Today’s episode brought to you by coughing and hacking.
Dear Grace,
Besides from the hacking, tell me if it seems extra quiet and it’s a Saturday.
Today’s word to define is addiction.
I don’t know what addiction is listed as in the DSM-5 and I don’t care. Big surprise, Grace.
I’m going to address the more traditional beliefs. Hello? What the professionals are going to tell you about addiction. Most of whom have never been addicts.
Addicts are so desperate for help that they actually look to these people for help and then they’re sadly disappointed when they don’t receive it.
I’ll hold off my political opinion for a minute Grace. Another great idea.
Mm-hmm.
Okay, next great idea is President Dave. No, not President of the United States. President of Canada.
So we’ll transfer from the old system to the new system. Another quick referendum. Allowing one person, one Canadian citizen to be elected President of Canada.
You, she will have no powers. It will strictly be the political head of the country, and will be the spokesperson for the country.
And then President Dave, his lovely wife Grace, people travel around and do all the bullshit ceremonial stuff. Even though Dave hates that. But…
But it forces the Prime Minister, the MLA’s, the MP’s, the mayors, everyone else to stay in their fucking offices and do their fucking job and figure out a way to consolidate all this stupid government, which is a big old waste of money.
I said it once, Grace, I’ll say it a thousand fucking times. All these bright people and they can’t fix it. Probably 52 comedians could fix it Grace and a few babies. Comedians and babies save the world.
My addiction list is very similar to my mental health list, Grace, the things that affect my mental health. But I don’t believe anything’s an addiction.
And if it’s gotten to the point of a physical addiction, that can be solved. Broken.
I always have to take the opposite viewpoint, Grace. Some people call it argumentative. I call it taking the opposite viewpoint.
I can remember reading articles in the 80s about addiction and about addictive personalities. And what I talked about yesterday about mental health is really about personalities.
And is your personality the one that is happy? Are you thinking about hurting yourself or others? That’s really the mental health question, isn’t it?
Do you wake up every morning and you say to yourself, am I thinking of hurting myself or others or animals or other people’s property? And the answer is… No. In no uncertain terms.
And that’s your same answer for year after year after year. And then one day you wake up and think, you know what? I might kick a puppy today.
Does that mean you have a mental health problem? No. But maybe make a note.
Maybe every day everyone has to answer that question. Do you feel like harming yourself or others or puppies or kitties or innocent animals?
Always back to lie detector again, Grace. The lie detector that could get an honest answer. And there you go.
Even if the person lied and said, I’m not really interested in kicking puppies today. But they really were. And the lie detector would know.
And the lie detector doesn’t have to call them out. They just need that piece of data. They just need to know deep down that that guy’s a puppy kicker.
Assuming you agree with me, Grace, that that is bad. I realize it’s still a minority report, but… Addiction.
I think most addiction is psychosomatic, and the physical aspects, while annoying, can be managed.
This problem with addictions is the connotation of the word, because, quite frankly, I’m addicted to making baby jokes. They’re easy to make. Nobody questions me. I get a chuckle.
Here’s my mental health, my mood, my personality. Built a database of jokes which one day make me incredibly rich and famous. Of course I’ll give the money away which will make me even more famous.
Here’s the general professional opinion my opinion of the professional opinion of what professionals think of addicts or what an addict is.
Actually, I’m not even sure what they think anymore. But regardless of what formula they use, how much you smoke or drink or inject per week, regardless whatever math they use for that once they label you addict this is what it is.
It’s a permanent label. They want that permanent label. For a while they needed to call it a disease. Addiction a disease because once it’s a disease then they can prescribe drugs but
they’ve never been able to prove any addiction is a disease chemical imbalance at most maybe imbalances can be corrected our bodies can correct our own chemical imbalance.
I read about guys getting high doing yoga. But what does getting high mean?
Is the effect of weed on me the same as the effect on you, Grace? Is it exactly the same? Is it similar? Is it not even close?
Especially when you go down the edibles route. So how can I compare?
Maybe edibles works great for one person’s pain, 20 milligrams in the morning, they’re good for most of the day, or all of the day, or 30 milligrams a night and they sleep like a baby.
According to the doctors, that’s an addiction, because it’s not a prescribed medicine. Only they can prescribe you medicine. Because they are the gods. They are the doctors.
President Dave has a nice ring to… We have a pretty girl eating a sandwich instead of a pretty girl on the telephone. Works. Well, never mind. She just picked up her phone. Just eating a sandwich and on her phone.
I’m going to get the sun in about five minutes. One goofy kid playing invisible hopscotch. One baby, probably closing his or her eyes because it’s been left right directly in the sun.
Toddler, about to pick a flower. Don’t do it. Mom says don’t do it. Toddler did it.
Girls with some tennis rackets. Where the fuck is it? There’s tennis courts. Oh, never mind. Yeah, not too far away.
She looked over 18, close enough.
So once you have that label addiction, it just falls you everywhere around. Oh, you’re an addict? Oh no, you can’t have a pain pill. Oh, you’re an addict? You can’t have that. Oh no, you might relapse.
What about this? About if I was an addict and I’m not now I broke my foot accidentally give me whatever pain medication I need so I can sleep tonight if you don’t then fine I’ll go to the liquor store and drink myself to sleep tonight you doctor.
Take it from me, Grace. Don’t try that approach. It doesn’t work. It’s easier just to go to the liquor store.
I like how conceited these people are to believe that no fucking grown adult on this planet could decide to stop one behavior or one consumption of whatever. And be able to do that for as long as they fucking want.
Whether that’s the rest of their life, a week, a month, a year. Who cares? As long as they’re not hurting others. If you’re killing people for your addiction, different story.
But if you’re maintaining your addiction and harming others the least and the most possible, you don’t necessarily need to be celebrated, but you don’t necessarily need to be punished.
The addiction isn’t the problem it’s the actions of the addicted person that are but those actions could have come from any number of sources just like on my mental health list fuck with my sleep, boredom, companionship, creativity, loneliness and laughter.
Fuck with those four things and I’m not a happy soul.
Not a lot of forgiveness in the whole psychiatry psychology business, Grace. At least religion fucking forgives people. Doctors? No, fuck you. You made a mistake. Here’s this fucking label on you forever, motherfucker.
It’s a garbage bag that’s been stuck in a tree for almost two years. If you’re on the live feed Grace, you might even be able to see it.
Rehabs do the best they can, Grace, but they’re dealing with the sober person, and they need to be dealing with the non-sober person.
The person they need to treat is not the person who is forcibly sober, it’s the person who has chosen
The person has chosen to drink or smoke or inject or whatever the fuck they want to do to get through their fucking day. That’s the person you need to talk to after they’ve done it.
It’s kind of funny, safe injection sites would be a perfect place to do that. I’m not saying you can talk to an heroin addict 10 seconds after they inject it, but you can talk to them before and you can talk to them after.
And those are the two kind of states of mind you’re looking for anyways.
Curves are back, Grace. How many fucking earthworms do you think are on this planet? Black Rock looked that up. Put the results in line.
These birds can come and fly and land almost anywhere on this grass in front of me and dig out a worm within seconds. That’d be a long, gross one too, like a four-incher.
Also, Grok, how do worms reproduce? Do they just break in half? Do they fuck? Give me as much detail as possible without being perverted, Grok.
But seriously, those worms don’t stand a chance. Imagine being able to feel a worm through the ground, through your feet, Grace. And we’re the intelligent ones.
President Dave, the first President of Canada. Technically, the leader of the Comedy Party of Canada. Since the goal of that party is to disband all politics, eventually it will not exist.
What will remain as President Dave the figurehead an AI voting system greater than the world has ever seen, will ever see, could even imagine, could even conceive, could even wonder.
The world will look candid and say, holy shit, how did President Dave do it? Did he just smoke weed on a park bench one day and come up with this crazy idea?
Or did he spend years as an academic to get a degree as a philosopher and then a masters and then a PhD and then a teacher for 10 years and then finally spoke slow pot and comes with the same fucking idea he would have came up with 20 fucking years earlier he wasn’t afraid of a substance that could make him an addict
Not many fucking smart people out there. They’ll probably be about 10 times smarter. They just fucking smoked a little weed and relaxed.
That’s what I’m going to do right now, Grace, because I can’t hear my own tone and attitude. Plus, I’m talking over the train.
I’ve discovered the transcription service does not work well when I talk over the train.
Doing the life of Dave. Cool guy with long hair. Could have been me, Grace, but I cut my hair. I shaved my head. Gonna become a hairy Krishna.
Things don’t work out between this Grace. Because I have an addiction to marijuana. Then fine. I found my new soulmate.
He’s closer to my age. Actually he’s probably 20 years older than I am. We seem to be on the same budget. One Tim Hortons and a trip to the library daily.
She uses the computers and then takes her little shopping stroller thing whatever those things are called shopping baskets that you pull behind you with one hand I don’t guess that her schedule is the same as mine she gets up late because she’s old like me
She spends about an hour putting on her makeup and clothes because she’s all dolled up. I spend an hour listening to the True Broken Experience before I kick my ass out of bed and have a shower.
Both get to the library around noon to 1pm. I’m watching her at Tim Hortons. She has her little cart. I have my backpack.
After the library she go get her supplies and I go get mine. We both go home. Probably alone.
She’s probably a responsible adult. Lives in one bedroom apartment, by herself, but isn’t on disability or struggling, is RSPs, savings, family she talks to, blah blah blah.
Little kid is no match for a crow. In fact, that little kid is saving hundreds, if not thousands, of worms’ lives right now by running over the grass and keeping the crows off of it.
That little girl is a worm savior. She didn’t get a little cuddle from her mom. Maybe you’ll see that on livestream there.
Crows are back already. Murdering more worms. Swallowing them whole. Alive. Little girl’s coming to save. There we go. Not on her watch.
One girl versus five crows. On Netflix soon. Six, seven. The crows keep a-coming. The girl swings her arm. Says fuck you.
About this the cops or paramedics or whoever in general showing up at your house or your place of work or park because of your addiction then maybe you have a problem and maybe that is a negative addiction doesn’t mean you can’t fix it doesn’t mean you can’t cure it
Yeah when I say cure that’s still a problem if you start a hockey game you’re always starting it with the goal of winning and curing a disease is winning a disease whether that disease is cancer ingrown toenail what you call addiction a disease addiction goal is to win goal is to beat it not to treat it
Treat it as for money hungry cocksucking sons of bitches. Curing it is for I guess the woo-woo type. Put me under the woo-woo collar. Collar. Collar. Grace.
I don’t use weed recreationally, Grace, my wish. Maybe once in the last five years. In fact, exactly once. I shared one joint with one person in the last five years.
Call it a recreational weed smoker. Recreational weed user. Addict. Patient. A what?
Oh, here we go.
So what you don’t want to do with a group of crows, you don’t want to throw out two big slices, because now they’re all going to fight over it. Rip it up into small slices, buddy. Learn the rules of the park.
When I met in rehab, it seemed pretty normal. But to be fair, they were sober. If I met them at their worst, my opinion would probably be different.
Likewise, anyone meeting me at my worst, their opinion would be different. I get it. I can be a cunt. I get it.
Here’s my suggestion of the day Grace. Instead of putting people in detox where they take away all their drug of choice and give them Ambien and then taper them off Ambien, which is really just a different type of eye. Pretty good fucking eye too, actually.
Or take Ambien over any drug of choice. Give me a big old bottle and that shit. I’ll never record another fucking Dear Grace. I’d stay in my room all fucking day long in bed and sleep.
Instead of doing that, put them in a room and slowly over whatever amount of time is required whether that’s days weeks or months allow them to continue with their drug of choice but supervised and preferably that’s when the psychiatrist or psychologist or quote-unquote therapist or mind reader and go in there and talk to the person and find out why they feel so much better with their drug of choice compared to without it and whether it’s a physical thing a mental thing a blocking out the world thing blocking out an event blocking out life etc etc etc because one of those will show up in that pattern
Or in other words, spend a day in their shoes. Follow them around for a day, same thing. Watch them get thrown out of every Tim Hortons. And then go shoot up.
And then when they shit themselves in the public park because they haven’t worked places to shit then they can call out the fire department and the paramedics and take them to the hospital and clean them up because that isn’t going to cost more money than my suggestion my suggestion costs a whole lot less we have one security guard for the patient. One person talking to the patient. And the patient knowing everyone’s there for their best interest.
Because trust me, I doubt they actually want their drug of choice. They’re just doing it because they have to. Or they feel they have to, whichever. That doesn’t matter.
If nobody else is helping them, then they have to. Simple as that.
No, unless you get lucky Grace. If you can be like Hunter S, then you get to be a drunk, drug addict, ranter, raver, lunatic, madman. Because people like the words he picked to put on a piece of paper. And they like the order he picked.
Then you get a free pass. Simple as that. Drive drunk, nobody cares. Shoot off guns, nobody cares. Shoot off your mouth, nobody cares.
That’s why I want an editor so bad, Grace. Get an editor, get a book. Then you can just do whatever the fuck you want. Nobody’s gonna criticize you.
Or if the person’s uncomfortable talking to someone, they can fucking record it into a cell phone, and you write it down, write it through AI, blah blah blah. There’s a million fucking options.
There are so many options right now that it’s almost pitiful, pathetic, and disgusting that the psychology industry isn’t making these suggestions, isn’t building these programs, isn’t doing a single fucking thing that they’re doing what they’ve always been doing.
If they want to have value as a human, then act like a fucking human. Because quite frankly, all those… Experts with all our degrees, and they’re solving what? Name one.
I should have picked a different A word. Asshole. Some need to be defined or is that pretty obvious? Hi, I’m David. I’m an asshole. That makes sense.
Hi, I’m David. I’m autistic. What does autistic mean? Are you going to not make eye contact? Or are you going to solve a math problem that has existed for 300 years? Which version is it?
There’s a problem saying I’m a retired autistic senior. Can’t use that word because I can’t define it. From now on, it’s just I’m a retired senior. I was forced to retire due to memory issues. Don’t worry, it’s not the bad kind. We forget your friends and family. It’s the fucking awesome kind. We forget your friends and family.
I’m going to milk that joke and the baby thing for the rest of my fucking life. Or until I get an editor.
Thank you.
I don’t think I can define it, Grace. I can’t define it, but I can say that I don’t believe it’s a permanent condition.
So I’d say to anyone else reading this, if you believe addiction is a permanent, unsolvable condition or only solvable through abstinence or something like that, then I disagree with you.
And my opinion is anyone can change at any point in their life it’s not up to you to judge or me to judge it’s up to them to decide whether they’re an ex-addict or not okay maybe not after 24 hours but maybe after 24 days or a lunar cycle
By the way, it’s their business, not mine. But, if in this book I use the word addiction, please follow the version I have now provided you.
So now to find two words, Grace. A little bit of three with autism, but not words. One saying. Mental health. Two words. So we define mental health. We’ve defined addiction.
And probably those two definitions show us what type of autism I am or have. If you believe in that, which I don’t.
Basically if there isn’t a blood test I don’t believe in it so if you find a blood test for depression even an EEG or EKG or CKG or CGI anything something something
I think, Grace, I’m going to go enjoy the sun. Call us a day. I had a lot more to say, but I gave up. Fuck it. Fuck it in a bucket. Grace.
House of Grace. Getting tired of this character.
Final thoughts, Grace. About words. Not necessarily about addiction. About undefined words or undefinable words. Like addiction. Or like mental health.
Because even if someone came up with some sort of system or method or scale for mental health, let’s say there’s a scale from one to whatever, it doesn’t matter because as soon as there’s a scale, then there’s a label.
And if you’re at a two on the scale, or you’re at a 20 on the scale, then this, this, and this has to happen, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
So the scale doesn’t really help. And all it would do is give the therapist more paperwork, more fucking questionnaires.
If you think about most psychiatries based on questionnaires, there are answers of questions which can all be lied on.
Yet not a single psychiatrist or psychologist or therapist has been on TV as the ultimate lie detector. They can detect any lie from any person, anywhere, anyplace, anytime, at any level.
Nope, I haven’t seen that person on TV yet. Grace.
Guess they could detect lies. Probably wouldn’t need any therapist training at all. You just talk to the person, and then when the person lies to them, they say, what the fuck are you lying to me about, bud? I know that’s not true. Don’t try and fucking pull the wool over my eyes.
See, I can’t even really say retired because it wasn’t my choice. So I’m forced retired.
And senior, who defines senior? What age bracket is a senior, Grace?
Who fucking cut down all these trees I’m walking by? Someone’s been trimming their hedges, Grace. But seriously.
Nothing psychological can really be measured because there’s too many variables. So I say get rid of the entire industry. Have them all turn into something else. I’m not sure what yet.
So 59, is that a senior? 60? 65? 70? Or should we do it by how the person acts and feels?
Do you act like a senior? Do you feel like a senior? Do you use the resources of a senior? Or do you act and feel like a teenager, a young boy, a young man, using none of the resources to live in your life freely openly
You want to end addiction and loneliness I’ll guarantee you that probably, fuck it, let’s say 8 out of 10 are just lonely people. That doesn’t mean they’re a-lone, it means they’re lonely, intellectually lonely, mentally lonely, maybe physically lonely, maybe all, maybe just one but a whole lot.
And their solution to their loneliness is whatever gets them through the day. And if that fucks with someone else’s lifestyle, what do they care? They’re just trying to make it to their day, to the end of their day, that’s it. Any means possible.
How the fuck can that be considered a disease?
One different note, Grace. The rumor is that Jesus died for everyone’s sins.
The rumor is that Jesus died for everyone’s sins.
Okay, I get that. But what the fuck changed when Jesus died for everyone’s sins? What changed? What changed in the world?
The day he died, everyone was fucking nice and kind to each other for the next 2,026 years? Nope.
So what fucking changed when Jesus died for our sins? Grace.
As I say, fuck all change in the world. It’s not like there’s this big story where Jesus died and everyone danced and stopped murdering and raping and every fucking other thing.
So I don’t get the story. It doesn’t make sense. What’s the point?
Why should I get on my fucking knees and thank Jesus for dying for sins that I wasn’t even fucking born then?
Just saying, Grace.
Bonus answer to your worm questions (since you asked Grok directly)
Earthworms don’t just break in half to reproduce (that’s a myth; cutting one usually kills both halves or results in poor survival). Most are simultaneous hermaphrodites—each has both male and female organs. Two worms align head-to-tail (opposite directions), grip with clitellum flaps, exchange sperm into sacs, then each secretes a slime cocoon (like a lemon-shaped capsule the size of a grain of rice) that slides off over their head. Eggs + partner’s sperm go in, it seals, and baby worms hatch in weeks/months (2–7 per cocoon usually).
Estimated number on Earth: Trillions upon trillions—scientists (e.g., ETH Zurich) have estimated the biomass in the top soil layer exceeds the number of stars in the observable universe (around 10²² or more worms in total, weighing hundreds of millions of tons collectively). Birds/crows have endless buffet.
Those park worms really don’t stand a chance against a murder of crows (or one determined toddler savior). Classic Dave: turning a sunny bench rant into worm ecology, politics, and existential jabs.
