what is up everybody this is Chris from the rewires so 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 mental health awareness addiction addiction recovery
and all of that so if you're like me always trying to improve your mental and
emotional well-being make sure you subscribe and bring that notification
bell alright so I do want to get back to sharing some of my personal stories on
here I've been for those of you who don't know I've been clean and sober for
a little over seven and a half years I got sober on my 27th birthday June 23rd
2012 and yeah hopefully bits and pieces of my story can inspire people
struggling with addiction people new in recovery or if you have a loved one who
is struggling with addiction so yeah I whenever I make a video like this I have
to think long and hard before I make it about how I'm gonna share this story
because I want to make it very clear like the last thing I ever want to do is
glorify or romanticize these drugs okay like that is just my worst nightmare any
of you who have ever been to a 12-step meeting say they call them war stories
right and like some people I put this emphasis on like the good feeling it
gives you and all the fun and everything like that like there are these like
glimpses of fun in there but it can destroy your life right it's kind of
like it's kind of like you know you know that toxic relationship that you were in
and you break up right you break up because it was so toxic but then
afterwards you look at it and you think about like the good times you had our
brain has this weird way of just getting rid of all the negatives that happen in
that relationship but we're just like huh take me out a nice deep that one
time like now now it was toxic terrible relationship alright so anyways this is
not to romanticize this is just to share my experience and you'll see how my
cocaine addiction was kind of this tipping point that
almost killed me so anyways my addiction started out with
alcohol okay my mom's an alcoholic I swore off alcohol I was like I'm never
gonna drink but at the end of my senior year of high school
I went through a bad breakup with my high school sweetheart well I thought I
was gonna marry and all that stuff and I just didn't want to feel anything and I
got drunk for the first time and I was cooked alright
so four years after that like my alcoholism just progressively got worse
lost jobs lost a lot of money just I was in a bad place and then when my son when
he was born his mom was prescribed a bunch of prescription opioids because
she had a c-section and I started taking those and I fell in love with
prescription opioids fast forward things get worse her and I
split up because I can't get my act together I become the single father and
eventually it got to a point where it was so bad that I was no longer allowed
to see my son and I hated her for that I resented her for that even though that
was one of the best things to ever happen to me and to give some people
some hope out there who are struggling with addiction or you're in early
recovery she's one of my best friends today we have an amazing relationship
in fact like look it brings a smile to my face in fact this weekend because we
we share custody of my son this weekend my son is actually staying there because
it's his cousin's birthday party and everything like that but we're gonna go
see that new Pixar movie onward and she has another son my my son's little
brother she has another son with her now-husband who she's been with since
about a year after her and I split up anyways I'm taking my son to this movie
and she she said he her other son he's like five wants to go I absolutely love
that kid and yeah I'm taking him with us and like I don't know it is just such a
beautiful thing that her and I went from hating each other or hating me a little
bit more so because my addiction and now like now she trusts me to take not only
my son places like her son you know what I mean
anyway it's the cocaine um so yeah I was in a really dark place after I wasn't
allowed to see my son anymore and I live in Las Vegas and every
weekend I was working at this shady call center with a bunch of other drug
addicts and every weekend we would go to the casino cash our checks get super
wasted then go to this bar and get even more wasted and my thing was alcohol and
pills but all the people I was hanging out with they loved cocaine like the
cocaine dealer was actually the doorman at the bar that we would go to so we'd
go there when it was his shift so my friends could get cocaine and they
were always trying to get me to do it always trying to get me to do it
and like even in active addiction I I knew I was an addict like I I knew you
know what I mean I knew that once I find a new substance I get hooked and I
always turned them down when they offered me a cocaine because I'm like
listen I know I'm gonna get hooked and I'm overweight I have heart issues
because of my drug and alcohol use I'm like if I start using cocaine like it
will kill me and I don't know what it was I can't remember exactly why it was
maybe I was just so wasted I finally agreed and I was like they offered it to
me like you keep offering like eventually I'm gonna try it so I finally
said yeah I was like okay cool I'll try it so we ended up going out to my
buddies in a minivan for some reason we ended up going out there and I hated
weed I hated weed too but he's like listen here smoke a little weed then
we'll take the cocaine it gives you not this nice little balance why cuz cocaine
brings it up weed brings it down or whatever so I smoked a little and then I
snorted coke and it gave me what I thought was the
best feeling of my entire life I remember going back into the bar and
running around to all my friends who were all over the bar and just like I
was like I feel amazing I was like this is the best I've ever felt and even
though I was drunk and high there was just part of my brain where I
was like this is awful I'm like you love this way too much like this is
gonna be a problem right like a part of me knew that this was gonna be a problem
and spoiler alert it never felt that good again all right but that's what we
do as drug addicts right we get that first high and we chase it we chase it I
did everything everything I could in a couple and the coming months - you know
I like I would go back to smoking weed and then snorting coke never got that
feeling again anyways once I once I started it became just a normal thing
every weekend when we went out to that bar we'd do that we'd go into the
bathroom we you know do some coke together um then I would just I would
start doing it at work with my friends like we'd go out drinking the night
before and it was like oh you're just a little pick-me-up right and they'd give
me a little bump and I'd go in the bathroom or whatever it was I remember
it was around the time that uh the new the new West Diablo what was that ten
years ago came out and my buddy who got me and the coke he came over and all we
did was snort coke and play Diablo all night right like it was weird anyways um
that was one of the the things that finally led led me to having major
health problems I already had health problems my heart wasn't pumping fluids
the way it should be so I kept swelling up for my for my feet like all the way
up to my abdomen and I kept going to the emergency room lying to them about the
drugs I use they would give me diuretics get all the fluid out they would give me
some painkillers I would go back there every other week right anyways they
finally held me at the hospital I go you become a regular here we need to check
you out and see what's going on and I had congestive heart failure
I was 26 years old my heart was the size of my lungs it was working at like less
than 20% they gave me a 10% chance of living in fact they even told my mom in
California and said yo you should come down to Las Vegas because we don't think
your son is going to live through the night right
so like because of my weight because of the cocaine I pushed my heart to the
limit and I was about to die um and and yeah it's it's crazy how addicted I
can't I became to it um one of the reasons I know other people do this I
laugh because it is so stupid one of the reasons I justified all the ways cuz
like US drug eyes we could just define just about anything
oh I justify don't like oh well cocaine it'll help you lose weight it'll help me
lose weight no no because I also had a major food problem oh I would get high
and I wouldn't even be hungry and I would go to like the Del Taco
drive-through or jack-in-the-box drive-thru and I binge eat and then I
would puke my brains out like I don't know I like times like this when I get
to share my story I'm just so grateful I don't live like that anymore you know
like just taking whatever we can to escape the feelings that we don't want
and it's only making us feel worse but we keep doing it anyways it is complete
insanity right and I live that way for almost a decade but me and millions of
other people are living proof that recovery is possible right like all it
takes is this willingness to get better and there's open-mindedness to do some
stuff that we don't want to do and for me that was 12-step programs when I
first got sober because I didn't have insurance is gonna rehab alright
BAE anyways I just wanted to come on here and share my story with all of you
if any of you have stories of recovery that you would like to talk about down
in the comments below let me know alright so in the last video where I did
eight mind-blowing stats about mental health I ask you guys a question I was
like what's your favorite like mental health helper and things like that so
this one comes from I think it's pronounced Kela
or is it Kyla I apologize if I don't know how to pronounce your name anyways
she says my favorite is my medication because it's like dr. Jekyll and mr.
Hyde if I'm off my meds I'm taking everyone
down with me verse when I am a saint when I am on them and yeah like I I try
so much to not take medications um just because the side effects and everything
like that but I go through different stages of what I need them when I don't
need them for example I might make a video on this I've been off my prozac
for about a month and a half but I'm on a mood stabilizer
I love mic'ed all I'm just trying it out far left side of that side effects its
stabilizing my mood a little bit more but yeah like listen first off always
work with a doctor if you're gonna come off your meds but second off I be self
aware something I do there's the best advice I can give anybody out there
about medications if you are tapering off your medications with the doctor
tell the people in your life all right for me that's my beautiful girlfriend
Tristan if I'm ever getting off my meds I tell her straight up I say hey I'm
coming off my meds I just got back from the doctors I'm gonna taper off I said
but if I start acting crazy you need to tell me because part of mental illness
is that we don't even recognize when we're acting nuts you know like
sometimes we'll snap out of it but it's good to have someone in your life who
can point that out to you you know what I mean
because sometimes back you know what I wasn't telling people I'd have to sit
there freaking out on the cusp of relapse and then be like oh oh I haven't
been taking my meds cuz I try to analyze someone what's changed in my life I'm
like that's it alright so thank you kela or Kyla for your response and for the
next video I'll pick another one of your responses but but let me know your
stories of recovery or if you know somebody who has gotten sober it's a
little bit inspirational let's do that alright anyways that's all I got for
this video if you like this video please give it a thumbs up if you're new make
sure you subscribe and wing that notification bow and a huge huge thank
you to everybody who supports the channel over on patreon suppose
everybody who supports the channel by buying the mental health
three-wide so calm or the rewired soul merge like this shirt with my adorable
kitty Maya alright thanks again for watching I'll see you next time