How We Talk About Addiction Matters

(Originally aired: Feb. 5, 2018) Guest: Michael Botticelli, Executive Director of the Grayken Center for Addiction at Boston Medical Center, Former Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy An estimated 21 million Americans over the age of 12 are addicted to alcohol or other drugs. But only ten percent of them are getting treatment. Would that number improve if we talked about addiction differently? If, instead of calling someone an addict or a user, we referred to them as “a person with a substance use disorder”?  Why We Sleep (Originally aired: Nov. 3, 2017) Guest: Matthew Walker, PhD, Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, Director of the UC Berkeley Sleep and Neuroimaging Lab, Author of “Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams” How much sleep did you get last night? Americans are chronically sleep-deprived. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” some say. And guess what? The research is pretty conclusive that you’ll die sooner. Consistently getting less than six or seven hours of sleep a night demolishes your immune system, more than doubles your risk of cancer, shortens your life span and makes it harder for you to learn new things.