The Doctor Is Always On:
On radio and MTV, 'Loveline' helps teens looking for practical advice on sex and relationships
By SARAH VAN BOVEN

Jeff is 23 and He’s got a problem. When he went out partying with his buddies, he met a girl. She seduced him, and they had a one-night stand. Turns out she's the daughter of his dad's fiancée—in other words, he just slept with his future stepsister. When he calls "Loveline" for help, the hosts of MTV's late-night advice show, Dr. Drew Pinsky, and comedian Adam Carolla, have a theory on why she won't talk to him even though the wedding is just a few weeks away. "She's un¬comfortable with the way she behaved," says Pinsky. "It's going to be weird for a while." Carolla reminds John to brief his buddies:
"Otherwise there's going to be a lot of unex¬plained high-fives during the ceremony."
It used to be that teenagers afraid to ask Mom and Dad about sex turned to the schoolyard; now, there's a pretty good chance they are tuning in to Dr. Drew and Adam. Three million listeners tune in to the nationally syndicated radio version of “Loveline” Sunday through Thursday, and more than 500,000 viewers watch the MTV show each night to be reassured that they don't masturbate too often or to figure out how to identify an abusive relationship. The for¬mula is the same on both shows: entertainment (Carolla) plus information (Pinsky). The atmosphere can get raucous—there are a lot of questions from sheepish boys about their penises—but Pinsky says there's good work being done here. "The point is to create a coast-to-coast peer-counseling session, where listeners can learn from the consequences of the callers' actions." They must be doing something right: the show has prompted a book spinoff, and both Pinsky and Carolla are working on new TV projects Pinsky, 39, helped create "Loveline" in 1983 when he was a 23-year-old med stu¬dent "appalled" that southern California teenagers were using a couple of KROQ deejays as their primary source for health info. Outside "Loveline," Pinsky is the di¬rector of chemical-dependency services at Pasadena's Las Enemas Hospital, a practic¬ing internist, the editor of an L.A. medical journal—oh, and the father of 5-year-old triplets with wife Susan. "Drew's not out there organizing a 'Loveline' cruise where people pay a thousand bucks and he lectures them from the lido deck," says Carolla, 34. "He's at the hospital, he's with his patients. He's very credible—you show me another famous TV doctor who didn't immediately quit his practice and dump, his wife."
Carolla, a former carpen¬ter and stand-up comedian who joined the show in 1995, rarely minces words. Am, a 14-year-old fan of the radio program who lives in Las Ve¬gas, puts it this way: "Some¬times Adam yells at people when they are doing stupid stuff, like having sex without a condom. But since he's so funny, you actually pay at¬tention when he gets serious like that." Pinsky, uses one of Carolla's own analogies to describe the comedian's role on the show: "If you want to get a dog to take a pill, you stick it into a Gaines-Burger. Well, I'm the pill, and Adam's the Gaines-Burger."
So the "Loveline" duo records the radio show at KROQ, tapes MTV shows in batches and squeezes in trips to colleges to field yet more questions. Dell is publishing "The Dr. Drew
and Adam Book" of advice in September, Carolla has a pilot for a variety-comedy pro¬gram called "The Man Show" and Pinsky is in negotiations for his own daytime talk show. "That ought to pretty much cover all media," says Carolla. "Unless someone in¬sists on 'Loveline: the Movie'." Or there's an overwhelming demand for those cruises.