This week, a treasured national institution and the most informative social service of my youth will come to an end. When Dr. Drew signs off of the radio show Loveline for the last time on Thursday, the airwaves will be a poorer place.

Over the last three decades, a love advice show on an LA rock station has managed to evolve into a nationally syndicated program that has helped millions of Americans navigate some of the more confusing times in their lives. As someone who attended Catholic schools before everyone and everything was on the internet, factual information about sex and drugs was hard to come by in my youth. For me and many of my fellow students, Loveline filled the void of knowledge on topics that may have been taboo for parents, teachers or clergy members.

When I was a freshman in high school, I was talking at lunch with a couple of new friends when one of them brought up a bizarre sexual situation they had heard about on the radio the night before. As the sordid details were told over much laughter, other kids chimed in with similarly absurd details from callers to Loveline that they had heard. I had never heard of this show called Loveline and I could hardly imagine that any of these stories were true, but I was intrigued, and I had to check it out, at least so I could have some idea of what these other kids were talking about.
When I first tuned into to hear Adam Carolla and Dr. Drew take love advice calls from listeners, I expected to hear a series of outlandish, Jerry Springer-esque callers being comically berated for listener amusement. What I found was one of the most humane and socially responsible programs on the radio. The problems callers had were often foreign to me and my sheltered upbringing, but the people making the calls were real, vulnerable, and honest. Many sought advice or answers from strangers on the radio because that was the best chance they had to hear the truth or because they were afraid to turn to anyone else.

The humor of Adam Carolla kept me listening most nights, but the wisdom of Dr. Drew, and the humanity of the callers led me to a greater appreciation of Loveline. As a student who often worked nights, I frequently drove home from work between 10 and midnight, and on weekdays I would always listen to Loveline on KROQ. Sex, drugs, relationships and addiction will always make for interesting radio, but Loveline was not simply about entertainment. It continually engaged its listeners and callers in a deeper discussion about the nature of the human condition. The same topics were brought up continually but the manner in which they were discussed and dealt with often evolved along with society in interesting ways. Loveline has been one of the best barometers of the ways in which such universal topics morph with the times.
The crazy calls from people who slept with their boyfriend’s mother and father or have been keeping a secret family always come up in the best Loveline calls. But for me, the most impactful were the calls from frightened young people talking in hushed tones because they would get in trouble if they got caught on the phone. Many of them had strict parents and were too fearful to go to them with their problems. These poor souls were desperate for facts about their experiences, sexuality or reproductive health, but shut out from that information at home and made to feel ashamed for seeking out the truth. Dr. Drew offered compassion and factual information as he touted access to underutilized social services. Jokes were frequent and laughs were often had, but beneath it all was a genuine concern for the well being of the callers and a selfless desire to impart useful information for anyone that may need it.

Dr. Drew recently admitted that he had been doing Loveline for free for the past few years. The fact that the man would continue to work weekday nights until midnight without pay is a testament to his character. For him, Loveline’s success was a blessing not because it was lucrative for him, but because he was able to reach more people with information that they may desperately need. With the prevalence of talk show hacks like Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz, Dr. Drew can be lumped into a group that is more about money and entertainment than public service. But to me, while Dr. Drew somewhat shares a similar area as those other guys, he is the ideal that the rest fall woefully short of.
Dr. Phil seems to think he can lecture people out of their addictions and into personal responsibility. Dr. Drew, with decades of work in the field of addiction, knows that addiction is a much more complex and profound problem than that. He has worked with countless individuals that wanted nothing more than to free themselves from their addiction, but were continuously seduced by the siren’s song of their high of choice. When troubled people try and fail time and again to escape the grips of addiction, a stern speech from a daytime talk show host is rarely going to be the difference maker. That approach can seem logical, if it were only a matter of willpower, but I’ve learned that there are good people, of strong moral character, that wake up everyday telling themselves they won’t do something, only to do it the first chance they have. This can be soul crushing, and no amount of finger wagging or berating can make those people feel any worse than they make themselves feel. For me, Dr. Drew represents the compassionate approach to such a serious problem, while the others are more worried about getting their sound bites in just before the commercial break.

My Catholic high school’s approach to drug and sex education was not based on facts as much as scare tactics. Empirical data was largely ignored in favor of anecdotal evidence. Stories of kids who died the first time they tried ecstasy or young men and women whose first sexual encounters resulted in STD’s and pregnancy were the norm. It is hard not to immediately question their version of things when you know plenty of druggies who are still alive and couples having sex without their genitals falling off. No doubt there are serious risks involved with such activities, but they were so overblown by the school that it became hard to take anything they said on such matters seriously.

Maybe the scare tactics worked on some kids, but they just made me feel insulted. I saw it as a lack of respect for the intelligence of my fellow students. Drugs are generally harmful, but some drugs are much worse than others. Categorizing them all as equally dangerous and damaging may scare some high schoolers away from them all together, but it can also fail to steer some away from the ones that are the stupidest and most dangerous. Loveline gave straight info to the callers and listeners that might have been thinking about dangerous sex acts, or huffing glue, or downing a bunch of cold pills, or trying to harm themselves. People have acted out, or gotten high or been marginalized in various ways throughout history. Loveline was not about judging, it was about helping real people make better decisions in real situations. It was about giving people information and resources to get help if they needed it so that less people had to suffer in silence. Advice was not aimed at changing the type of person the caller was, but at helping callers be the best version of themselves that they can be.

Loveline didn’t simply get me through a series of drives home from work. It taught me about life and the complicated issues that many of us face. When I just wanted a laugh, it gave me plenty, but it also made me think and helped me learn. By my Junior year of high school, I quoted Dr. Drew often when fellow students spat out misinformation they believed about sex or drugs or anything new and foreign. The show gave me a confidence in myself and helped me be comfortable with my place in this world. I am a better person for listening to Loveline. I am more knowledgeable and more compassionate because of the problems and advice that I heard over the years, and for that I am eternally grateful.

To the people at KROQ that haven’t cut Dr. Drew a check in years or formulated any kind of business plan for a popular, socially-conscious, nationally syndicated show, what were you thinking? To Dr. Drew and everyone that worked on Loveline over the years, thank you. We were lucky to have you on the air for as long as you were and the world is a better place because of your work.