exactly chasing a stable job and health insurance and

Neva 1:42:17
yeah,

savings and all that. Yeah, having my own place. All that. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:42:22
Yeah, I have to admit it both surprised me and didn't surprise me when you said my mom just came in. I was like,

Neva 1:42:28
yeah. And that's funny. You bring that up, because she's actually here visiting. So she's staying with us here. So she just happens to be visiting at

Scott Benner 1:42:36
your place. Okay, that's it. I was like, 28. I'm like, honey, yeah, pulled together a little bit. Still. And by the way, everyone listening who's 28 or older loses their parents. I'm not judging you just keep going. Let it happen. Just let it out.

Neva 1:42:49
You never know what's going on in their life.

Scott Benner 1:42:52
Listen, everybody needs help, you know? Yeah, at one point or another. So how do you usually I asked this question like 20 minutes in but we'll do it now. Instead, how do you manage your type one diabetes, how's it going? and How the hell did you find this podcast?

Neva 1:43:07
Um, I am using an ami pod right now. And I'm I've right now I'm just using a glucometer. Because I'm kind of lazy with changing my CGM. I've tried. I've tried all the CGM because of insurance and stuff. I couldn't afford the Dexcom. I did try it was able to use it for a couple months, but it was too expensive. So then I went to the Libra is using that for a while. And then my doctor, I was kind of having a lot of lows overnight and stuff. And so he he suggested the Medtronic CGM, The Guardian, okay. And so I started using that one. And it was way more accurate than the Libra was I noticed for me, okay, but the process of having to put on the Guardian, there's like 8000 steps to it. So I get when it's time to change that out. I just get really lazy and don't

Scott Benner 1:44:13
you lift it out. You listen so much, as you said that did you think wow, Medtronic really does take a lot of hits on this

Unknown Speaker 1:44:19
puck.

Neva 1:44:21
Yeah, I want

my like my doctor, I kind of feel like he's in Medtronic pocket a little bit because even from the beginning, he was like pushing the Medtronic pump on me and stuff. So, but when I told him I want it on the pod from listening to this podcast, he went with that. And so I found your podcast because after I got out of the hospital, I was in a hospital for about six days.

Unknown Speaker 1:44:50
And

Neva 1:44:52
I joined Facebook groups pretty much right away. And I think, no, that's not how I found it. I think I typed Diabetes on the podcast app. Okay, and yours popped up and I started listening and basically got caught up. I'm pretty much in

Scott Benner 1:45:13
here what I have to say not that this is a this is a ham fisted place to say this, but when I tell people like leave good ratings and reviews because it helps in searches. This is exactly what I'm talking about.

Neva 1:45:24
And I recommended your podcast to a lot of people because it I learned so much more from your podcast and the Facebook groups just by people sharing their experiences right then I have ever had from my doctors.

Scott Benner 1:45:41
I'm really glad that it's helpful to seriously I it makes me happy. Yeah, I think I think I can officially say now that I'm the official diabetes podcast of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and attics, go with this, like, seriously, cuz I, I'm gonna put that on the sign outside of my building, I put that on the sign. I really I'm really overwhelmed. Honestly, as you're talking that, that in a story that was that long, that seemed that it lacked in a number of places, people, you know, helping you that the first thing that really helped you was this, but I don't I don't think it's a silly podcast. But if you know, I'm an older person to tell people I have a podcast is weird. You know what I mean? Like when people like what are you doing? I'm like, Oh, you know, I podcast. I'm gonna stay at home dad for like, 20 years, and I have this pretty popular podcast and like, Oh, do you? Do it's really popular? Like, is it like, it is like, are you guys making fun of me? And what's it about? And I'm like, it's about type one diabetes. They're like, fine. Just anyway, I have to have that conversation a lot in my life, in case you're wondering. It's not like saying, Oh, yeah, I'm a manager over at the place. You know, it's a it's a little weird. But to hear that it helps you like so how do you do with your blood sugar's like, Where's your agency right now.

Neva 1:47:13
I'm supposed to go in, in the beginning of November to get it checked again. But my last one was 6.0, which I was pretty happy with. I did not expect it to be that low. But I try to keep a pretty tight range. Just, you know, from what I've learned from you, and other people and stuff that, you know, I don't feel good when my blood sugars are high, and it's not good for my health for them to be high. So

just to try to do what I can to keep them low.

And I don't like I don't

limit myself, like I don't say, Oh, I can't eat that because I'm a diabetic, because I don't want to create like a weird relationship with food. You know, like, I don't want diabetes to like, create an eating disorder or anything for me.

Unknown Speaker 1:48:05
So I do,

Scott Benner 1:48:07
you do not need another problem, right? Seriously, no? Well, I want to ask you, Oh, um, fear, did you have any fear of insulin?

Neva 1:48:21
No. And

that's another another thing. Like,

the irony doesn't surpass me, I know that, you know, like, I have to completely refocus my view of, like, needles, you know, like, cuz, before I associated needles, like, I'm not using needles, like I'm not doing MDI. But I still use a regular needle to fill my pump and stuff. So I still have to use like, needles are a part of pretty much my everyday life force, just as they were before when I was an addict. Yeah. So I had to really like, because I before I would associate needles with using, and so for a long time, they were a trigger for me, like when I was in that detox that we were talking about earlier, behind the counter was a sharps container. And for whatever reason that sharps container was like the biggest trigger for me. And so coming out of the hospital, I really had to refocus my head to like, I'm going to be using like sharps containers and needles and all this. It's just going to be a part of my life. Like, it's either that or die. So just kind of I just kind of dove head in and

tried to make the best of it.

Scott Benner 1:49:55
It sounds like you're doing a really good job, actually. Do you feel like you're doing well right now?

Neva 1:50:00
Do Yeah, I, I definitely do.

Because I,

I mean, every once in a while I'll have like a fluke where I'll eat something and don't know why. But I'm like 270 or 300, you know, but I can count like on one hand the amount of times I've been 300 since I've been diagnosed. So I feel like that's pretty good.

I think in just anything to try to keep me

from going into DK again, because that was pretty pretty far up there with one of the worst feelings I've ever had. So

Scott Benner 1:50:39
it's kind of astonishing actually like to hear all the things that your body has been through and then distill here that DK was terrible. Have you heard the episode? with Jonathan, about it's a it's an episode about

Unknown Speaker 1:50:55
is that the bipolar? Yeah, yeah.

Neva 1:50:57
I actually just got done listening to that one, like this morning. And so that's as far up as I am. From there on is what I have to get caught up.

Scott Benner 1:51:06
Wow. Yeah, you made me think of him. Because the way he described me and in TK, I think he I've said this already a couple of times that stuck with me, but he said like, he felt like the devil was like ripping apart from the inside out. Like Yeah, damn.

Neva 1:51:19
So does feel like that.

Scott Benner 1:51:21
Yeah, I just I mean, to have withdrawal from something as strong as an as an opiate like that. And then you know, heroin and, and to still feel like DK is worse, I think is should be telling to people what it's like,

Unknown Speaker 1:51:35
Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:51:36
for sure. And what your body's going through. While it's happening. Right now, importantly,

Neva 1:51:43
yeah, and I especially like the like analogy that you've made about the sugar molecule, you know, like, when you look at like a sugar cube or a grain of sugar. It's all like sharpened stuff, and the sugar molecules the same way. And so when there's that much sugar is going through your veins, it's literally like ripping apart your inside. So it literally feels like that, because that's literally what's happening.

Scott Benner 1:52:06
You're being scraped very slowly. And I just I said that that time because I don't think people understand when they're like, Oh, you know, I have a bleed my I like what that it's from my diabetes, what they mean, when they're saying that, but you know, a little vessel just gets worn out. And, you know, the worst part about it is some of those vessels as they get worn out, your body tries to Jenny explained at one time how it tries to patch it, and then that's how arteries close off. So when you when you later are like, Oh, he had a heart attack from his diabetes, what what actually happened was that the artery became narrower and narrower, because it kept repairing itself and narrowing. And that's the kind of stuff I don't think anybody tells you, when they tell you you have diabetes. So yeah, it's really worth knowing. So Alright, I won't keep you much longer as I have you. 15 minutes already passed by soldier? I'm sorry, if I'm holding you up from something

Neva 1:52:58
Oh, no, no, nothing at all?

Scott Benner 1:53:02
What are steps forward for you? Like what is like, I'm assuming you're a very day by day person with some bigger long range plans? Like how do you? How do you stay in the right frame of mind? And what are the steps you have to take to do it? And do you have any advice for people who might be going through what you are,

Neva 1:53:19
I'm taking it day by day definitely is a big part of it. But I, for me, um, some of my goals, you know, are to eventually move out with my boyfriend, you know, move out from living with my grandfather, and, you know, buying a house together and starting a family getting off methadone. But the addiction piece is something that I will have to work on for the rest of my life. So

I think

in order to not

get ahead of myself, I have to just work on doing what I can today to stop like, to not use again, you know, and so for me that's going to work taking, you know, care of my debts and stuff, so that I can eventually slowly build my credit score back up so that I can save up money and move out.

And then

just kind of take it slowly, like baby steps, you know, and

Scott Benner 1:54:36
what about on the physical side? Like, what, what's the, like, how do you stop using methadone at some point?

Neva 1:54:43
They slow very slowly lean wean you off. It's like a milligram a week they'll so like, say you're at like 50 milligrams your dose every day is 50 milligrams. And then you'll finally it's up to you whenever you want to stop Are start to come down. So when you finally say, Okay, I think I'm at a good point in my life to start coming down. They'll say, okay, so we'll start weaning you off. You know, you'll talk to your counselor, because they do make you go to monthly counseling sessions, and they work with you, you know about relapse prevention and stuff like that. And so they'll, when you say you're ready, they'll you know, give their input, whether they agree or not, or whatever. And then they'll start, then they'll say, Okay, we'll bring you down to 4049 milligrams this week. And so for that week, you'll do 49 milligrams every day. And then the next week, you'll go down to 48 milligrams. And so that's like how slowly you'll so that your body will, it'll be slow enough to where your body doesn't feel those big jumps. So not having so much in body,

Scott Benner 1:55:56
I see the idea. Once a month therapy, like, if you were my kid, I'd be like, you gotta go more often than that. Yeah. You have health insurance?

Neva 1:56:06
I do. Yeah. And I am, when I did, when I was starting with the methadone program, I did go once every two weeks. So I did go more often, because I did feel I needed that.

Unknown Speaker 1:56:20
And

Neva 1:56:22
it's, they have helped me with, you know, finding other coping mechanisms, you know, more healthy coping mechanisms, and I'm putting myself first was a big one, you know, like, not in like, a selfish addict way, but like, just caring for yourself, you know, like,

Unknown Speaker 1:56:43
working that way. I that's back to what

Scott Benner 1:56:45
I was saying at the beginning. Like, like, if you had that piece. Back when you were 17. I think you would have felt like, this guy's weird. This isn't? Yeah, you know? Sure. Yeah. And when you want to have that moving forward, what are some of the coping mechanisms that they give you?

Neva 1:57:03
I'm kind of taking, like, so when you get a thought of using a big one for me was they had me fill out this card. So whenever, and it has like, eight different things on it, about what to do when you get a thought of using and like, one of them is like, let the thought past like, Don't dwell on it. Don't keep thinking about it, like, try to think about something else. Or say the Serenity Prayer. call somebody.

You know, you could

pick up like, a, I mean, for me, you know, wouldn't be very feasible, but like a piece of candy or something to like, kind of trigger that piece in your brain that's like, Oh, you know, like, this was nice. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:57:52
Sugar? Yeah. Well, he, you do, I'm thinking of somebody specific. And I can't obviously, I wouldn't say names, but I do know, somebody who was a did was a drug seeker like you, but they, they, you know, stuck with emergency rooms to get, you know, pharmacy level narcotics the whole time. And when they finally, when, you know, when the system finally caught up to this person, it was like, Look, we all know what you're doing, we're gonna call the cops, if you ever come back here again, they went right to food after that. And it's just such a shame because this person that I'm thinking of went from an average size person to a person who's just, you know, unhealthily, and significantly overweight, but the eating really does I mean, from an outsider and a layman, but it just seems like they just traded one addiction for the other one. Yeah, you know, it's terrible. Like it just it really, I'm so sorry for you that that any of this happened, but I'm really amazed at how well you're, you're getting through it because it's just there were so many opportunities for you to not to not get to this place and you still did you know, it's really kind of cool.

Neva 1:59:06
And that's one thing that I'm grateful for is that I never have overdosed. And I don't know how I never have but I haven't had to be narkanda or anything like that. So I definitely have some kind of guardian angel looking over me and I'm extremely grateful for that.

Scott Benner 1:59:25
Do you ever laugh to yourself when you go to get more insulin from the farmers to you always, like, Are you ever like I'm such a square now?

Unknown Speaker 1:59:34
No,

Neva 1:59:36
but it is kind of weird because like there was one time when I went to pharmacy to get needles for using and I because out in California you could go to like a Walgreens you know, pick up needles and they would sell you a bag without any questions or anything. And so I walked into King soopers here in Colorado, and I had a wanted to buy a bag of syringes? And they said, Oh, well do. Do you buy your insulin here? I said no. And they're like, Oh, well, we need you. Like if Where do you buy your insulin or something like that, and I made up something and they're like, Oh, well, you can have them call. Like I said, Walgreens or something. They're like, Oh, you can have them, call us and we can verify you know that you get your insulin from them, and we'll give you this syringes. And

Unknown Speaker 2:00:27
so just, they

Scott Benner 2:00:31
Damn it. And so

Neva 2:00:32
now, you know, I'm like, Oh, yeah, I get my insulin from there.

Scott Benner 2:00:35
It's such a, it's such a, like, like I was saying earlier, like, your whole life revolves around it, because now you have the heroin, but you don't have the needles. And now that's and and everything about society is set up to block you from doing the heroin. And and so you're just like, it must have just been like a scavenger hunt all day.

Neva 2:00:54
And it's, it's exhausting. And that, you know, just your whole life kind of revolving around that is extremely exhausting.

Scott Benner 2:01:02
Are you happy? Yes. Have you been happy? Were you happy in the past using? Or is this a new thing for you?

Unknown Speaker 2:01:11
I was happy,

Neva 2:01:12
but obviously not as happy as I could be, you know, like I, I've always had, like, for a long time had the feeling of wanting to stop. Like, you know, of course, in the beginning, I didn't want to stop. But then it got to a point where it was so bad to where I did, but I couldn't no matter what I did, I just couldn't. So it was like, two different pieces, you know, pulling me in two different directions. Like, yeah, I want to stop. But something doesn't want me to stop too. So yeah, that was

Scott Benner 2:01:44
always a constant, physical piece of the addiction. You can't overwhelm that. Just with Yeah, but you just wanting to, Hey, did you ever try to hurt yourself while you were using? No, no. So it never got to the point where you're just like, I have to stop living. I can't keep doing this, which

Neva 2:02:02
there were times when I thought it like, we're like, I would think oh, I want I want this bag to be the one that'll you know, overdose me like, there were times when I did think that. Yeah. But I don't think I would ever. I don't think I didn't want to live that bad enough to where I would like, try that. You know.

Scott Benner 2:02:27
You just think I

Neva 2:02:28
still had happy moments in my life that were worth something.

Scott Benner 2:02:31
Gotcha. You just said you just said a bag. And I'm like, Ah, there's a barrier for entry to be right there. I feel bad. Every time I throw a sandwich baggie away. I would just be like, Oh, I can't keep doing this to the environment. I'm sure I wouldn't be thinking that if I got to that point. But yeah, it really does. Like

Neva 2:02:51
there's small small bags. Well, then

Scott Benner 2:02:53
that makes me feel a little that I can try. That's fine. Me if they're tiny bags, just a little snack size once you mean,

Neva 2:02:59
you know, like even small, even

Scott Benner 2:03:00
smaller than that. Oh, well, that. Yeah, I can do it like quarter size. Gotcha. I know nothing of what we're talking about. You know, you've listened you listen. So you're like, I don't drink? I've never, I have nothing against the idea of smoking weed. I've just never done it. There's just no part of me that.

Neva 2:03:20
That doesn't. So how would you know,

Scott Benner 2:03:22
I have no concept of any of this, which is why I'm so like, incredibly interested about it. And I just I can't thank you enough for doing this. It really was. I want to tell you it was brave. But you just seem kind of so ballsy about it. Maybe it wasn't that brave. I don't know.

Neva 2:03:40
Thanks. There's a couple of parts where it got a little emotionally but yeah, yeah. Well, thanks for having me on the show.

Scott Benner 2:03:48
I really appreciate that. I have to tell you the one thing that I really worry about, like in every one at first of all, I have to tell you, the first time I was like, I'm gonna do a drinking episode. I'm gonna call it after dark. I didn't think all this was going to happen just so everyone was like at this point now. I mean,

Neva 2:04:04
what was a good thing? I think, you know, it's stuff that needs to be talked about. No, it's,

Scott Benner 2:04:08
it's amazing. And I'm super happy I'm doing I'm just telling you like I am in a space I did not expect to be in. It just didn't, I didn't know where it would go. But where it's gone. I mean, to be serious. Where it's gone is that we're telling people stories that do not get told around diabetes. And I came to the realization like so I'll say this too, because this will this will probably come out after the ones we're talking about. But I'm starting to realize that every person that walks the earth, like every idea, like kind of person, religion, race, you know, job, a person that holds a certain job in every configuration that people can come in. Some of those people have diabetes, and like I'm getting ready this week to you Interview a world class cellist who has diabetes. And I realized if she didn't have type one, she wouldn't be coming on the show. But I don't feel like I'm interviewing a type one. I feel like I'm interviewing a cellist. Yeah. And I didn't feel like I was in like talking to a type one tonight, I feel like I'm talking to a person who has struggled with addiction, and is getting through it and has a really great story. And you happen to have type one diabetes, right, everybody? Like I said, there's, there's countless configurations of human beings on the planet, and at least one of them has type one somewhere. So I think there are a lot of stories to share. And none of them are so. And none of them are as uncommon as you would think. You know, what I mean? Like, when, when the person that came on and talked about, you know, being bipolar came on and the person came on talked about cutting? I was I thought to myself, like, is anyone going to be interested in this? Like, that was my first thought like, this doesn't happen to people like that frequently, but it does. All of it does, you know, what's happening to you? Like, you're not some random person. This happened to I don't know, the statistics, but this is a huge issue. Yeah, you know, is happens to a lot of people, not, not all of them have, you know, stories that go as well as yours. Did. You ever think about that? Like, Oh, yeah, yeah. Just feel lucky, I guess.

Neva 2:06:34
Yes. Extremely. And I think a lot, you know, I've mentioned about my, the support that I've had, I think that plays a big, big part in it, because had I not had the support that I have, and, um, you know, who knows where I would be, you know, I'd probably be on the streets somewhere dead, you know. So it, if anybody is going through the same thing? I think it starts there is having the support. Well, look at this 20 in 2018 data showed,

Scott Benner 2:07:07
sorry, data. Now all those data people that bugged me by email, or in my head, can I just say data? Ne Leave me alone. 2018? Well, data shows that every day 128 people in the United States die after overdosing on an opioid. that's a that's a pretty big number. Yeah,

Neva 2:07:29
that's to think that I have lived.

I don't even know how many days that computes to the last 10 years. It made me one out overdosing at all this miracle

Scott Benner 2:07:42
in that in a decade of using How many times have did you use every day?

Unknown Speaker 2:07:47
Yes. Wow.

Scott Benner 2:07:48
That's insane. It really is. I'm not judging you. It's just it's, it's the fries. My mind. It really does. Mm hmm. Well, listen, I was gonna do this after you got off, but we're gonna say goodbye anyway. So hold on for a second, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration is a government agency, you can find it at sa MH sa.gov. Or you can call them at 1-800-662-4357. And it translates to one 806 six to help. It the helpline is free, confidential, 24, seven, 365 days a year. treatment referral and Information Services comes in English and Spanish for individuals and families facing mental and or substance abuse disorders. So if you're, if you're vibing, with what's being said here, and you'd like to help yourself, I think that's probably a pretty great place to start. And I've learned that you can just type in methadone clinic near me into Google, and it will give you on so try to help yourself if you can, especially if you're having a moment of clarity right now. And you're listening, like take advantage of that moment of clarity and run towards somebody that can help you right.

Unknown Speaker 2:08:57
Yeah, yeah, for

Scott Benner 2:08:58
sure. Is there? It doesn't matter really just somebody like tell somebody? Right?

Neva 2:09:04
Yeah. And don't hold like reservations. Like if people are telling you, oh, methadone doesn't mean you're clean. Or, you know, for the longest time, my family kept saying like, oh, when are you going to get off that stuff when you're going to get off that stuff? And I had reservations against it in the beginning and stuff, and then they finally realized how it was helping me. So as long as it's helping you stop using, then that's enough to help you get to where you need to be in between

Scott Benner 2:09:33
you're saying anything that isn't those pills or heroin is better,

Unknown Speaker 2:09:37
right? That? Yep, yes.

Scott Benner 2:09:39
Well, that sounds hard to disagree with. Okay. If I really appreciate doing this, I believe this is going to officially be the longest podcast I've ever done. I kind of feel like we can both go pee and come back and keep going if we have been thinking about that. But I really want to pay just so you know. And and I think I think there's nothing left to say really at the moment other than I appreciate this. I wish you a ton of success. I hope you keep in touch. You're very welcome.

I want to take this moment to thank Niva for her bravery and honesty, and a moment to remember all the people who have come on and told tough stories in the in the after dark episodes just can't be easy. And it's incredibly helpful. I hear from so many of you behind the scenes were helped by these very episodes. So for everyone who's willing to step up, everyone appreciates it, especially me. Thanks so much to touched by type one, the Omni pod tubeless insulin pump, and the dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor for sponsoring this episode of the Juicebox Podcast.

You can find out more about the dexcom@dexcom.com Ford slash juice box. Get that free, no obligation pod experience kit at my on the pod.com Ford slash juice box and of course, touched by type one.org or find them on Facebook or Instagram. Hey, you can follow this podcast on Instagram at Juicebox Podcast. You can find the blog at Juicebox podcast.com. And on Facebook we are bold with insulin that's the public group and Juicebox Podcast Type One Diabetes is the private group which I think is up to 7000 of you now in they're all talking about management of insolence. Very cool. One of the nicest places I've ever seen in Facebook and that is no over exaggeration.

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