Trust Me, I’m Dr. Ozzy

a) When a corpse gets a boner

b) When someone wishes for an early death

c) When someone turns religious on their death bed

Dr. Ozzy’s Prescription Pad Epilogue

Take as Directed…

As much as this book ain’t supposed to be taken too seriously, I hope you’ve learned a few things along the way—I know I have. When people ask you for advice every week, it’s liking getting a crash course in human nature. You also learn a lot about yourself in a weird kind of way. So before I sign-off, here are a ten simple tips I’ve come up with over my time as “Dr. Ozzy” for living a long and happy life. They won’t solve every problem. But I promise you: keep ’em in mind, and you’ll at least have a shot at avoiding some of the stupid fucking mistakes I’ve made over the years.

God bless you all.

Dr. Ozzy

• Your doctor has seen patients come through his doors with fluorescent green dicks and/or family pets stuck up their buttholes, so trust me, whatever’s wrong with you ain’t as embarrassing as you think it is.

• If you think it might be the booze, it’s the booze.

• No-one’s family is perfect. Worry about real problems, not about what other people think.

• If you find a lump—any lump—don’t prick it with a pin, hit it with a mallet, look it up on the internet, or ask Dr. Ozzy if you should wait until it grows into a second head. Get it checked out, now. (And get a physical every year.)

• Your genes don’t decide who you are—you do. If the Prince of Darkness managed to get clean and sober after 40 years, anything is fucking possible.

• People who make you feel bad about yourself ain’t your real friends.

• Most of us are fucking lunatics, one way or another. Some just hide it better than others.

• If you write to Dr. Ozzy to ask if something is right or wrong… you know it’s wrong.

• All drugs are basically the same—booze, pot, cocaine, heroin… whatever. They’re just different ways to escape from life. So before asking me if “a little bit” of this or that is safe in moderation, here’s my answer: do it if you want to, man, but don’t kid yourself. You ain’t kidding anyone else.

• Always get a second opinion—even if that means calling your doctor on a cell phone from six feet underground to ask him if he’s 100 per cent sure you’re dead.

Quiz Answers

Dr. Ozzy’s advice column appears every week in The Sunday Times and in select issues of Rolling Stone

Write to Dr. Ozzy:

askdrozzy@sunday-times.co.uk

Quiz Answers

Award yourself one point for each correct answer, add up your total score, then see how you did here…

MAGIC MEDICINE

b). I ain’t kidding—you can even look up the British Medical Journal paper online. The scientists said they wanted “to assess the effects of didgeridoo playing on daytime sleepiness… by reducing collapsibility of the upper airways in patients with moderate obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome and snoring.” And I thought my job was fucking ridiculous.

a). They turn the poor old frog into juice by dropping it in a blender (they kill it and skin it first). They also spice it up with “white bean broth,” honey, raw aloe vera, and maca (an Andean root thing). If throwing up gives you a raging boner, it probably works a treat.

c). Makes sense, I suppose, ’cos bats have amazing night vision. Still, as one of the few people on this planet who have actually swallowed bat’s blood, I can vouch that it doesn’t have any special powers—otherwise I wouldn’t have needed cataract surgery in 2010.

a). This a terrible myth, ’cos it’s been used to justify rape, and it makes the disease spread much faster.

b). Not much of a surprise, this one. In the 1960s everyone tried to cure everything with LSD.

HEALTH NUT

a). They call it “fat” for a reason. One tablespoon of the stuff has about 120 calories, compared with 112 for ghee and 101 for butter (according to Nutrientfacts.com and Fitday.com).

All three. Or at least that’s the advice of a weird-sounding organisation called the National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse. It says you can swallow less air by not chewing gum, eating your meals slower, and making sure your false choppers fit right.

a). The poor fucker who did the field work to come up with this number deserves the Victoria Cross, if you ask me (he works for the NDDIC, as above). But thank God this kind of information exists, ’cos next time I’m feeling intimidated by someone, I’ll remind myself that they burped or let their arse cheeks blow 14 times in the previous 24 hours.

b) and c). If you overdo it when you’re training, you can end up feeling like you’re wading through molten lead. When that happens, you’ve gotta slow down and see a doc, or you can do yourself some serious damage. Pregnant women and overweight people can also get heavy legs—as can anyone who stands or sits in the same position for too long.

b). The guy was so tough-as-nails, he never even warmed up before exercising. “Does a lion warm up when he’s hungry?” he once said. “No! He just goes out there and eats the sucker.” (Unlike LaLanne, Dr. Ozzy recommends frequent stretching.)

BEING BEAUTIFUL