 Some of that happens all the time is that I have clients message me with questions like this So what happens all the time is situations like this One of my female clients her son found her big book was reading it and he was filled with questions and she was freaking out So how do you talk to kids about your sobriety? Stay tuned as we go over this topic What's up everybody? This is Chris from the rewired soul where we talk about the problem, but focus on the solution So I have been working in a treatment center for the last two years And I have a ton of parents come through and since I'm a father I have a lot of them say how do I talk to my kids about this? How do I talk to my kids about this now? Something that I will cover in another video is talking to kids about addiction because there is a specific way You're supposed to talk to kids Because as as all of you know who are in recovery like just having somebody point their finger at you and say don't do drugs Like doesn't do much good if it did guys like me wouldn't have become addicted But this video is talking about when you get clean. How do you talk to your children about? Getting clean. All right, so this is one of my clients and Because of anonymity as well as HIPAA laws I'm not going to show her face or name, but she messaged me with this. So holy crap, Chris I don't know what to do. My kiddo was super quiet for like one and a half hours I went into his room and he was reading my friggin big book now. He has questions and I don't know what to say I don't know if this has ever happened to any of you Maybe it's because I was proactive, but anyways, so This gave me the idea like I needed to make this video so I was telling her I'd make a video and What a lot of my clients do like a lot of my subscribers are people in recovery and they stay tuned because I'm always giving suggestions like this So she was a little confused that I didn't have a role that's covering this topic, but she inspired me. Thank you, girl and then she says I Rather have the birds and the bees combo like a lot of us can relate to that like it's uncomfortable We don't want to talk about it and a lot of this is because of the stigma around addiction and check out my other video Which will be linked up in the info card about don't be ashamed of your mental illness That is one step closer towards healing yourself and as well as strengthening your recovery Don't be embarrassed about this thing Would you be embarrassed telling your child that you got the flu that you broke a leg broken on as long as you Didn't do those things while you were drunk or high But so thinking of it in that aspect so my personal experience is that I moved to California when my son was three years old I stayed there for a little over a year while I was working on myself and my sobriety I am very fortunate that my son does not remember that period of time when I was gone getting my act together But when I got this job at my treatment center We do events and we've done suicide prevention walks or we do fun stuff I go bowling or to the water park or to other events out here in Las Vegas and I bring them along So there came a point when I was like I need to talk to this kid about what I do for a living and what addiction is So I've been working there for about two years now. So when I started working there my son was six He's now eight and I took him by my rehab facility We have a gigantic inpatient facility that has like 150 beds and we also have an outpatient building But I took him there and I was basically explained to him in an age-appropriate way What I do for a living and I explained to him I said I work at this place It's kind of like a hospital sick people come here and I help them and I explained to him Their sickness is different than the sickness that you normally hear about their sickness is up here So my first suggestion is talk about it in an age-appropriate way I will give you an example. This is literally the conversation. I had with my son. I asked him I said, you know how you like chocolate? And of course he says yes And I said now what happens if you eat a lot of chocolate if you eat way too much chocolate He says I get sick. I said, okay So you know that eating too much chocolate makes you sick now Imagine for a second that you couldn't stop yourself from eating chocolate once you had some chocolate I said, this is the problem that some people have once they drink alcohol or use drugs Once they start they can't stop So part of my job is to teach them how to do that in different ways Because that's what I had to do and I explained to him I said remember how I was gone for about a year in California and he's a little foggy on that But I explained to him. I said I have that problem too That's why you never see me drinking and you never see me doing drugs because once I start I can't stop And it made sense to him like that's all I had to do. It was really that simple and To calm down my client's nerves. I drugged my son in here I recorded a quick video sent it to her and she was like, oh, I feel a lot better So now I'm going to treat all of you with that same thing All right, everybody. This is my mini me. Go ahead and introduce yourself to him Hi, my name is Dylan. That is Dylan. Say hi YouTube. Hey, you do. All right. So Dylan, how old are you? Eight eight about nine almost nine. Okay, so it's both this coming up on New Year's Eve Which is like five seconds after Christmas. But yeah, anyways, so we're talking about addiction today So let me just ask you some questions based on what I've taught you about addiction. So how old were you two years ago? Six six years old my boy knows math. All right, and that's when I first started talking to him about this So I bring you to my events with the people I work with right? Yeah and They not all the time. Okay, but anyways, but they struggle with addiction. Are they bad people? Are they evil? Are they crazy? Took a second some of them are a little crazy, but all of us are if you do drugs and yeah, yeah Trigger something it triggers something beautiful. All right, so what do I do at my work at my rehab? you help people cut off their addiction of drugs and Alcohol alcohol hey cool because what happens when they take drugs or alcohol? They get sick. They get sick, but that doesn't mean they're bad people, right? Because a lot of them are parents aren't they? Yeah, and they may Do what you did. Um, you may you may they may lose their wife or Something and they may have to go live somewhere else Yes, and like you you got really sick when you did drugs exactly But am I a good dad? Yeah, have you met some of the other people who are parents? Are they pretty good parents? Right, so so it wasn't weird was a crazy when I talked to you about this stuff Kind of why was it crazy? When when he first told me about your job, and I and I didn't really I'll be young and I kind of thought It's kind of crazy. Yeah. Yeah, but it's it's normal now, right? I just help sick people out, right? Right. So it's good. It's good, right? Give me a high five. All right It's just that simple everybody. All right. Don't say bye All right, so as you can see it's really not a big deal we talk openly we talk freely that kid is eight years old And it's not that big of a deal something that us addicts and alcoholic struggle with is we make these huge Situations out of very small things. This is a very normal conversation And to be honest like most of you know I am in the business of addiction and mental health advocacy And I believe that we need to increase awareness and decrease the stigma And we're never gonna do that if we don't have these very simple conversations with our kids It's not a big deal Now there is a whole nother video that I need to do About how people like me and some of you parents out there all we do is worry about oh my god Is my kid gonna become a drug addict or alcohol? Right, and that's a whole nother video and I'll teach you some lessons as to how I Overcome that on a daily basis question of the day. Have you talked to your kids about your sobriety? How to go? What did you say to them leave your comments down below? I want to find out So if you like this video if you would like me to do more topics like this for parents Please give this a thumbs up so I know that you enjoyed this video if you have any questions If you're a parent leave them in the comments below like Please ask me questions so I can help provide you with more solutions if you are new here Don't forget to hit that little round subscribe button So you're always the first to know when I make new videos like this providing you a solution to overcome symptoms of mental illness As well as to improve your addiction recovery. Thanks for watching. This is Chris and I'll see you next time