Your Mind Matters – Mike Gun, Top Comedian Overcame Drugs

I'm Dr. Maria Kempinska, and I trained at Middlesex Uni to become a psychotherapist and healer. And I had to write a thesis. Everybody writes a thesis when they do an MA. It's a vast number of words, and they have to base it on a theme, a psychological theme. And then they— in my case, I had to prove it because it was a pilot study. And I based mine on Carl Jung's psychological types. My psychotherapeutic work generally leans towards C.G. Jung, as it gives immense value to the creative as an expression of the self. The self differs from the ego, and it belongs to the individual and the collective. That is why creativity is invaluable. But why did I choose psychological types? In 1916, C.G. Jung created the Psychology Club in Zurich, Switzerland. The members were former patients and students, to discuss and develop what he called later analytic psychology. It was in the club setting and discussion that Jung, with the help of others, created psychological types. The club itself became a prototype for other psychology clubs where the members can mutually exchange their creative work and thoughts. The premise of the club states that mutual interaction is of prime importance. Namely to be true to the living spirit of the psyche. It was during this time that Jung explored his break with Freud as to why that two men who work in similar— with similar patients and in the similar fields have such differing views and approaches. It was this premise and driving thought that created psychological types, which was later adapted by Myers-Briggs to the MBTI. In 2002, at the time of my MA thesis, I owned 16 comedy clubs called Jongleurs and saw many of the now famous stand-ups develop into stars. Intrigued by a similar question of how is everybody so different, I based my study on the types. The findings of my study was that most psych— uh, stand-up comedians are introverts. My theme today is psychological types and finding your place within yourself and in relation to the outside world. In stand-up comedy, many great performers find that they are out of place and life doesn't make sense. I've often heard stand-ups say, "The only place I'm good enough is on stage." I will not minimize my guest's story today by shoehorning him into a psychological type, but to help him contextualize and identify his own mind. All psychotherapeutic clients have their internal struggles and many manifest that in their external world. Often it's acted out in terms of relationships and in their ability to communicate their true self. The self, as Jung says, is our psychological Holy Grail. It's where our true being resides. It's the psychological DNA which identifies our uniqueness. It sounds counterintuitive to say that stand-ups may find interpersonal relationships difficult or day-to-day communication awkward, This is not because they're, they're not able to communicate, but it's often because their internal world is so profound and productive that they find it difficult to express their thoughts and feelings in terms of relationships or general conversations. But their ability in one focused area can be exceptional. In Psychological Types, the introvert has a cavern of knowledge which needs to be teased out to be relevant to the social arena required at the time. In the case of today, it is in the form of comedy. My MA found that most comedians, in layman's terms, create their own recipes for comedy in their own psychological cave. Then they put it out on stage, raw and sensitively personal, for the audience to qualify. Is it good enough? It may feel like an assault rather than praise in the early days. Most of my comedians, I found, were INTJs. Introvert thinking intuitive types. My outcome was that comedy gives the stand-up an opportunity to express their feelings in a form that receives the most positive response. This summary has condensed the vast complex system of the mind in a few lines, but the most important aspect of stand-up comedy is that the brilliant comedian makes people laugh, and what an amazing human gift this is for the world. Today my guest is Mike Gunn, who is an immensely successful comedian, and also he teaches stand-up comedy. Mike has a fantastic life story, but it's never been easy, and thank you so much for joining me so others can hear about your work and your experiences. And please welcome Mike Gunn. Hi, thanks for having me. So Mike, um, I'm not sure I agreed with a lot of that mumbo jumbo. Mumbo jumbo, I know, but you know, when I was doing this mumbo jumbo, you know, they try to create theories, don't they? You know, when you do your MA and when I did my PhD, there is, you know, there are types, and this type doesn't say that everybody fits into it. What it is, it's a broad spectrum of how people think. How they make sense of the world. So for Freud and Jung, so for example, Jung, uh, always thought that he, when he represented the world— how do you first see things? Like, for thinking and feeling types, thinking types act on what they see. If there's danger, they act to defend themselves. Feeling types might feel to make sure that everybody feels okay. And that gives you a sort of short indication of the different types of people. I'm definitely an everybody feels okay type person. Are you? Yeah. And I'm definitely an introvert. I also much prefer Jung to Freud. Yeah. Done a bit of both of those therapies, and Jung's just— he's more fun, isn't he? Freud always wants to talk about your mother. Yeah, pass the salt. Yeah, what is that joke? It's that Freudian slip, you know. It's quite a rude joke. I don't know. Yeah, it's quite a rude joke which you can't tell on here, but it's a great one, isn't it? And you're right, they— he always did focus on that, and it shows how your unconscious actually develops your life up to a certain point until you review it, and then you can make your own, basically. But You know, you are, you know, sort of, and you, but you and I, and a lot of creatives do lean towards Jung because he gives you— Jung gave artistry and that freedom of self-expression the right to be there, whereas Freud shoehorns everybody into a certain formula. So, um, I can see that. So why did you go into therapy? What made you start there? Oh God, a long history of heroin addiction, um, and, uh, then eventually rehab and, um, and 12-step treatment. And then, um, when I, I've done with all that, um, which you're never done with all that, obviously, but, uh, then I was out in the world as a, uh, an ex-heroin addict and, uh, was very uncomfortable and awkward and insecure and was like a new fawn, you know, staggering out into the sunlight for the first time. And, um, tried for a long time to fit into the world, found it difficult, and, um, still do. You know, it's hard to do a 9-to-5 in a bank when you've been, when you've been a heroin addict for 10 years. What are your qualifications, Mr. Gunn? Well, you know, welcome to the bank. Doesn't happen. So, um, I ended up being, uh, what was the question? Why did I go into therapy? Because after a good few years of being free of, of, of all drugs, um, I still wasn't happy. I'm just, I, I, everything was just okay, uh, and I was working in a sort of normal everyday job repairing photocopiers, um, and I just thought, this can't be it, this is not why I went through all that— hospitals, therapy, all that stuff. Um, and so I, I went along and did psychotherapy. I'm a psychodynamic— I did for a while. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, and then, uh, also my therapist was more interested in Jung than Freud, which was good. So a bit of dream analysis. Oh, I, I love dream analysis. That's brilliant, isn't it? Yeah, great fun. And then, um, I kind of— this is a, this is a long answer— I gradually became, uh, aware that I wanted to do something, um, a bit more, uh, creative. And, um, it took me a long time to even admit that to myself, even longer to admit it to anybody else. And Also, I'm so horribly insecure and shy, and because I'm a sort of quite an extreme person, I go one way or the other. I thought a good way of dealing— I mean, I did lots of other things first. I did lots of little courses to try and find if I was interested in anything because I didn't know what I liked. And because I was so shy and insecure, I thought stand-up comedy would be a really extreme way of dealing with shyness, so I joined a stand-up comedy class. Did you? Yeah, I'm totally unsuited. I'm so, so incredibly unsuited for stand-up comedy. You know, I was awkward and couldn't look up even, let alone, you know, and, uh, but that was funny. And, uh, you know, once you've, once you've transferred your heroin drug for adrenaline, dopamines, and all that from the laughter, I thought, yes, I'll go like this. And does it— is that the time when you feel your happiest? Yeah, probably, yeah. I mean, I thought during the lockdown that I would suffer because I've always kind of been doing stand-up for many years, and I've always kind of thought it was a substitution for, you know, other stimulants. But actually, and I thought I would, you know, have some kind of horrendous relapse if I didn't do it, but actually during the lockdown I discovered that I didn't. I mean, I was perfectly okay not doing it. So I don't know what that tells you, you analyse it. Do you know what, I've seen your work obviously a number of times, but let's go back to A, I think you're an amazing performer because you do explore themes that are just on the edge, aren't you? So let's give it a go. Yes. The things that I often remember, and you're a dad, how old are your kids by the way now? Oh my God, they are 17 and 11. 17 and 11, and you know what's so interesting about this? I sit there, my kids are a bit older, and one of your lines always sits in my head of you're going around to your dad's place, and this is a joke, I know, and you're sitting there and he's asking for the window to be shut in winter, and you're going, no, open the window, Dad, open the window, you know, how much is this house worth? How much longer has he got? You say it so much better, but that, yeah, that sort of line, which is hilarious, the audience absolutely just love it. And obviously people must come and see you to get the you know, sort of full effect. Yes, you definitely slaughtered that joke. But anyway, um, I didn't kind of realize that— I remember for a while I was, but I was, um, doing a sort of character as a funeral director. Yeah, I've done— um, it was kind of a character, it was me really, but, um, it was just very dark and deadpan. And, um, and one of the jokes was, um, which my therapist picked up on, and it was only at this point that I that maybe I was saying something that I didn't realize I was saying. One of the jokes was, I buried my father today at Highgate Cemetery, hopefully that's where he'll die. She went, oh, there's a lot of anger and bitterness in that joke, and I went, no, no, it's just a joke. Yeah. And, you know, I don't think I consciously wrote it out of anger and bitterness, but looking back, I think maybe she had a point. You know, it's so interesting. I, I think not everybody who says jokes in that way wants to actually bury their parent. They want to bury that part of their life. Yeah, kill your father, sleep with your mother. Isn't that what you're supposed to be doing? Well, that's Freud, isn't it? Yeah, kill your father. You know, I'm doing a mythology, um, Zoom shortly with another psychotherapist about Oedipus. But Freud's life was like that, you know, sort of kill your mother, you know, kill your father, sleep with your mother, and all that stuff. But I think both— oh yeah, quite, especially nowadays, how extreme is life now, for God's sake, and how confusing. But I think there's always parts of our upbringing that you look back and you go, oh, I hate my mum because she did that, or I hate my dad, and you know, those extreme childlike emotions. That we have, that you hate your parent because they've told you off or they won't let you go out. And not until you really grow up do you find out they didn't let you out because there was a killer on the street. I say that because I'm looking at various things about, you know, sort of students being murdered and things, and quite— that find that quite fascinating, the mind of a murderer. Um, having your own kids really helps with realizing that stuff. Oh my God, and don't they? Because you're trying to look after them even when they're tiny and they're about to put their hands in the fire and you go, no! And they go, oh! And they start crying. So from the outside view, all somebody can see is a parent shouting at a child, the child crying, and what a vicious parent that is, you know. But you've got to arrest somebody's attention to stop them from acting in a dangerous way for themselves. So, you know, we see that, don't we, in our everyday life. Was it useful that you took your work to a therapist? I didn't really take my work to a therapist. I went— when I went to therapy and she said to me, why have you come to me? And I said, this is going to sound stupid, but everything in my life is okay. And I don't want it to be okay. I want it to either be good or bad. I don't want okay. Yeah, and she went, oh no, I totally understand. So I didn't actually take my work to her, you know, occasionally I'd mention a joke and she'd pick up on it, but no, it was mostly about, you know, revealing patterns of behavior and why they're there and all that sort of stuff. Yes. So how old were you when you started taking heroin? Oh God, I got into drugs very early. I mean, I started taking, you know, cannabis, speed, that sort of stuff, round about 15, 16, and then quickly moved on to heroin and, uh, carried on using heroin until I was 29, I think. By that time I was in psychiatric hospital in a terrible state. And how did you get through that? What did they do when you were in the psychiatric hospital? Oh, they were absolutely useless. They had no idea. They didn't have a clue about drug addiction. Not a clue. I was their first addict, funnily enough. I did a show about it some years ago, and one of the nurses from that psychiatric hospital happened to be at one of the shows and came and talked to me afterwards. And, um, and we had a good old laugh about how absolutely incompetent they were. It was, you know, the reason she remembered was because it was her first day and I was the first addict they'd had. And, uh, and she agreed with me that they were totally out of their depth. They didn't have a clue about addiction. They really didn't. They, they, um, I mean, apart from that, they did good stuff. I mean, I had vitamin B6 injections every day. I was in a mess. I was 9 stone and badly you know, had hepatitis. And so they physically got me better, but, um, they didn't really understand about addiction at all, I don't think. I knew much more. I just saw some research recently that said that, um, you know, your body remembers your drug tolerance. So if you, you know, take heroin and end up taking a huge amount and then you stop, then your tolerance eventually goes back down to zero. As it was before you started. But as soon as you start again, it goes back up to where it was almost immediately. Your body remembers that. And I just read a bit of research recently that said they've just discovered this. I've known that for 30 years. I mean, what's wrong with these people? I know. But anyway, they didn't have much of a clue. They got— they discharged me with a sort of, uh, a load of drugs and a certificate to say that I was cured. But what is it? Okay, because I wasn't cured, let me tell you that. No, but before we go on to that, because I know you have a view and I'm really fascinated by your view, and frankly only an addict who has come off the addiction can talk effectively what works for them and others at the same time, or what could work for others, and I find it quite fascinating. Um, you were there, and what did they do? How long were you in there for? And what was— I was in there I was— it was a residential treatment. I was in there for 4 months, uh, 4 weeks, sorry, with the— and I was just in a ward with the seriously mentally ill. Oh, you know, people that would just sort of— it was very much like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Oh yeah, that sort of thing. Medication 3 times a day, um, and, uh, it was— well, it was sort of entertaining. But also a bit scary because there were just very— there was a lot of very strange people. There was a guy, for instance, we used to queue up for medication 3 times a day, and we used to queue up for food 3 times a day. So 6 times a day we queued. And there was an enormous guy who looked very scary and wore a kilt, although he wasn't Scottish. Um, who was always first in the queue. And, uh, so whenever you queued, he was there first. Uh, he'd go from breakfast queue, he'd have his breakfast, and he'd immediately start queuing for medication. He'd go from that medication queue to queue for lunch and so on all day long. So he was always queuing. And one day I said to him, why are you always first in the queue? And he said, because I hate queuing. Okay, he spent his whole life queuing. But there were those people, it was very like, you know, one flew over the cuckoo's nest, people dancing in their ball gowns and just, just strange people. Somebody that constantly thought he was dying. Um, yeah, lots of, lots of weird— there's a lot of weird sexual stuff going on. Yeah, people trying to get into bed with you in the middle of the night. Anyway, it was a weird place. Yeah, I actually volunteered in a what was then called a mental asylum, and it was, you know, they had various departments, sort of. Yeah, yeah, this was the same. This, this is the same. Yeah, that's what I thought. Um, so you spent 4 weeks there, and what happened when you came out? Was that it? Was it— had you, had you stopped? Well, the thing was, no, I'd, I'd basically talked all the other patients into giving me their drugs, which wasn't difficult because they were all mad. Um, so I basically told them that, you know, that they were controlling them with drugs and the government. You know, they were all conspiracy theorists. And yeah, so I was taking all their drugs. Uh, the doctors were oblivious for most of it. And no, I wasn't in the least bit cured. Um, um, they did give me a methadone detox, but, um, stopping taking drugs has got nothing to do with being physically addicted. And it's got nothing to do with it whatsoever. It's, it's to do with your, you know, the second I got out of there, I scored, you know, on the way up. Yeah, yeah, I was— I'd never decided to stop taking drugs. The main reason I was there was, um, well, one was because I was so physically ill I couldn't literally take drugs without collapsing, and two, uh, I needed to get the police off my back. So being Being in psychiatric hospital is a good way to keep the police from arresting you. So I really want to come on to that element of it because I know you're— you have a view and a really important view on how drug addicts should be treated. But let's talk about, um, that part of it. As you say, you know, because the Buddhists do something where people pay a fortune, mostly Americans pay a fortune to go over to Buddhist temples Yeah, and they detox them within 2 weeks. You're quite right, they are physically detoxed within 2 weeks. Yeah, all this stuff you see on the telly about the horrendous heroin withdrawals, it's a bit exaggerated. They're unpleasant, they're horrible, but you know, they're not life-threatening. Alcohol withdrawals are much worse, so barbiturate withdrawals, you can die from both of those. You can't die from heroin withdrawals. So the psychology of it Tell us more about your view on that. How does— how did you change your psychology towards the heroin? Because what was it? Did it cushion you from your thoughts, your feelings? Yeah, it's about— it's about oblivion, isn't it? It's about— I think I'd still hear somewhere on the radio that all, all addictions are, um, based in pain. I think they probably are. It's about avoidance, isn't it? Addiction, it's about avoidance of, of all— of something. Well, I was avoiding everything. Okay, and what was that? What was that? What was I avoiding? Absolutely everything. Um, I, you know, a domineering father, parents that were constantly arguing, um, divorce, just an unhappy, awkward childhood. I didn't really know how to fit into the world, so rather than do anything— for a while I just didn't do anything, but that's hard to, you know, I didn't want to be judged in any direction. So if you don't do anything, you know, you can't fail, you can't do well, nothing happens. But it's hard to keep that up without drugs. If you take enough drugs, it's pretty easy to do nothing, to just be nothing. That's what I was aiming at, I think. So, um, yeah, nothing. And that's why doing standup was so the opposite of that. I know, I was just going to say before, you're out there saying, this is what I think is funny. Yeah. And that's why, in a way, the early stages of standup is like being attacked though, isn't it? Because you get hecklers and you get people saying you're not good enough, or you're not given more than 5 minutes, which you have to repeat over and over again till you find your way. And most stand-ups never have somebody that can help them. It's not like an actor who goes on and gets direction or has a script, a pre-tried script. You have to try it out all for yourself, don't you? Yeah, well, I'm— like I say, I teach stand-up at the Comedy Store on a Sunday morning, and to be honest, a lot of the time it's more therapy than stand-up. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Most of the people that want to do stand-up have some kind of issue. Is it mostly male? Sometimes it is. I hate it when it's an all-male class, it's really— I don't enjoy it. But at the moment I've got out of 15 people, I've got 5 women, so that's good. Oh, that's quite nice, Barry. Yeah, yeah, that's really good. But quite often, you know, it's mostly men. I know there's a big thing in the stand-up circuit that it's all sexist and, you know, not enough women are given a chance, but It's not really true, there's just not enough women doing it, that's the actual truth. As you know, I started Jongleurs in 1983 and all women were given a chance and the trouble was, because in the early days, Jennifer, Jenny Lecoach, all of them, you know, what's her name, the big one, Jo Brand, all of them were given a chance actually much quicker than a lot of men. You know, Hattie Hayridge, the brilliant Hattie Hayridge. Yeah, you know, they were all there, but the trouble is the BBC and the TV companies all snapped them up. Yeah, exactly. Well, that's still happening. If you're a woman and you're, you know, and you're, you know, good at stand-up, then you're pretty quickly off the circuit. Yeah, well, that's why there are not enough people, not enough women. It's getting better. It's getting— yeah, it's not that comedy clubs don't want women. I mean, Shazia Mirza is brilliant. I found her in 2000, she won the London Comedy Festival that I organised, and, you know, she performed for me on Sunday. She's absolutely brilliant, but again, she's snapped up all the time. And I think this is the problem, you know, that we've identified. So any women listening, go to Mike's, um, you know, sort of classes, because you can do it. And I always advocate stand-up for women because it helps them at work, it helps them in life, and it helps you just detach slightly from those deep emotional traumatic events that, uh, sometimes keep you hooked in. I'm not saying everything you should turn into something funny unless, you know, unless it works for you, you know. And I must say, the stand-up platform does enable you to do that. But before we go into your stand-up fully and how you teach and your, your views on drugs— and I find that fascinating Your childhood, did you have brothers, sisters, or were you an only child? I have a sister, yeah. How old are you? Or younger? Younger, 18 months between us. And how is she? What does she do now? Um, I don't think I want to go into it. Okay, but she has many, many issues and was also a heroin addict for a while. Right, so, but you know, the weird thing was when I gave up taking heroin, yeah, throughout most of my heroin life she bailed me out a lot. She'd turn up at the cells and pay the bail and bloody blah blah. As soon as I stopped, she started, right? Some— there's always got to be one person in the family using heroin. Yeah, but it's, you know, I mean, with a dominant father, as lots of fathers were at that time, yeah, it doesn't make an excuse for it, because there's a way to be in charge or lead without being dominant. And dominant has lots of different sort of interpretations to it, doesn't it? Yes, I described my childhood as, uh, vicious attacks thinly disguised as jokes. Oh yeah. But the thing is, my father's dead now, and, um, he was, uh very emotionally unavailable and constantly trying to prove that he was better than everybody else. But of course, when he was ill, he suddenly started to open up and talk about all the horrendous experiences he'd had during the war, right, which he'd never spoken to his whole life till he was in his— you know, he was nearly 90 when he died. And, uh, he never ever mentioned it. But, um, you know, he was traumatized and just kept it all inside and never said a word about it to anybody until the last couple of weeks of his life, which is very sad and very much changed my whole opinion of, um, you know, therapy did as well, but, and being a father has as well. But all that has made me, um think about him in a completely different way. And he fought in the war, did he? Yes, he did. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where was he stationed? Oh, in, um, in, uh, he was in the desert in Africa. Yeah, my parents were both prisoners of war and they fought, ended up with the— they were prisoners of war in Siberia and they ended up with the British Army, the Eighth Army, in the desert Iran, Iraq, Egypt, and then went up. Yeah, well, that's right. Yeah, that's where he was. So he would have been with the Eighth Army. I was wondering about— you see, this is, you know, sort of, um, that synchronicity that goes on. I didn't know that before this interview, by the way, um, and nor did you. But it's quite fascinating that they didn't talk about their, you know, post-traumatic stress, what happened to them during the war. And it's so profound, the decisions that people have to make. They wrestle very often with that moment when they have to kill somebody. And then how do you come back to the real world and not kill anybody? And how is it that you're not seen as somebody that deserves a better place in the world or a little bit more help? Which I am totally aggrieved at with everybody who's fought for us, not to be given a little bit more help and support to get a better life for themselves. Yes, you know, as you say, within those last few weeks of his life, thank God you experienced that. But can you imagine coming back from doing something so horrendous that maybe against your moral, your internal moral, you know, sort of sense of who you are, you do it for the good of others, and yet others ignore you when you come back? Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, I can't understand why anyone ever considers going into the armed forces. I know, I know. But when they do, I've, you know, I've worked with a number of soldiers and they do say, somebody said, we do it so that you don't have to. And I think, wow, yeah, that is amazing because I know the problems it left my parents with who lost everything. So, and does it help that you had a better relationship towards the end of your dad's life? Oh God, yeah, absolutely. It also helped massively that I was with him when he died. And see, I wasn't with my mum when she died. I was in the middle of being a heroin addict when she died, and I found that much more difficult to get over. Um, I'm never going to get over it, but, um, you know, it's been much more difficult to handle than the fact that I was with my dad when he died. Kind of made it easier in a way, whereas I wasn't with my mum. God knows what I was doing, but I certainly wasn't by her bedside. And, um, that's been something that I've been guilty about forever. But like I say, with my dad— my mum's funeral, I was a complete mess. And my dad's funeral, um, it was okay. I thought, like, I didn't— funerals are about sort of saying goodbye. And my mum's funeral was awful because I never really said goodbye, so it kind of had to be done there. But my dad's funeral, I felt like I'd already done it. It didn't— it wasn't a terribly traumatic event. Was that because of the conversations you mentioned? Yeah, yes, it was. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because I was there with him when he died. Yeah. And how long ago did your mum die? Oh God, my mum died quite young. My mum died in, uh, '84 or something. She died quite young. She died stomach cancer. Oh gosh. And how old were you then? I was 16, 17, I think. Oh gosh, yeah, that's tough. That's really tough. And a mum particularly. I know people talk about mums and their meaning, but you know, you were born from your mother. And I always think that— we were joking, weren't we, about Freud? Yeah. And the Oedipal complex. But there's something so much more intrinsically profound about the relationship between a son and mother, or daughter and mother. Yeah. And very often that is never resolved. But you know, I do believe in the spiritual nature of life, and I do believe that they never leave you. You know, you're not too far away from your parents. My mom died— obviously I was a lot older, but nevertheless, still before my kids were born. And I think about my mom regularly. So, um, they never leave you, do they? I remember the therapist asking me why I'd never visited my mom's grave, and, um, I have now actually, but at the time I hadn't. And, uh, And I kind of went, well, what for? She's no more there than she is here. She went, all right, that's a reasonable answer. Yeah. And do you feel— do you sense her around you though? Not really, no, no. But, but nevertheless, you were in the thick of it then. Do you think that precipitated your need for drugs as well? Well, I was already well addicted to heroin at that point. Point. So yeah, yeah, it certainly ramped it up a bit. So, um, let's talk about your view about drugs, and I'm sure we might come back to how you got to that view. But you were said— you said once that, uh, drugs should not be illegal. Is that true? Of course not. No, it's ridiculous. Yeah. So is that true for all drugs or just some drugs? All drugs. I would go for— look, I've I've spoken to lots of high-ranking police. I used to do a show about Drugs for Schools, and I've spoken to— I even did a show for all the top brass and the people that work at producing methadone, wherever that company is, can't remember. Uh, and they— I thought, I'm gonna have a massive fight on my hands here, but they all totally agree with me. They all said they were completely wasting their time, but they weren't making any progress, and they never were going to. And they're not. Drugs— the only way forward is to, is, is to legalize everything. Um, all the, the fact that drugs are illegal is the problem. That's what's creating the problem. That's what created Al Capone, Prohibition, you know, um, what's his name, El Chapo, the drug lord in Colombia. All those people, um, are only there because drugs are illegal and therefore very expensive. If you legalise the whole thing, they'd all— all those drug barons would be out of work immediately. They'd all go bust the next day. Yeah, totally. How do you deal with addiction then? You know, what's the holy grail of addiction? And if somebody wants to come off the addiction, we've talked about the physical nature of it, you know, sort of you can get rid of the physical nature. I mean, just Something I wanted to say to you when you were talking about your body remembers how much, uh, yeah, how many drugs you, you can accommodate, basically. Do you remember when Amy Winehouse died? Yes, I do. Yeah, yeah, that was almost similar to that story. She, she had misregulated. Yeah, not— she could take, and nobody was thinking about that. Do you think that's part of the problem, that people just aren't aware? Lots of, lots of addicts die in that way. They give up for a while and then they go back and they just go back to the same dose they were on before, uh, and they overdose, which I've done many times. Um, but, um, but very quickly the tolerance goes back up, like really quickly, within a day or two. Um, yeah, that's how lots of addicts die. But, um, I— the, the way I, um And so the thing is, when I, I went into a sort of 12-step treatment program, I was very lucky to get into it. And, um, and one of the sort of major revelations for me at the time was that, um, total abstinence was the way forward, which I'd never crossed my mind before. That not taking any drugs would be a good idea. I've always— I know that sounds crazy, but, um, it just hadn't crossed my mind that, um, you know, substituting one for another wasn't going to help. So, uh, definitely total abstinence, it was the way forward for me. But, um, you know, 12-step treatment is a bit like therapy. It's the same thing. It's looking at all your motivations, and, and it's also a massive, you know, self-help group. Yeah, because that was created by, wasn't it, a sort of a priest, somebody religious called White, Dr., you know, sort of somebody White. And he used to talk to C.G. Jung. He used to talk to Jung about— yes, Jung was involved in, in, yeah, in the 12-step program. Yes, yes, yeah. So, um, What would you do? So we've got drugs on the streets, kids get addicted at a young age. You said you weren't able to function properly. What would you do with that aspect of— well, it's a, it's a health problem, it's not, it's not a crime problem. No, I agree. So I totally agree. Let's take crime out of it because I, I think it's very difficult. I mean, 80% of the prison population are there because of drugs. Yeah, and then they can get drugs in prisons anyway. Yeah, yeah, the whole thing's totally ridiculous. The whole legal drugs is completely ridiculous. Just make everything legal, get rid of all those people. You get rid of all the petty crime of drug addicts, you know, breaking into cars and checkbook fraud and all that stuff. That would all go out the window if you could just go to the chemist and get your drugs at a reasonable price. Um, and all that money that the police spend on, um, you know, fighting fighting drug crime, which they're never going to do, could all be put into treatment and education. There are also millions of police would be off the streets. They wouldn't be out trying to catch, you know, people breaking into cars and all that. So all that crime would go away immediately. They'd have many more resources to put into treatment and education. And do you think just by— and I say just by because, you know, I've got kids, you know how it is to get kids to listen. My kids, you know, you know, they, they go to festivals and everything's around and all that stuff. And yeah, some people are more— do you think they're more prone? In my experience, some people are more prone to addiction than others, or to need drugs than others. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And because it's not— drugs aren't the problem because, um, you know Many people drink and don't become alcoholics. Yeah, many of my friends take a bit of cocaine now and again, they don't become addicts. Yeah, I mean, I'm not anti-drugs at all, um, but you know, more people die from, um, paracetamol than die from ecstasy. The whole thing's ridiculous. Many more people die from alcohol problems than they ever do from drug problems. Only about 2,000— last time I checked was about 2,000 a year people die from drug overdoses and complications. Many more people die from alcohol, cigarettes, you know, the whole thing is crazy. Most of the drug problems come from, you know, drug deaths come from gangs fighting each other. So I'm going to come to Mike Gunn's, you know, you're— in a minute I'm going to say to you, you've been given the opportunity to change all the laws and change how mental health, you know, treats, uh, drug addiction and so on. What we can put into place, your utopia for, uh, drug addiction. But you know, during the war, that the Nazis actually created something called Pervitin, which was, you know, sort of, um, oh gosh, speed basically, amphetamine-based. And all that— see as well. Yeah. And they used to give it to all their Uh, soldiers. Yeah. So in their backpacks they had thousands and thousands of these sort of drugs that they used to take 3, 4, 5 times a day. And when they were flying from Germany, or right, you know, walking often from Germany to Belgium, they were taking this day and night because nobody could believe how quickly they got from one place to another. Yeah. Um, so what would— okay, and did they all become drug addicts? No, they didn't. No, but does it alter— a couple of things. We'll talk about your utopia, which may be a very good learning point for a lot of people. But also, those— there are certain drugs out there, there's flakka, for example, that can make you extremely, you know, sort of violent. I think certain drugs that are made, um, they're not natural, let's put it that way. So how do you deal with that? What do you do? Which drugs would you put out there then? Would you stop certain drugs being out in the marketplace? Would you regulate the type of drugs? Is that what you're saying? No, I wouldn't do any of that. I'd legalize everything. Um, so it's not a crime anymore to take drugs in your own home, which it shouldn't be in the first place. How the government got the audacity to tell us what we can do in our own homes, I don't know. Um, you know, they tell us we can only take this drug and not that drug. Ridiculous. Um, especially like in, you know, in, in a lot of countries alcohol is illegal and, uh, weed isn't. I mean, it's just that culture that makes it the other way around here. No good reason for it. Um, I would legalize everything. Um, and, uh, if people have drug problems, they could go to the chemist and get that drug. And then I would, yeah, they would have to then sign up for education and rehabilitation. I think, you know, people go, oh, everyone would start using drugs if you could just buy them at the chemist. No, they wouldn't. I mean, would you go out and buy heroin from the chemist tomorrow? Probably not, I'm guessing. So also, it'd make it a lot less cool, wouldn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, for the, for the kids. Yeah, part of the attraction is it's illegal, you know. Where's the street cred in queuing up at the chemist on a Monday morning? Yeah, what would take its place? I think we always have to have something that is cool. What would take its place, I wonder? Oh God, TikTok. Yeah, quite. Yeah, that's crazy. So, uh, what would the education and the therapeutic setting look like for people who did get addicted, what would work, do you reckon? It's only a small percentage of people that actually end up with a drug problem. The same thing with the gambling, the gambling problem. All these treatments are the same. When I was in treatment, I was in there with, um, drug addicts, gambling addicts, people with food addictions, you know, bulimics, anorexics, um, sex addiction. We all got exactly the same treatment. It's not about your particular choice of substance. It's about who you are, why you're doing it. So, um, I quite— I, I advocate the sort of 12-step Betty Ford type treatment. Well, I mean, I tried many, many different ways of stopping using drugs, and I never achieved any level of success. But in 8 weeks residential treatment Um, I was completely transformed. And, uh, I mean, it didn't stop me going off and taking drugs as soon as I left, uh, but the problem with that was I hadn't— I, I went to this residential treatment, um, partly again to get the police off my back, but I hadn't actually decided. I never thought it was going to work, basically. I hadn't made a decision to stop using drugs, so Although it did work, and I was drug-free for the first time in years and felt pretty good about it, I hadn't actually decided that I was going to stop. So, um, I came out there and I immediately went back to using drugs, but I had all the information. I very quickly after that stopped myself. Um, all the sort of denial that had been busted All those kind of things that addicts tell themselves, like, oh, I can't help myself, I'm an addict, once an addict always an addict, not being able to visualize life without drugs, not thinking that life would be worthwhile, thinking it'd be really boring to live without drugs. All those things were dispelled by the treatment program. Which was basically, um, it was basically therapy. It was basically looking at why you take drugs and the patterns you've got into and, and all that stuff, and just understanding it a bit more. Understanding yourself. Yeah, yourself in relation to the world. Yeah, for sure. Get rid of your destructive patterns. Yeah, look at them and seeing, I'll keep doing this and this keeps happening. Yeah, yeah. But also some of it comes obviously unconsciously because you develop it as a, sometimes let's say, a defense mechanism or a reaction to what's going on around you. And then you suddenly find as an adult you're still doing those behavioral patterns without the external influence still being there. So you've then got to readjust everything. Yeah. Oh God, yeah. I mean, the drug rehabilitation is not a 5-minute thing. You don't just go there, do your residential treatment, which annoys me about when these celebrities go into the Priory. Somebody does something horrendous and they go, oh, sorry, I'm an alcoholic. They go into the Priory and they come out next weekend and carry on with their lives. I know how it works. Yeah, and they never really— and, you know, therapy is long, longer term. It's almost once, once you learn, you just can't unlearn. And it's a way of life in a way, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Once you know, once you identify the things that you're doing, it makes it much harder to keep doing them. Once you— once they're in the forefront of your mind, you go, I'll keep doing this and it results in that. Once you know that you're doing that, it's much harder to carry on with it. So has it made you a better father? Oh God, yeah. It's made me a better everything. I would recommend, um, a sort of 12-step treatment program to anyone without no problems and no, no, no addictions. I think it would help anybody. I really do. Yeah, yeah. And, um, you know, we were talking, because I, I'm talking about doing comedy as stand-up comedy as a therapy. You said you do stand-up comedy and you teach them stand-up and it becomes a therapy. And I talk about how, you know, stand-up comedy just opens up that unconscious side as well, because— yeah, well, I had a student just this week who, uh, so I do mostly practical, I don't do a lot of theory, I do mostly practical. And, um, I said, go, just stand on the stage and tell us about yourself into the microphone. And he couldn't do it, he just couldn't do it. And, uh, afterwards he came to me and went, God, I didn't realize I was so shut down and unable to speak about myself. Yeah, and that's just a, you know, just a, an obvious example of him learning a bit of something about it. He's since come out of his shell a bit, I'm pleased to say. Oh, you don't— I— you might not know this, Mike, that although you won the bill, I had to do 10-minute stand-up myself for charity. I'm one of those people that somebody used to say, oh, can you do this for charity, do that for charity, and I did it for Soldiering On. I did 10 minutes and it was so interesting what I found out about what— when you find your own way of being funny. Clearly, you know, sort of, I didn't continue, but it was just a really great experience to find your way of work, changing the words to sort of activate certain points that you were trying to make, and how do you make that point about yourself in that arena to those people and then to get a response. Yeah, it's a wonderful thing, it's great. It's an amazing thing and you do it so brilliantly now, seamlessly. Do you now, when you think of something funny, do you know the way you're going to edit it and put it into your comedic framework because yours is so unique? I think I do but when it comes down to it I don't. All right. What I go is I think, right, I'm going to frame this like this and do this like that, and then I try it and I sometimes find that the bits I thought were the funniest bits weren't. But the trouble is the more stand-up you do, the darker your sense of humour becomes. Yeah, because they did have— do you remember seeing The Aristocrats? Yes, I do. Yeah, so that was like that, wasn't it? I don't think they show it anymore. It did get into the darker and the more seedy side of life, didn't it, as it went on? Yeah, it's a weird thing, that's comedy. It's kind of audience-driven, really. You do it and you say what you think's funny, and then you edit it down to what they think's funny, if you know what I mean. Yeah, yeah. And do you find that eventually— well, as I've seen your work, I know your work, as I say, well— there's certain jokes that all audiences love? Yes, but they're because— I think it's because The jokes that work really well for you, and someone would call this finding your voice, are the ones that fit your personality and your persona. Yeah, so they're believable to the audience, and it's kind of like, you know, oh, that's what you would say, um, that's what they're expecting you to say. And they're the ones that work well because it all fits together. Um, I find so gradually you end up with a set of jokes that fit you. And that's why they fit everywhere. And do you also find that you pull out certain jokes to certain geographical areas? So you might say something different in Scotland to sort of Sussex? Well, certainly. Yeah, yeah. I did a gig at Butlins a few weeks ago, As remember, we used to do gigs at Butlins. We used to change— they've changed now, they're actually much more playable than they were then. But somebody was doing a whole routine about people that voted for Brexit are idiots, and it didn't go down very well at Butlins. I think he'd misread the audience. Yeah, you've got to read the audience, haven't you? And you have to do that quite quickly though, don't you, as a comedian? Yeah, um, you do. And yeah, I mean, that there are people that just do their thing, do you know what I mean? I don't think Bill Bailey needs to read the audience very much, does he? No, not now, but remember he was the Rubber Bishops in the early days and somebody else. You remember that, uh, because you were around at that time. I do, yeah, yeah, yeah. So he, you know, had to develop and I think he's found his sort of onstage set, if you like, but it's much more music-driven with comedy attached, and the music's the driver, isn't it? Yeah, that's what I'm saying, because he looks like a bumbling hippie, and when he does sort of bumbling hippie stuff, that's what works for him. But you don't— Of course he's not that. No, God, he's not. But I am going to touch very briefly on something that is sort of that irks me, uh, on your behalf is that people steal other people's stuff now. I used to be the comedic policeman, if you like, uh, so in my— on my circuit, and eventually when we had the largest number of clubs, if somebody was using somebody else's material, I'd stop them doing that because it was obvious whose material it was. That's not happening anymore, is it? What, what do you mean? It's not being stopped, you mean? Yeah, it's not being stopped. And how do you stop somebody using your material? You can't. You can't really, no. You can tell them and we can all shun them. Yeah. And you can punch them. I've tried that. Oh, did that work? Yeah. So do you wake up every day, do you think, is that your go-to alternative? To your thinking process? Does it help alleviate stress, anxiety, to start thinking, oh great, I've got a gig, I can write some more material? Does that help that side of your day-to-day life? Not really, no. I do find day-to-day life quite difficult, believe it or not. I find quite a lot of things that people just seem to do quite difficult. Um, and, uh, the fact that I've got a gig in the evening doesn't really, um, buoy me up in any way. The only time that I really enjoy is when I'm doing it. Um, the rest of it, um, getting there and on traffic and all that sort of stuff is still a bind. But I do love doing the gig, yeah, and also I'm totally incapable of doing any other job, I'm unemployable. Yeah, but that's— I wonder if that, you know, what you would have found had you not found stand-up, and you do make it, you know, you do have the personality that works and you do have that uniqueness on stage that other people don't have, your delivery. God knows what I'd be. I'd be, um, I'd be in deep trouble probably if I hadn't done it. I'd be, I'd be in a mess. Yeah, because I did try for a long time to fit in with what I thought I was supposed to fit in with until, like I say, until I one day realized that you don't have to fit in. Yeah, I did 9-to-5 jobs and, and I just felt like an alien the whole time. Yeah, because it just doesn't work. So you're very much— I know you said you're a feeling type, but you're much more of an intuitive type as well, so they don't often fit in. Let's talk— we've got a few minutes left. How can people find your course? Well, um, the easiest way probably is to go to my website. Yeah, www.mikegunn.co.uk. Um, or you could go to The Comedy Store website because that's where I run it and they also advertise it. Um, and well, my website, I will have links to everything, to Facebook, my email, you name it. And that's Mike G-U-N-N, isn't it? Yeah, Mike Gunn. Just Google Mike Gunn, you'll get it. Yeah, and also have a look at Mike's work because I think anybody who's listening will be pleasantly— you know, you'll enjoy it because there are certain comedians, you know, sort of— you're different to, say, people like Michael McIntyre, who came up well after everybody else had sort of formulated the circuit. But your humor is, you know, much more realistic, I think, than— well, if anyone's interested in the drug stuff, um, which, uh, who knows, I'm not sure they are, but, um, on my, uh, website you get a link to YouTube during lockdown I made a load of little short videos about drug addiction. Oh, excellent experience. And there's, I don't know, 25 of them at least, uh, on, uh, I don't know, on YouTube, I think. But you'll get the link from my website, and they're all in order. And, uh, that might interest some people, you know. It's a, a select audience, the people The people that like them love them, and no one else cares. Yeah, yeah. I don't know if that's true. I think nobody else dares to care, because what do they do with that information? Do you know what I mean? You're, you're, you're suggesting something so different, so opposite to everything else. Well, you know, the high-ranking police agree with me. Yeah, I'm sure they agree with me. The problem is it's not a vote winner, so it's never going to happen. What politician's going to stand up and say, you know, we've lost the war on drugs, we never even got off the the beach. Um, you know, let's try a different approach because it hasn't worked. It hasn't worked since whenever it was, since Prohibition, whenever that was, the '40s, was it? Yeah, '20s and '30s. '20s and '30s. Yeah, I mean, that just spawned Al Capone, and since then we haven't achieved anything. I know, I just think that's, you know, but every parent has to decide how to educate and moderate their own family. It doesn't matter whether drugs are illegal or not. I know the kids that are going to take them are going to take them. Absolutely. Be much better if they could be open about it and get the proper healthcare and information, all that, rather than having to hide it. That's not helping anybody. I do really, um, appreciate you coming onto the show. If you want to find Mike, and I think you should look at his YouTube, and I think that would be profoundly important for anybody, it's www.mikegunn.com. .co.uk and also the YouTube. I'm Dr. Maria Kempinska. You can find me on www.mariakempinska.com. And thanks again, Mike, for joining me today on Your Mind Matters. Okay, thanks. Nice to talk to you. Good to talk to you too. Bye-bye.