Dr. Adrian Bravo - Studying Addiction across Cultures

I'm Dr. Noah Emory. I'm Sam A.Cuff, and this is the Addiction Psychologist Podcast. [Music] Thanks for joining us today. On this episode we're going to be talking with Dr. Adrian Bravo. Adrian is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at the College of William and Mary. We're going to be talking about Adrian's line of research, looking at cross-cultural differences and similarities in addiction mechanisms, norms and use. We'll also talk a little bit about the trials, tribulations and triumphs of putting together an international team of scientists to study addiction. Dr. Adrian Bravo, welcome to the show. How's it going? It's going well and thank you for having me. We are happy to have you. I've been following your work for a long time doing some really cool stuff. Before we jump in to all that we're going to talk about today, can you give us a rundown of your training history? Yeah, no worries. It's really odd every time I think about my training history and where I'm at today, I always laugh because I never, ever dreamt of being a professor or doing a ditch of research. I attended the College of William and Mary's in undergrad where I'm currently a professor at now. During my time there, I was a psychology and history double major. During my time here, I was really interested in history. I thought I was going to be a historian. I really did think I was going to go into psychology. I ended up doing research as an undergrad in a lab that looked at incarcerated mothers and their children and looked at resiliency among children. I did an honor thesis focusing on caregivers and how their feelings of mental health were having to re-care give for their grandchildren, particularly given that their first experience with their child, what they do is great because they're currently in prison. I came out of that thinking I was going to be a clinical psychologist focusing on children and that a lessons in incarcerated populations. I'm definitely nowhere near any of that. During that time, I was preparing for applications in both history and psychology. Actually, for PhD, I really was that torn about where I was going to go. But right around where the deadlines are between December and January, my best friend at the time, Wilson, unfortunately, drank and drove the hit of tree. So he was in a coma for a week and I was dealing with all that. And we'll talk about how that's led into my research, but it's particularly a harm reduction. But that was a quite impactful experience. He was in a coma. We were there. And his mom had to sign away papers. We were in the room and he passed away. He died on December 23rd. So I missed all my applications. Everything was like, okay, what I don't know what I'm going to do. My girlfriend at the time was my wife now. We had accepted to her doctorate in physical therapy program at Full Gaming University. And I was like, look, they have a late master's program. It's not clinical. It's experimental, but I'll do it. Just at least still do research. And then we could figure out things from there. Well, I did end up going there and I absolutely loved it. So I've been first entered a master's program experimental psychology, working with James Henson, but everyone reversed to his mat. And as soon as I got there, I really, really fell in love doing kind of a Ditchins research. And so I quickly transitioned into their PhD. So the PhD was in a wide experimental psychology. And Matt is a quantitative psychologist. And so he just happened to do a lot of addition work because he did a post-op, Kate Carey. And so that is where I really started diving into the literature in the Ditchins. So Matt's research was predominantly focused on Harvard Dutch and Roman college students. And so that's where I started deeply diving into that line of research. Around that same time, Matt was like, hey, you need to come to conferences. That's where you really get to grow your network, get to meet new researchers and so forth. So my first conference was ABCT or Association of Behavioral Congress in therapy. And at that, he had a dinner. And at that dinner, there was previous students. And one of them was Matthew Pearson, who was Mateo's, everyone knows him. And so that was my first experience ever, meeting Mateo. We started talking about research, what he's doing at that time. He was a post-doc at the center on Alkal, some students in Ditchins, Kasa in New Mexico. And we really hit it off. And so I was like, well, I want to learn more. He was just getting into EMA at the time. And so I was really interested in that methodology. And so during that time, I really was interested in learning all the methodologies, but really applying it to harm reduction, particularly for alcohol. And so right, I was fortunate to kind of get really into the research. How it was really got interested in substance use motives. So I did my qualifications on literature review on substance use motives. And then my dissertation, I was also really interested in mindfulness research. And so I did an experimental study looking at a brief mindfulness induction to reduce craving among individuals who reported high drinking and co. And so right around my dissertation, I was looking into next opportunities. Mateo's like, you should come out to Kasa. I love to have you. And so I ended up doing a three-year postdoc at Kasa, while I'm working under Mateo. My training in postdoc was some of the best training I've ever had. And it was the time where I really found out who I was as a researcher, where I wanted to go with my program research was going. So while I worked directly under Mateo, and at that time, we were transitioning to looking at cannabis use as well. We were looking at newer interventions, particularly focusing on potential behavioral strategies for those alcohol and cannabis among young adults. But it wasn't just the training I got from Mateo, but it was also the training from all the other investigators at Kasa that really helped further my career. Working with Katie Wickelitz on some of the mindfulness related research and particularly her research and clinical recovery was really eye opening. But I also learned a lot about professional development. Barbara McCready was the director of the time and at we've had meetings. Scott Tonnegan also provided great, great amount of knowledge about what does it mean to be a researcher? What does it mean to be in this field? And those were really eye opening. And it finally, when my time there, we started and created a lecture series and we were inviting top researchers in the field. So I got to have lunch with Bill Miller, Bob Myers, Robert DeColomente, all these great researchers and started picking their brains about, well, what do you think next? What do we need to do? How is this field going to move forward? And all that allowed me to get and just absorb how much different perspectives there are, different ways to handle these issues. And really illuminating that there's not one answer. There's a lot of different approaches we can do to improving people's lives and learning about addiction and particularly recovery and intervention work around that area. Around that time, I was also deciding where we're going to be. We just had our second kid in New Mexico. My all I got me was back in Virginia. We loved New Mexico. We would have stayed. So but it was a decision of who I applied for a K award or do I try to look for tenure-track positions. Fortunately, I was only going to apply in Virginia and there was one opening at Boy Mary, so I applied to that one position. Funny enough, I did not get it. So there's a good lesson to all of you students and everything. Like it fit matters when you applied to work somewhere. I had way more clubs, way more grants than the person they hired. And I would have told them to hire that person because they were a true fit to what the position was. But I was fortunate that they had extra money to create a whole new line for me. And so that's how I got hired. And so it is my third year as a listening professor here. That's awesome. Yeah. Just like a combination of life is so complex. And combination of just personal triumph and tragedy and also random, serendivitous interactions that you really took us all the way through and showed us all these different, just like really interesting, this path that took you far away from history where you started and brought you to the cool stuff that you're doing today. Yeah, and it really is all interconnected. It's funny all the time students like, so do you read a lot of psychology? I'm like, no, I read history books. That keeps me saved. Seriously though. Yeah. People are like, oh, do you read like for fun? I'm like, no. Yeah. Most of my life is reading. So yeah, I agree. Agreed. But all those personal aspects really do drive my research. And I know we're going to dive deep into it. But it was interesting because one of my undergrads recently was like, does you're like upbringing? I just went to research and I first was like, no, no, no, of course not. Did I think about it? I'm like, no, it definitely does. It does. It does. I think that's the part, one of the beautiful parts about this whole process about talking about people's training history in general. It's just to listen to about how their unique background gives them the unique vantage point by which to think about problems that we're trying to solve, public health, clinical research or otherwise, you know, or training elements, right? And see how all that stuff like informs it. But then also all these happenstance stuff that happens along the way. We're like, I had a plan. And then life happened and now I'm here. We were talking to, who's it? Anna Brantes, right? Like about how she got into physical activity research and she was like, you know, didn't think ever that was never the plan. You know, and like these things happen and bang, here I am. You know, and it's like really interesting how it happens. And also shout out postdocs. I completely agree that like I found my way as a postdoc. Like I had a vision, but like it came to life. And I had the time and the space to think about it. And when I talk to people about postdocs, I think that's the way to think about it. I understand it's way less pay and there's other things you can do. But that time was essential for me as a professional. To cultivate my ideas and to like stress test them under the guidance of like really expert researchers. And then to like try to really investigate and harness. these elements of my research program to make them. And now as assistant professor, right, like if I was trying to do that right now, like just the sheer volume of like meetings and things would just like, I would just be buried under the weight of it all. And so shout out postdocs. - Yeah, I know, and just the timing of things. And more fortunate and to feel that a lot of the great researchers or senior people do give time back to their students and other students and create other information. And that's super helpful in all of those. - Yeah, exactly, right? Like that's the thing, 'cause when you get it given to you, right then you like pay it forward to the next and that's kind of how the whole operation works. And so thank you so much for taking us through that. That's really interesting backstory. And we find people just really, it's helpful for us to know what kind of expert we're talking to, but also just to really to hear people's story that doesn't show up in your pubs and things like that. And so as you mentioned, like your research really covers like a wide variety of stuff in addiction space and also brought more broadly than that even if you just kind of like hit your Google Scholar page, you know, you got a couple of irons in the fire. And so today we were really kind of hoping to talk to you a little bit about some of this international substance use research that you've done this really unique. And we're hoping maybe we could just start off with talking a little bit about how you got interested in this line, why it's important, so forth and so on. - Yeah, no, I think as I alluded to earlier, my student was asking the same question. They're just like, well, what made you interested in particularly the cross national aspect. So I was born in Santiago de Cuba, Cuba and me and my parents immigrated early when I was five years old as local refugees. So we moved to like Port Smith, Virginia, which people are like, why don't you go like Miami or New York when you're a political refugee, they just tell you where to go. But when we immigrated, I remember there's a story my dad always tells, like when he first came here, he went to a local grocery store and bought like a 40 and started walking down the street and drinking it. And then people were yelling at him. And he was like, I didn't understand the language, I didn't know what was going on. And then luckily some random Spanish person stopped. And he's like, hey, you can't be drinking in public. And he was like, what? And he was like, yeah, you can't do that. He's like, that's illegal here. And so that was my first like illumination that, wow, different countries have very different policies about drug use, particularly alcohol, what's allowed, what's not allowed and so forth. And so my parents later on were like, okay, look, we understand we're in US laws, within this household, we're still following Cuban laws. So in Cuba, like the drinking age to buy is 14, there is no drinking age. So you can drink it any day, any age, legally at least, but to buy is like 14. And so my parents, I look, for us, it's all about family, it's just kind of a cultural thing that we just do around gatherings and things like that. And so that really did influence a lot of that mindset early on. The other part is environment. I really grew up in a really rough area. Of course, it's not known for many things, except for bad things, typically, and I grew up in a really rough neighborhood. So middle school, bus stop, people selling drugs all the time, people drinking, using drugs right up there. And I admit, I think representation matters. Me, we do all those research like age, the first use is such a risk factor. I'm like, y'all, I was 10, but I drank alcohol, 12, when I used cannabis, but that was the environment that I grew up in. It was such normalized kind of behavior. And so I quickly started realizing that, there's cross-national differences in policy, there's cross-national differences in views of how just the culture is about substance use. And so when I went to college, it all came coming together when I went and I joined a fraternity and I remembered this guy, I was like, hey, you want to get drunk? Black out drunk? And I'm like, why? And they're like, what do you mean why? What do you want to get drunk? I'm just trying to drink to have a good time. It's not like a common thing here. And so I was like, oh, wow, this is very distinct kind of culture around drinking. Well, as it's growing up, because of my parents' values and how it looks at culturally. And so I was always interested in the cross-national aspect. So when I was doing my PhD, one of our qualifications was to write a literature, and so I started doing it on tricky motives. And at that time, we were looking at outcomes and one of the most common ones among young adults is the great young alcohol, alcohol, adult consequence, especially there, and gendered in her group created. And so one conference I was at, I believe it was the first RSA I ever went to, research study on alcohol. And we literally went there and I met and introduced myself to gendered. And I was asking her, like, hey, I'm really interested in your measure, have you ever validated in Spanish? Have you ever looked at it in other countries? And she said, actually, I've been working for research her name, interling with the karate. And she, in me, had one publication looking at Spanish version of the measure. And I was like, oh, would y'all ever be interested in collaborating at all? She's like, yeah, I can put you in contact with her. So, Jen kind of sent me her email. At the same time, I was finishing up my literature review and I was citing a researcher, Laura Nesquita, in Spain. And I said, you know what? Let me just email both of them. So I literally cold email both of these researchers, never met them, never had any idea who they were, as can personal standpoint. And they were both gracious enough to say, hey, thank you for reaching out. We'd love to collaborate. Can you send a protocol? And then I was like, oh, no, I got to create a protocol. So I had literally no game plan. I was just like, well, let me just be interested. Then maybe we can analyze the way it's to do this research. But at that time, I was like, OK, I need to do something. So I reached out to both Matt and Mateo to be like, all right, what do y'all think? We really do this. Like, do a cross-national research study between Argentina, Spain, and the US. And so that's really how it started, of course, getting into it. And I think one of the initial meetings between Laura and me and Angelina was, well, what is the overall goal? And we were first like, well, let's just do one study. Let's not-- we don't think we did think of this as a team. Because it's just a first run through. Let's really look at differences of alcohol consumption among college students in these three countries. And look at a lot of the research has shown about personality variables and other predictors of problematic substance use, particularly. And so our first study was really just focusing on alcohol and looking at alcohol differences across these countries. And so that went really well. We all looked collaborating with each other. Right around that time, I was also moving to postdoc. And so during postdoc, we started really getting into cannabis use. And so I was like, hey, would you all be interested in looking at cannabis for the next study? And said, yeah, no, let's do it on board. So at that time, Angelina was part of Patuicy, who's actually a preclinical researcher. He does a lot of research and alcohol mice. Was like, hey, actually one of my postdocs is moving to Uruguay. And so we could collect data there. And at that time, Uruguay was the only country in the world who had federal legal recreational marijuana. So I was like, oh, yes, we definitely be the collect there. And then at the same time, I mentioned about those speaker series that we had. And at that time, if our Myers came down and talked about craft, and Hendrick Ruzin, who was his colleague from Europe, was the craft liaison of all Europe. And so me and Hendrick started talking about he was at class. And I was like, hey, I'm always interested in like, you're happy to still within craft. And like, have you ever looked at it across nationally? And that's something that's consistent in recovery. And in addictions across different countries. And he mentioned, why should we haven't looked at it in that regard? But I do think I have a colleague who might be interested in looking at this line of research. And so he put me in contact with a Dutch researcher, AdVenerhous, who actually does adult crying research. If you're an artist, look up this line of research, adult crying. Adult crying. Adult crying. Very interesting. Very. Like tears. Correct. Yeah, OK. Yeah, that's what I'm making sure. Yeah. And so he was like, hey, I'm moving to collect data at my university at Silver. But the funniest part was when we started, he was like, by the way, I hope you don't think Dutch people use marijuana. I'm like, I'm sorry. He's like, no, no, that's all tourist and movies. Like, we really don't use marijuana that often. Also, it's not legal. It's only legal in those coffee shops. Coffee shops. I'm like, there's no way. Well, we did the study across five countries and Dutch students by far, noise frequency, noise quantity, a lot of this compared to every other country. So that was shocking to us. And I was like, well, this is why we do these kind of studies. There's a lot of perceptions out there about these people. Yeah. And how these cultures about what they're doing uses. And then, so right after that, we were like, okay, what's the next study? What do we want to move on? And so right around that time, it's all both familiar, simultaneous and code use of alcohol marijuana really started picking up. And we were always talking about this. And we were like, do we think it's different? And we don't think it's different. Like, well, maybe we can look at it and see if there's some cross-national differences in it. And so our third study, which we finished a collection about a year ago. So we're in the midst of data analysis. We wanted to look at co-use of drugs, particularly simultaneous use of alcohol cannabis. But we also wanted to look at other drugs, like opioids and stimulants and so forth. And so that study project calves really wanted to get into pro-co-use and substance abuse. Additionally, we also were really interested in addicted behaviors. So in that data set, we wanted to look at gaming, gambling, as well as social media addiction use. And so we collected data on that front. So around that time, we had our previous data collection sites through conferences and emails of randomly talking to people. I got put in contact with Matt Keeow in Canada. And he was a gambling researcher. And I was like, hey, can you collect data in Canada? And we'll add gambling into our data set. And so that's how we got Canada for that site. And then through emails of researching, like reading tutors' work, it's a very small field. So we kind of get to know each other. I was always reaching out to this researcher named League of Hogarth, who's really big into, like, reward social that prevent the privacy and recovery and addictions. And so he was out based out in the UK. And I asked him, hey, look, you know what, we're citing each other's work. We're both an experimental research. Do you ever want to collaborate? And he was like, yeah, let's do it. And so at the collaborative perspective of the ditch and conference of Providence, we met up. And we were like, all right, can we add you onto this team? And he was like, yeah, by the way, I do some research with a colleague in South Africa, but not on the ditches. But she might be able to collect data too. I'm like, yeah, let me put her in contact. And so I spoke to Debbie, a commuter, who's a world rep renowned childhood trauma researcher. But we're both talking about, well, if you could let some like adverse childhood experiences kind of questions, then I could collect data in South Africa. I'm like, let's do it. And so that's how that third project got built. And so in that project, we've let the data among young adult college students in Canada within the US across four different states. So in New York, Virginia, the Mexican Barato, UDII, INDINA, Spain, South Africa, and England. And the first paper that we just recently published was looking at simultaneous use among these countries and remarkably similar. It was I was shot that how similar it was particularly that if you consumed alcohol in marijuana last 30 days about 75% of those students are using it simultaneously and that was consistent across every country. And so that was kind of illuminating. And so that's where our third study was and then I think we'll talk about getting into what we're currently doing later on, but all of that research really just grew up organically. And I honestly didn't even create the official team and throw the second study when I was like, oh, this might be bigger than I thought it would be. That's awesome. Yeah, so it's so interesting to see how these things come together, right? Like some people like they come in and like I have this vision and other people are like, yo, so I met this dude right and then they introduced me to their friend and then they told two friends right and then next thing you know we have 12 countries right. Yeah, no, exactly how it works. And I think this is where we've missed because of COVID a lot of the conferencing and I said at least it's like networking part. And I then you can ask senior people are like, oh, yeah, we met each other conferences and we always like you reach others work. And so naturally you're going to start working with talking to each other and realize, you know what we got we're really tired of saying, oh, this was only done at one site, small sample size, all this. And why we just for resources together and helping to their help and particularly with this international research. It's been great because while we focus on addictions in other areas that I kind of mentioned, trauma, other personality from assets. And the best part for me is honestly is that we all go in saying look, we're talking about global issues. We're not talking about something that's just us mental health, addiction, problematic substance use. That's not just a US problem, that's a global issue. And we all need to start working together and help alleviate some of the suffering among individuals and we can't just do it alone or assume that everything that works in one country is in a magically working these other countries that have very different views on things and cultural assets with regards to their job is. That's super interesting. Maybe we could talk a little bit about that right now if that's okay. What kind of like major findings have you had here that like represent like cultural or like cross national differences or similarities across some of these studies, you know substance use patterns, things like that. Yeah, so going into our first study in the alcohol and I was just like, oh these Americans and they're been shrinking and eventually they're going to go way more and drinking way more problems in the other two countries at that time. Finding funny enough, very consistent across the countries. And I think it goes to show that how we assess substance use does differ across countries based on what their view is mostly important and so forth. I recall the first study I kept asking, oh, age of first use and both my colleagues, I believe, are like, why don't you ever ask about habitually, what do you mean? And they're like, you keep focusing on age of first use, but anyone can drink at 10 and then not drinking until 15. Like, why don't you ever focus on that time where they start admitting to themselves that it becomes regular use or however we define. And I was like, well, we've never I've never thought about it that way. I always see that literature age of first use. And it was like, okay, that is a very different one. Thank you. Another really interesting aspect is a measurement development of some of these, of ditch measures or substance use measures that we're using. Markably different in these other countries, particularly because some of these things aren't applicable to individuals in those countries. So, for example, early on we've really got interested in like internalized norms about how much is college to attend college associated with these particularly alcohol on your one. We created the alcohol one, which was created in US and tried to replicate it and put it into Spanish. We kept running into issues with the Spanish version for one of the items. It was I consider my school to be an academic student and the students in these other countries are like aren't all universal academic. And they're like, only in the US, party schools versus the academic school itself. And so I was like, oh, that's quite different. We did it change that. And then when we started talking about other factors like designated driver. So I remember we asked the question like do you have a user designated driver is my colleague or it's like, we don't know what that's her name. What do you know what the name is? We don't use designated driver. Like what do you mean by that? I'm like, oh, someone who doesn't drink or consume any drugs that safely will drive all the other people who are consuming home. And they're like, yeah, but we have public transportation. I'm like, yep, you do. And so all trains, like, yeah, and reliable public transportation. Yeah, yeah, widely available and reliable transportation. So I was like, oh, these protective strategies have been investing so much into how reduce harm. Some of them just like to work in these other countries or it's already working. It's just called something else for it's just not referring to literature and the exact same way. And so that was quite unique. And when we started doing that. And then when looking at these rates and everything like I, we went in, I was like, oh, I can't wait to find differences. We're talking about cultural differences all that. And all the publications we've had on these three studies. 85% people be consistent in universal across the country. And we're talking about models that we're trying to predict like etiological pathways of how people engage in problematic substance use. And I'm like, oh, this must be different. Well, vast majority isn't, which is great for our literature. I would say it's kind of good to do that. Some of these models can be consistent on these other countries. But there have been differences. I think one of the biggest two areas that we've seen more differences of anything is norms associated with use and particularly distributed norms and injumptive norms, particularly in chapter norms in these other countries. Like everyone's approving like who wouldn't approve. And so in the US, he's tend to see a little bit less of that. The other thing that we most starkly found and there's a paper that Laura. And we were looking at etiological pathways, problematic alcohol use. And one of them was this deviance regulation pathway and really thinking about well, and add a lesson to your kind of doing deviant behavior that might lead you to engage in more problematic use. But what was interesting was that was the one pathway that differed across the countries partially because well, what is deviant behavior? Well, in the US, well, if you're using under age, is that what I'm quote deviant or not, or using between, you know, ages 13 to continue. And I was like, oh, okay, I didn't really think about it that way. So realizing that what the society in which these individuals are using and consuming does matter a lot with how their views are and how much associated with different things. And so it disapplies even to more the role of recently research co use and things like that. One of interesting things is that for alcohol variables, the most consistent finding was that in the UK, it really mattered. And even if the drinking rates were higher in the UK, but even when controlling for that, they still reported more higher scores on the hot. I call you support identification tests and other things are like, man, what is going on in UK? Then Lee was like, have you seen UK culture about pubs and everything? It's just a different lifestyle there. But marijuana is very lonely. You take compared to all the other countries. And so those were unique factors that we think. And the other part is when people consume. So I remember we're at first, we're like, okay, how do we create a standardized measure for the camps? Or luckily we have standardized drink units, however, take different each country. First thing I didn't know. So the first thing was like, so you know, an actual a as this like picture of like 1.5 ounce of liquor is equal to a glass of wine equal. Right here. But I use that image in the first study at my colleagues are both like, yeah, we can't. What's wrong? They're like, well, we can translate to Spanish, but there's unique drinks that is so popular in these countries that we have to add it to our photo for our students. I'm like, okay. And then more was like, by the way, I think in US, it's 14 grams. The leader is considered a standard drink in Spain is 10. And I'm like, oh my god, I didn't realize there are different amounts that were considered a standard drink across these countries. So in all the data sets, we have to calculate this like new grams, like put the alcohol conversion into grams for it to be equivalent across groups of these comparisons, because they just view it very differently. Yeah, like before you can even get to the cultural differences. Yeah, I mean, you've given a ton of examples already, but just like the complexity of running a study like this, yeah, identifying all of these random variables that like we don't really think twice about because the way that we measure it, you know, especially if you're you're in your own little cultural niche, you know, like, I don't think about the, you know, talking about milliliters or these different, you know, converting it to some other standard drink. Yeah, it's just wildly complicated, above and beyond actually just finding anything different, you know, the starting point, the measurement, the language translation of scales. Yeah, so that takes up a lot of the time. So that's why I'm so fortunate for these colleagues, particularly in the lower. And I learned a lot of Dutch, we've been Google translate a ton with Dutch. So that was the most difficult part because I'm fluent in Spanish, but that's quite difficult, but in doing these translations, we, it takes a lot of work because not only are we talking about differences between English and Spanish, we're talking about differences between Argentinian Spanish and Castellan Spanish. So literally all the methods have slightly worded differences because it's more typical in that country to use that for a village and others. So for example, when we were talking about, like vehicles and things like that. And so it's paying to use a very different term than they use in Argentina and even IU. So Cuba, we call a bus, and so they're like, not wow, I'm like, yeah, that's what you call it. So when I immigrated to the States and I saw a wall, I'm like, wait, these are castations, they're not like a bus. So, but those are quite unique and can be very different things in those different countries. I remember my grandfather who was visiting Puerto Rico and in Cuba was we say, we have alcohol, which is means I'm going to sleep. There means I'm going to die. So he was at night saying, we have alcohol, and everyone was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, but those things could be really problematic in the contact of these groups. And if they're meeting an interpretation of some of these items, don't really translate well, then it's going to cost problems in our kitchen of our models and things. And so we spend a lot of time carefully translating and then having meetings in which we are discussing each of these translations and what works, what may not work. And it's helpful for me because they are coming in with such a different perspective. I can come in with you. Well, most of these were made in America or in English. I can tell you what they meant to say. And then here's what I would think would have been interpretation of that, 'cause sometimes the measurements translations just doesn't equate. - Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I think it's really tough, right? Like, there's always interesting dialectic, like differences, right? Like I know, like when I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona and they're like, depending on where a person was from, that speaks Spanish, they could have different slang terms or even different things like that. And like that stuff is like super important to addiction research, right? Maybe if you're doing like adult crying research, like if it was a really show up as much terms as such, but like there's so much slang involved, right? Or these like turns of phrase that you just like take for granted that are like, oh, that holds nothing over here, right? And so that's why I think some of the papers that you have, that have been particularly meaningful to me, are these like invariance testing of the scales across nationally to say like, yo, this means the same thing across all of these countries. Like I think of like the DSM five cross cutting symptom measure that you did or like things like that. It's like, okay, I know that like if I'm doing, you know, like I have some research right now that works with indigenous youth, right? And like also non-indigenous youth. And like is that gonna hold up across those two populations? The answer is probably yes. As a function of some of these things, but like, yo, that is like super complicated work. And like doesn't get all the fanfare, I think of maybe like some of these other papers, but like are just huge contributions to the field. And so like, you know, thank you and your team for doing this stuff, but also like the nuances of this stuff is like so time consuming and painstaking that it had, you know, it's just really important work. - Yeah, no, I appreciate that. Yeah, and I think for us, it's always that we can't do these model tests without making sure that the measurements, the approaches are accurate in these different countries. And our claim to fame is that we have a cross-sectional college student publication in the ditching. Because I joke now like, if you put cross-sectional in the title, you'll be fine. You'll find a good answer. - Yeah. - But it does take a lot of work. And I think part of it, and the way it's grown so well with this team is that everyone feels involved. And so the way I run it is that I have this template that says, okay, look, we're all part of the team. Everyone has full access to the data. Everyone has full contribution. Everyone can help for a plan to create their own manuscripts and so forth. So the way I always organize these, and I really gained us from the tail when he was doing this large multi-site studies here in the US was, you need to get everyone involved and for them to feel like it's not just on just a data collection site. There's something I can contribute to this team. And so it's funny enough, but the thing I love most about this team is that only about half of us are ditching research. The other half are doing completely other kind of things are doing different substances and things like that. But we've all come together to tackle these global issues. And so the way I do it is that, look, all right, let's plan out our next study. And so what I ask is like, all right, what do you all want to assess? Everyone says we suggestions. Now create a plan manuscript. So similar to our movement now to pre-registration and being more open about our science, I require us to have plan manuscripts before we collect the data. And more importantly, make sure you tell me what measures to be used for these plan manuscripts. That way, I'm cutting out if your measure is not in a plan manuscript that tells me what you plan to do in the day analysis, I'm just going to cut it. Because we're going to looking data for no reason. I better use that time for these other measurements and things like that are important to that. That creates so much buy-in from each of the researchers. Like Debbie, I've never done ACEs research. I've never looked at child-of-chum in that way. And she's like, no, we need to be like, hey, can you mind cutting? I'm like, yeah, no problem. Let's do it. And so it excites me a lot because it illuminates me into a boomed area of research. But all of it tends to be a lot of comorbidity. A lot of things are tied together. And so now we have a paper looking at ACEs but they're doing problematic alcohol use. And it's kind of surreal. I'm like, oh, these are best. That's probably going to be weak or anything. I'm like, we're talking about years, we're talking about record-scratching about childhoods ACEs and they're still finding it. Even controlling above and beyond consumption, things like that. So each of us have worked really well. And I think what I'm most proud of is that they are all collaborating without me. My goal is all this is like, we just need all to get together to help these issues. So Angelina and Laura are working together independently. Me and Debbie are working independently. Me and Lee in the UK decided to do, like, you know what, let's do an experimental cross-national study together. Let's do it. Whether mindfulness or distraction is really what's leading to more craving in the moment. And so we replicated the study across the students in the UK and here in the US doing the exact same lab study. And so that's what's been most fruitful. And more lately, Angelina and Laura have sent over their PhD students to one more company. And so I had Laura student Veronica and Gabriela from Angelina. And they are sending their students vice versa. So it's becoming this whole, like, let's train each other. Let's train the next future of researchers and really creating this international collaboration and keep moving it forward. There's a lot of processes here. Like my wife does international research a lot. Or I guess cross-national, like multi-nationalist research. And, you know, I'm always just like astonished about like how complicated the process is to like get these things approved across these like different. I was wondering if you could just talk a little bit about that. Just for like people who are interested in this work, like, yo, there's like a lot of work. You've already talked about just like endless number of hours of work on like measurement. And that that was like, you still have to get this thing like approved by like somebody. Who are these people? And like, what is the, what are the things going on there? Yeah. You know what's, I don't know if it's a good or bad thing. Within the US, this applies to every IRB within every US site is different. I don't know if that's good or bad. Yes. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Internationally, it's even worse. Like it's even all over the place how different they are. They pick up on and so forth. And so what I mean is I need my, it's not me telling all these research like, hey, go collect data. You have to do it this way. There's doing way of works. We have to be flexible. And what is the right recruitment rate? So in the US, we have research participants that we can collect our data from free, which has been really helpful in these studies. They don't have that in some of these other countries. Ironically, though, Sona is popular in many other countries. I realized they do it in the UK, South Africa. But in Argentina, it's made, they don't have something like that. We have to pay from students or participants. And we've been fortunate that they've had branch-arcontinants thing to help fund some of this research. And I've had funding either through my postdoc or my startup now that I'm a system professor to help augment some of those funding opportunities. But the IRB process is so starkly different. And I could go on about each country. And Canada was very different too. And I was like, oh, wait, it should be similar to US. Like, no, completely different aspects of what they view. How much do you have to submit? For Canada, we had to submit. We had to submit IRB training or city training or some form of ethics training by every research across every country, even though we're talking about only collecting that data in Canada. And so every country is different. Now, the one story I will tell is the country I didn't get to add. So when we were doing our marijuana study, Hendrick was like, hey, I actually also have a liaison in Japan who might be able to quickly to untouch someone to collect substance use data in Japan. And so I was like, yeah, let's do it. And so we had conversations and we were talking about it. And that was sort of marijuana study. We went and we were talking about the study. And I finally produced a measure to find a data set. I had the process and everything. And we were collecting cross-sectional anonymized as possible. We wouldn't collect emails. No information. No demographic that could tie anything to these individuals. And my colleague in Japan eventually said, I don't think we can do it here. And I was like, why? They're like, culturally marijuana use and other drug use. That's not alcohol. It's so frowned upon that people are scared to admit to doing it. And I'm like, so what are you saying? So I don't think I can find a researcher who's willing to put their name on this. Because they're going to have people calling them and asking about who said this, who endorsed marijuana use, who endorsed these other drugs. And I was like, but even if it's like, there's no way we can link it. We have no idea if they're like, they still wouldn't be uncomfortable. So eventually I had to drop to Japan. And I was like, well, we're really interested in national differences and cultural differences among marijuana use. I can't just not add the marijuana part. And so, but they were like, well, maybe if you do other drugs or other things like that, or only focus on alcohol, for example, we might be able to do something in the future. I'm like, yeah, I'll definitely reach out. But that was just like, wow, that was so different. Like kind of expectant on it and how culturally, and in many other countries, there are many laws against drugs and tougher drugs laws and things like that. And so, if something you have to respect, and at the end of the day, it's all flexibility. I think the other thing that was most confusing and organizing all of this, there's different time zones, there's different times of year, particularly because for me, I, my research is more than enough, particularly cautious, because I wanted to be, it's not just a convenient kind of thing. However, there are different schedules across these countries of winter and session, when they're not in session. I think in Spain, they take a whole month off for Easter. Well, okay, we had more around that. Like organizing kind of these things, 'cause we'll talk about our current study a little bit, which is longitudinal study. At first, I really wanted to be daily diary. Hiding a time that was consistent across all the countries wasn't possible. And so I'm like, maybe we just do more macro, like every three months, that kind of wanted to do the data, 'cause it was so difficult to find a time. And just meeting time, I remember our first ever conference talk between me, Lauren and Javina. I was like, hey, I'm on the East Coast, you're on the Tino, you're in Spain, all right, let's sit up, and I can meet up at like 7 a.m. at no problem. I forgot that I was at my first Cloud of Perspectives of Vision Conference in San Diego at the time. So I had to make that call at 4 a.m. - I got it. - Yeah, I completely forgot about the time team. So I'm like, oh no. So, coordinating these kind of things is always complicated. But honestly, one of the things that would zoom in things is how I could just record the news. So finding a time for anyone, the group of 10 people that is impossible now doing it internationally, with all that, some very difficult. But having a recording of what we've discussed, what's the major goals and things of the project has been quite helpful in the organization of it. - Yeah, that's really cool. And also super interesting, right? Like, I think that's one of the things that stands out to me about some of this work. They're like, yeah, the cultural differences around norms and motivations even, right? A little bit. Like, you know, like in Japan, they wouldn't even let you run the study, but almost that's like, almost why it's so important to run the study there. See, right? Like, yo, is that just like one person's opinion, or is that like the prevailing thing and like be able to really see what's going on there? You know? Right. No, for sure. And every country reports shrugues, right? It's the, uh, uh, yes, they have to do noted nations like, you know, community into reporting of it. I'm like, how accurate are these? In some of these countries because it's so taboo. And so I'm like, people are still going to do it. The question is how front-arty about it and more, and we talked about particularly, we're talking about stigmatization and the literature, particularly with the provary and things. This applies to people who are in these countries where it's not acceptable. Any of these kind of drug use patterns. Regardless if it's moderate or heavy use or anything like that, it's just very found upon to how open, are they particularly in these more collect cultures where everything tends to be more interdependent across groups. Like, you don't want to be that person that stands out most of the time. And so how much is hidden? How much is, um, being masked by some of these cultural norms and these other places? Yeah, that's really interesting. And, um, I mean, honestly, I'm thinking about even, you know, Noah made a comment earlier about different language and different groups, even here in the states. And I was reminded that, you know, I'm moving up to the Northeast soon and that, uh, you know, it's called a package store. So, you know, there are even, I mean, I think there's a lot to learn, even when we're talking about just looking at different regional differences, even in the states. I think the same stuff sort of applies. And, um, yeah, so I think this work is really important. You mentioned a longitudinal study. Can you give us a little rundown of what you're working on now? Yeah, so the last three studies have been cross-sectional and we know those limitations of that. And so I was like, okay, we need to do a longitudinal one. I, going in and planning this four study, I was like, I really want to do it, man. I really, at worst, we can flip it daily. I'd prefer to do it. Again, logistics though was like, and talking to everyone, when could we do it timing? How long? 10 days, 14 days, 21 days. I really quickly decided like, man, this is going to be too much work without that much grant funding. I only had my startup funding and whatever was available for some of my colleagues in these other countries. I was like, all right, let's at least do a longitudinal study, at least, and making three data, ways of data collection at three months apart. So the current study, which is called Project Class, funding up, I'm terrible at being creative. So it's the cross-national longitudinal assessment of stuff study. Because I was like, I have no idea. That's the best title I've ever heard. It sounds like a front, Adrian. Is this a bodega? It's so we're rational, I don't think the methodology, one of the questions was like, well, what do we want to assess? I mean, do we want to really, again, more replicate what's been found in the literature and see if it holds up cross-national. Particularly kind of these effects of particularly with my interest in protective behavioral strategies, as well as these motivations for using. At that time, I was like, well, COVID was still a thing. And a lot of these studies have to plan out like a year and a head to map it out, think about when can they start, when does these countries start? When we are going to be able to actually apply these kind of data. And so I was talking to them, I'm like, well, I've got to talk about collecting data in COVID. And I kid you not, we all were like, that's far not going to be an empty deal. We're thinking about years ahead. And like, low and behold, once data collection started, I am glad we still have decided to collect data about COVID. So in this study, what we're really interested is looking at the impact of COVID on our health and substance use among these young adults in all these countries. And really interested in not only stress, like, associated with COVID, but exposure and vaccine and hesitancy and things like that, among these different countries. Because unfortunately, how it's been implemented in the public health programming across these countries very drastically. And the lockdowns are still being a big matter in Argentina. They've been in lockdown for so long, like months and maybe a year or since the U.S. opened up in the sense. And so we wanted to look at, okay, look, these trajectories and change because of COVID, I'm sure they have a questionist for whom. And particularly, is there a difference among those who've been affected versus not across the country? Or is it more perverse of kind of issues within one particular country that has higher lockdown issues compared to other ones and so forth? And so within that study, we're really large. Look at it. I also reached out to a person I've been doing, we've been continuing to work with mindfulness, Oleg Nendiviz, who's actually a psychometrisis kind of methodological researcher. And he was really interested in immune functioning and physical health. And I was like, you know what? Like, I know self-report might not be great, but can we start looking at self-reported physical health? Because that's obviously a big component of COVID as well. So we're looking at this recently self-reported immune functioning measure that was created and looking at it cross nationally and looking at that and the effects of COVID on that as well. But additionally, as I've mentioned, all these researchers have different things that they can look into. So we're looking again at childhood trauma. We're really looking at also social deprivation. A lot of times we also think about when people move from just regular use of problematic use. Like, what is it? Like, yes, genetics plans to roll. Yes, neuroscience plays a role. But also that you're just dealing with a lot of stuff. And unfortunately, there's a lot of stress with things that and do you have the resources to be able to deal with it? And one of the questions like, well, is that similar across these countries or not? And one of the things we early on wanted to look at was social economic status. But we didn't want to look at just GDP rates and all those kinds of things. We wanted to be like, no, no, subjectively, as you grew up, how did you live? Poor barely making it working class. And we unprocly did not define it. We've said let it to be truly subjective because you can be rich in a poor area or poor in a rich area. We wanted to look at how data affects these different things. And particularly, the resources that you have. And I know, Sam, you have a paper on that as well. We were looking at it. Yeah. Several different countries in this quite important line of research. But we're also collecting data on mindfulness, personality variables. And so it's going to be a rich data set. And so we're currently wrapping up the baseline and some of the sites back to the complexity. Canada is going to have to collect in the fall because of our issues. Argentina transferring money across countries is a nightmare. It is a huge nightmare. Wow. Yeah. You trying to pay people in other countries, some becoming nightmare. It was easier to be like, all right, Angelina, I had to just act like you're a contractor to my university. Give you the money so you can pay those students. And it's a cheaper change rate. Taxes, banking fees, all that's a nightmare. When I started doing it, I was like, all right, well, and so with my startup money, I have some funding to pay these participants. And I was like, well, I can pay participants in most of the countries. No problem. In the UK, the Spain, they're like, yeah, yeah, we'll do it that way. We'll do like Amazon. Oh, that's great. And then when I first started to pay, they're like, you can't do that. I'm like, what? You have to pay what's Amazon within that specific country. So I had to log in and create my UK Amazon account. Well, again, I created my Spain. Oh my god. And then I was like, when I mapped out the budget, I was like, okay, I know there's exchange rates. So I had early on did the exchange rates. Well, they trained. Imagine, yeah, and obviously the global collaborative that we're dealing with in the US. Oh my god. The war and praying and everything. I'm just like, wow, I'm paying a lot more to the list for these kind of data. But they'll be all worth it. And so we're really excited about looking at it, particularly because we wanted to always be on the cross section. I think this is my project calves, which is at 30 million simultaneously. I think that was going to be my last cross sectional study. And now we wanted to look into, ideally, Gengal might be doing cross national intervention work. I think it would be like, we're moving forward to. But for now, we need to look at longitudinally how much are these effects are important or not. And no, you mentioned about talking about invariance. How much of these measures are invariant across time? Forget about just cultures like. Yeah, within the US, we just never get tested. Yeah, we just assume that it all looks like it's going to be. Yeah, always the measures sensitive to change. Right. Like these two, like those two elements are just like the law, like the part of that everybody just forgets completely about, right? Like, you know, there might be just me, and it like a artifact of the measurement, right? That like, yo, this is a lot more variable than you think. And so like, but Saul Schiffman once said, right, like just because you measured it once doesn't make it a trait. Yeah. And some of these things you say, like we just like, like just like just take for granted, like that is a trait. Maybe it's not. Right? So maybe not when you get cross national, maybe not when, you know, yeah, no, for sure. I have two great examples of that. I remember when we just published the measure on average childhood experiences across different countries. And I remember viewers like, well, did you look at like Lee in fact, or I'm like a lean factor of childhood trauma. What is it? Bad luck. Like what? Lee. And then for content of behavioral strategy, that's another one. And I know that the recent CPA, the tail and had a great posting about this issue about factor structure and set of behavioral strategies. And the problem is, and this occurred within other countries, like some of these strategies do not work in these other countries because they're not applicable. So there can't be a latent factor of stuff about stuff that's just not going to be applicable for many of these areas. And so that really changed us up. And so actually in the marijuana study we did, Mark Prince out the Colorado State, where no, he was like, do we ever look at qualitative data? I'm like, you know what? We should know is particularly about these strategies because we are using these strategies that are made from American, like studies, talking about these are protective strategies for alcohol marijuana. But like we assumed that that would equate to other countries. And so we wanted to look at qualitatively like, Hey, can you come up your own strategy? It's like, what is different? And we did this in the US as well. Talk about our net. This is one of those like, oh, I'm going to get to that study eventually. But then when you look at it, like in that study we had about 5,000. qualitative data points three times per student across the country since Spanish and English. So I'm like, this is gonna be difficult to claim. So we haven't quite responded. But early on just looking at it, about like analyzing, I was like, wow, I'd never thought about that strategy. And it was unique to each country, but kind of what say, there was also a trick to be able to reach in of each country and where it was and what is feasible and so forth. And even when we talk about it in the US, when we talk about college students of research and money, we've got to be able to strategy. Some of them work or don't work, depending on your campus. I will even marry, everything's a walk in the sun. And we also have a program called steer clear where literally people will drive you and pick you up if you're intoxicated to get you back to school. Not every university has that. So I'm like, yeah, that strategy's really easy to use in some settings and not others. And so that was quite eliminating across these countries. And thinking about how these variables hold up across time. And so some things tend to be stable like personality variables we've had, we've seen. But others are like, yeah, that's, I don't even know how that's gonna happen across time. For example, COVID stress. How does it wane? Is it really, does it shift across time? Like we're all kind of even in the US, we're kind of becoming a little more like, oh, it is what it is. But it's not like that in these other countries. It's still conversable. And there are lockdowns for so long and there's more spikes and things like that. So it'll be interesting to look at that data. - Yeah, and on top of that, we're usually looking at mean levels of responding across people who are highly variables. Just such an complex issue. - Yeah, Adrian, this is really illuminating. Just the complexity of it and the layers of doing this international work and just such interesting findings. I was wondering if we can transition to the take home messages. What would your take home message be for people who are in recovery? - Yeah, for me is that be understanding of what works best for you. 'Cause there's not gonna be a perfect solution. We've talked about this, like how do we even define recovery? What does that look like? How's that similar across these different individuals? And even when we talk about when you introduce culture, what is round upon, what is recovery? Is it only abstinence in some cultures? 'Cause it is. Some cultures, like there is no other option. And for others, like no, you can have low levels of drinking or substance abuse and still be able to function in a way that's easy. But it eventually depends on being up to the individual and to stakeholders who are involved with them. - Yeah. - As someone who just recently had a family member go through the Ditch and Treatment and Recovery and it's an even process of recovery. How we all are on this together, you're not alone. And so being up front with that has helped that other others as well. - Yeah, that's a really good point. And what seems super obvious now that you said it out loud, we're like, you know, like our entire definition of recovery is like Western, like Eurocentric and it's in its layers, right? And like what does recovery look like in New York way? You know, like in South Africa, like, you know, or like what about Nigeria? - Right. - No, no, no. - Like in things, you know, or Japan, which sounds like abstinence is only move. - Right. - Right. - And so that's a really interesting point. And I think one that's really, I think helpful for us to think about what would you say the take home message would be for practitioners? - Yeah, I think one of the things that's asked about these individuals are coming in, what is their background, what are their views? And how does that impact what their goals are within these treatments and things like that? I think a lot of times, yes, we've gotten great at some evidence-based treatments. Do they work for everyone now? So the question is, well, how can they work differently for different individuals? Well, I think at first it's asking these individuals what seems applicable, what works for you. A great example is my wife is a physical therapist, has to work with stroke patients a lot in the hospital. And there's a treatment plan, but yes, they should review walking stairs. The upstairs at home? No. Well, I guess that treatment isn't gonna work then. So you have to adapt, but you can't adapt. And so you get enough information from that individual, particularly cultural variants as well. I mean, there are things that just aren't gonna be as feasible for some individuals. And on top of that, social economics status, all these other layers that make it quite difficult to implement things that scientifically, yes, they work. That sounds like a great idea. But in practicality, how is that actually gonna work for those individuals? - Very interesting. What would your take home messages be for policymakers? - Yeah, particularly within this field that we need more collaboration across these different countries. Like I mentioned previously, that's not just a US issue, it's a global issue. And what are we doing to it? I recall when we first started doing this, and I was like, oh, it's 21 in the US, it's different than these other countries. Going in, I was like, "Man, it should always just be 18." That's how it is in most countries. They're mostly far. And then we started looking at Rachel and like, "Well, that's not as accurate." I thought it was. But that's not in find that we need to change legal ages or things like that. I think understanding what is working and not working in different regions, different areas, different countries is useful because we do need to understand it. And particularly when we talk about cannabis, now that Canada is legalized, your wife has always been different. What was crazy in your wife was that they had so much demand, they didn't have enough supply. And so they were having to go into Brazil and do like black market kind of things to get enough marijuana to serve the population that they needed. So what can we learn from these states that are legalizing, from these other countries that are legalizing? Because in these other countries, they're very unique about it. In Spain, it's legal. But if you're in a private setting, like these social clubs, it's legal. So I'm like, "Wait, how does that work?" And so all these things are useful when trying to try to create the best policy that reduces the most amount of harm assuming again, that's your rationale, making these policies. And so working with each other and finally gets the stakeholders, ask these people, ask the people you're trying to create these laws about what works, what might not work, what might be feasible, what might not be feasible. Because even in Virginia here, we legalize marijuana, but it does say, I also don't start to 2024. And I'm like, "Yo, you need to start asking people like what is going to be practical in these different areas of Virginia, which are very starkly different. What are they looking for? What is punishment? What is not punishment? All these things are really important for the system that we're trying to do." - What would you say that take-home messages about underserved populations? - Yeah, I think for me is that we need more representation from individuals from these populations. I think for a lot of times, we're like, "Oh, we're the researchers. "We know what works and doesn't work." But these individuals are coming in with that mindset. They're just coming in to say, "Look, I want to help myself or the population I'm serving." What you're saying makes a lot of sense, but my population isn't going to accept that. We cannot do great research and groundbreaking research or treatment and things like that without these underserved populations being involved in those kind of conversations. What is practical? What is actually going to work? And I know CPA did a lot of great different programs of talks about focusing on this issue because at the end of the day, you can have the best, best treatment plan ever, but if no one takes to it, what's it worth it? And so having these populations being involved is going to be helpful in that regard. - Yeah, that's a great point too. Well, Adrienne, thank you so much. One last question for you. What kind of advice would you give for trainees and students out there who want to follow on a path similar to yours to become as successful as you've been? - No, but two things. One, don't be afraid to put yourself out there. I started this international team from emailing blindly to people who didn't know who I was. And I was fourth year grad student, when that, our third year grad student went to half. And so reaching out and for the vast majority of people in our field, we really do care about this issue. And we want the next generation to care about this issue and do great research and so forth. So I've always admired the more senior individuals who give their time and mentor. And so reach out, even if your primary mentor doesn't have the adequate training or expertise on something, it's okay to reach out to someone who does. Worse case they say no, but that's it. That's literally the worst case. After that, they could give you a ball or put you in touch with someone who might put you in there. The last one, and there's something that I think everyone does not even just students, but early career individual, including myself, is that we go in, particularly with your master's study or your dissertation study is that I need to create the perfect study. I need to create this thing that's going to solve the world. No for studies going to solve every issue, nor will it, or can't think of your research as a program of research. Not, you're not going to have great studies. I've had terrible studies that I'm like, oh, that's not the best study I could have done, but it's still about something. But my question was, I did that study because I needed to answer one thing. And that one thing now springboards me to the next area that I want to dive into in the next area and the next area. So when you think about your program of research, I always have like, what are my trying to do? So I always have to research questions in my mind, even though my research is all over the place, I have a lot of veterans, research that I do. I always draws back to these three questions and that kind of guides me even if the topic area is very different. I know that that's what I'm moving forward. So every time I think of a study, I'm like, what is my goal in this study to answer? Why do I need to answer it? Oh, because it will help me understand how this piece of information will be helpful for an intervention or for a bunch more of a public health kind of aspect. So don't feel daunted if your study is like, oh, it's not doing what I wanted to. It's not going to change the world. That's OK. Your next 30 to 40 years of your program of research will. And so just look at it as a stepping stone towards the much bigger questions you're trying to answer. But all those little studies add up into information. I'll be useful when you try to create that final program of research. That's a great point. And I always tell students, especially at the dissertation level, get real big. And then it's going to change everything. It's like, listen, your dissertation study is never this thing. Every once in a while, somebody stumbles upon some groundbreaking work in the dissertation. But most of the time, that's not the case. And I usually just tell people, like, you don't even want it to be necessarily. Like you need to be manageable. That's like peaking in high school. Like your dissertation being like the best work you ever did. Right? The spheres of a career left, you know? For sure. And if it's helpful for any student, I'd never publish my honor thesis, my master thesis, or my dissertation. And I turned out OK. So let's-- like this, you can still progress into all about a program of research. And the last piece of information, this was something that Matt Henson, my PhD advisor, gave me was like halfway through data collection of my dissertation was like run all the steps. He's like, don't worry about interpreting it, just run it at worst, you have syntax. So when you've got your final data collection, you've learned about all the bugs, you have to deal with cleaning data, all those things. And he's like, look, whatever you comes out comes out, don't overinterpret, don't even take it to heart. Just double check that what you're interpreting makes sense based on your analysis. And then therefore, when you have that final data collection, here's all the syntax, I know how to clean it, I've saved all that time. And then I can start writing off the results and discussion such. And that helped me finish up really quickly. Yeah. I was just like, OK, yeah, that's right. Because I mean, I was doing these like, interact really four way interactions. And then no one had to use syntax, and they were never heard of. And I'm like, I'm glad I did that halfway through my study at the post-neared end, where I have to play a lot of things in the world. Great point. Well, Adrian, this has been absolutely amazing. Thank you so much for carving some time out for us and our listeners and talk about this really important work. And good luck to the new one coming up. Well, I appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Yeah. Next time on the Addiction Psychologist podcast, we'll have Dr. Jennifer Reed join us. Dr. Reed is a professor and chair of the Department of Psychology at the University at Buffalo. She'll be talking to us about her most recent work on alcohol involved sexual assault, looking at social and contextual factors implicated in this process. And some of her intervention development work in this space. Super excited to have her join us as we can't do anything in this field without really citing some of her most important works, such as the development of the YAC, which is the young adult alcohol consequences questionnaire, so forth and so on. Just a huge player in the field and just had a huge impact on my career. Personally, I'm so excited for this episode. Don't miss it.