At some point in your adult life — somewhere between your first real prescription and the moment you quietly acquired a weekly pill organizer — you became a person with opinions about pharmacies. Strong ones. Opinions forged in the specific purgatory of an insurance pre-authorization, a fax machine that exists for reasons no one can explain, and a pharmacist who is simultaneously the most important person in your life and the person you are least willing to actually speak to. Pete is currently living inside this system, and he has questions.
This week, Pete digs into why so many people with chronic conditions don't take the medications they've been prescribed — and the answer involves your body actively deceiving you, the emotional weight of swallowing a pill that means admitting something is wrong, and a healthcare system that was never actually designed with you in mind. Tommy, meanwhile, takes the other side of the problem: what happens when medicine overcorrects, when the pills start piling up, and when someone finally asks whether you actually need all of them. He arrives at this topic via some formative pharmaceutical history that spans elementary school, a diagnosis at thirty that his dermatologist called "the nuclear option," and a period of his life during which he was, technically, an international drug smuggler.
Two segments. One topic. A combined lifetime of pharmaceutical anxiety that might, finally, make you feel a little less alone about yours.
---
Learn more about supporting this podcast by becoming a member. Visit allthefeelings.fum/join to learn more!