Why aren't we discussing Jordan Peterson's drug addiction?

A cautionary tale of the dry drunk

I’m fairly confident that if you’re one of my followers, unless you’ve been living under a rock or on some silent meditation retreat, you’ve heard about Jordan Peterson’s unhinged YouTube rant about his Twitter ban and transgender people. David Fuller of Rebel Wisdom just released a fantastic piece trying to assess what happened to Peterson over the years. I highly recommend you read it. I agree with just about everything in it, but something is missing…and it’s something pretty major.

For the most part, I only open up a word doc to start writing when I notice that there’s something nobody seems to be talking about. Although David’s piece deserves to be shared far and wide, like so many other pieces of commentary content about Peterson, it completely neglects Jordan’s full-blown benzodiazepine addiction.

Since I’m the resident drug addict, I guess it’s my responsibility to bring this up.

My personal history with Jordan Peterson’s work

In David’s piece, he discusses his history with Jordan Peterson’s work and how he was someone who really respected what Jordan was bringing to the conversation. I’m in the same boat.

I’m a pretty progressive liberal, but in the early days of the culture wars, I wasn’t a fan of the policing of language. I have a life philosophy of “don’t be a dick”. So, in my opinion, I think we should do our best to speak to people the way they’d like to be spoken to, but I also think we have to accept that not everyone on Earth is here to please us. If we set the expectation that everyone will act exactly as we want them to, we set ourselves up for failure.

I can’t remember if I first learned about Peterson for his viral moment standing up against compelled speech, but I remember agreeing with him. I heard he had a lot of troubling opinions, but I’m pretty good at knowing I can agree with some things a person says/believes and not agree with others. We love thinking in black and white, but that’s not how the world works.

At the time, I was also a major Sam Harris fan and enjoyed the debates Peterson and Harris would have. Now, I think they’re just pretentious, and I’m flabbergasted that people would pay to listen to two people talk, but that’s just me. But, for free, it’s nice hearing two people go back and forth when one is an atheist and the other says we have a lot to learn from religion.

I’m an atheist who got sober in AA, so I’m familiar with how much it can help to take certain ideas without having to believe in God or go to church.

I tried reading Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life, but I stopped about halfway through. It was just far too heavy in the religious stuff for my liking. I know that book has helped a lot of people, but Peterson is not the type of writer I enjoy. When someone goes on for pages about something that can be explained or argued in a few paragraphs, it feels like the author is trying to show off.

Just my opinion though.

Lastly, I respect anyone who helps people. For all of the critics of Jordan Peterson, you can’t deny that he’s saved lives. When Peterson stays in his lane of self-help and psychology, the dude is fire. As long as he doesn’t lean too far into his misogynist and sexist nonsense, his stuff on personal responsibility and building confidence are legit.

I guess one of my main criticisms of Peterson was that I’m not a fan of people who cite science, research and data, and then they transition into opinion or interpretation without telling the audience. It seems really shady, and it confuses people. The average person can’t tell the difference, and then they think they’re following science, but it was actually an opinion.

But, again, I can’t stress enough that we have to acknowledge the fact that Peterson has helped a ton of people pull themselves out of depression.

The missing years

Now, let’s talk about something that I can only relate to as some strange type of Mandela Effect. It’s like everyone is forgetting that for most of 2019 and 2020, Peterson was nowhere to be found. Why? He was battling a drug addiction.

If you just yelled at the screen, “It was a dependence! Not an addiction!”, don’t worry. I’ll help you with that in a minute.

According to CBC News in Canada, Peterson sought emergency drug detox in Russia in early 2020. In his daughter Mikhaila’s YouTube video from that time, she stated he’d been dealing with symptoms for eight months. Prior to this, after he returned, and to this day, this whole story has been a hot mess.

I cannot begin to tell you how closely I followed this story. For the last 10 years since getting sober and becoming a mental health and addiction advocate, I follow all of these stories closely. When a celebrity dies of suicide or an overdose, we’re often shocked, but the signs were there all along.

Let’s break it down and discuss drug addiction. I apologize in advance if I come off rude or inconsiderate, but I’m pretty “tough love” when it comes to this stuff. And if you’re a Peterson fan, you’re used to it.

In the CBC article it says the following:

The 57-year-old professor has been out of the public eye since September, when it was first disclosed by his daughter that he was seeking treatment for his dependence on clonazepam, a benzodiazepine tranquilizer that is often prescribed to patients with panic issues. 

His family says he had been taking the drug for years to mitigate lingering anxiety following a severe autoimmune reaction to food. His dependence reportedly started last spring after doctors increased his dosage to help him cope with stress as his wife Tammy battled kidney cancer.

Where do we begin?

What are benzodiazepines?

Originally, I thought Peterson was taking Xanax, but David Fuller corrected me and let me know it was clonazepam. When you mention that benzodiazepines are addictive and dangerous as hell, people lose their shit. This is the same with all prescription medications, but that data doesn’t lie.

Here are some stats from the National Institute on Drug Abuse:

• 5.8% (or about 16.1 million people) reported misusing any prescription psychotherapeutic drug in the past 12 months.

• 1.8% (or about 5.1 million people) reported misusing prescription stimulants in the past 12 months.

• 2.2% (or about 6.2 million people) reported misusing prescription tranquilizers or sedatives in the past 12 months.

• 1.7% (or about 4.8 million people) reported misusing benzodiazepines in the past 12 months.

• 3.3% (or about 9.3 million people) reported misusing prescription pain relievers in the past 12 months.

That’s a lot of prescription drug abuse. So, yes, they can help…but they can also ruin your life or kill you.

Peterson has been taking clonazepam for years. Typically, Xanax or Valium is the drug of choice for addicts. I personally never liked the stuff, but I get it. While clonazepam addiction isn’t as common, it’s still very real. In fact, it’s listed as one of the most commonly abused drugs per the NIDA.

Autoimmune-induced anxiety

I’m not a doctor, but based on what I know about anxiety, addiction, and pseudoscience, I’m extremely skeptical of the whole origin of his addiction. I despise pseudoscientific remedies promoted as being scientifically proven. If you’re like me, watch the series Unwell on Netflix to get super upset.

On a side note, I’m extremely interested in the placebo effect, but I’m not sure where I stand on how ethical it is.

Jordan and his daughter, Mikhaila, have promoted this carnivore diet thing for years, and the claims they’ve made about its healing powers are brutal. I don’t know if it’s healthy or not, but I just know they promote a lot of things that this diet definitely doesn’t do to millions of people.

Then, there’s the fact that Jordan has become an anti-vaxxer during the COVID pandemic. I’m not sure if he actually believes it or is pandering to his audience, but that’s something you can decide. I think David Fuller’s article has an explanation we can use for Peterson’s anti-vax rhetoric, though.

Anywho, what I’m saying is that based on a variety of other pieces of information about Peterson, I wouldn’t trust what he says he needs. He seems like the type that doctor hops until one tells him what he wants to hear.

Why did Jordan Peterson go to Russia?

The story behind this is just as goofy as the other health information his family promotes. Again, I’m extremely skeptical that Peterson had to go to Russia to detox.

I worked in a treatment center that offered all levels of care from detox, to inpatient, to outpatient and aftercare for years. I’m familiar with good and bad practices of detox facilities around the country and around the world.

Aside from not being able to think of a single reason nobody on this side of the world could help him, it seems like some more pseudoscience nonsense. This is pure speculation on my part, but again, based on what we know, I think it’s a pretty safe bet.

Recap

Peterson’s been taking benzos for years for anxiety. Benzos are addictive. He went to Russia to detox. He came back after almost two years, and it’s never mentioned.

Drug addiction vs. drug dependence

These two things are very different, but 98% of the time, they’re co-occuring. It is very rare that you find somebody who is dependent but not addicted. In the rare cases wheren this happens, it’s usually after short-term use and not years of using the drug.

Before I break this down, just know there is a lot of debate about how addiction happens and what it is. If you’re interested in learning more, I highly recommend The Urge by Dr. Carl Fisher. He recently came on my podcast as well. He brings a ton of new ideas to the table, and I really enjoyed it.

With that said, don’t come in here screaming that you know the truth about addiction. If you want to have a conversation or add some additional sources, that’d be awesome.

Physical dependence

Dependence is what people say Peterson had. This is true. There are a ton of medications that make us dependent. Our body is constantly adapting to what we’re putting in our body, and when we stop after a long time, it freaks out. If you’ve ever tried to quit caffeine or sugar for even a week, you’ve probably experienced this.

As mentioned before, I worked in a rehab with a detox for years. I’ve heard stories about the horrors of benzodiazepine dependence, but it scared the hell out of me when I saw it in person.

I will never forget the time I was doing a group, and out of nowhere, a kid turned stiff as a board and fell out of his chair due to a seizure. He had been sober for well over 30 days, but benzodiazepines can cause symptoms of withdrawal for a really long time.

Next to alcohol, benzodiazepines are one of the most dangerous substances to detox from. This is why you should always do it with medical supervision as with most substances.

The CBC interviewed a doctor for their piece on Peterson going to Russia, and it said, “Dr. Michael Krausz, the director of addiction psychiatry at the University of British Columbia's Institute of Mental Health, says the treatment for benzodiazepine addiction is difficult, regardless of where it takes place.”

There’s no doubt in my mind that Peterson went through hell, but as Dr. Krausz said, it’s going to be hell anywhere.

A question we may never know the answer to is, “Did Peterson go to Russia because he wasn’t getting better? Or did he go to Russia for a softer detox process?”

There’s a lot of controversial stuff in the addiction treatment world, and one of them is when you don’t really wean the person to abstinence. For example, many opioid addicts get sober by using Suboxone or Methadone. The dependence for these medications are extremely high, and they also get you kind of high. So, some people opt for treatment centers that use this method.

Did Peterson do something like that? I don’t know. What I do know is that he didn’t go to treatment, and that’s a problem.

Psychological dependence

Alright, now it’s time to get into the dependence vs. addiction conversation. The people who argue that certain things aren’t addictive need to stop. The arguments have the worst logic that I’ve ever heard in my life, and it kills my soul.

Psychological dependence is when you’ve conditioned yourself to need a substance or behavior. When you don’t have it, you get a ton of psychological symptoms like irritability, mood swings, depression, and much, much more.

So, physical dependence means your body freaks out when you stop doing something. Psychological dependence is when your mind freaks out.

You don’t take a substance for years and not have a psychological dependence.

If you don’t believe me, stop your worst habit tomorrow and let me know how it went in a week. In fact, stop all of them.

There’s a reason that I can’t open a single damned “best books ever” list without Atomic Habits being listed. And since we’re on the topic, that book is extremely overrated. There are far better books. For the purpose of this specific piece, I highly recommend The Craving Mind by Dr. Judson Brewer.

There’s an endless amount of research around habit formation. Although it’s often debated, I’m a fan of behaviorism from B.F. Skinner. Judson Brewer breaks behaviorism down extremely well in his book.

Brewer calls it the “habit loop”:

Let’s use anxiety as an example.

Cue - I get anxious

Routine/behavior - I take a benzodiazepine

Reward - I feel better

Each time I do that, I’m reinforcing in my brain that this is the solution. So, when I don’t turn to that solution, I lose my shit.

Jordan Peterson did this for years and that doesn’t go away just because you go through a physical detox. For as long as physical dependence can take to go away, psychological dependence can last a lot longer if you’re not treating it.

Addiction

Psychological dependence and addiction are sometimes used interchangeably. I hope by now, you understand why it’s silly to say that Peterson only had a physical dependence.

But, a definition of addiction I’ve always liked is as follows:

Continuing a behavior despite adverse consequences.

Short and sweet. I love it.

This is why it kills my soul when people say what is or isn’t addictive. Everything can become addictive if you’re training your brain to use it as a coping skill. The best example is marijuana. I’m very pro-weed, but saying you can’t become addicted is ignorant at best and dishonest at worst.

If I had a dollar for every person I’ve known who can’t stop smoking weed for a few months to get a damn job, I’d be rich.

No, you can’t overdose on weed. It’s one of the safest drugs out there. In fact, it’s a hell of a lot safer than benzodiazepines. Tell me the last time you head of someone going to a Russian detox for a weed dependence.

But the terrible logic people use to say you can’t become addicted to weed is brutal. The argument is that weed, the substance, doesn’t have addictive qualities. Well, that’s then arguing that you need a substance in order for something to be addictive, which is obviously not true.

I live in Las Vegas, Nevada. Do gambling addicts exist? Of course they do. Gambling is clearly not a substance, and that’s why the weed argument is really dumb and lazy.

People ruin their lives with sex addictions, shopping addictions, porn addictions, food addictions, and many other addictions. Why? Because of the psychological dependence.

These people “continue to do the behavior despite adverse consequences”.

Jordan Peterson the Dry Drunk

When I got sober in 2012, I didn’t talk in 12-step meetings for a really long time. I chose to sit back and listen. I was a hot mess, so I wasn’t going to say anything useful. In fact, a lot of hardcore people with more clean time would say that if you’re new, you don’t have much useful to say.

I don’t necessarily agree because when I had 5 days sober, someone with 30 days sober was more relatable than someone with 30 years. But, I get it. There’s nothing worse than someone with less than 30 days sober speaking to the room as though they’ve unlocked the secret to eternal happiness and wisdom.

Relapse rates are extremely high, so it’s important to stay humble.

So, I sat back and listened. Something I noticed was that there were people with years of sobriety, and they were still out of their damned minds. I don’t mean in a mental disorder way, either (I’m not an asshole like that). I mean that they still acted the exact same way an addict or alcohol would even though they were sober.

They had massive egos. They were angry all the time. They’d have mood swings.

Some of these people were just the absolute worse. You couldn’t trust them because they were always lying, and they were extremely unreliable. They’d have no loyalty and were extremely selfish. I even remember hearing people with multiple years of sobriety going to jail for domestic violence.

The worst of these people were rare, but this is more common than you think. And it’s not just 12-step programs. You’ll see this when people leave rehab too. I saw it a million times because part of my job was working with people after they left.

I knew that I didn’t want to be like these people, so I had to ask, “What are they doing or not doing that I need to stay away from?” Without fail, 100 percent of the time, the reason they were like this was that they weren’t working on themselves.

We often say that drugs and alcohol are only a symptom of the problem. If you take those away, I can still be a mess of a human behind that nobody wants to be around.

Then, I learned that we had a name for this: The dry drunk.

A dry drunk is someone who stops using substances but doesn’t get help to deal with all of the bullshit that led them to get high in the first place. This is when people become restless, irritable, and discontent.

It is clear as day that if Jordan Peterson is no longer taking drugs, he never got help. And if he is actively going to therapy, he needs to fire that person ASAP because he’s an unhinged mess.

As David Fuller mentioned, even some of his most loyal followers are starting to realize he’s not a person to look up to. Another good example is Kanye West. Although Kanye isn’t an addict, to my knowledge, he’s not treating his mental health issues.

So, why is nobody talking about this?

I get it. A lot of people are unfamiliar with addiction or the concept of the dry drunk. If you were one of those people when you started reading this, I hope you have a better understanding.

As much shit as I talk about Jordan Peterson, I legitimately feel bad for him. I don’t just feel bad for him as a human being, but I feel bad that he’s surrounded himself with enablers.

Nobody is talking about this.

I’ve listened to plenty of Jordan Peterson interviews since he returned from Russia, and everyone pretends like it never happened. Nobody asks him about it or how he’s doing. Maybe he tells them he won’t talk about it, or people just think it’s no big deal.

It’s also very well possible that people think he just had a dependence and not an addiction.

This stuff bothers me for the same reason that I keep a close eye on these celebrities who have a substance abuse issue. Everyone minimizes it and makes excuses. Then, the person dies and everyone’s surprised. Then, you see scores of people say, “Oh my god! I had no idea! I thought he was doing better!”

That’s not how it works.

I know we have an issue with overdiagnosing, overmedicating, and over-pathologizing everything, but fuck. Have you ever met someone with so many issues just get better without putting in the work?

I’m sure people would argue that Jordan “personal responsibility” Peterson just picked himself up by his bootstraps and willed his way through this. This type of stuff is a clear form of enabling. He’s obviously not doing well. The man cannot stay off Twitter despite that it’s one of the key sources in his unhappiness. The man has zero restraint.

How can you say someone is doing well when they have zero impulse control?

Every time I see a celebrity die of an overdose, I instantly get pissed at the people surrounding them who refused to acknowledge the problem. Personally, I had to get enablers out of my life. If I didn’t, I’d either be miserable or dead because nobody was being honest with me about how I was acting.

Instead, people are watching this man spiral and doing nothing about it.

Lastly, what really bothers me is the fact that he has so many followers who just don’t get it. They’re listening to him because he probably helped them at some point in his life, but they don’t realize that he’s not the same person, and he’s getting worse.

If I’m not mistaken, I remember him being in the middle of writing his new book Beyond Order before the whole detox thing happened. When he came back and released that book like months after returning from Russia, my jaw dropped to the floor.

For a second, imagine me relapsing, ruining my life, going to rehab, and writing a self-help book the second I got out. That’d be insane.

A self-help book is saying to the world, “My life is going great. If you want your life to be great, listen to me.” But what if the person’s life isn’t going great?

Can you honestly look at Jordan Peterson and say that this man is happy? Can you look at him and say he has his life together? Yeah, it’s funny to make fun of the whole “clean your room” thing, but I’m being 100 percent serious. Nothing about that man says he’s living a good life.

The only two things he has are fame and money. That’s it.

I remember when I got sober and was finally ready to get a sponsor, they said, “Find a sponsor who has a life that you want to live.” I remember so many people finding sponsors that had a nice car, a big house, and other nice things. They were like, “Yeah! I want to be rich!”

I had a lot of money before, and I was fucking miserable. Actually, I was so miserable that I was suicidal. It was such a valuable lesson because I learned that clearly money cannot make me happy. So, when I looked for a mentor, I just wanted three things:

Sobriety, happiness, and sanity.

The sponsor I found was about three years sober. He didn’t have his own car. He worked at a bar making enough to get by (yes. he was a sober bartender. I know quite a few of those here in Las Vegas lol.) He lived in a modest apartment with a roommate. That was it.

Although he didn’t have a lot of “things”, the guy was always happy, and I wanted that so bad.

That guy saved my life. Now, when people are trying to get sober or just trying to turn their life around and ask me for advice, I tell them this story. I tell them to find someone who has what they want, but I tell them to really think about what they actually want.

Jordan Peterson may not be addicted to benzos anymore, but the man is not happy. When you’re not happy, there’s a much higher chance of relapse. It’d be one thing if it was only affecting him and his loved ones, but due to a lack of knowledge about all of this, he’s spreading his message to people who don’t know better.

We need to talk about this so people realize this isn’t a culture war issue. I’d say this about my favorite leftists. Hell, I’ve been extremely critical of one of my former role models in early sobriety, Russell Brand.

Jordan Peterson is not currently a person to look up to. If he does the work, whether it’s through treatment, one-on-one therapy, or his own methods, he might turn it around. But until then, I really think it’s dangerous for anyone to look at him like he’s a man with answers.

He’s gone off the rails, and you don’t want to be a passenger on that train.

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