 There's been a lot of backlash on Twitter about Netflix's new documentary, Take Your Pills, and we need to talk about it, 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. If you are new here, my channel is all about mental health and helping you out with yours, so make sure that you subscribe if you're having it. But if you are not new here and you're one of my subscribers, you're probably like, oh man, another Take Your Pills video. But yes, this is another Take Your Pills video, and it's very important because there's a lot of issues going on in our country right now from the stigma that surrounds mental illness to the prescription drug crisis that we have. So I'm very grateful that this documentary came out. So we have some things that we can actually talk about because a lot of good conversations are coming from it. So in this video, I'm going to talk about a few different things, and I really hope that you share this video. So A, people go check out this documentary and get informed about a few things going on in this country, and B, hopefully to give some people some new perspective on what's actually going on. But before I get started, I want to put a big fat, huge disclaimer down here, and I have to do this at the beginning of the video because in about five or six minutes, if you're hate watching this video, you can remember, oh, that's right, Chris did say that, and he did put that disclaimer. So my disclaimer is the first thing is, I am not saying that ADHD doesn't exist. I am a mental health advocate. The reason why I have this channel is to increase awareness and decrease the stigma around mental illness. One of the reasons that I do what I do out in my community is to do the same thing. So I am not saying that ADHD is some fictional mental illness. The other thing that I'm not saying is that nobody benefits from drugs like Adderall. I'm not saying that in any way, shape or form. The next thing that I'm going to say, and I really hope you remember this one, is that I am not saying that everybody who takes this medication is a drug addict. That is not what I'm saying at all. All right, we good? We good. Let's get started. So like I said, Netflix just released this documentary on Friday and throughout the weekend, I was going on Twitter. I'm like, hey, I wonder what people thought about this documentary and all this stuff. And there was some massive backlash. Some of this backlash came from a young woman named Jessica and she actually runs a YouTube channel called How To ADHD and I love her channel. I was recently introduced to it. I really hope that you go check it out. She's awesome and she's doing great things for people who have ADHD. But anyways, she put this tweet out the other day. It says, hashtag take your pills on Netflix. Could have been an insightful documentary about the abuse of ADHD medication in college and the workplace. Instead, it was an attack on the medication itself and the people who take it. Zero peer reviewed research, misinformed ignorance. Then she goes on to say, I'm working on a response video now, when it's up, let's get a hashtag trending. Hashtag I take my pills because hashtag I take my pills because they help my brain focus just like my glasses help my eyes focus. There is no shame in medically treating a medical condition. So something that I've just been really curious about is I don't know if I watched a different documentary than other people. All right. So like, yes, how to take your pills clearly had a motive behind it. Okay. And with any documentary, any documentary you watch, there is a motive and with motive comes a bias. All right. But I was actually surprised. I thought that take your pills did an excellent job showing both sides of what's going on. So I would say that it was maybe 80% talking about the abuse of this medication, the over prescribing of this medication, the misdiagnosing of illnesses like ADHD, I would say about 80% was like that. But there was also another 20% that was showing the other side of things. It was showing people who take this medication and they've been diagnosed with ADHD, and it's helping them function throughout life. They even had some parents who prescribed this medication to their children. So like, it is done. It's due diligence by showing both sides of this. Now, did they make it 50 50? Of course they didn't. But like, think about it, Netflix is the home of a ton of documentaries. Like, have you watched like any of the documentaries about why you should be vegan or vegetarian? Like, why would they make a documentary and then make 50% of it? Like, here's a bunch of meat eaters and they think it's okay. Like, they wouldn't do that. So like, I said this on Twitter and I apologize for coming off a little sassy, but like, make your own documentary. Like, Take Your Pills clearly had an agenda. They wanted to shed some light on some of the very real issues going on in this country. Like, I don't know if you guys realize this or not, but more people died from prescription drug overdoses than heroin and cocaine combined. Like, let that sink in for a second. Okay, so I think Take Your Pills did a great job showing, showing the issue. But the problem is, and it's one of the problems of our time is that people are very quick to get offended. And don't get me wrong. Like, I love to get offended. I'm just waiting for somebody to offend me. But we all got to take a step back and say, okay, what's the purpose of this? Are they making some valid points? All right, cool. Let's sit down. Let's relax. So I'm glad that Jessica is making a response video. Maybe she can open my eyes to a new perspective. I hope you all realize that with this video, I don't mean anything malicious, but I want to help to offer a new perspective to all of you. And one of the perspectives is that of a recovering drug addict. My drug of choice was prescription medications. And I would put money. I would put a lot of money on the fact that you, yeah, you, you watching this video, I would put money on the fact that if I introduce you to two people, one has ADHD and is taking this medication responsibly, and I introduce you to another person who is a drug addict, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference at all. Okay. And here's what I mean by that. Drug addicts are great at manipulating and justifying and rationalizing their drug use. The first time I experienced this was when I was personally in a detox facility for prescription medications. I'm in there and I'm bored. I'm like, you know what, I'm going to go to the nurses station and see if I can get me some pills, right? But when I go to the nurses station, there's already 20 people there trying to pull the same thing. Oh, you know, I got this problem in my neck and oh, I just really need something. I hurt so bad. I can't sleep. I haven't slept in days. You just don't get it. I need something that will relax my muscles, right? I now work at a drug rehab. I've been there for two and a half years. Okay. I've been clean for five and a half years. I've been working at a drug rehab center for two and a half years in inpatient facility. Anytime you walk past the nurses station, it's the same exact thing. So when you see these people on Twitter saying hashtag, I take my pills because one of those people can be crushing these pills up and snorting them and saying, I just use these to focus. Like you wouldn't know the difference. So I just really want you to step back and take that into consideration. Again, I'm not saying that everybody who takes these medications are drug addicts, but it's something that we have to recognize. So then I came across an article on the website Thrillist. Okay, I will link it down in the description below. And the author of this article, me and him actually had a pretty cordial back and forth on Twitter. And, you know, but I had some issues with his article. He was taking kind of the stance that Jessica took from how to ADHD. And anyways, before I get started, like just in case the author for some reason watches this video or just in case you go check out this article, I want to make this very clear in no way shape or form. Am I saying that this guy is a bad parent? How would I know that? I don't know him. I don't know his child. Okay, but I just made a video the other day, which I will link in the info card above about a very real scenario where ADHD is misdiagnosed. I discussed a young boy who is severely neglected by his mother. And since he's not getting attention from his mother, he tries to get it at school by acting out. Now, from a doctor's perspective, yeah, those are the signs of ADHD. But when you look at the kid's actual living situation, maybe he's just acting out based on a poor childhood, right? So lastly, one of the reasons why I'm so upset that so many people are outraged by this documentary is because they're acting like this is a fictional problem. Like, let's sit back and think about this for a second. The ADHD medication industry is a $13 billion industry, okay? So when you think about the pharmaceutical lobbyist and the government and the way that they don't restrict these things properly or put guidelines on these things, are you going to sit back and honestly say that this is the first time, the first time that the money hungry pharmaceutical industry had your best intentions in mind? Is that what you're thinking? Like, that would be intentional ignorance. That is blatantly lying to yourself, thinking that for some reason, now they have the best intentions for you. It's absolutely not true, okay? So again, yeah, you might have ADHD. That might be the issue. You might need these medications. You might, but the reality is that there's a lot of people who are getting prescribed this medication who don't need it. Something that I often explain to people is this, okay? I don't know if you got the memo or if you can see, I don't know if your eyes are working right, but I'm kind of fat. I'm a little bit fat. A while back, I was looking into gastric bypass. There was a ton of hoops that I had to jump through. I was going to have to try to lose 50 pounds on my own. I was going to have to see a nutritionist, a dietitian, possibly even go through therapy. This would have taken a year for me to go through all these hoops to maybe, maybe be qualified to get gastric bypass surgery, okay? Think about that for a second, but if you're showing symptoms of not being able to focus and pay attention, you can walk into a doctor's office and they can sign a script to give you a potentially addictive narcotic medication, all right? Just put that together real quick, okay? So like I said, don't be deliberately ignorant about the issue. Like open your eyes and say, yeah, you know what? These are the issues. Like I always say on my channel, we talk about the problem but focus on the solution. Lying to yourself and to the rest of the world just acting like there's not an issue is never going to get anything done. So anyways, like I said, please, please, please share this video, spread some awareness. Let's talk about what's really going on. I hope that you've gone out and you've actually checked out this documentary, take your pills. But anyways, I would love to hear what you all think. Make sure that you leave comments down below. But if you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up. Or if you hate me, you can give it a thumbs down. That's cool too. I still love you. All right. But if you're new here and you haven't yet, make sure you click that little round subscribe button. And if you want to check out some other videos on this channel, you can click or tap on one of those thumbnails right there. All right. But anyways, thanks so much for watching. Spread some awareness. Let's end the stigma and I'll see you next time.