hi are you a drug addict do you know someone who's a drug addict or are you
just fascinated with drug addicts well in this video this drug addict is going
to explain why he cannot smoke weed 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 is all about mental health addiction
recovery and all that stuff so if you're into that make sure you subscribe and
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alright so yeah let's talk about marijuana okay so before I get started
and kind of share my experience and everything like that I just want to say
real quick this is my experience okay those of you who don't know me hi my
name is Chris I am a recovering drug addict and alcoholic my addiction
started with alcohol then my primary drug of choice was opioids okay but I'm
the type of drug addict where you give me anything that will get me out of the
current state of mind that I am in and I will try it alright so after destroyed
my life and almost dying I got sober on June 23rd 2012 so I have a little over
seven years sobriety aside from that I am also in the middle of getting my CA
DC which is a certified alcohol and drug counselors license and I have also
worked in a drug-and-alcohol treatment center for a little bit over three years
okay so I was working there and not only did we help people with addictions but
also mental illness okay so the next thing I want to say yes I live in Nevada
okay here weed is legal and guess what I
voted to legalize weed because if you could smoke weed or if you'd like to
smoke weed I do not care alright same thing with alcohol
I can't drink alcohol but you want to drink get your drink on baby girl
alright so anyways let's jump into this um so yeah I'll just share my experience
with weed and like I said like if you're an addict in recovery like I get a lot
of people asked me like hey Chris I got sober off these drugs nice so smoke weed
or I get family members who ask me and like hey you know my my loved one just
got sober can they safely smoke weed so I'm gonna share my experience okay so as
a kid I was a good kid I was a great kid okay
growing up but I you know I like many other children I succumbed to you know
peer pressure when I was young and I was always trying to fit in everything like
that and yeah I can't remember all this probably was a high school yeah he knows
maybe 14 or 15 yes this first time I smoked weed we dis class we like we
smoked weed in this weird little tunnel thing by my high school it was weird and
I came back and I was super paranoid super paranoid at school right and I
didn't like it I didn't like how it made me feel at all and eventually those same
friends like my dad was out of town and yeah they they brought over some weed
and we smoked again we did this thing called a gravity bong where it was like
in a bathtub and everything and it got me messed up and yeah again I was super
paranoid I just do like how it made me feel right and yeah even though I'm a
recovering addict and alcoholic I didn't really drink or anything aside from
smoking pot like until the end of my senior year okay and then that's when I
fell in love with alcohol it you know the first time I drank it calm down my
anxiety my depression went away you know like all these things it was like this
magical elixir that I've been looking for my entire life alright so as my
alcoholism progress and then I ended up finding you know prescription opioids I
didn't really smoke pot like that much like the only time I would really smoke
is if we were like having a party and like other people
we're smoking and I was just insanely drunk Amodeo Cruz you want a bone rip
and I'm like sure right never liked it but anyways there were a few times when
my drug dealer would run out of pills because I would mainly buy pills and
there was some times when he when he ran out of pills and he'd be like I don't
have any pills but you know I got weed and like like I said you know part of my
addiction is like I would do anything I would take any substance that would turn
this thing off alright so even when my dealer did not
have my drug of choice it's like what other choice do you have
sure I'll give it a try right and yeah like so even in my 20s when I would
smoke like I get really paranoid I get really anxious and all that right
so anyways my addiction got progressively worse I've done a million
videos on this so I won't go through my entire addiction story alright but I you
know I was losing everything my kids mom threatened to take my son away you know
I I tried 12-step programs I tried going to a detox center and I just kept
relapsing okay I am a chronic relapsing alright I love drugs and alcohol so much
okay and I don't know how to deal with my life so I kept running back to those
things so after I went to a detox center to get off drugs and alcohol and I got
out like things were going good for a while I stayed clean like when I left
that detox center they they recommend it they're like hey you know go to this
outpatient program and go to these 12-step meetings on my I got this I
don't need your silly Jesus Freak 12-step programs I don't need your
outpatient program I got this right and I saved clean and life started you know
getting better but one of the ways and you guys might be able to relate to this
one of the ways I always justified my blackout drinking and drug use was I
couldn't sleep I have this brain that's constantly going and
couldn't sleep so after I got sober I was having a lot of problems sleeping
and my roommate he smoked pot and like you know something about my sleep issues
he's I hear he's like do you want to smoke at a hub knock you out and that's
one thing like we'd always help me go to sleep so I'm like okay whatever right
because I'm a drug addict my problem is with opioids my problem
was with alcohol my problems not with weed I could smoke all the weed I want
right so I started smoking like just at night to go to sleep and everything like
that and and yeah basically what happened was I was you know clean
quote-unquote clean for a few months I use air quotes because I was still
smoking pot and I ended up getting injured
I got calcific tendinitis and my shoulder and I had to go to the
emergency room and they prescribed me some vicodin when I left and like in the
hospital they didn't give me any pain medicine they shot me up with some kind
of anti-inflammatory I felt a million times better but they sent me off with
this prescription just in case right and like usually when I tell this story I
don't I don't even mention the weed part like unless I'm doing something like
this or I'm specifically talking about weed but like I talk about how this
relapse happened but whenever I think about my relapse this last relapse I had
right like eight years ago it started with weed okay because what happened was
they prescribed me that vicodin and I got home I wasn't in pain right I had
these vicodin and I remember staring at that vicodin bottle and it says take one
as needed every four hours for pain and I'm sitting there and one side of my
brain is like Chris you can't take these once you start you cannot stop right so
don't even mess with these like your are not even in pain within the other side
of my brain the Attic side of my brain is like hey Chris any idiot can take one
pill as needed every four hours for pain right and like that side of the brain
would always win out but part of what
side of the brain would tell me was you're already smoking weed what's the
difference right you haven't gone out of control smoking pot you know you haven't
become addicted to weed so why don't you take this pill and I'm like yeah you're
right so I took that one pill I took that one vicodin pill after like I think
I had three months clean and within seconds of taking that one vicodin pill
I took four more okay because my brains like what's this one little five
milligram vicodin gonna do for you right so I took four more the next morning
that entire prescription was gone that day I was calling my drug dealer again
okay so that ended up that one vicodin pills and smoking pot ended up kicking
off a year and a half long relapse that almost killed me all right and that is
when I got sober seven years ago so when I got sober like I I thought people were
insane like when I went to a a meetings and they were like we haven't drank in
this many years ride a bike you guys are ridiculous so but there's no way you
haven't had a single drop of alcohol like that's how crazy it was for me well
buddy why would you not even drink a beer you know because I couldn't fathom
it that's the kind of insanity I was in I could not imagine a life where you're
not taking any type of substance to alter your current state of mind right
but as i sat there i started realizing over time that people were living these
amazing lives without taking these substances and i started to believe them
all right but like when i was working with my sponsor as i went through you
know just my own stuff in my own you know difficulties and everything like
that like i have this brain where whenever I get stressed whenever I get
overwhelmed whenever I get anxious whenever I get depressed I want to take
a substance that can help alleviate that right but I learned about what addiction
is like I don't take substances normally and I don't cope with life normally I'm
not good with dealing with life life's terms I will find something and I
will abuse the hell out of it and even if I'm doing the substance that
is not my substance of choice it will lead me back to the hard stuff every
single time and that's what I learned all right
so this is why I cannot smoke weed now when I was working in the treatment
center I get questions like this I get questions like this all the time where I
still smoke pot I still smoke pot right and like I can just share with you my
personal experience okay but I have literally worked with thousands of drug
addicts trying to get clean so whenever I was running a group and somebody would
ask me like your world can I still smoke weed right I would do this real simple
experiment okay I would say how many people in this room relapsed and it
started by smoking weed right you'd see so many hands go up okay because like
his thing you don't got to believe me like if you are a recovering addict and
you've had relapses attributed to weed like you started smoking weed and then
it led you back to your drug of choice just let me know down in the comments
below because here's the thing here's what I learned in my recovery the drugs
and the alcohol are not the problem okay the way that I deal with life is the
problem I didn't know how to deal with life I didn't know how to deal with any
feelings thoughts emotions anything like that and let me tell you this with seven
years clean like the freedom I have now is amazing okay like this life still get
I don't know life II yeah absolutely those of you who follow my channel you
know that this year has been a mother effort you think I didn't want to like
have a drink you think I didn't want to smoke some pot right like I wanted just
the the insanity in my head to stop for five damn minutes but I know that that
will just take me back to my drug of choice and I have way too many things in
my life right now to even risk it and this is what breaks my heart because I
see people in early recovery who are risking it they're like oh you know
try it I'll see if I could do this right and it's just you know it's part of a
bigger issue and I don't have enough time to dive into this but it's part of
the bigger issue that we are taught from a young age that if you're feeling any
type of way that you don't want to feel just put something in your body just put
something in your body and change the way you feel right but what recovery has
taught me and one of the reasons I I have this channel and I try to help
others is because I no longer need those things I have so many tools I have so
many tools at my disposal that I can't even keep track of right like today I
have my therapy appointment all right I have meditation I have journals I have
just so many different other coping skills that do not involve substances so
like yeah like I said weed is legal here in Las Vegas I smell weed all the time
everything like that but I know for me personally it will just take me right
back to my drugs of choice and I will destroy my life and everything that I've
gotten back over the last seven years all right
so like I said this is my experience if you have experience with this stuff feel
free to share down in the comments below but I get a lot of questions about this
everything like that so I wanted to hop on here and share that with you all
right but don't forget go over to my twitter
at the rewired soul retweet this video and you will get an additional entry
into the shane dawson pallet giveaway happening this Sunday all right anyways
that's all I got for this video if you like this video please give it a thumbs
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thanks again for watching I'll see you next time