 Have you ever wondered what it's like to be sober after you were addicted to drugs and alcohol? Well in this video, I'm going to talk about my sobriety and how much my life's changed, so stay tuned. What is up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul, where we talk about the problem, but focus on the solution. And many of you out there who are familiar with my channel, you know I talk about mental health and addiction, and I've shared little bits and pieces of my story here and there, but this is a video that's long overdue. I just want to kind of talk in kind of a macro sense of how much my life has changed since getting clean over five and a half years ago. So my sobriety date is June 23rd, 2012, which is interesting because that's also my actual birthday. In 2012, I was turning 27 years old, so I got sober on that day. And when I look at my life now, I can see such a huge change, and it took a long time. It took a very, very long time to see significant changes, but one of the best things, one of the best things about just getting clean and sober is waking up and not having these panic attacks. The panic attacks were brutal for a variety of different reasons. Waking up and wondering where the bottle was, where am I going to get a drink from, what time is it? Is this constant thing that we're doing? Or it's like, where are the drugs at? Did I use too much last night? Am I all out? The other part of this anxiety was like, if you're a blackout drinker like I am, or you do really stupid stuff when you get high, it's checking your phone the next morning and being like, who did I text last night? Who did I call? Who did I say terrible things to? Because I had a habit of texting or calling every ex I've ever had in my life, calling my parents, crying and being all depressed and stuff like that. And it was just, it was embarrassing. And I never knew what happened. You know what I mean? And there would just be this panic waking up in the morning. But one of the biggest things too is like, I'm not a slave to anything anymore. Like that's the most brutal part about addiction. Like one of the things that keeps us in our act of addiction is that we have this false idea of control that whole, I could quit if I wanted to, but I just don't want to. Like this thing had complete control over my life. Like every single thing I did, I had to be higher drunk for, you know? And it was a mess. Like I was completely reliant on something to make me feel a certain way or make me act a certain way. It got rid of my social anxiety. It got rid of my depression, you know? But that was how it used to be. But then it started fueling my social anxiety and fueling my depression, fueling my hatred towards the word, but I always needed it. It was a constant struggle to find out where is it coming from? How am I getting this? And today I live this amazing life where I don't need anything, anything at all, any kind of external substance. Now I am on an anti-anxiety, anti-depression med, but something completely different. This is something where I don't got to worry about who am I going to lie, cheat, or steal from in order to get this thing. I go to the doctor, they give me a prescription and we're good. But this is also another reason why I've done videos on this in the past. And even though I'm not some big like anti-weed guy, you know, I voted for the legalization of marijuana here in my state of Nevada. But like there is just this freedom of not needing any type of external substance to make me feel a certain way. You know, I don't need anything aside from meditation to help me relax. You know, I don't need anything to not feel lonely or depressed, aside from the love and support for my friends and family. Speaking of friends and family, one of the best parts about my sobriety is that I have these people back in my lives. You know what I mean? My son has a father. You know, my friends have a friend. My girlfriend has a boyfriend. My mom, my dad, they have their son back. My sister has her brother back. These are all people who came back into my life and they're they're very supportive. But it's not even just about like they're back in my life and they invite me over to Christmas dinner and stuff like that. But they actually trust me now. You know what I mean? They're not questioning what I'm doing. One of the greatest gifts that I could ever give my own mother is that she doesn't have to worry about getting a phone call like she did five and a half years ago. When I first got clean, I was laid up in the cardiac critical care unit here at a hospital in Vegas and they called her and said, hey, you might want to come down to Las Vegas because we don't think your son is going to live tonight. Like my mom does not have to worry about getting that phone call. You know what I mean? And and that's that's probably the best gift I can give her aside from just, you know, my recovery. But other than that, it's it's a beautiful thing that I'm somebody. I'm somebody that my family can actually turn to now. So my mom is in recovery as well. She just celebrated 12 years sober just this last fall. And she can turn to me and we could talk recovery. You know, I lived this very selfish and self-centered life throughout my addiction and even before my addiction, I live such a selfish life where it's like, oh, that's your problem. Don't don't be calling me about your problems. But like now my mom can can actually call me. And today I was talking to my group about this at the treatment center I work at, like when my grandma passed away a couple of years ago, like my mom was able to call me and talk to me. And I was able to walk her through it and be supportive for her. Like that's something I couldn't do when I was still getting drunk or high. Speaking of my grandma passing away, like my grandma was my number one. She was my number one. She was at the top of my list. Like when I got clean, I was like, if anything happens to my grandma, I'm going to get high over it. Like that's how I felt when I first got clean because I grew up, you know, my mom was an alcoholic. I had a family who I didn't feel like they really loved me or cared about me at all. But my grandma was always there. My grandma made me feel like I was the most important kid in the world. And, you know, even though my grandma passed away a couple of years ago, the greatest gift that I could have given her was that she actually got to see her grandson be clean for, you know, a little over three years when she passed away. I'm like, now I know that since she's gone, at least she got to see that. And man, it's difficult because I see a lot of people who keep relapsing or going in and out of their addiction and they're losing their loved ones. And their loved one never got to see them cleaning what they could have become. And part of the reason I'm even doing this video is to give you some hope that that you can do this thing, right? But aside from that, I would say one of the best parts about my recovery is, is that I don't want to die anymore. Like I don't want to die anymore. I want to live. And that's why I try to live every day to my best ability. That's why I come here and I make these videos and stuff like that. Time is my most valuable asset. We talk about it in the recovery community, like we're living on borrowed time and I take that seriously every single day. Like the people who are close to me, like they know this about me. But my my window for BS is very, very small. Like things that waste my time, waste my energy. I got I don't even give time to them because life is so precious and I shouldn't even be alive today. But the the great thing that happened to me as a result of my recovery and I will do another video about some of my first few months in recovery. But I didn't want to live when I first got clean. Like I was like, what's the point of even getting clean? I'm still depressed. I still want to die. I don't have anything right. And something happened where it clicked and I was like, wow, like I don't want to die anymore. See, back when I was using towards the end of my addiction, every single night I was going to sleep with a handful of pills and a bottle of rum and I would just hope that I wouldn't wake up in the morning. Like if there is a God, please do not let me wake up tomorrow morning. Because I don't want to live like this anymore. And I found that there was no hope for me, right? And every day I'd wake up sun shining in my window and I was like, damn, I got to do this again. You know, like I just didn't want to live and something happened. And I realized that not only could I stay clean, but I can live this amazing life clean. Like a lot of people who meet me now and see this smile on my face and even knowing that I struggle with depression and anxiety, they wouldn't realize how bad it actually used to be. So like, I always tell people that, you know, especially the newer people I meet and they're like, what's the best part about being clean? I'm like, I don't want to die anymore, you know, and that is phenomenal. But the last thing, the last thing that I talk about, one of the best things, aside from not wanting to die that I get from my recovery is this thing called hope, hope, hope, hope. Most of my life, like I didn't start drinking or using until I was about 18 years old, but I can honestly say, even before my addiction began, from the time I was a kid, little, little kid, I had no hope, no hope at all. Like my entire life and it just got worse in my addiction. Every day I was living a life where basically my train of thought was no matter how bad my day was, tomorrow's going to be just as bad or worse. That's the way I live my life. And like that's when people like us get suicidal and we don't mind if we die because I had absolutely no hope that tomorrow was going to be a better day. Today I have hope no matter how bad my day is, no matter how bad my day is, I still have hope. I have hope that when I go to sleep, there is at least this much of a chance, at least that much of a chance that the next day will be better. And that's something that I never had for 27 years of my entire life. So now I have hope and, you know, shameless plug real quick, but that's actually why I titled my book right here. That's why I titled it hope because, like, if I had to describe my sobriety in one word, it would just be hope. So if you want a copy of that book right there, it's up on Amazon. I think it's only like four or five bucks. It's an ebook. But anyways, anyways, I just wanted to share what it's like to be in sobriety after almost a decade of being an addiction. So I hope that this gave you some hope and, you know, leave comments down below. Let me hear about your experiences in recovery. If you're somebody who's struggling with addiction, leave a comment down below. If you know somebody who's struggling, leave a comment down below. No, screw that. If you know somebody who's struggling with addiction, please share this video with it, share this video with that person to give them some hope and show them that it's possible to get better. All right. But anyways, if you like this video, do me a favor and give it a thumbs up. And if you're new here, click right below this little box. Hit that subscribe button because I'm always making videos about addiction, recovery, a lot of stuff about mental health. So check out some of the other videos on this channel. There's also a couple of thumbnails right to the left of me with some other videos, but anyways, thanks so much for watching. I'll see you next time.