 So Trisha Payne has just made a video titled Ready to Date Again and I could definitely empathize with her, I have been where she has been and I know a lot of you out there have been as well so let's talk about it. 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 a look at what's going on in the YouTube community or pop culture in general and try to see what lessons we can learn from them. So if you're into that stuff make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. So real quick housekeeping I am a social commentary channel see it says right there in my banner social commentary with a solution. So if things are happening in the public spotlight I like to do some commentary on it share my personal experience and see if there's any lessons that you can take away from it as well. So anyways I was just watching this video and like it reminded me like Trisha Payne did this in her video and everything she was feeling and her emotions like it reminded me of this life that I was living for so so long and I can definitely relate to that and I know a lot of people who are watching her content can relate to that as well and I will say this like I am super glad that she like you know some some people say like you know she shouldn't be putting this out there and everything like that like regardless she is alright but at the end of the day there are definitely people who are watching this and being able to relate to it and connect to it. So I wanted to share my personal experience about it as well. So the first thing I want to address real quick is this clip right here. I think I'm going to need to be on antidepressants which I don't want to be on because I don't want to be on. Like I absolutely get that I absolutely get that Trisha Payne just recently discussed her addiction to prescription pills and getting off of them and everything like that and not wanting to be on antidepressants and this is something like that I have seen countless times so although I am not a licensed therapist or psychologist or doctor or anything like that I'm coming up on seven years clean I worked in addiction treatment for three years I have literally worked with thousands and thousands of drug addicts especially people who are addicted to pills and just to give you some insight a lot of us we don't want to start taking a medication to help with our depression or anxiety because we've been a slave to this pill for so long now that we're clean we don't want to do that again right but the reality is in order to recover in order to stay well we need to hit this baseline so what happens is and I won't go into the in-depth neuroscience of addiction my course on addiction is free if you want to check it out there's a free link down below check it out I go into the neuroscience and everything but long story short basically drugs spread out dopamine in your brain it raises your baseline all right so when you build up a tolerance to drugs you need more and more in order to get those dopamine hits dopamine is something that gives us pleasure makes us happy now when you stop taking drugs you go boom you plummet and your brain is not used to creating its own dopamine naturally so typically antidepressants help people when they're first getting clean it is extremely common for people who just got sober to be extremely depressed so like when I was working in the addiction treatment center like 98% of our clients regardless of if they had diagnosable depression we're on antidepressants so sometimes is actually a short-term thing now almost seven years later I am still on antidepressants I've gotten off of them a few times I've documented that on here on my channel but it still comes back so that's why I still take them but what I want to tell you anybody out there who is getting clean from pills or if you know somebody who is do not be afraid to take advantage of medications that will help you stay clean because the three reasons we drink or use drugs is to get a feeling to get rid of a feeling or to have an escape all right and what happens is if we fall victim or prey to our own depression we have a much higher chance of relapse one of the primary causes of relapse is an untreated mental illness like depression or anxiety so I used to joke with my clients all the time because a lot of them when they were coming on I don't want to take these medications and I would just laugh I'm like you guys we have been shoving substances into our bodies for years now then all of a sudden there's a medication that can actually help us and I would like oh no no no I don't want to take anything so if you're somebody who is experienced with that like I get it but just remember it doesn't have to be for the rest of your life typically an antidepressant you might only be on it for six months to a year just to get you out of bed so you can go out socialize with people get to therapy get to 12-step meetings hang out with family and friends that's what it's all about but anyways when it comes to dating again like I definitely feel the pain that Trisha Paytas is going through like looking back at her history it doesn't seem like she's had any extended period of being single and that's how I was as well so in my personal experience like once I started dating like freshman year of high school I was constantly in a relationship right and I was typically in long-term relationships I did not know how to how to be single right like I had this void inside of me that I thought only somebody else could fix I needed them to complete me I was relying on another person for my happiness and well-being and something that Trisha Paytas touched on which a lot of us can relate to is when we are so dependent on somebody else for our own happiness we can start to lower our bar or we'll stay in toxic relationships like I stayed in many toxic relationships far too long because although they were verbally mentally sometimes physically abusive to me the fear of being alone was greater than the fear of staying with that person so when I first got sober one of the biggest recommendations they had for anybody who's getting clean is to stay single for a year all right I was like well that is literally the dumbest thing I've ever heard but it started to make sense for a couple reasons right one of them was I saw all of my friends in early recovery getting into relationships and one of a few things would happen either they would they would break up and the other person would relapse or they'd be in the relationship and the other person would relapse or they'd break up and my friend would relapse sometimes this would lead to a death from overdose all right and here's why like when you're early in recovery it's kind of like starting out a new business all right and when you start a new business or any business rather like it's about decreasing risk you want to minimize your risk so go through the gambit of all the reasons we drink or use drugs right well how many times have we drank or use drugs because of a breakup how many times have we drank or use drugs because of an argument with our significant other how many times have we drank or use drugs just because the other person wasn't giving us the amount of attention that we needed there are so many reasons why we choose to drink or use drugs we are so delicate and fragile in early recovery and here's the thing like I remember somebody one of my buddies in recovery saying this he said like staying single your first year it's the most suggested and the least followed and that's so true I am not even exaggerating this I have seen thousands of people try to get into relationships in early recovery and I've seen like two or three of them work out all right like think about it think about that and some people like well maybe I'll be that one of the three you know what I mean but the reality is we we are at a much higher risk of relapsing that first year that's why it's so important to focus on ourselves so I interest a patissist mama you know what I mean like if she's gonna date she's gonna date do your thing baby girl but if you're somebody watching this just understand this that first year it's time for us to repair ourselves and to figure out why we keep turning to drugs or alcohol not only was I addicted to drugs and alcohol I was addicted to relationships you see what I mean I did not know how to be alone I didn't know how to love myself I needed somebody else to do it for me and the thing is like how many of you out there have ever had somebody just break up with you and there wasn't even like a warning sign or they cheated on you right people are fallible people do random things without any warning so to put our happiness eggs in somebody else's basket is setting ourselves up for failure now something else I personally realized in my recovery and you might be able to relate to this is I realized that I can be a selfish self-centered dick all right like I remember I'll never forget I was sitting in a 12-step meeting and somebody was like talking about their relationship and they were talking about how like their wife or girlfriend or something like that like you know just want to spend time with them and everything I was in there I was like I just want to play video games you know what I mean like and then it clicked for me I'm like wow I am a really self-centered selfish a-hole like I think about me I constantly think about what this other person would do for me what can I take from this relationship rather than what can I give right so what I realized was not only was it dangerous for me to be in a relationship my first year but it was also selfish of me like it was selfish of me to be a hot mess to still be mentally and emotionally unstable and bring somebody into that like it would be so selfish for me to pull somebody in and say listen your job is to fix me all right so what I did was I actually stayed single and celibate for a year and a half well I did nothing but work on myself all right and because of that the next relationship I got in was better but it still wasn't perfect that lasted for I don't know six to nine months something like that but then I stayed single again for a very long time and then you know what happened you know what happened next I met that girl right there the most beautiful amazing woman on earth my lovely girlfriend Tristan all right but it's because I was able to stay single and now I can be in a relationship where I know what it's like to have a healthy relationship all right I waited until the time where I knew how to do that in a healthy way and now now I don't have to worry about relapsing just because my feelings got hurt all right so I wish Trisha Paytas the best again I am super glad that she's staying clean going to therapy and working on herself this video is for anybody out there who can relate and I hope you think about these different aspects of relationships before you get into your next one all right but 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 ring that notification bell because I make a ton of videos and a huge huge thank you to everybody supporting the channel over on patreon you're all amazing and if you would like to become a patron help support what I'm doing here get access to our monthly Q&A and some other perks and benefits click the top right there all right thanks so much for watching I'll see you next time