 What is up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem but focused on the solution. So this is a brand new video I'm doing and I had to, I have to let you all out there see my reaction. So let me talk about what I've been doing tonight. I was bored, it's Friday night and I'm like, you know what? I wanna learn more about cratum. I work at a drug and alcohol treatment center. People ask me about cratum, coming off of opiates and stuff. And I'm very open minded. Some of you saw one of my videos that I did about harm reduction against it but they're safe forms of harm reduction. I'm like, okay, what's this cratum thing? Let me learn about it. So there's this channel which you're about to watch, Psyched Substance. I go to this guy because he talks about harm reduction. There's a lot of stuff with psychedelics and things like that and the dude, let me say it this way. He labels himself as very scientific and knowledgeable and understanding and he puts out the right information. He's done other videos, trashing other harm reduction channels and things like that. And I was like, okay, this dude knows what he's talking about with cratum. But in my other video where I talk about harm reduction and how dangerous it can be, it's talking about switching one drug for another, right? And never really getting down to the root of the problem. That was my argument. So I'm like, okay, let's see what's going on with cratum. Maybe this is something that I just don't know anything about. So I'm gonna show you his first video. The one I just watched, right? And here's part of it right here. So let's watch it together, okay? And by the way, I'm doing this and this is a little bit longer. I apologize it's a little bit longer, but it's gonna be worth it, okay? But I want you guys to see my reactions to this stuff because it is insane. All right, let's go. All right, so this is video number one that he made in 2016. Although it's easier to say kick a cratum habit than a heroin habit, cratum is addicting. And if you have an addictive personality and say you're not using it to wean yourself off opiates, it may be in your best interest to stay away from it. The withdrawal. Okay, okay, so here's something. You'll see it in the next video I'll take you to in a second. This guy, he always talks about addictive personality, okay? No clue what that means. I don't understand how you can label yourself as a harm reduction channel, right? Harm reduction for addiction. This is better, this is a better option, but he doesn't understand addiction at all. He uses the word addictive. He talks about addictive personality and addiction, like they're two separate things. Like I don't know how he separates them. I'm wondering if maybe he thinks one of them psychological and the other one's physical, but it doesn't make sense the way he separates the two, okay? So this one, I just wanna point that out. And he talks, right now he's gonna talk about the withdrawal effects and I might skip forward a little bit where he talks about some other stuff, so hold on. Drawls aren't terrible, but there are definite opiate like withdrawals. People report having like a runny nose. Okay, so let me get this straight homeboy. So this is a drug that should be used to get off of opiates, but it's potentially addictive and the withdrawals from it are similar to opiates. I'm starting to fail to see the benefits of cratum, okay? So let me skip forward a little bit. In conclusion, I would recommend cratum to anyone who's struggling with an opiate addiction. I strongly believe in its potential to help people crush life-threatening addictions. I would also recommend cratum to anyone who needs a boost in focus. I'd even recommend cratum as a replacement for Adderall and people who are struggling with the nasty come downs that Adderall has. So, okay, I just don't understand his logic here. So there's another part of this video, okay? Where he talks about how he knows it's addictive. He doesn't recommend anybody uses it daily because it can become addictive, but then he promotes people using it as an alternative to Adderall. In this video, I will link to it in the description below. He talks about using it as a social lubricant and using it to relax and calm down, but just don't use it every day, okay? And like, isn't that the problem with addiction in the first place? Isn't that one of the major issues? Like, I would love, I would personally, as a recovering opiate addict, I would love to just do it when I wanted to. Same thing with alcohol. All right, so that was a clip from this video that he made in 2016. Okay, you can find it right here, August 15th, 2016. Crazy thing, it's crazy how the universe works. I watched this video and I'm like, I wonder if this guy's made any new videos lately. And yesterday, just yesterday, he made this brand new video. Let's go to the thumbnail. You guys gotta see the thumbnail, hold on. All right, so wait a second, videos. So right here, right here. The thumbnail says, if you can't read it, it's time for the lies to end. And then it says, why I stop taking Kratom is it truly safe. And I just saw that, I'm like, I wonder how this story is gonna play out. So I'll be transparent with you. I watched the first five minutes of this, and I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. My reaction's like, I'm like, I gotta record this live because I need to solidify my point as to why harm reduction is stupid in very many forms. Okay, so let's watch this together. I'm gonna start it back where I started, but like I said, this is gonna be a longer video. I'm gonna be pausing it and pointing out different things, but let's watch it together. You ready? Let's do this. So first he starts off this video, just so you know why it's fast forwarded a little bit. He made this huge disclaimer. Hey, anybody at Google who's watching this, this follows all the guidelines. Don't demonetize my video. Like, sorry dude, they demonetize everything, so you're screwed. Okay, anyways, let's move forward. Let's see what he has to say about why he stopped using Kratom, all right? Let's go. Help in making them ban Kratom. You really do need to hear me out and listen to my story because in actuality, what I believe is that this video will help it remain legal, but not only that, it will also help to protect a lot of the users out there from the mountains of bullshit that Kratom advocates have been peddling, my old self included, which does nothing but really harm both the user and just Kratom as a whole. Okay, so this is part of the issue right here. It seems like this guy, okay, by the way, I might be totally wrong and if I'm wrong, feel free to flame me in the comments or whatever. I might be totally wrong, but I can already tell that he's trying not to take full responsibility or admit that he was wrong, okay? But he does mention his older self not being well enough educated, getting his information from the internet, okay? And that, by the way, that's one of the downfalls of YouTube. Like you can research anything and anybody can throw up any random information, no credibility, no licensing, no credentials at all, and we take it as the word of God, which is mind blowing. Like, I'm not surprised. Like this guy, he's like, wait, what? The stuff I Googled? That stuff I Googled wasn't accurate? And it's like, sorry dude. Okay, so there's a little funny thing he does with Google Home. Check it out. Okay, Google, how long does Kratom withdrawal last? Here's a summary from the website nsuboteticles.com. Another similarity is found between caffeine and Kratom withdrawal duration, typically lasting from three to four days. Okay, Google, your information is wrong. I always try to tell the truth. I take honesty seriously. Now, before I get into my own story as to why I stopped taking Kratom. That was cute. That was really cute. Of which the details might shock some of you. I do need to make it undeniably clear that by no means is the intent of this video to suggest that Kratom is inherently harmful or that I'm necessarily against its use for those individuals who do need it. For these reasons, before I... Okay, so again, I'm gonna speculate on where this is going and I might be wrong, okay? So, what I'm assuming is that he had a bad experience. He became addicted, that's what I'm guessing. But again, he's trying to cover his tracks and be like, look, I think it can help people. I'm somebody who became addicted, but not everybody. This is often the argument you hear with pharmaceutical industries. Not everybody gets addicted to opiates that they prescribe, but a lot of them do. But not all of them, but a lot of them do. And it sounds like he's trying to play that game too, which is very, very dangerous. Before I do get into my story, I think it's absolutely necessary that I first point out reasons as to why Kratom should remain legal and available, regardless of my own personal experience with the compound. So, sorry, I was getting down to the music a little. Okay, so you can skip to 5.38 if you already knew everything there is to know about Kratom. So this is a little review, a little recap for you guys too if you didn't know about Kratom. And it says, and how it can help addicts, exclamation point, all right? I'm gonna have something to say about that in a minute. For those of you who don't know, Kratom or Kratom is a psychoactive plant which is native to Southeast Asia. It has been consumed by the locals for probably hundreds of years. What people like to do is drink the dried powdered leaves for its various medicinal and psychoactive effects. For one, it's a very powerful analgesic. It can cause euphoria. And also depending on the dose and strain, it can either increase somebody's energy and cause them to feel more motivated or it can have the opposite effect and make someone feel very relaxed and chill and well sedated. It can make you extremely tired. Okay, so this is something he mentioned in the last video. By the way, I was pointing out my cat, she's adorable. She likes to nap back there. Anyways, so this is something he talked about in the last video. He talks about the euphoric effect it gives. Like this is how things become addictive. Our brain is based on a habit loop. Trigger behavior reward, right? I'm bored. I use Kratom or another drug. I get a reward, right? Euphoria, whatever it is. Our brain then wants to repeat that cycle the next time we experience that same trigger, okay? So the way he lays it, like this is why it's important to talk about. Addiction is not a problem with a specific substance. Addiction is a problem with the way we set up our own personal habit loops. Typically it involves the way our brain fires off dopamine when we do certain things. Nothing to do with drugs. I've made this argument very clear. This is why there's gambling addicts, sex addicts, food addicts. And most recently, in recent years, we have internet and gaming addicts, social media addicts. Okay? Nothing to do with substances. It's a psychological mental disorder. There's physical dependencies that come along with substances, but the primary problem with addiction is that it is the way we rewire our neural pathways. Safety-wise, no one has ever been documented to have died directly as a result of Kratom consumption. People have died who had Kratom found in their system, but it was never proven, at least undeniably, that Kratom was the cause of their demise. In the United States, they currently are claiming that 36 people total have in fact died from just simply overdosing on Kratom. Nope. All right, hold on, what did this say? But again, these individuals were found to have other drugs in their system as well. This means it is likely they died as a result of a drug cocktail. Okay, something that's common, but I don't know, if Kratom worked so well, why didn't they stop doing the other drugs? Now, let's just pretend for a second that this information is true and 36 people have total. What gets me is that this number is still remarkably low, especially when you consider things like every single year, 500 or more people die from being stepped on by elephants, or over 300 people die every year due to overdosing on Tylenol, not to make- Like, this is a classic, you know, tactic that people use in their debates. They bring up these completely, like, totally off-the-wall statistics, you know what I mean, to make their case better. Like, listen dude, like, I would say 36 people. Like, you don't have to talk about elephants stomping on people or Tylenol overdoses to make your point. 36 is already a pretty low number, you know what I mean? But it's still a number. Now, one thing that I will say that we have to take into consideration, the availability of cratum, right? Okay, compared to these other things. Now, I know what you're thinking right now, Chris, but elephants don't like go marching down the street. Well, I've seen, like, if you go around on YouTube, there's like people like in other countries like messing around with elephants, like damning them and stuff, like, 500 isn't very surprising to me. But, you know, maybe the number's so small due to the availability of it. Keep that in mind. I mentioned that in other countries, such as Canada, they don't have a single confirmed or even, you know, supposed death attached to cratum. I've learned that for a lot of individuals, especially those with addictive personalities. Hear that? There it is again. Those with addictive personalities. What does that mean? It can be better than pharmaceutical grade pain medications, primarily because cratum has a very strong ceiling effect. Basically, when users dose too high, which can often mean just one gram or sometimes even less than their average dose, which might only be four or five grams, what can happen is a complete flip of effects, where they might have been already feeling euphoric and say they were trying to dose more to feel higher, to use it recreationally. Instead, what can happen is the user can become nauseous to the point where they vomit sometimes for hours on end, and also all of the good feelings that they did have will, well, they really just will turn to shit. Usually what happens is when a user first realizes that you can't keep taking cratum to get higher and higher, they keep their doses to average, you know, levels because they don't want to feel like shit again. Okay, so here's the thing. So I don't know if any of you are familiar with the medication called Antibuse. I've talked about naltrexone a little bit on my channel, and I'd be interested to know about those 36 deaths. So anabuse is an alcohol antagonist. If you drink alcohol while you're taking anabuse, you'll puke, okay? It makes you sick. It makes you violently ill, so you don't want to drink again. But because of the psychological dependence, people keep doing it. Same thing with naltrexone. I've talked about this in my other videos. Naltrexone has a pretty high success rate, 80 something percent. But there are people who still drink and binge drink while on that medication, okay? So the idea that if you try to use more cratum, you'll get so sick that you'll just like go back to doing your thing, like this is not how addiction works. It is so powerful that we want to use more. We use more anyways. Any alcoholics watching this, you know what I'm talking about. Even drug addicts out there. We keep using and we keep drinking even if we're not getting the effects. Like that's how sick and twisted this disease of addiction actually is. Or a lot of people actually just never even touch cratum again after that experience. That's why it is such a powerful substance in my opinion for helping. Okay, he's about to say for helping addicts. So he says most people never touch cratum again. Okay, let's take into consideration that statistically one out of every 12 people is a drug addict or alcoholic. They are the real thing. They're the real one, okay? Most people are going to stop using cratum after a bad experience, okay? But here's the difference. Let's use alcohol for example. Here's the difference between an alcoholic and a non-alcoholic. An alcoholic can have the worst experience, vomiting, DUI, punching holes in the walls, trashing their house and they will keep doing it. A non-alcoholic, like it's a tummy ache or they have a bad hangover one day and they're like, oh, I'm never touching stuff and they don't. Like that's the difference between us. The real alcoholic or the real addict keeps doing it despite the negative consequences. That's addiction in the nutshell by the way people. Repeating the same action despite negative consequences. Here's something else that's kind of bothered me about this psych substance channel. He has actually made videos about how he had problems with alcohol. So when he talks about harm reduction using other substances and if you have an addictive personality, maybe you should be careful. Like he already knows he has an addictive personality. Like why is he playing this Russian roulette game with other substances? I don't get it. I don't get it. Let's go. When people quit harder drugs because you really can't abuse it in the same way. That's not to say that it can't be abused. You can't abuse it in the same way but that's not to say it can't be abused. But it's harder to abuse it recreationally than other drugs which don't. So let me tell you a story about the pharmaceutical industry and what they've been doing, what they've been doing to help the opioid crisis. They've taken drugs like OxyCotin, okay? And they've changed the way that they make the drug so it's not as easy to inject, okay? It turns into a gel so you can't inject it, okay? So it's harder to abuse but a real drug addict or a real alcoholic, we figure some stuff out. I don't have that ceiling effect. But regardless of all of these positive effects that I'm talking about, this still does not mean that Kratom is necessarily 100% safe, non-addictive or free from its own withdrawals. They might not be as bad as heroin withdrawals but the compound is really not as benign as a lot of the internet would lead you to believe. And what I hope to do by sharing my story is to bring a lot of this misinformation to an end. Now it's about to get good. The thing is if it wasn't for all this misinformation that I read and the naively believed I would have personally... Okay, just going back to what I said earlier. Yes, like this is why people need to be careful. This is why people need to be careful getting their harm reduction information from the internet. This guy read bad information online. Then he makes videos based on that bad information and then rather than seeing a professional, people are like, okay, well I'll see what this guy has to say on YouTube. You know what I mean? Like, what? Like, I don't get it. Like, this is the problem that we have in the world today. Bad information just keeps going and going and going and God only knows how many people it affect. Like, always question where you're getting this information from. You're getting it from him. Like, what credentials does he have? He never began using Kratom daily. I mean, it slowly ramped up to daily. I'll get into it shortly. No matter. So, in case you missed it and you can check the original video because I know I didn't put it in this video, but he talks about how he does not recommend that anybody use Kratom daily. Right? He just mentioned, and he's gonna get into the story in a minute, that he ramped up to a daily user. All right? That, my friends, is how substance abuse turns into a dependency, psychological or physical, which then turns into addiction. We start doing it a certain amount and it ramps up and eventually we lose control. But again, again, I might be wrong. We haven't watched the whole video yet. For what my reasons were, even if I did have good reasons for it, because, well, I don't believe the benefits really did outweigh the negatives, at least not for me. A lot of the time online when somebody does speak up and they start to talk about some of the very real negatives that do come from, again, usually it's daily use, fusing it sparingly, like maybe once or twice a week. Again, I wish, I wish I would have been able to use my drugs sparingly. Would have helped me out a lot. These negatives are not going to be apparent. Well, that's when the community at large kind of tries to shut you up. And a fancy thing about me is I really don't care what you guys think about me. I'm here to relay my honest experiences and non-bias information. And whether you like it or not, I'm going to tell you my experience, at least what happened to me and what I've noticed has happened to others. Anyway, let's get it. All right, so real quick. Like, I know I'm being very sassy and very sarcastic throughout this video. I'm like, it's just because it gets me giddy. I just wish people would stop. But like, no, absolutely. I have respect for this guy. Regardless of whether or not he gets the right information or not, he's trying, he's doing more than most. And like he just said right there, I respect it, I respect it. So even though he's not admitting 100% that he was wrong, I respect the fact that he's coming forward and he does care about his audience. So like, please, you know, see past the character that I have during this video and understand like I hope everything goes well with this guy and if he ever sees it, you know, I would love to talk to him or, you know, whatever. But anyway, it's like, I'm just giddy because so many people argue about different forms of harm reduction and it always leads back to the same thing. And like, and I'm kind of excited while making this video because the last video I did about why harm reduction was stupid and dangerous, I got blown up in my comments and it's like, I don't know, I haven't been proven wrong yet. You know, like, no, I don't know. But anyways, all right, let's watch. And to my story. So basically the first time I tried Kratom was a little over two years ago. Now I was first interested in it because I was, hold on, I got to pause it and read these things, okay. So to be clear, I had tried Kratom once seven years ago, but it was from a head shop and the dose was so abysmal, I felt nothing. Okay, he mentioned this in his last video and I had written it off as an effective two years ago as when I first began using it sparingly, such as once or twice a week. Okay, cool, he talked about that in the other video. At that time also diagnosed with ADHD. I was basically diagnosed at 30 and I have a video coming out about that soon. And I really didn't want to use my ADHD meds the way they were prescribed because I'm against taking something every single day because of how it can mess up your neurochemistry. I mean, fancy that, total walking contradiction. But anyway, so what I, I like this guy. I like this guy. I know I've been sassin' him, but I like this guy. I was doing, was looking for compounds that I could use in between what I called my focus med doses. So I would take the prescribed amphetamines once every three to five days and then maybe one or two days a week I would take cratum because I believe that since it was a plant that holds stupid, you know, it's natural, so it's gotta be safe, bullshit. And that's largely why I was using it because it actually did help me feel motivated and it was helping me get work done. So what happened was. By the way, if you haven't checked out my video yet titled Is Marijuana Addictive? Same thing, same thing going on here, okay? Even though it doesn't have the same chemical hooks as something like opiates or meth or cocaine, even though it's not the same kind of chemical hooks, it can become addictive. So one of the issues is like this guy, he was diagnosed with ADHD at 30 years old. One of the leading causes, one of the leading causes of addiction is mental illness. A lot of people are trying to self-medicate which then turns into an addiction. Now the ADHD meds he took, I don't know if he's gonna mention what he was taking, but he did mention they were amphetamines, okay? These are prescription forms of meth. Now the chemicals are a little bit different. So if he ever sees this, I know he will just blast me for that because he's Mr. Chemist, okay? But anyways, similar effects, all right? So here's something that I talked about and here's something that I've always thought about when I've watched his channel. Like I know he's into like the psychedelics and these spiritual experiences and stuff like that. Like I've talked about this in other videos. Everything that he's looking for can be achieved through meditation, including, including relief from his symptoms of ADHD. This credum was actually rather unique in the fact that I didn't start taking it every day because I became addicted to it. I started taking it every day because I hurt my back. As a lot of you guys know, I like to work out. Sometimes I'm a bit of an idiot and I just lift weight that's way too heavy for me because now I'm in my 30s and I'm becoming this old man who needs to. More self-medication. Freaking warm up so much more than I used to. I was totally blown away with the analgesic effects. It would make the back pain disappear for anywhere from 40 to even eight hours. That's why I started taking it. Okay, so that it makes sense and it doesn't, but I'm interested, I'm interested to seeing because in his last video, he talks about how it has similar effects to opiates. Now, one of the problems with opiates is, is that opiates don't treat your pain. Opiates help block the pain. They're not actually fixing a problem. All they're doing is making it so the signals aren't going correctly, okay? But the pain is actually still there. So you get addicted to the feeling you're getting. Meanwhile, the pain isn't really getting much better. This is why so many people who get put on pain management programs then develop an addiction. But it's interesting to me because, and by the way, this is all the part I haven't seen yet. It's interesting to me though, because he talks about like, quantum is used to help people get off opiates, right? But his daily use of the drug developed in the same way an opiate addict did. A lot of opiate addicts, heroin addicts started off with prescription pain meds because of pain. How do I know this? I'm an opiate addict. I have tons of people come through my treatment center who are opiate addicts and a lot of the opiate addicts started off because they had some kind of pain. Freedom daily. But as soon as you make that jump to daily use, it doesn't really stop there because now that, at least for me, now that I allowed myself to consume it every day, what happened was once a day would become twice a day because the first dose, which started at four grams, which eventually became six and a half grams, tolerance, tolerance, tolerance, tolerance, tolerance, tolerance. The way this thing progresses is that first there's use and then there's abuse, okay? Using it other than what's prescribed or what's intended, right? Okay, and then you develop a tolerance and then the tolerance comes along with the dependence. Like would either not really do much or I'd only feel it for 30 minutes. So I'd have to take that dose and then an hour or two later, I'd take another 1.5 to three grams to really even get the same effects that I used to get from half that much. And then six hours later, I would start getting withdrawal effects. I'd get it running. Holy crap, six hours, dude? Like if any of you are opiate addicts watching this, like it's the same story. It's the same, like when I started using opiates, I started off with like five milligram laura tabs, okay? Cheap, easy. Take one five milligram laura tab that lasts to be like four hours. But then I had to start taking two. Then I had to start taking three. Then I had to start taking them every couple hours and da-da-da-da. It's just, it blows my mind that people like this they have a whole entire channel based on substances, claim to understand addiction, but they keep playing this game with substances and they fall under that same cycle. Like I don't get it, I don't get it, dude. Like, I don't know. I hope I get to talk to this guy sometime. Like I'm intrigued. I'm fascinated by this. I know, and I'm still feeling just really down and shitty. So I would take another dose of about four to five grams which would, you know, carry me through to the next morning. And this habit of doing a dose and then a little booster and then another dose, which is technically three doses a day kind of carried on for a while. Might have even been as long as four or five months of dosing that heavy. I was average. Yep, hold on, another note. I was consistently dosing once per day for five to six months. I began sporadically dosing multiple times a day for the final two to three months. And it's become consistent for the final month before quitting. Okay. Orging any? Like, that's why I dig about this guy too. By the way, he puts corrections, he puts notes. He tries his best, but I think he can be better and do more. We're from 12 to 15 grams of cratum per day. The only days that I'd really take off from consuming cratum would be on days where I would consume the focus meds, which oddly enough, I did keep a pretty steady schedule with. So, so he was doubling up too. He was still taking the amphetamines. Why is it so bad to dose daily? I think I know the answer to that. The primary problem with consuming something so frequently is it actually does change your neurochemistry. It causes a physical shift. Neurologically, the brain is always trying to reach a state of homeostasis. It's always trying to stay leveled because your brain has figured out, okay, every day I'm getting this new substance in, so I'm going to adjust the way I function and what I produce to level off and make things average. So now you slowly begin having to take more and more to really get any effects at all. And even then, a lot of the time, all that's really happening is the drug is making you feel normal. Now, the greatest factor in regards. So he clearly knows his stuff. He just literally explained in a basic short kind of way what happens, why withdrawal happens. He understands that. But here's the thing, here's the thing, and this is why addiction is such a serious thing. He is well educated on that, but it did not stop him from upping his dosage and doing daily doses. That didn't stop him. The knowledge alone did not stop him. Like, man. As to how much your brain is actually going to change is going to have to do with how frequently you're using and of course these sizes of each dose. My use was actually considered pretty heavy by Kratom standards. Now, there's more at play than just your brain's neurochemistry shifting. There is actually an addictive property to Kratom in that you, well, even mentally start to urine for it. What it does is, well, it's very similar to smoking or really just all drugs. It puts little hooks inside you. What you start to do mentally is you attach certain things with the use of Kratom and it becomes habitual. For example, all of a sudden when you're on Kratom going out and socializing feels a lot easier. At least for me, it would make me feel more social to the point where you don't even really want to leave your house without it. So you start thinking. Trigger, behavior, reward, okay? Trigger, maybe I feel socially anxious out in public around people, right? Behavior, use Kratom, reward makes me calm down, okay? So that lays down a memory in your neural pathway so the next time you have that trigger for social anxiety or that uncomfortability, your brain immediately says, well, remember that last time? Remember that thing we used? Go get that. Go do that thing again. Thinking, how can I quit taking this thing when I depend on it so much just to no longer feel so introverted? And by the way, here's the other issue I take. Like these people who are doing harm reduction and da-da-da-da-da, all these other things like, like have you tried therapy? Like that's not, by the way, that's not talking down. Like therapy is a very useful tool. I think most people should try therapy. Like I even have a link, by the way, here's a plug. I have a link to some online therapy that you can do in the description. So like if you're introverted or socially, you know, anxious or anything, like there's ways to do it in a therapeutic way rather than trying to pluck plants from all over the world and see which one's gonna help you. I do wanna explain some of the negative effects that I receive just from dosing so frequently. Sorry, sorry, let me stop. Another idea popped in my head. So this is the other problem and I talked about this. I talked about this exact thing in my other harm reduction video. When you're relying on external substances, okay, or external stimuli even to make you feel a certain way, you're always screwed. You're always screwed because you're never getting to the root, the root of the problem. You're getting these very short-lived experiences, right? So this guy, his channel's been around for a while, a few years now, and it's been around. And he's constantly looking for new substances to make him feel the way that he wants to feel. Like rather than looking, you know, not looking inside but working on the inside to get that, he's always taking things from the outside to try to achieve that. And the problem with that is, is that it's never, ever, ever going to last. For one, I felt very unmotivated, which isn't like me. I think I let my body go the most than I've been for over 10 years. The other issue I take is in his last video, he talks about how, like he was encouraging people. Like, I don't know, dude, I think you should take that other video down. Sorry, I think that's what you should do. I don't know if it's still getting money off of it or what, but you should take it down. Because in that video, he was encouraging people. You can check it out. He was encouraging people. Like, when you hit a writers block, Kratom can help you out, right? And like, and now he's talking about the lack of motivation that he had, like from Kratom. And by the way, one of the symptoms of withdrawal is like depression. You know, like you get really bummed out. You know what I'm saying? But like, let's go back to the habit loop again. If my trigger is, I'm not feeling creative, I'm not feeling motivated, and I use something. Something he was encouraging people to do in his last video. You're not motivated, use Kratom. Reward, motivation, lays down a memory. Next time you're not motivated, brain says use Kratom. Boom, boom, boom, boom. All these things, like I, dude, if you're watching this, take down the old video, okay? We'll call it a wash. I just felt really no urge to exercise anymore. It kind of just makes you feel just really relaxed and calm and like everything is okay in life. It's a numbing effect. I mean, you are on it. He's describing it the same way I felt when I was getting high on opiates, by the way. No wonder, like no wonder why every heroin attitude comes through my treatments and it was like, have you heard about that stuff called Kratom? Like, it's the same thing, dude. A pain killer. So even emotional pain isn't the same. It always made me feel angrier, especially as it would start to wear off. Well, it was in effect, I'd feel calm, but as it wore off, I was more likely to lose my temper, to snap at people. Some of the other negative effects. Comer withdrawal effect from opiates, irritability. Or is it actually decreases the amount of testosterone you produce? Not to mention it can completely destroy your sex drive, which as you guys can imagine is really great when you're in a relationship. Now again, I know I'm kind of beating a dead horse here, but I do want to point out that all of these negative effects are simply when someone consumes Kratom daily or multiple times a day. Stop it. Stop it. Stop. Like, that'd be like me saying, listen, I just want to make it very clear that heroin is only bad if you become addicted to it. Like, just stop. Just stop it. Like, stop it. Like, alcohol. Alcohol, let me make it clear. Alcohol is only bad if you develop an addiction to it. Gambling is only bad if you develop an addiction to it. If you develop this psychological dependency to it, then it's bad. Like, that's my problem with harm reduction. We're teaching people to go on a substance and we're trying to teach them how to control it. Addicts and alcoholics do not have a stop button. Like, there is a problem. Like, dude, go to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which I don't know if you trust them or not, you know, but you go there, you can see the neuroscience, you can see the brain scans. The problem with us is, is that our dopamine flow is completely unregulated. So I don't like these like little like, hold on, I just wanna make it clear. Only if you do this daily, only if you do this daily. Like, if somebody could teach me how to use opiates without becoming addicted, I would still be using them. Stop it. Day. There really aren't many drugs that you can safely use every day. And I guess what I'm getting at is because of all the misinformation out there and all the lies about withdrawals, I thought that if I ever wanted to quit and get off it, you know, if my back stopped hurting, which was really my reason for taking it until it got to the point where I realized, you know, my back hasn't even hurt for over a month. And I'm still taking this every day and I feel like I can't stop. And that's, it just bugs me because like, okay, like, by the way, I've done videos about the pharmaceutical industry, how screwed up it is. But like, he is demonizing the pharmaceutical industry, but he thinks it's okay to do exactly what the pharmaceutical industry is doing to people. They keep giving it to you, even though it's not solving the pain, but they keep giving it to you. Where's the logic in that, dude? That's when like the light bulb went off and I said, I got a problem here. Again, I'm glad this dude got some help. Good job. What happened was, I realized that I was never going to feel like myself again as long as I was consuming freedom. And I was kind of contradicting everything I stand for. I must have believed that because it was a plant, it meant that it was okay or because it was related to coffee and you can drink coffee. All right, so by the way, for those of you who haven't, I'm gonna plug my addiction course. Go to therewiredsoul.com. Here's what I'm gonna do. Go to therewiredsoul.com. If you have made it to this point in the video, because I've been talking to it for 40 minutes now, go to therewiredsoul.com, take my addiction course and use coupon code, it's free. I-T-S-F-R-E-E, it's free. Anybody who has watched this video for 40 minutes, go take my course. So here is the problem with addiction. Here's a preview of something that's my course. I talk about the problem with a prefrontal cortex. Part of the problem with a prefrontal cortex being affected by addiction is that it's responsible for self-awareness, right? We don't even realize that there's a problem. We're delusional to the fact, you know? It takes this miraculous moment of clarity for us to snap out of it. This dude was very lucky, very lucky for it to only last a few months. So again, if you have made it to this point in the video, go to www.therewiredsoul.com, okay? Sign up for the Science of the Addiction course. It's usually $100. I'm gonna give it to you for free. Coupon code, it's free, no spaces. Coffee every day that I could take Craytum every day when it was fine. I, on some level, really believe that the effects were very benign. I used to tell people this and I was just so effing wrong. And I'm completely okay admitting when I'm wrong. We all make mistakes in life. And what's really important. Yeah, like, no dude, like, it's a dangerous mistake. Like it's not like, oh, sorry, told you it was 430 but it's really like 415. Like, no man, like you market your channel. You market your channel as this like safe channel giving people the proper information. You know, this isn't like, this is a big whoopsie dude. This is a big whoopsie. Like this goes along the lines of like a doctor, like a doctor making like a big medical mistake. Amputating the wrong leg. Giving somebody a medication that they're allergic to. Like this is life threatening. Like come on, like even though the overdoses haven't happened, okay. But for addicts like us, we use it. Okay, so let's play this game real quick. You're using cratum, using cratum, using cratum, right? Doses go up, doses go up. Your withdrawal is happening faster. You gotta use more, buy more. You're running out of money. Now you can't afford the cratum. You can't afford the cratum, especially when you're getting a shift from other countries because the stuff here, like you mentioned at the head shops, it's not that effective, right? So what do you do? What do you do when you have the psychological dependence and you need it, you need it, you get irritable, you get depressed, you're unmotivated, you can't do anything. You know what you do? You know what you do? You go find other drugs. That is why prescription opiate addicts turn to heroin. That's why. I was a prescription opiate addict. Those things are expensive and hard to come across on the streets, okay? That's why I was this close to heroin. So I'm sorry dude, like glad you quit, glad you figured it out, but I do not like the fact that you're like, well, my bad. Like, we're not talking about something simple here, dude. Important is that you learn from them and grow so you can continue on making more mistakes and learning from those and growing. Again, the reason why. Like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Like the disclaimer on everything from this channel is like, I'm not a doctor, I'm not a scientist. The disclaimer should say I'm just a guy who Googles stuff and then I make videos with all the information I can come with. Like, that should be his disclaimer, okay? Because yes, learn, grow, like everything you're saying, like from an ideological point of view, absolutely mistakes, learn from it, grow, cool. But not when we're messing with the substances people are putting in their bodies and telling them what's safe, what's not, what's addictive, what's not. No, sir, no, no, no. I was apprehensive to make this video is because I don't want to make it look like Kreatom is this dangerous thing. The truth is what's dangerous is just taking any drug every single day unless you plan on doing that for the rest of your life. For example, if I was in chronic pain every day due to a serious injury, then I'd feel no problem with taking it every day. So what it really just comes down to is what are. I'm gonna do more videos about chronic pain and other treatment methods. Like, that's the problem. He already mentioned the problem. You take it for so long, you no longer even know if you're experiencing the pain. So by the way, one of the issues with pain management programs is that when you become hooked on a substance for pain, your brain is actually intensifying the pain as a way to make you go use the drugs. So in most cases, the pain is a lot less than what the person is actually feeling. What are your symptoms? Do you actually need it? And are you prepared to be dependent on this compound? But if the answer is. Again, why are you knocking on the pharmaceutical companies? Again, knock on the, they suck. But you're trying to be your own pharmaceutical company right here. You know what I mean? Like. You know to that, then you probably shouldn't. Before long, you're not gonna be you without it. Not to mention quitting is a goddamn hellish nightmare. I need to figure out where to get this music. It was that evening that I started getting the withdrawal effects, which was really just a runny nose. And I thought, I guess what I read, that that's all that was gonna happen. Sleeping that night was fine. I didn't really have any issues. But the next day, I felt terrible. It was really challenging to make it through the day without dosing. I had a lot of mental and even physical cravings for it. I just physically felt like shit. I had no energy. I felt sick. I had a runny nose. My sinuses were all clogged up and I had no motivation to do it. This is a terrible joke. But if you use, if, okay, let's play this. Okay, let's say, let's say somebody was a heroin addict and they decided to use Kratom to get off heroin. Right? What do they use to get off Kratom? You see where this goes? You see how this keeps trickling down? Because I made a video about safe forms of harm reduction, which is with a medical professional and tapering off. Anything, not even make myself food. I didn't have an appetite that night is when I realized, okay, I'm in for a battle here because sleeping was basically out of the question. I had not only full on insomnia, I started getting shakes. My body would just, but then it would kind of evolve into more from just shaking to like, it would be in my hand and I'd have to just shake this hand. And then I'd like, yep. We call them the shakes, body tremors. Welcome to withdrawal, brother. Use all my energy to stop that hand from shaking. And then it would go to that this hand and then I'd be like, stop this hand from shaking. And then next thing I know, my legs. I thought there's no way in hell I'm ever gonna get to sleep on the third day of the effect. I'm glad, as you can see, I'm bouncing around on this video. I'm glad he's making this. So I hope to make up for the other video he did about it. I hope everybody who watched that video is not watching this one. They were on the fence about trying to create them. Like watch this and be prepared. Like if you want to experiment with this, like all the things that he was just doing, like get ready and the runny nose and the no sleep. And I'm sure there's some more symptoms he's about to talk about. I just got worse and worse. I had absolutely no energy. I kept explaining to people that it felt like I was moving through quicksand. Like just my movements felt slow and I started getting joint pain. My knees hurt, hips hurt. I felt absolutely depressed. I just felt so low. I felt like without Kratom I was never going to experience happiness again. What really struck me the hardest was just how depleted my energy was. Like even just going to the bathroom was a challenge. Getting up was a challenge. I couldn't move. I've never had that little energy before and I kept thinking, so if this is how old people feel, no wonder they move so slow. Cause I was, I know that feel, bro. I did a cold turkey opiate detox. I know that feel. Moving like a 90 year old man. And then I started doing research and that's when I realized that these withdrawals aren't a problem from daily use. They're actually quite common. I also realized that the best way to quit Kratom, because these withdrawals suck a lot of iron is to actually lower your dose very slowly. A lot of people suggest lowering your dose 10% each month, meaning it could take like half a year or more to quit. And I thought, hell no. I don't want to do this. I want. I'm sorry. So harm reduction channel over here talking about Kratom as a form of harm reduction. And then to get off of Kratom you try harm reduction for Kratom. Okay. I'll let you finish. To be done with this as quickly as possible. I don't want to have to drink this green sludge for the rest of my life to just feel like myself. One of the things that I decided to do to really help me through the process was work out again. Even though I really didn't feel like it. I felt like absolute shit, but I still forced myself to exercise it because in doing that, I realized that I could force myself to do things that I don't enjoy such as. By the way, pro tip for anybody. I have people ask me this all the time. How do I deal with withdrawal? But not even, not even withdrawal, more so post-acute withdrawal. So post-acute withdrawal can happen weeks, months after you've already tapered off of like Suboxone or whatever it is. Post-acute withdrawal, your body is still like trying to figure stuff out. And what he just talked about, forcing yourself to work out, yoga's good, going for walks. Any kind of physical activity, okay? That's gonna help out. So if any of you are thinking about coming off of something like, you gotta force yourself to get up and move. I started walking my mom's dog and things like that. So do that. As I could force myself to get through this shitty process, what a lot of people don't realize who have never gone through. Wait a second. I wasn't able to properly sleep till the seventh day. And it took a total of 18 days until I started to feel myself again. Well then. An addiction, huge reason why people fail and they relapse is not because they necessarily want to get high. What I found was the actual cravings disappeared really quickly. Within three or four days after my last dose, I physically wasn't craving it for the uplifting effects. I was just craving any way I could to feel normal again. Yes, yes, yes. This guy is, okay, no joke, no joke. We could replay this. We could take out the word cratum and just replace it with opiates or heroin. Literally every part of this story is like what happens to an opiate addict, right? Most people no longer use opiates to get high. They're doing it to get well. That's what he's talking about. He understands that. It's the same thing with people who have developed a dependency to cratum, right? Like it happens to them because, like it's so agonizing. Like they only want to use just so they can feel well. Like please delete your other video. Just please, for me, please. To be able to sleep. I can't even imagine what people go through who are getting off heroin and how much. The same thing, bro. The same thing. That's what I'm talking about. Okay, it's the same thing with methadone. Like what? Like, oh, heroin's so brutal. Let's put you on methadone. Like unless you're ready to, like same thing like he said with cratum. Like unless you're prepared to be on methadone forever, like stay away from it because you're gonna develop the same dependency. Like that's just, that's what's gonna happen. They need something like cratum to help them through that. Or even things like oxycodone or methadone. The withdrawals from that daily. Yeah, they gotta be much, much worse. Nope. No, they sound about the same. Sound about the same, dude. Like just being honest with you. Like clearly you've never had an opioid addiction. I'll be your guy, I'll let you know. Like it's the same thing. So I've made my decision about cratum. Not for it, against it. Or maybe I just had some really, really shitty withdrawals which is definitely true. Nope, nope, not just you. Because remember how you said like five minutes ago? How you saw that anybody who went through daily use had the exact same symptoms of withdrawal? So no, it wasn't just you. You know this, you know it, you know it. But you're still trying to advocate for cratum because you're all about harm reduction and natural substances and no, no. No, no, it wasn't just you. Anybody who does daily use, they're gonna have this same come down. Still, there's no way that those come anywhere close to heroin withdrawals. I feel for people on a whole new level now who have to go through that. It's tough, man. I appreciate that, sir. But it sounds like the same thing. Okay, well, okay, heroin and opioid withdrawals, there's a few more side effects. And you might have not even mentioned them all. Like I think of like the cold sweats, I think about the nausea, I had cramping and all sorts of other stuff too. But I appreciate, I appreciate that you said that. It is a challenge to just find like hope every day that you're going to get your motivation back, that you're gonna be you again. But anyway, this video has gone on for long enough. If you guys are interested in the story as to how or why I was prescribed ADHD medication at the age of 30, and you know, my opinion on that medication, then you can check that video out on my second channel, Swim. Now the video may or may not be released at the time of releasing this one. It might come out in like a day or two. I also have some good news to announce. There is going to be a psych substance merch shop, which will be opening soon. And I'll be offering some of the items that you guys have been asking for. Super excited about that. I'm just waiting for some of the test clothing to come in. Oh, oh, oh, no, what am I doing? But in the meantime, you can support us on Patreon. Oh, okay, cool. Until next time, thank you guys. He's got a Patreon. I got a test kit link in the video description if you need one. Cool. I'll see you guys all in the next video. I'll see you later, brother. All right. Okey dokey. That was cool. All right, everybody. So I hope, I'm glad that you all shared that journey with me. I know this went on long. How does, how do I, you know, pull that off a 20 minute video when I make it an hour long? I just, I had a lot to say about it. You know what I mean? Like, I wanted you guys to see my reactions. You know, to be honest, this was easier than me scripting something out and breaking apart and editing and stuff. Like, there you go. There you go. There, I just explained to you all, like my views on harm reduction, okay? Like, so I don't know if this guy will see it and, you know, I'm glad, you know, he does what he does, but I think he could be a lot better at what he does. He has another video where he completely just brutalizes another channel from like Germany or something. But, you know, like, you're kinda doing the same thing, bro. So if you ever watch this, hope you take the other video down. You ever wanna chat? You ever wanna collab? You ever wanna talk? You know where to find me, all right? But anyways, everybody, if you've made it this long, if you've made it this long, I'll give you the coupon code again, all right? So if you wanna learn more about addiction, www.TheRewiredSold.com, sign up for the Science of Addiction course, usually $100, use coupon code, it's free, I-T-S-F-R-E-E. But anyways, if you're new here, have it yet, make sure you hit the little subscribe button. And if you want, you can click or tap on one of those thumbnails, check out some other videos on this channel. I'm always doing stuff about mental health as well as addiction recovery. I love y'all, you're all beautiful. Thanks for hanging out this long. I'll see you next time.