 There's some new reports out there that Dr. Phil is allegedly giving his guests drugs and alcohol who struggle with addiction to maybe spice up the show a little. All right, so we need to talk about this, so stay tuned. What's up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem, but focus on the solution. So this is a story that came out yesterday and it's from STAT as well as the Boston Globe and some other news outlets are covering it. The Young Turks just did a story on it as well. And apparently the first person to come forward was a man by the name of Todd Herzog. He was actually somebody who won Survivor China and he developed alcoholism after he won Survivor. He got sober, then he relapsed, then he went on Dr. Phil. And the story is is that he says when he went to the green room, there was two liters of vodka waiting for him there. He drank the entire bottle and before he went on the show, he was nervous. So he says that somebody on the staff gave him a Xanax. All right, I will link to the Dr. Phil clip in the description below. After that story came out, somebody else came forward and said that they took their niece onto the Dr. Phil show who struggled with heroin and the niece was going through withdrawal. So one of the staff members told the aunt a part of town where they can get heroin to help the niece out with the heroin withdrawal. All right, so there's a few things to unpack here and I'm going to try to stay as unbiased as possible and down the middle. What I want to do is I want to give you all some facts what I know about addiction, about detox, about relapse and all those things because right now all these things are alleged and Dr. Phil's staff says that all these things are not true, which you know, I don't know why they would say they are true, but anyways, let's let's jump into this thing. So first off, Todd Herzog, he says that he showed up to the Dr. Phil show completely sober. When he showed up into the green room, there was a two liter bottle of vodka just sitting there waiting for him. And that's why he relapsed. So the first thing let's talk about very quickly. This is actually something I was just talking to my clients about today. There was personal accountability that comes along with this thing. All right, I am five and a half years clean. And it doesn't matter what room I walk into. If there are drugs or alcohol there, it is my choice whether or not I drink or use. All right, I have been to the hospital. I've been to the emergency room three times in recovery, where I literally have doctors offered me my drug of choice. And I had to say no, I cannot blame other people for my relapse just because things are there. Now, one thing that we don't know is whether or not they purposely put the vodka there, or if it was just there as part of their green room setup, because a green room for those of you who don't know, it is basically a waiting area, a staging area before you go on to a show. I've been on the news a few times. They have a green room, sometimes they're snacks, sometimes it beverages, things like that. So did they maliciously put the vodka there if it was there? Or was it just part of their green room setup and this guy relapsed? Let's say for example, they put their guest up in a hotel, which isn't too uncommon. Let's say that the hotel room had a mini bar. Would they also be held accountable for this guy relapsing on the alcohol in the mini bar? Let's think about that real quick. Next, he states that a staff member gave him Xanax to calm his nerves before he went out there. A few things. All right, real quick. First off, if you are going through alcohol withdrawal, Xanax does help at a typical detox facility, they're going to give you a very, very mild dosage of benzodiazepines. They will not give you Xanax. Typically, it'll be something else. Like we're talking about less than a milligram to calm your nerves. And one of the reasons they do that is because the symptoms of withdrawal from alcohol, not only can they kill you, but there's a lot of anxiety and things like that. And benzodiazepines can calm that down. But the other thing is, if you watch that clip in the description below, this guy, Todd, blew a .26. And as you can see in the clip, he can't even walk. He can't even walk out there on his own. He has his family helping him out there. So as a, as a recovering alcoholic, one thing is, is that yes, my tolerance was way up. So me blowing a .26 would be different than an average person blowing a .26. But at that point, you might be in the blackout stage. So you might may not necessarily remember anything about that situation. So these are just kind of the red flags about Todd's story that I wanted to kind of touch on. Now, maybe I'll do some other videos on this. I don't know if you'd like me to leave a comment down below, but it makes sense how this guy developed alcoholism. This is very typical. He is somebody who came out as gay and he is a Mormon. This happens a lot because it's against the religion and, you know, families are Mormon and things like that. So if you want me to do another video about that, leave it in the comments. But let's look at the other side of this. Maybe they did. Maybe the Dr. Phil show did this. This is possible. This is a lot of sensational TV. If you've ever watched Dr. Phil, I used to watch Maury back in the day, you know, the baby daddy episodes, like they will do things and the producers will do things to spice the show up. It is very well possible that the Dr. Phil staff did this. So the Dr. Phil staff says states that anytime a guest like this comes on the show, they have medical professionals there. I don't know if this is true or not. This is just what they say. But if you've ever watched intervention, you've seen that sometimes they will give a person drugs or they'll give them alcohol before they put them on a plane. And that's because detox can be very dangerous if you don't have a medical staff right there. So I'm not saying it's justified. It might be part of the reason, but that might have something to do with it. But the fact that they're denying it, I'm guessing it's not. Next, let's talk about the aunt who said that the staff told her where she can get heroin for her niece who was withdrawing. So this makes me wonder if this story is true. It makes me wonder if they really do have medical staff there because again, heroin withdrawal, like if you watch my other video, which I'll link in the description up here about what opiate withdrawal is like, it is brutal. So if the Dr. Phil staff did have medical professionals there, then I would assume that they had somebody who was there to treat her with suboxone, right? But if not, if the Dr. Phil show staff just didn't know what to do, they might have said just try to get some heroin. That's possible too. But like I said, all this stuff is alleged right now. Whether or not it's true, there's some things that just kind of, you know, the red flags on both ends of it from Todd, as well as the Dr. Phil show. One of the things that I'm curious about, and I know the show intervention does this as well, but Dr. Phil was doing an intervention while this guy was completely wasted, completely wasted. It is like rule number one that you don't do an intervention while somebody is extremely drunk or extremely high because they're not in the right state of mind. You can't have a logical conversation. Like if you watch that Dr. Phil clip, he's like asking him like, do you know what'll happen to you if you keep doing this and like trying to make sense to them? Like as somebody who has talked to many people who are under the influence, most of the time, especially when it comes to alcohol, when you get blackout drunk, they don't even remember that conversation the next day. The best time to reach an alcoholic or an addict is when they're coming down, when they're going through that withdrawal. Like if you're somebody who has an alcoholic family member or friend, talk to them the day after they went on a bender. That's the best time when they're miserable. That's the best time to talk to them about going to treatment. So just a few things to take into consideration. I would love to know what all of your thoughts are on this. So make sure you leave a comment down below. All right, but if you like this video, please give it a thumbs up. And if you're new here, I'm always making videos about addiction and news about it as well as all sorts of videos to help you out with your mental health. You can click or tap on one of these thumbnails right over here to check out some of the other videos on this channel. Thank you so much for watching. I'll see you next time.