Who Really Was Harmed By the Opioid Crisis | Sally Satel & Peter Pischke 127

In this episode, Sally Satel and Peter Pischke join Mikhaila to talk about dependence-forming medications, the opioid epidemic, and the prescription-drug system that’s partly to blame.

Sally Satel is a psychiatrist and addiction medicine writer. She is a lecturer at Yale School of Medicine and the author of ‘PC MD: How Political Correctness Is Corrupting Medicine.’ More recently, she co-authored ‘Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience.’ Her articles have been published in The New York Times, the New Republic, and The Wall Street Journal.

Peter Pischke is a journalist and health and disability reporter. He hosts The Happy Warrior podcast and has been on many top podcasts and TV shows. As a journalist who’s struggled with chronic pain, he aims to educate people and raise awareness about issues as important as the opioid crisis—which is discussed at length in this episode.

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Find Peter Pischke on Twitter @HappyWarriorP

or hear him host The Happy Warrior Podcast at

There’s more Sally Satel on her website

and Twitter @slsatel

Useful resources for people with chronic pain:

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Show Notes

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[0:00] Intro

[02:37] Introducing guests Peter Pischke and Sally Satel

[05:59] What is the opioid crisis? How did it get started?

[09:07] “Just between 2020 and 2021, we've hit our highest number in a year yet for deaths, which was about 90,000 related to opioid addiction” - Peter Pischke

[11:02] Peter shares his personal story of addiction and recovery from opioid use

[14:25] Mikhaila shares her experience with painkillers for childhood arthritis and the difficult choice between using a habit-forming drug or feeling miserable day in and day out

[15:21] "It's like woah, I'm in a lot of pain, I full-on have an autoimmune disorder and there's a reason I need these pain killers, and in the moment it's the difference between being in chronic pain or sleeping but being on a pain medication that is dependency forming" - Mikhaila Peterson

[15:54] Sally’s experience working at a methadone clinic in Washington DC

[20:36] “Some of our patients say they can't handle this on their own and get on a replacement medication for the opioids. And this is not the right medical analogy, but metaphorically it might be like taking insulin: it's just a medication you take every day. Some people do get off completely, but those are the more rare cases"- Sally Satel

[21:02] “It takes a long time to repair your life, and people use drugs for a reason” - Sally Satel

[22:40] The mixture of drugs in many cases of overdose. The difficulty in prescribing necessary meds post-2016 legislation restricting doctors’ ability to prescribe certain drugs

[34:39] The extreme pressure on doctors to see more and more patients. Its effect on prescribed patient care

[39:35] Dependence-forming medications

[44:05] American culture and the constant war between addicts and legitimate patients in legislature and treatment

[51:53] “It could well be that many people on high-dose opioids today didn't need to be on that high of a dose [...] That's all true, but once you’re on a high dose that’s working, and you want to stay on it, to me it's unconscionable that doctors would take you off of it” - Sally Satel

[52:16] A message from Peter for those struggling with chronic pain

[54:43] A message for people who may be using or considering using

[55:21] Wrapping up

#MikhailaPeterson #Addiction #OpioidCrisis #MedicalSystem #ChronicPain