 In case you missed it, in a recent David Dobrik vlog, he bought a homeless man, a van. But as a person in long-term recovery from drug addiction, I got a lot of questions. 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, what I like to do is take different topics going on in the YouTube community, try to see what lessons we can learn from them. But I also just like to get everybody's wheels turned in a little bit. So if you're into that stuff, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. And while you're at it, follow me over on Instagram and Twitter at the Rewired Soul. All right, so every video that I am doing, 20% of all the ad revenue goes to a charity and I try to tie it in with the subject of the video. So this video, 20% of the ad revenue will be going to Faces and Voices of Recovery. This is a great, great organization. I saw the founder of this organization, Speak One Time, during Recovery Month. And yeah, this is an awesome organization. I will also provide a direct donation link down below if you would like to donate some money and help fight not only addiction, but the stigma that surrounds addiction as well. All right, so anyways, in case you missed it, in a recent David Dover blog, here's what happened. All right, before I jump into this topic, disclaimer. All right, this was heartwarming as hell and I had a smile on my face the whole time. And I think a lot of creators, including myself, can learn from people like David Dobrik and Mr. Bees and things like that. That's one of the things that's inspired me to start donating part of the ad revenue that I make from these videos to different charity organizations. All right, so no hate against David Dobrik or anything like that. All right, but my beautiful girlfriend Tristan, she told me about this video and she brought up this clip. Did you ever abuse drugs? No, absolutely not. No. I don't even smoke weed much. A little bit. So again, I think this whole thing and this gesture was great. But I've been reading a lot of books on philosophy. So kind of like Socrates, I have a bunch of annoying questions. All right, so the first question I have is kind of about morality, right? So before doing this kind gesture for this man, David Dobrik asks, have you ever abused drugs? Is that a good depiction of, you know, whether or not the person is a good person? Like I said, I am a recovering drug addict and alcoholic. I've been clean for seven years, but not only that, I worked in a drug and alcohol treatment center for a little over three years. And anybody out there who's in recovery and especially if you've been part of like a 12 step fellowship or anything like that, like you find that a lot of people after they get sober are some of the nicest, most caring, generous people ever. So one of the common misconceptions about addiction is this person abuses drugs, this person abuses alcohol, therefore they are a bad person. But based on what we know about the science of the disease of addiction, we know how the survival mechanisms in the brain overrun empathy, morality, and all those things. So that's why a lot of people who are addicts do a lot of bad things. So when I see this question, I'm like, huh, is that a good gauge of whether or not this person is moral? Now, let's ask this too. A lot of homeless people are either, A, addicted to drugs or alcohol. And that's one of the things that's keeping them from rebuilding their life or even building their life. Or B, what if the person was homeless because of their drug addiction? I am working on a new book. I'm not gonna tell you what it is yet, but one of the topics I'm gonna discuss is when I first got sober seven years ago, I met homeless people in 12 step programs who were sober. Like I saw homeless people taking chips for like a year, two years. One of my good friends who's been sober for I think over 10 years now, he was homeless his first two or three years in recovery. So going back to David Dobrik's question, have you ever abused drugs? What if this was my friend who was sober for three years while being homeless? What if he answered David Dobrik yes, but he was currently sober? You know what I mean? The next question that pops in my head because old boy admitted that he smokes weed and I got nothing, nothing against weed, all right? Even though I do not partake, I live here in Nevada where it is legalized. I help vote to pass that bill. If you want to smoke, do your thing, baby. But my question is when asking these questions, where's the line for did you abuse drugs or are you abusing drugs? What is a drug? My questions that come up for me is what if this guy was taking Xanax or Adderall? What if he was taking them as prescribed and not abusing them, right? Where is that line? Would David Dobrik have a problem or does anybody else have a problem if this dude was taking prescription opioids, right? Because I think a lot of people when they think of drug abuse, they think of things like heroin, meth, cocaine. So opioids, prescription opioids fall into the same drug category as heroin. But here's the question, right? Where do you draw that line? Because fentanyl is an opioid which is much stronger than heroin. I believe it's about 50 times more potent than heroin. So one of the issues that we see is a lot of people don't classify it as a drug if it's legal or if it's prescribed, which brings us to the next topic. That question doesn't really ask what about alcohol? Alcoholism is one of the most deadly diseases in the United States, right? And it's a worldwide issue, but it doesn't get nearly as much attention as drug overdoses and here's why, all right? A lot of people who are dying because of drug overdoses, it's like overdose, all right? There was way too much of this in your system. Alcohol is a slow thing that just kills you over time. There are many people who are dying from a variety of different illnesses because of alcohol abuse. So when you look at the statistics for how many people die each year because of alcoholism, you're not even getting accurate numbers because someone who died of heart disease or certain types of cancer or certain types of organ failure, that might have been listed as the cause of death, but what caused that was long-term alcoholism. You see what I mean? So where is that line? Like I was a full-blown alcoholic before I started playing around with prescription opioids. So is that better or worse? See, one of the things that I've learned through my own addiction recovery as well as working with many other addicts and alcoholists, it's not even just in the mind of an alcoholic or an addict, it is also in the mind of society where alcoholics aren't nearly as bad as drug addicts. But let me tell you, let me tell you firsthand, an alcoholic can ruin their life as well as others just as quickly as a drug addict, all right? But like I said, we often don't see that as a problem. Now, the other question is, what if the guy was an alcoholic? Now we get into even more weird questions about morality. All right, this is stuff that I think about. I'm glad you're on this journey with me. What if this guy is an alcoholic, right? Is it a good idea to buy him a car where he might wreck it, get a DUI and all that kind of stuff? Like, what about that? All right, another question is, and this is something that I thought of when I saw this. Like, when I was a full-blown drug addict and like snorting a bunch of pills every day and getting blackout drunk every night, like people ask me all the time if I did drugs and I told them no. So what if this guy was lying? You know what I mean? But anyways, like I'm not trying to, you know, doubt play anything David Dobrik did. Like I just, I've been in this zone lately of just having a bunch of questions. But the last thing I wanna talk about is helping the homeless. So I remember, I don't know why this just popped into my head, around last Christmas time, here in Las Vegas, there was a commercial playing a lot where they talked about rather than donating money to homeless people, donate money to the organizations, right? So me personally, just as a recovering drug addict, this is just one of my things. Like, I do not give money directly to homeless people. I offer to buy them food or water or anything like that, just because as a recovering addict, I don't want my money to potentially go towards drugs or an overdose, right? But here's the thing that we gotta realize, and I don't have enough knowledge on the subject to dive deep into this, but just based knowledge of the homeless problem in the United States, a lot of people need housing, right? They need a permanent address, because I don't like band-aids. I like getting down to the root of the problem and helping people on the path towards success. So when I watch this and I imagine, what David bought him, which is awesome, a van that guy could sleep in it, got him a year worth of Chipotle, that's dope, but I wonder if that same amount of money would have been more well-spent towards like a month of Airbnb, you know what I mean? They got him closed, but I'm just saying other things to clean up, to get on their feet to get a job, you know what I mean? Like with my beautiful girlfriend Tristan getting her degree in social work, like that's a lot of what social work is, helping people learn how to help themselves so they don't get stuck in that situation. One of the biggest issues with homeless people that they face is that it's very hard to get a job without a permanent address, right? There's another organization and we'll probably donate to them again, sometimes this month, but there's an organization called Project Beauty Share and that is an organization that gives to women, right? To help them, you know, not only by makeup and things like that, to look presentable when they go out for interviews, but also like feminine hygiene products and things like that. So anyways, like I said, like this was just my wheels turning, you know, reading a lot of philosophy. I just have so many questions, but I am glad that I get to talk about this stuff and maybe bring up some topics that people didn't know about. And like I said, these are all just designed to get your wheels turning. And we encounter the massive issue of homelessness and drug addiction and alcoholism on a daily basis. Even though a lot of us try to ignore it, it is right there in our face. So I like having the conversation about what are the best ways to help people? And as a recovering addict, I do wanna bring up those other questions about morality and is somebody who's addicted a bad person or are they a sick person? You know, and all these other questions, you know what I'm saying? Anyways, let me know your thoughts on any of these subjects down in the comments below. And please do not forget to share this video because 20% of all the ad revenue is going to faces and voices of recovery. And again, down in the description and in the pinned comment below, you can donate to them directly if you would like. All right, man, that's all I have for this video. If you like this video, please give it a thumbs up. If you're new, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. And a huge, huge thank you to everybody who supports the channel, whether it be Patreon or buying my books or merch or whatever it is, you're all awesome. All right, thanks again for watching. I'll see you next time.