Well everybody, welcome to Stronger Weekly brought to you
by Purest Nutrition. I'm your host, Jesse Carajet.
Thank you so much for being here.
Hope you had a great weekend today.
We've got a great show for you. We have Ben Westhoff joining the
program. Ben is a nationally known best
selling investigative journalist, speaker, filmmaker
and author. He wrote the book Fentanyl Inc,
which really just blew up and exposed the whole fentanyl topic
in America. He's appeared on The Joe Rogan
Experience as work has also appeared in the New York Times,
the Library of Congress, The Atlantic, the Guardian, the Wall
Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, NPR, Rolling Stone, Daily
Beast, New York, Forbes, Vice, Oxford American, Pitchfork and
others. So in other words, he's an
absolute gem and his work is absolutely incredible.
So right now what we're going to focus on in this episode is a
documentary film that is coming out soon.
If you're listening this in April, it'll be coming out
hopefully at some point in May or June.
And the film is called antagonist and then is tackling
medication assisted treatment for addiction, specifically
looking at a miracle medication called naltrexone, which if you
listen to the show, we talk about it a lot.
I've used it. It helps people break the
addiction of not only alcohol use disorder, but so many of the
other really devastating addictions out.
There. This movie, this film which I've
seen, it really unpacks, unfortunately, all of the issues
that it's taken to get this medication to the masses, lobby
groups trying to suppress it, nefarious actors trying to
basically debunk its efficacy for no other reason than greed
and profit. It's a great film.
I'm going to link to it in this episode and I had a great
conversation with Ben and I can't wait for you to listen to
it. But before we do, we're going to
start with this week's health and fitness headlines and then
Ben is waiting for any other side.
Let's dive in. All right.
Folks, let's jump in. First up, in a move that
surprised even long time advocates, President Trump
signed an executive order this week directing the FDA to fast
track review of certain psychedelic drugs like
psilocybin, ibogaine, MDMA, and even LSD, all for treating
serious mental illnesses. So the order issues quote
national Priority voucher to psychedelics that already hold
FDA breakthrough therapy designations, slashing review
timelines for months to just a matter of weeks.
So in other words, this speeds up dramatically the process.
It also commits $50,000,000 to ibogaine research, a compound
from an African shrub that veterans say have dramatically
transformed their PTSD and addiction recovery and opens a
right to try pathway for desperately ill patients.
The White House notes over 14,000,000 American adults
currently live with a serious mental health illness and
millions aren't responding to existing treatments like
medications and therapy. Navy SEAL veteran Marcus Mutrell
was at the signing and told the president, quote, you're going
to save a lot of lives through it.
It absolutely changed my life for the better.
One important notes. Ibogaine has been linked to
serious heart arrhythmias, and researchers are urging proper
clinical trials before widespread access.
As Doctor Frederick Barrett of the Johns Hopkins Center for
Psychedelic and Consciousness Research put a quote.
If the executive order can pave the way for doing objective
scientific research with this compound, it would help us
understand whether it is truly a better psychedelic therapy than
others. No psychedelic is FDA approved
yet. But for the millions of
Americans for whom current mental health treatments have
failed, this is a real opening. And millions of veterans are
advocating for this. You have to trust their
judgement. People are saying it works.
This feels like a safe, efficient pathway forward to
explore it in a more serious way.
I'm all for it. Let's go.
Next up, are you training at the right time of day?
And I'm asking not just for your schedule, but for your biology,
because it really may matter. So a new randomized controlled
trial published in the journal Open Heart found that aligning
your workout timing with your natural chronotype, in other
words whether you are a morning person or an evening person, can
dramatically reduce cardiovascular disease risk
overtime. So researchers studied 150
adults aged 40 to 60, all with at least one cardiovascular risk
factor. Those who exercised In Sync with
their internal clocks saw a greater reduction than blood
pressure, fasting blood sugar and LDL cholesterol than those
who trained at the wrong time of day.
Sleep quality also improved when exercise timing aligned with
natural chronotype. So the researchers call this
concept quote chrono exercise scheduling workouts around your
biological clock, not just your calendar.
Good luck with this name. Doctor Rajeev Sankaranianian of
the British Cardiovascular Society called it quote highly
relevant to preventative cardiology and set a simple
chrono type assessment could meaningfully improve adherence
and outcome. So take away if you're
listening, figure out whether you're a morning lark or a night
owl, then train accordingly. Your heart may respond better
than you expect. And if you're not sure how to
make that assessment, it's purely subjective.
Do you feel more energized? Do you feel more productive in
the morning or the afternoon? Align your exercise with that.
And it sounds like based on this study, you could be dramatically
lowering your risk for future cardiovascular problems.
Next up, some news on fasting. Very interesting finding here.
Look, scientists have known for decades that intermittent
fasting can extend a lifespan. What they couldn't explain fully
was the why. Well, a new study from UT
Southwestern published in Nature Communications may finally have
that answer. And it's not what you are
expecting. It's not the fasting period
itself. In other words, it's not the
period of time when you're not eating that's doing the heavy
lifting in terms of health benefits.
It's actually the refeeding phase.
What happens metabolically when you reintroduce food and start
eating again? Fasting extended lifespan by
about 41%, but when researchers blocked the metabolic reset that
normally occurs during refeeding, keeping the fat
burning switch on even after eating resumed, the lifespan
benefit disappeared entirely. What the hell am I talking
about? Let me explain.
So lead researcher Dr. Peter Douglas said quote our
discoveries shift the focus toward a neglected side of the
metabolic coin, the refeeding phase.
The health promoting effects of intermittent fasting are
dependent on how the metabolic machinery recalibrates during
the transition back to a fed state.
So the part of fasting that's actually doing the work might be
when you're eating again. If you practice intermittent
fasting, how you break your fast may matter just as much, if not
more than the fast itself. So practical stepways, don't
spike your blood sugar, don't pound a bunch of unhealthy foods
and carbohydrates and sugar. Come off of your fast slowly and
let the metabolic transition happen cleanly and responsibly.
So very interesting factoid there.
If you're already fasting, be more thoughtful about how you
introduce food back into your system.
That's where all the magic happens.
Real quick folks, let's talk about protein.
Protein bars specifically. Look, as a busy parent and
professional, the hardest part of eating well isn't the meals
themselves. It's eating on the go.
It's everything in between. It's the 2:00 PM meeting that
runs long. The school pickup, the chaos of
life, the workout that you're just trying to get to.
That's where nutrition falls apart for most people.
It's in the busyness and in a past life I used to just grab
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Next up from the Common Sense Files, a quick message from
emergency departments and neurosurgeons across the
country. If you've been riding an E bike
or E scooter without a helmet, possibly after a few drinks and
you feel good about it, you shouldn't dumb move.
Neurosurgeons would like a word with you.
So a new study published in the journal Neurosurgery analyzed
trauma data from Bellevue Hospital Center in New York City
from 2018 to 2023. In 2018, E bikes and E scooters
accounted for about 8% of all major head trauma cases that
came from things like bicycles and or motorcycles by 2023.
So five years later, 1 and 2. So half of these head trauma
injuries are coming from these E scooters and E bikes.
Just some stats here, 30% of the injuries suffered a traumatic
brain injury, 26% had skull or facial injuries, 50% required
surgery, nearly 70% hospitalized.
And this is key. About 20% of patients were drunk
during the time of their injury. So one in five, and let's face
it, we've all thought it when you're walking around in the
city. I've been to places like
Nashville and Denver and New York City and you see these,
these E bikes just on the side of the road.
No user manual, no caution. People can just walk up, scan an
app, jump on it after happy hour.
Nothing pairs quite so well like zipping around 20 mph through
city traffic after happy hour. Who'd have thought that this
could be a problem? So Doctor Hanna Weiss, A
neurosurgery resident at NYU Grossman School Medicine, said,
quote, our study shows that micro mobility injuries are
producing very serious brain and spinal trauma injuries that
demand neurosurgical care at a scale we just haven't seen
before. So folks, if you're going to
ride one of these things, please know what you're doing.
Wear a helmet, drive slowly. And it's probably not a good
idea to be drunk while you're doing it.
Just call a freaking Uber. It's a lot cheaper than a trip
to the ER and it's essentially not worth risking your life.
And last for this week, Harvard just proved that humans are
still evolving, but faster than we thought.
So a Harvard LED study published this past Tuesday in Nature
analyzed ancient DNA from nearly 1600 individuals across western
Eurasia. The largest ancient DNA study
ever conducted. The team identified 479 specific
gene variants that were strongly selected for or against over the
last 10,000 years. And critically, natural
selection did not slow down over time.
It accelerated after humans transitioned from hunter
gatherers to farmers. In other words, this whole
thing, this whole natural selection, evolution, all those
things speed up during a very, very small period of time during
that transition from hunter gathering to farmers.
So traits evolving most rapidly included skin pigmentation,
immune function, blood type, disease resistance and metabolic
characteristics. Genes associated with type 2
diabetes and schizophrenia also showed signs of selection.
What does that mean? This suggests that what makes us
vulnerable to those conditions today may have once offered a
real survival advantage in a different world.
So lead author Doctor Ali Akbari says quote, instead of searching
for the scars natural selection leaves in present day genomes
using simple models and assumptions, we can now let the
data speak for itself. So this single paper double S
the entire ancient human DNA literature.
What does this mean? Many of your disease
vulnerabilities today may be evolutionary leftovers from
10,000 years ago, adaptations that once kept your ancestors
alive. Understanding those forces is
how we eventually learn to work with human biology instead of
against it. So interesting stuff to close
there. That is it for this week's
health and fitness headlines. Ben Westhoff joins me in just a
bit hanging for that amazing conversation.
We'll see you there. All right, everybody, welcome
back to the show. I'm here with Ben Westhoff.
I couldn't be more excited to have Ben on.
How you doing Ben? Good.
Thanks, Jesse. Yeah, great to be here.
It's a it's a it's an honor to have you because I caught your
episode. What was it 6 years ago on, on
JRE on the Joe Rogan show? That's right.
I remember that you were, you had written a book, fentanyl ink
and doing some touring and what not.
What was that experience like on the Rogan podcast?
I have to ask. I mean, it felt like the biggest
day of my life. I mean, it was like a secret
location, you know? He was in the Valley in LA back
then, hadn't moved to Austin. But I don't know.
It was, it was this giant man cave.
It was an experience unlike any other.
Well, I wish I could replicate that somehow here virtually on
stronger weekly, but I'm not on his level.
But maybe one day we'll see. But then I'm going to start
here. So you've you have explored and
investigated and reported on some really interesting topics.
You know, you're an investigative journalist and
author, a filmmaker. We're going to talk about that.
But these topics, fentanyl addiction, naltrexone, right,
medication assisted treatment for alcohol disorder, even like
hip hop culture. I know that was, you know, some
of the early projects that you did, but I'll ask it this way.
Why do you do what you do and how did you get into this world?
Yeah, I mean, I used to be a Music Writer, so, you know, I
wrote about hip hop not just because it was the music I love,
but because there's such interesting stories.
You know, eventually I started doing more like investigative
stories and going places other people didn't want to go and
kind of where drugs and music overlapped was a big focus.
And I found out that at raves, I was covering the rave scene and
all these people were dying from ecstasy pills, supposedly.
But I investigated and found out that these pills were almost all
cut with fentanyl or, or with other, you know, drugs no one
had heard of. And this was at a time when I
didn't even know what fentanyl was.
And so I went down the rabbit hole with that and ended up
investigating going undercover in these Chinese drug
operations. And that sort of launched my,
my, my book in my sort of post book, you know, interest and
authority when it comes to the subject of fentanyl and opioid
addiction. Real quick, I spend a lot of
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So from learning about in the awareness that people are dying
from fentanyl to throwing yourself into undercover
fentanyl rings and going overseas, that I'm sure there's
a lot that happened in between there.
But had you been an investigative journalist prior
to that, or did that kind of push you into that realm and
then with what you learned, you became an author afterwards?
Well, I mean, you know, I've been an investigative
journalist, but not investigating the things you
might think. Like there was this rapper, I
don't know if you ever heard of him from Houston.
His name is Riff Raff and he's this guy.
He like talk. He's white, but he talks with
his super thick accent. He's got tattoos all over his
body's face, and he's just like a walking meme.
And everyone wanted to know, like, is this guy real?
Or is he just, like, a caricature?
And when he goes home, he just talks like a white guy from the
suburbs, you know, when the cameras are off.
And so I actually, like, did a full investigation of this guy,
like talked to everyone he'd ever met and, you know,
interviewed him and went all, you know, all the way down the
rabbit hole with that and found out that's just who he was.
So that puts you on that course. Of being a.
Journalist or investigative one anyway, So when I I want to
obviously talk about the the naltrexone piece, what you're
working on now in your projects, because it hits home for me.
But just to stay on that the fentanyl and that then the book
that you wrote fentanyl ankle just a moment longer since you
published the book. What year did you publish that
book, Ben? 2019. 2019 OK, So 7:00-ish years
or so, how do you think America or the world in general has
responded to what's kind of changing as it relates to
fentanyl either here or across the world?
Have you seen any difference? Well, things got a lot worse
since then, particularly in the US and Canada.
Thankfully other countries haven't really been touched by
fentanyl all that badly though I think because of the strong
profit motive for drug traffickers, this can and
probably still will happen. But the US, the the overdose
deaths really peaked from fentanyl around like 2023 and
thankfully it's not as bad since then.
But we're still at historically bad highs.
And you know, if you think about how many people die from from
drugs and alcohol for that matter.
But when it comes to opioids, we're still in like a historical
crisis. Do you think there's anything we
can do about it? Well, I think medication
assisted treatment like we're going to talk about is really,
really important. And if we can get half of
addicted users to be on medication assisted treatment,
you know, we would cut the death rate by a huge number.
And I think that's one way forward.
Yeah, I'm, I'm sifting around in here my notes.
I had those statistics handy. I want to say you could probably
keep me honest. Oh here it is, last stats on
record. So I'm assuming this is 202580
thousand opioid debts still a year and 140,000 alcohol use
disorder or alcoholism. Does that sound right to you?
Yeah. Okay, let's chat about what we
just talked about medication assisted treatment.
So the new film that you're working on, you want to give a
give a little overview of the film?
Yeah, it's called antagonist. And basically it's about how
naltrexone was supposed to be this revolution in addiction
medicine. And I talked to, you know,
dozens and dozens of people whose lives were changed.
But at the same time, it's never been taken seriously, and
doctors don't know about it. You know, the media, when they
write about it, just completely disparaging of it.
And there's all these sort of like outside interests, these
like big money sort of interests that are basically trying to
suppress it. And that's what the film is all
about. Yeah, let's go into it.
So I watched the film. I, I texted you there, so I
emailed you one of the other. I watched the film on Wednesday
in anticipation of meeting you and I, and I absolutely love the
film and just how it was made. But I also, I found myself
getting almost frustrated when you were unpacking some of the
corruption, some of the greed, some of the Pharmaceutical
industry stuff. So if I may, let's get into that
and I'll start here. You mentioned the name of the
film is antagonist, but there are types of medications called
agonists. Can you explain the difference
and maybe the two or three primary agonist type medications
that have been widely pushed and accepted?
And then we'll kind of get into what an antagonist is like
naltrexone. But can you explain what an
agonist is and kind of the history of addiction treatment,
at least in America? There are three FDA approved
medications for opioid use disorder and you mentioned
naltrexone, and the other two are methadone and also
buprenorphine, which is most commonly known as Suboxone.
And the problem with methadone and buprenorphine, even though
they've helped, you know, millions and millions of people
save millions of lives, but they're not for everyone.
Because for one thing, they're addicting opioids in themselves.
So if you are trying to quit heroin or quit fentanyl and you
start taking methadone, that's great because you won't have to
like, buy your drugs on the street.
You know, you get them from a clinic.
It's regulated, it's affordable. You don't have to like, rob and
steal. You're not going to get
adulterated drugs, but it's still an opioid and you're still
going to be addicted to it. And you know, from a harm
reduction standpoint, it's certainly a great benefit to
society, but a lot of people don't want to go that route.
They want something that is not addictive.
And so the the agonists are buprenorphine, suboxone and
methadone. And a lot of the film spend
explaining why these drugs have taken hold in society.
Where is naltrexone is not. And, and that's one of the the
key things that just was so discouraging to learn.
And when you look at the history is that by keeping people who
are addicted on something like methadone and the way that it's
administered and how it has to be administered, they have to
keep coming back for that treatment on a regular basis.
And that's, that's key because in addition to getting the
treatment, my understanding, and maybe you can correct me on
this, is the folks that are actually funding that treatment
that are, you know, giving that treatment out there also then
giving those patients other types of treatment, other types
of, you know, therapy, things like that.
And they're incentivized to keep them coming back because then
they can turn around and bill say like Medicaid, things like
that, so they can make money. You, you might correct some of
the details there. But the, the take away for me
was this other drug, this other medication started to emerge and
it's naltrexone. And it allowed people to either
get a shot where they can come back once a month or just take a
pill every day. But they were intentionally
disparaging and suppressing the efficacy of that because they
were incentivized by financial gain by keeping them with the
old medication, which wasn't the best for the patient.
It's my best attempt. Yeah, I think you did a good
job, absolutely. You've probably seen long lines
for methadone clinics. You know, in a lot of urban
areas, you'll sometimes see a line like 6:00 AM in the
morning, all these people lined up to to get their methadone
just on the street. And it's like, you know, this is
pretty crazy. And it's because methadone can
only be dispensed in these very particular unique clinics.
And there's no other medication like that at all where a doctor
can't prescribe it. You have to go to this building
to get it. And there's been a whole
industry that's come up around methadone for that reason.
You know, it is like the perfect product.
It's it's addictive. Everyone has to come back every
single day to get it. And there's, you know, not only
an industry, but there's a big lobby behind it too.
And this this lobby promotes the interests of methadone, the
methadone clinics, the profitability.
And as you mentioned, this is to the exclusion of naltrexone.
You know, these these clinics could have naltrexone, but
almost none of them do. And one of the moments in the
film is me confronting the head of this lobby for methadone.
And I say, well, why don't you guys have naltrexone at these
clinics? And then this was the moment
that I thought I was going to have a gotcha.
You know, I was going to say, well, it's because you make more
money off methadone and you can't make money off naltrexone
like that. And I thought I had this big
gaunchy moment, but then he just admitted it.
He was like, yeah, you said it. The reason?
Because it's more profitable. So.
So there you go. Yeah.
I, when I was, I was driving my truck because I was listening to
like the second-half of it on my commute and I, and when I heard
him just flat out say it, I, I in my head, I went, holy, holy
crap, he just said it. He actually just said it.
It's a big moment. I mean, I got to give them
credit for not trying to to lie about her beat around the Bush.
So yeah. A quick reaction and a question
about the urban areas that you described.
But like another thing that was going through my head is like by
only administering at this medic, this methadone in one
location, those locations are normally centrally located to
where a lot of the people live, sometimes on the streets.
It it occurred to me that you are, you are locking them into
those very areas where they have access to the drugs that got
them hooked. So not only is it not good for
them that they have to keep coming back every day, you are
keeping them logistically planted where they are most
likely to be harmed. And it it doesn't, it kind of
tethers them to that location where I think what's most
healthy for them is to get away from those environments and get
away from those people that are, that are almost triggering for
their addiction. Does that make sense?
Yeah. And you know, for the film, we
go to one of these locations in San Francisco, you know, which
is kind of become Ground Zero for these like open air drug
markets. And this methadone clinic in
South of Market neighborhood in San Francisco is right in the
middle of one of these drug zones, these open air drug
markets. And upon leaving the click,
these are people who are trying to kick opioids, trying to like
turn their lives around. And right when they walk out the
door, there's guys trying to sell them fentanyl for $5.
You know, it's just the worst temptation imaginable.
Yeah, it's heartbreaking. And it's some of the the
subjects, some of the people you interviewed were so honest and
vulnerable with you about their sincere efforts to get clean and
just picture them having to wait in line in that type of
environment. And then to have people praying
on them, essentially to just sell them drugs.
It's heartbreaking that that's the situation.
But in your film, you spent time on the street and you were, you
were right there kind of Ground Zero.
What was it like to be just kind of walking around in San
Francisco and talking to these people in the depths of
addiction? What was that like for you?
Well, we were advised to get security, to bring security.
So we had two security guards, you know, mainly, I think just
to make sure our equipment wasn't like our video equipment
wasn't stolen or anything. It, it, it is kind of shocking
because I lived in San Francisco for a while, but this was, you
know, 20 years ago. And so now these are like the
most touristy areas, you know, like right by the Union Square,
where they have all the big fancy shops and everything, and
there's all of these drug transactions taking place in
broad daylight. And it was definitely shocking.
No, I bet, I bet what? What put you on this topic?
Like what? What introduced naltrexone to
you? How did you become aware of it?
Well, I wrote my book fencing the Link, and then I went on
book tour and you know, normally a book tour, everybody is like
lining up, take pictures with you.
Have you signed their books? You know, they treat you, you
know, like a rock star. But when I did a reading in
Saint Louis, I had the opposite experience with a guy named
Percy Menzies who ended up being the focus of my film.
And what Percy told me was basically that I had it all
wrong in my book when it came to addiction treatment.
You know, I didn't, I like don't even mention, barely mention the
word naltrexone in the whole book and just say that like
methadone is the gold standard. And you know, he said, you know,
you've got that wrong. Methadone is not the gold
standard. I need to bring you up to speed
on this thing called naltrexone. But he was so kind of brash and
like just really dismissive of me on my big night.
And I was kind of not too happy to hear all this.
But I took his card and eventually I thought, well,
maybe this guy is on to something.
And so I reached out to him and, you know, he's, he's a clinic
owner here in Saint Louis. And they see people right off
the streets. You know, he sees thousands of
patients a month at his clinic, which is called ARCA, the
Assisted Recovery Centers of America, and you know, for, for
alcohol and for opioids and other drug addictions.
And he is just obsessed with naltrexone unlike anyone I've
ever heard in my whole life. And you know, you can be talking
to this guy about anything, you know, the weather or religion or
what have you. And eventually conversation will
go back to naltrexone. And eventually after talking to
him for a while, I was like, well, this guy is really on a
crusade and he's really made it his life's mission.
So it inspired me to find out everything I could about
naltrexone. OK.
And as an investigative journalist and reporter and and
film maker, how does one go about that?
So you had this interaction with Percy, described as a salty
contrarian in some places? Yeah, exactly.
And then you you got this idea. You're fascinated by it.
Where do you go from there? How?
How does that awareness turn into a film that's released now?
Like how does that happen? Well, yeah.
Well, initially I thought it might be a book, you know,
because that's I never made a film before.
But as I talked with all these people whose lives have been
changed by naltrexone, and I also went to these places like
the Tenderloin in San Francisco, you know, places with these open
air drug markets. And there's such a like, gritty
texture to it, such a visual component that it started
seeming more and more like a film.
And, you know, adding to that was all this great archival
footage I was able to get a hold of that takes you back to the
days when all of these medications were first being
created. And it actually all happened at
this federal prison in the middle of Kentucky where the
prisoners were basically human Guinea pigs for these
medications. You know, methadone,
buprenorphine, naltrexone, it was called the narcotic farm was
the colloquial name for it. And these were basically heroin
addicted users from New York, mostly that were brought out to
Kentucky. And it literally was a farm,
this prison, you know, there were like milking cows and, and
all this, but the, the prisoners were, were doing the work and
they were there basically to be cured of their heroin
addictions. And so that's where all these
medications got started. They had all these scientists
who were testing these new medications on these prisoners
and I had all sorts of great footage from that era.
And so that's that became a big part of the film too.
Look, I like to have a good time, I'm a social person, I
stay connected with friends and family, and I just like to enjoy
myself. But at some point along the way,
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Now let's get back into the show.
Yeah. On the prison topic, one of the
things that I think your movie did a great job of shining a
light on is how at risk prisoners are those folks who
are addicted before they go and become incarcerated, and how
essentially we just let them back out on the street and
expect them to be OK. And one of the things that
occurred to me is it that if you use medication prior to them
getting out of prison, especially if it's like
naltrexone via shot, which is Vivitrol, is that what that's
called Vivitrol? You're just setting them up to
buy more time for them to get back out on the street and not
have those urges. And I, I think as a healthcare
system and even in societally to prevent people going back out
and reoffending, I think that's a major step that we can take,
especially if we know somebody had a drug problem going in,
just give them some medication. So then when they get back on
the street, we're setting them up for success.
And I hadn't even thought of that before your movie.
Yeah, and so I, I guess your listeners will might already
know, but naltrexone is available as a, a pill, a daily
pill and it's also available as a 30 day shot, which is
Vivitrol. So the problem with the daily
pills is like, you know, you have to make a decision every
morning when you wake up if you're going to take it or not.
And if someone, you know, wants to binge drink or to use heroin,
you know, they might just opt not to take the pill.
But with the Vivitrol shot, it's, it's in your system for a
month, almost a full month. And so that really eliminates a
lot of these decisions and makes it easier just to say there's no
chance that I can take these things.
Because when it comes to, you know, I, I guess we kind of
glossed over the fact that it works for both alcohol and
opioids. Naltrexone does.
And so. Yeah, it grabs onto the opioid
receptors and basically fentanyl or heroin just sort of bounce
off. It's like a force field or a
vaccine. Like you literally could take a
syringe full of fentanyl and it won't affect you at all.
For alcohol, it works a little differently.
You can still drink, but you just don't get that sort of
pleasure normally associated with it.
And for a lot of people, they're fine just having a drink or two.
They don't need to have 12. It's it's a great medication in
that it works for both of those addictions.
Yeah. And as you kind of foreshadowed
earlier, I've I've taken naltrexone, naltrexone user and
with the first time I took it, I was skeptical.
It feels like magic to me. Like how am I going to ingest
something that's going to make me not want something,
especially if it's as deeply an ingrained habit as alcohol,
right? And I'm glad you went into the
kind of mechanics of it, like how it works, but how I
understand it, and I'll do a terrible job.
But essentially the the medication binds to the receptor
that would normally receive the endorphins that rush that you
would get from alcohol. In other words, just kind of
cutting off and muting that benefit.
And again, that sounded like magic to me.
And I, and I'll never forget the first and second time I took it,
I took it at a time as was recommended after I after I had
some food, but it was right around the time of day where
every single day is where I started to have those urges to
drink. And for me, it was when I just
finished a long day. I was a little bit dysregulated,
maybe tired, stressed. I have young kids, lots of
noise, loud. So I'm basically like moving
from one situation to another and then I have to be, you know,
there for my kids. And it's just, I had no time to
unwind. So I would get stressed, I would
feel dysregulated and I would basically self medicate with
alcohol. So I thought, there's no way
that I can take something that will make that that connection
go away. And sure enough, I, I took it, I
sat down and I was sitting there, my wife actually had a
glass of wine at dinner, as was a custom, right?
And I sat there and looked at it and I said I don't really care.
About that. And I couldn't.
I couldn't, I, I couldn't believe it was that simple.
And the other thing, Ben, I I couldn't believe, and I'm sure
this resonates with you, I couldn't believe it took me
until I was 38 years old to even know it was a thing because I
did not know it was a thing. And it was wild.
Yeah, I mean, the real tragedy, I'm so glad you had have had
that great success with a, you know, the real tragedy of
naltrexone when it comes to the alcohol, you know, the abilities
to fight alcoholism is that we have this 12 step model just so
ingrained in our psyches in America.
And you know, that's the first thing anyone will say.
If someone has a drinking problem, well, they should go to
AAI mean A A is great and it's helped out so many people.
But the problem is that the the doctrine of the 12 step doctrine
is based on this idea of you can never have another drink again.
You know, ideally, you know, this is a disease.
We're not like other people. You know, can't just have one or
two, but that goes against the whole idea of naltrexone because
most people don't want to quit entirely or they can't quit
entirely. You know, the recidivism rate
people who try to quit cold Turkey is just staggeringly
high. But with naltrexone, you don't
have to quit cold Turkey. Like you said, so many people
have experiences just like yours where they just, they have one
drink or, or even they just don't even need to have any.
They're just, they're chill. And there's not, it's like white
knuckle feeling of like, I'm going to fall off the wagon any
day, you know? And so this idea that, you know,
people in a A, they're not doctors.
And that's an important part of even in the big book, it says
people aren't, they're not supposed to tell other people
how to live their lives. And so a, A and Altrexone
totally go together and should go together, you know.
But too often there's this idea that no, you can't use even any
medication to help you. Yeah, I agree.
Well, and with a, a, it is essentially there's two options.
There's 2 doors as they say, right, You're either completely
abstinent or you're just whatever the opposite is off the
wagon. And I and I found and I think
this is this momentum is kind of picking up there's a middle door
and it's called moderation, which can be hard for people
especially if you're like really in the depths of the drinking
problem. But I found, and I'm going to
ask you in a second about the Sinclair method.
But I found that if you use it in the targeted way where like
let's just say I'm going to a brewery with friends or I have a
wedding and my kids are being watched by grandma and grandpa
and I'm staying overnight at a hotel with my wife.
Those aren't necessarily good environments for me in the past.
But if I want to take Naltrexone before I go, I can still have a
drink, maybe 2. But then that snowball impulse
effect of after the second drink just goes away and it keeps it
safe and fun for me. But there are two ways to take
the oral version, which is the daily method as some people call
it, and the Sinclair method. Are you able to unpack the
difference between the two and and why one might fit for
someone else versus another person?
Yeah, you know, I, I know something about it, but I, but
you should probably excuse, you definitely know more about the
Sinclair method. Yeah.
I mean, essentially that's just it.
So the Sinclair Method, people have a lot of success with it.
It's exactly what I described as targeted.
So you're not taking it every day, you take it sort of as
needed and you do it to sort of bulletproof yourself.
Like if you're if you've not committed to being abstinent,
you still want to have some drinks and you're unsure you do
in a targeted way. And then there are other folks
that just really love to have that foundational protection and
they find benefit. Maybe it's a habit or a ritual.
They'll just wake up, take it with breakfast and then they
bulletproof it itself that way. But I don't know the statistics,
which is which is more, you know, long term helpful.
I think whatever works for folks, but it's that flexibility
that I think is really appealing to people as opposed to what you
described, which is the a, a way, which is their way or the
highway. It's basically all in.
That's the best I can describe it.
So I think yeah, well, thank you.
I think the company or health who they they use the Sinclair
method, is that right? Yeah, yeah.
They, they, they advocate for both.
I think they say whatever works for you, we're here for you.
Is is my paraphrasing of their position on it?
Yeah. And so they're, I'm doing an
event with them in New York City on May 19th and they're going to
be showing some excerpts from my documentary.
And it sounds like you're going to be there on the panel too.
So it'll be a great event. Yes, Sir.
We'll we'll meet each other in person.
That'll be great. I want to pull out some things
maybe that you've learned by doing this film and jumping into
the world of Naltrexone. Let's stay on the 12 step method
and kind of broaden a little bit to like addiction centers and
and whatnot. Do you feel as though like right
now a a addiction centers and treatment has still not evolved
to include naltrexone as part of their arsenal ways to treat like
is it still kind of siloed that way?
Are we making progress? Well, you know, I'm not a total
expert on a a, I'm not in a myself.
But I think the biggest problem has been these these groups like
the Betty Ford Foundation, you know, and Hazelden and those
are, you know, some of the biggest 12 step programs in the
country. And they've been traditionally
resistant to naltrexone. And I think that is evolving a
little bit. And I think it's more permitted
now. But in the past is, you know,
this idea that using a medication was just not, it's an
acceptable part of a treatment, even though it's not a
medication that gives you some sort of like high or anything.
It's a, as you can attest, when you take naltrexone, it just
sort of you don't really feel anything.
Is that right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I thought you call like the first maybe couple times I took
it, I'll just say that I was aware that there was a little
bit of a headspace shift, like there was just an awareness that
I felt like slightly different. And then by day three, I felt
nothing. And particularly I felt nothing
about alcohol. I didn't care about it anymore,
which again, was just wild magic.
Yeah, what's cool. What I've heard is that, you
know, basically it's sort of cools down these feelings that
you have to make these rash decisions, these impulsive
decisions. And so it it has ramifications
for so many different other disorders as well.
Like for the film, I interview a guy who is addicted to Matt and
Naltrexone helped him beat that. You know, it's just sort of
cooling down the brain. You know, you don't want that
second or third drain. You know, you don't want, you
know, you lose that craving for Matt.
It's even, you know, for things like addictive eating, you know,
eating, eating disorders, both eating too much or eating too
little sex addiction. It's, it's all sort of these
like compulsive behaviors that people find all this success
taking the Altrexone because it just makes them cut out these
these crazy compulsive behaviors.
It's really wild that that works that way because that's the way
I've learned it too. It's it's the same circuitry in
your brain that is responding to opioids, like really illicit
drugs as alcohol. They all kind of work in the
same, you know, brain chemistry. And by blocking the receptor
again, that receives the thing that's going to alter the
experience. It can block all of them, which
really two things makes it a wonder drug, but also makes it
so frustrating that so many organizations along the way have
actively tried to suppress the benefits.
And I just think sometimes how many millions of people could
have gotten the help that they need so much sooner if it
weren't for. That case.
Which is sad. Yeah, absolutely.
You know, and I think the biggest issue right now is
awareness to, you know, because naltrexone is a generic
medication. I mean, you can get it.
You should be able to get it at the pharmacy for like less than
a dollar a pill. But a lot of doctors don't don't
even know about it. You know, I think if you go to
your doctor for, you know, alcohol use disorder, a lot of
times the doctor will just say go to a A.
And the doctors aren't receiving this sort of training in medical
school. There's very little addiction
medicine training in medical schools.
And that needs to change. People need to be aware of all
these options that are available to them because so many people
would take advantage if they just knew.
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That's repfitness.com. What is your sort of greatest
hope with this film? Or maybe what what it What was
the goal in making it, and what do you hope comes from it?
Well, you know, really hoping to reduce deaths.
And it's, you know, even though the numbers for drug overdose
deaths have ticked down a little bit, the number of overdose
deaths and deaths from alcohol use are are just still
historically shockingly high. I mean, there is a lot of talk
in the news about the the drug crisis.
But I mean, how often do you hear about the alcohol crisis in
this country? You watch these football games,
you know, and there's like Bud Light ads, you know, beer and
booze ads all the time. But it's just so ingrained in
our culture that people don't realize just how toxic it is.
And it's not just for the people who die from alcohol.
It's people who are just living with exactly the symptoms you're
talking about. Certain time of day comes around
and you know, it's like, am I going to make it through or am I
going to drink myself into oblivion?
The the goal of the film is to increase awareness that people
don't have to wide knuckle it, that there really is this other
option. And, you know, really hoping to,
you know, to save lives. Yeah, Yeah, I I saw some
statistics recently around the top five preventable causes of
death in America. And alcohol is quietly right in
that list every single year, right?
You have diabetes and cardiovascular disease, all
these things and and those are listed as preventable because
some of those are linked to lifestyle choices just like
alcohol. But to your point no one talks
about it. I mean he just gave the
statistics 140,000 lives lost every year for alcohol, alcohol
related deaths and injuries and nobody talks about it.
I also saw it was just listed as a carcinogenic officially
meaning it is it's linked to cancer.
Yeah, I mean, I think there's still sort of this
misinformation floating around that alcohol, it's sort of like
a health food, almost like a beer, a glass of wine or two.
It's good for you. I mean, I, I, it's just nothing
could be further, further from the truth.
It's not just the effects of addiction, you know, because
because plenty of people drink, drink booze and don't get
addicted, but there's all these other deleterious side effects
from it as well, including cancer.
And I don't think it's particularly surprising that
these studies came out, but it's definitely something that's not
talked about like you said. Yeah, well put.
Then what I always, what I always enjoy doing as as a
conversation kind of winds down as I call like a rapid fire
section, if that's OK with you. And I've, I've written some that
are mostly related to the to the movie.
But if I could you mind if I go through a list and you just kind
of give me your your top of mind first answer, would that be OK?
Let's do it. Let's do it.
In your opinion, we'll start with this one.
What is the biggest misconception around addiction
treatment in America? Probably that it's expensive,
that it's unavailable. You know, I think nowadays more
than ever you can just walk into a clinic and get free treatment.
You know, it's it's really subsidized by federal and state
and local, local money. So that's that might be my
answer. Yes, good answer.
Next one, what is the most memorable interview that you
conducted in the making of the film?
Well, I'd have to say Percy, Percy Menzies is the star of the
film just because he he's like a real true blue believer.
You know, he's like operates from this place deep in his
heart that is just so pro pro, so profound.
There's nothing like cynical about him.
I'd almost like never met anyone like that.
Yeah, it it jumps off the screen as a as a viewer too.
It's just contagious. Next one, If you could force
everyone to watch 1 scene from your film antagonist, which
scene would you force them to watch?
I would say maybe just the Tenderloin scenes in San
Francisco where we're talking to addicted users and saying, have
you ever heard of naltrexone? And they say no.
And is naltrexone available? And they say no, and it just
kind of sums up the situation just right there in 1 scene.
Yeah, I agree. I agree.
It was eye opening for me just to see the way that those folks
were, were living in open air as you put it and the things that
were happening. It was striking to me.
Last one for you, what's the next project that you're going
to tackle? What are you working on next?
I'm actually working on a coffee table book about the fentanyl
crisis, if you can believe that. It's with a nonprofit, and it's
called Lives Interrupted, and it's just profiles of people who
died in the epidemic and with big color pictures of them in
the primes of their lives. And this nonprofit I'm working
with, they're called Pack Sapiens, and they're going to be
bringing this book to world leaders like in China, in the
US, to try to get them to the table and fight the epidemic,
you know, put more resources behind it.
Lives interrupted. Yeah, Name.
It's a great name. Amazing look.
It's, it's, again, it's a great film.
I'm I'm a big fan of yours and now as a result, and I'm so glad
you made it. Can you just direct my audience
to how or when they can access the film, the view it for
themselves, and just kind of unpack that and how they can
also find you and find your website and just kind of see the
projects that you've worked on and you're working on in the
future? Just go to antagonistfilm.com
and I'll say it one more time just in case, Antagonist
film.com. And then you can get like a
sneak preview if you join our Patreon.
But you can see the the trailer for the film and get all sorts
of information. And to find out more about my
work, you can go to my website justbenwoff.com.
Awesome, and I will make sure I drop those links in the episode
description for anyone that wants to find you.
Anything else you want to share before we wrap?
Then Nope. I think we pretty much covered
it, so thanks for having me on. Yeah, I know.
It's my absolute pleasure to meet you and have you on the
show. And I'm so grateful you came.
Ben Westhoff, everybody. That's it for my interview with
Ben Westhoff. Hope you learned something
there. I mean, what?
What a topic. At times it's, it's frustrating
just to learn how you know, for the sake of profits, people will
be set aside, people who truly need help.
And I'm so glad a guy like Ben is out there doing the hard
work, rolling up his sleeves, investigating this stuff,
bringing that darkness to the light so that hopefully in
America, we can see a change and a miracle drug like naltrexone
can be more widely available and more widely known for the people
that need it and even the family members that need it.
So if you heard this and you think that you could benefit
from a medication like that, please, please raise your hand
and say yes and step into that role.
If you know somebody, friend or family or otherwise, it could
benefit from just knowing about it, Let them know about it.
You can even share this episode as one way to do it.
So I'm so glad that Ben joined the show.
You can Scroll down in the episode notes and I'll have all
those links. He mentioned his website where
you can access the film, other things to stay connected with
Ben. Just a great guy and I'm glad I
know him, frankly. So with that, this is the end of
the episode. I always like to ask if you
could, if you're listening, still leave us a rating and
review. It just helps the algorithm pick
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And that matters to me because it helps them to grow stronger
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You can share this with a friend or family member and we always
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Again, that's contact at strongerweekly.com.
You can ask a question, give some encouragement, criticize
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So if you could do that, that would be awesome.
And that's it for this episode, folks.
Hope you have a great, great week and you grow stronger this
week and we'll see you next time.