- Well, I figured that, at some point,
someone's gonna try to expose me,
so I figured, why doesn't that person be me?
(light jazzy music)
What is up, everybody?
This is Chris from The Rewired Soul,
where we talk about the problem
but focus on the solution.
And if you're new to my channel,
my channel's all about mental health,
and what I like to do is pull different topics
from the YouTube community to try to teach you
how to improve your mental and emotional wellbeing.
So, for any of that stuff, make sure you subscribe
and ring that notification bell.
This video's gonna be short, quick,
maybe short, I don't know,
a little bit of a story time.
But I figure, like, I get a ton,
a ton of comments asking me about my credentials,
so here it goes, let me tell you
a little bit more about myself, all right?
So, I'm a guy who grew up with
a very traumatic childhood.
My mom was an alcoholic for 20 years.
She's awesome and sober now.
She's been clean for over 13 years now,
and over six and a half years ago,
she helped me get clean as well.
But I had a very troubling childhood,
not seeing my mom, not having good communication with her,
cutting her out of my life
at different points and all of that.
I grew up being very socially anxious.
A lot of children of alcoholics are.
I was afraid of failure, I was afraid of being judged,
I was afraid of abandonment.
As I got to high school, my depression and anxiety
got really, really bad, and I also started to develop
a lot of anger issues, so I'm the kinda guy
who was freaking out, snapping at people,
but also suppressing a lot of stuff
and holding it inside.
I'm a guy who didn't touch alcohol or drugs
until I was 18 years old out of fear
that I would become an alcoholic or a drug addict
like my mom.
But, after a breakup with my high school sweetheart,
I tried alcohol for the first time
and it was downhill from there.
All right, I'm a guy who thought
I would never become a drug addict
or an alcoholic, but I did.
I'm a guy who lost dozens of jobs
because of my addiction.
I'm a guy who pushed away friends and family members
because of my addiction.
I'm a guy who thought that I was
never going to do drugs because I was better than that,
but when prescription opioids were offered to me,
I became addicted.
All right, I'm a guy who had no job
and I ended up getting my girlfriend pregnant.
Not only that, but not long after my son was born,
I'm a guy who had one of my best friends die
at the age of 24 years old from the disease of alcoholism.
All right, I'm a guy who ended up losing everything,
my friends, my family, my car, my apartment.
Worst of all, I lost my son.
I wasn't allowed to see my son
because I was such a hot mess
his mom wouldn't let me see him, right?
I'm a guy who was content with dying.
I'm a guy who went to sleep every single night
with a handful of pills and a bottle of Bacardi hoping,
I was praying, if there is a god,
do not let me wake up tomorrow morning.
And every single morning, when I woke up
and the sun was shining through my windows,
I was like, damn, I gotta go through this
all over again.
I'm a guy who was trying to kill myself
with drugs and alcohol.
I ended up getting congestive heart failure
at the age of 26 years old, all right?
I'm a guy who had multiple relapses
and gave up on trying to get clean
because I thought a guy like me was hopeless, all right?
I'm a guy who sat in the hospital bed
in the cardiac critical care unit
with my mom, my best friend, my son's mom,
and my aunt sitting there crying, begging me to stop.
And I'm a guy who told them to quit worrying about me
and just let me die, all right?
I'm a guy whose mom saved him
on my 27th birthday is when I got clean and sober.
Then, I turned into a guy who got
a little glimmer of hope.
I started listening to other people's stories and realizing
that I wasn't a guy who was alone.
I was somebody who was going through
what a lot of people were going through.
They weren't content with the live that they were living,
and they thought that they were hopeless.
I'm a guy who shut my mouth for years
to try to learn from other people
because they told me, if I want what they have,
I gotta do what they do.
I'm a guy where, after I got sober,
I had even worse anger issues,
worse depression, worse anxiety.
All right, I'm a guy who had to look back at
all of my previous toxic relationships,
not only all of the mental, verbal,
and physical abuse that women put me through,
but I also had to look at myself and realize that
I wasn't the best guy to be dating either,
and I was terrible.
I'm a guy who had to reflect on all of that stuff.
I'm a guy who had to quit blaming
the rest of the world for my problems.
I'm a guy who had to quit blaming my mom
for why I became the way I was.
I'm a guy who had to learn forgiveness.
I had to learn how to forgive my alcoholic mom
and rebuild a relationship with her.
I'm a guy who had to stay clean
and move back to Las Vegas with $200 in my pocket
to try to be a father to my son again.
I'm a guy whose kid's mom still thought I was
a lying piece of garbage when I moved back to Las Vegas
and still wouldn't let me see my son, all right?
I'm a guy who stayed clean one day at a time.
I worked on my mental health,
I worked on my depression,
I worked on my anxiety, I worked on my relationships,
because I'm a guy who stayed single for a year and a half
because I knew how selfish it would be
to bring somebody down with me
into a terrible relationship with me.
I'm a guy who worked so hard that,
rather than my kid's mom calling me up and saying,
hey, here's what we're doing with our son, bye,
I'm a guy who now she calls and says,
hey, here's what's going on with our son,
what do you think we should do about it?
I'm a guy who took a damaged relationship
with my son's mom, and now she's one of
my best friends in the world,
she's remarried, has another son,
and I couldn't ask for more, all right?
I'm a guy who went from wanting to die
every single day to waking up every single morning
with a life that I couldn't even imagine.
I'm a guy where I was three years sober
and I got the opportunity to work at
a drug and alcohol treatment center
to help other people who were in a place
that I used to be in, all right?
I'm a guy who got to do individual sessions with people.
I'm a guy who got to do group sessions in front of people.
I'm a guy who got to speak in front of hundreds of people,
and share my story, and give people hope.
I'm also a guy who got very fortunate
by landing a job in one of the most
biggest mental health and addiction treatment centers
in the entire country, even though I didn't have a license.
I'm a guy who got hired
purely based on my experience, all right?
I'm a guy who's helped hundreds,
and hundreds, and hundreds of people
turn their life around.
But no credit to me, I just gave them the tools,
I gave them advice, I gave them my experience,
and they did all the work.
I'm a guy who was fortunate enough
to have people tell me that I helped
turn their life around, even more so than people who
complain about me on the internet, all right?
I'm a guy who spent three and a half years
working in an addiction treatment center,
and I was getting calls about former clients,
about friends that I knew,
who were dying from addiction overdoses, from suicide,
or from alcohol and drug related incidents, all right?
I'm a guy who, in the last three and a half years,
I've experienced over 75 deaths, all right?
I'm a guy who has learned how to work through that.
I'm a guy who knows how to manage my anger,
and my anxiety, and my depression today,
so I can be a good father,
so I can be a good boyfriend.
I'm a guy who just got back from the movies with my son.
I'm a guy where, after I finish uploading this video,
I'm gonna play some video games with my son.
I'm a guy who's actually recording this video
while one of my friends is outside
who trusts me again.
Speaking of friends, I'm a guy where,
when I had three years sober,
I was able to help save my best friend's life
because he fell into an addiction of drugs and alcohol,
and he is now over three years sober, all right?
So, I'm a guy who's also a nerd
when it comes to neuroscience and mental health,
so I decided to read a lot of books
and educate myself.
I'm a guy who knew I was nothing special,
and I just like helping people with their mental health,
so I'm a guy who decided to start a YouTube channel.
I'm a guy with no credentials and knew I was
gonna get crap from people
telling me I don't have credentials,
so who the hell am I to give people advice?
I knew that was coming when I started,
but I'm a guy who tunes out all that noise
and keeps on my mission on a daily basis
to help people who are struggling with their mental health
to give them just a little bit of a glimmer of a hope
that I got that told me that I can turn my life around.
So again, I'm a guy who often gets a bunch of comments
asking me about my credentials, all right?
Asking me who am I to be giving this type of advice, okay?
Clearly, people don't understand what I'm doing here.
I'm trying to change the game when it comes to mental health
because I know that people aren't talking about it.
I know that people are afraid to talk about it.
I know that people are afraid to open up about it.
I know people are saying that passively watching YouTube
and reality TV shows, not understanding
how it's affecting their own life
and how they're doing the exact same thing, all right?
So, I get a ton of comments saying,
oh, you shouldn't talk about this
because you're not licensed.
Well, here's the thing, I see mental health
just like physical health, and until we start going around
to all the health YouTubers, telling them that,
unless they're a doctor, or a licensed nutritionist,
or a dietician that they need to get off YouTube,
I'm staying right here.
Could you imagine that?
Could you imagine me watching
some health and fitness channel
and me saying, like, who the hell are you
to tell me to quit eating fast food
and that I should go to the gym, huh?
Who are you?
What are your credentials?
What's your license, all right?
I am trying to change the way that
we talk about mental health.
You don't need a license to tell people to meditate.
You don't need a license to tell people
to get your ass to therapy.
You don't need a license to tell people
that they're not alone.
So, if you are somebody who wants
to talk to a licensed professional,
by all means, go, go do it.
There are plenty of channels out there
with amazing licensed professionals,
and some of them have the same experiences I do.
But if you want somebody who has experienced
some of the pain and suffering that you've been through,
and worked his butt off to come out on the other side
even stronger, and is passionate about
helping one person at a time improve their mental health,
then you are in the right place.
So again, welcome to The Rewired Soul,
where we talk about the problem,
but focus on the solution.
And if you're new to my channel,
my channel's all about mental health,
and what I like to do is pull different topics
from the YouTube community to try to teach you
how to improve your mental and emotional wellbeing.
And if you're into that stuff,
make sure you subscribe
and ring that notification bell.