Healthy Living: Let’s Get Real with Peter Grinspoon M.D.

I was thrilled to host physician and author Peter Grinspoon and his dog Benji! (This episode originally aired on TV in September, but it took me until now to get my YouTube act together.) Peter is incredibly open about his history of opioid use disorder, and we start off with some discussion about his book Free Refills: A Physician Confronts His Addiction. I was hooked from Chapter 1 and the feds raiding his clinic during office hours, and read the whole memoir in one go.

Dr. Grinspoon’s compelling and completely real story of addiction and redemption is hard to put down. He had a harrowing experience, and in many ways is lucky to be alive. He’s now been clean and sober for over ten years, and works at a clinic north of Boston. Towards the end of this show, he discusses how the family and friends of a person with an addiction can best be supportive.

Living a healthy lifestyle is critical to Dr. Grinspoon’s recovery, and he especially enjoys weightlifting. We also talked about different challenges to a healthy lifestyle, from having limited resources (as many of his patients do) to being a doctor (with the pressure and expectation to take care of everyone except yourself).

And of course, we discussed Benji the therapy dog, and hypothesized about why having a dog is so consistently associated with also being in better health.

There’s more, and you’ll have to watch the show to see! Here is the episode below, and check out all the videos available for free on my YouTube Channel! There will be more going up soon.