 So Smokey Glow made a great video, a great video and it's blowing up and I'm getting a lot of comments and DMs and messages and everything like that and I wanted to discuss it. So in this video it's going to be a little bit longer, but I'm going to touch on some topics that I feel I haven't dove too much into. I want to talk about my credentials, my experience, my motives and some other topics that keep coming up in this Taylor Nicole Dean situation. 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 what I try to do is take different topics happening in the YouTube community and try to see what lessons we can pull from them. So if you're into that, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. So yeah Smokey Glow's video is blowing up and it was an excellent video. I actually left a comment over on her video and she replied to it and yeah, she's a cool gal. And the first thing I want to talk about is like first huge, huge, huge congrats on the recovery. Like that's awesome and I'm so glad that she is now going to school for social work and this is what's awesome. Like people who have been through this thing, like we want to help other people obviously, right? And there's some things that, you know, we have different views on opinions on and everything like that. But I do think that's awesome. And I'm glad that she's getting the community and her audience to talk about these things, right? And even though you may disagree with some of the things that I talk about, it's great that we're having this conversation. And with me with some years and Smokey Glow with some years, like now I want you guys to kind of see the conversations that we have as people who are recovering addicts or alcoholics, whatever it may be, like you guys might be learning a whole bunch of stuff that you didn't know from 12 step programs to, you know, actual addiction treatment and mental health and all that kind of stuff. So a lot of people are learning things along the way. Now the first thing I want to talk about is my credentials. So this is something that I don't talk about much. Okay, it's actually like I was, I was talking to my therapist about this, like I don't put these things to the forefront and part of it is to be honest, just part of my imposter syndrome, like I don't think it's a big deal. All right, like no, I'm not a therapist. No, I'm not a psychologist, but I do have education and I have gone through a lot of training and I have a lot of experience, both personally and professionally. So the first thing is like Smokey Glow talks about, you know, how I don't have any type of formal education. And that's not true. I'm actually halfway through my certified alcohol and drug counselor program. All right, so that's a CADC. And I actually made a video about this a while back about how I was going back to school. Okay, so that's just something that is part of what I'm doing. And in this, obviously, we learned about, you know, everything that you would learn as a certified alcohol and drug counselor, you learn about, you know, the physical effects, you learn about the psychological effects, we learned about mental illness, all these other things, there are training hours that are kind of come with it and everything like that. There is also an ethics class that we have to take. So like ethics is something that's been brought up a lot. Okay. So there's the whole philosophical aspect of ethics. And then there's ethics in this specific niche. All right. So ethically and legally, you cannot disclose a client's information or talk about them publicly. That is not only against ethical guidelines, but it's also against the law. All right, there's things like HIPAA compliance and everything like that. But ethically, although some people may not agree with it, you can comment on public figures and things happening in the public spotlight. A great example of this is Dr. Drew. Okay. Ethically, Dr. Drew is doing nothing wrong by talking about people who are in the public eye, because they are not his client unless they consent to him talking about it. Like some of you might have watched the show Celebrity Rehab, right? And he obviously had like forms that were signed saying that he could talk about it after the show and everything like that. But there are probably many other people who he has worked with who you know nothing about, but he can talk about people in the public spotlight. All right. The next thing that's important to note is I worked at a nationally accredited addiction treatment center. We were a dual diagnosis treatment center. What that means we specialize in addiction as well as mental illness. So although I did not need a formal degree to get hired there, I was hired based on my experience in recovery. In order to work at an accredited facility, there are trainings and courses that you have to do every single year in order to keep your job there. So I have dozens upon dozens upon dozens of hours in training on working with addicts and alcoholics, as well as the mentally ill in a wide range of different situations. Something else that I volunteered for that wasn't required was helping people from the LGBTQ community who struggle with addiction at mental illness because our treatment center, one of the cool parts about it was that we were LGBTQ friendly and we had credentials that went along with that as well. So I went through that training too. So just know that not only was I working there and working with clients and it was both in treatment as well as after treatment. There's a lot of training that I had to go through in order to keep my job there. Lastly, the thing that's come up, and I think there's some confusion around this, is I mentioned being a sober coach. So I am a certified life coach. So I got my certification as a life coach, but something that's recommended is that you find a specific niche. So some people decide to be health coaches and obviously, you know, I'm not like a fitness trainer or anything like that. There's some people who go on spirituality. There's some people who do like personal development. Some people do like financial coaching. Obviously something that I have a lot of experience with is addiction and recovery. So my niche, something that I specialize in is sober coaching. So the training I've had to go through was over 60 hours. And some of you saw this, who have been part of my channel for a little while, I actually had to do a lot of training hours with practice clients. So a bunch of people in the community, I've talked to them and done different coaching sessions with them as part of my own training and getting a certification. Now to clear this up. So something that Smokey Glow talked about. And I apologize. This is no, and I hope nothing in this video comes off as disrespectful to her, but I don't like the idea of like, I googled it and found my answer. There's a lot of misinformation. And that's one of the reasons why I'm addressing this stuff. But anyways, yes, there's sober coaches and then there are sponsors. So some of you know, I come from a 12 step background. I have sponsored people in the past. I have had sponsors and everything like that. But working in addiction treatment, I realized how many people do not want to work 12 step programs. Like I have many, many videos on this channel talking about 12 step programs and trying to educate people about them because a lot of people don't really understand them. A lot of people say they're religious and it's all Christian and everything like that. And these are vastly, vastly just really big misconceptions about the program. So I try to educate people and I try to get people and encourage people to go to 12 step programs because a lot of people like myself, when I first got clean, had no money, no health insurance or anything like that. Like that was my only option. Now, like I said, I have met many people, many people, a majority of people are resistant to 12 step programs. So as a sober coach, I like to give other people options. So something else I've talked about on my channel many times is alternatives to 12 step programs. So part of the reasons why I do sober coaching is so I can help people in whatever way feels best for them. So let's say somebody doesn't want to do a 12 step program. Maybe they want to do refuge recovery or maybe they want to do smart recovery or they don't want to do any type of 12 step program. What I do as a coach is provide them with additional support. And we also handle a lot of life situations outside of just drugs and alcohol. So the next thing I want to address is that I'm only doing this for the money. I talked about this a little bit in the last video. All right. Like of course I have bills to pay. I have a son to feed just like every other human being out there. But I did work in addiction treatment and something I mentioned in my last video is this is something that a lot of people say, especially when they're pissed off, right? Like you don't really care. You're just doing this for the money. All right. Like I wish I could do everything for free. I wish I could, you know, provide my services for free. I wish I could write books and, you know, take that time I spent and just give free copies. I try to do giveaways and everything like that. But at the end of the day, I'm just like you and I have bills that I need to pay as well. All right. But one of the things is that will be completely honest with you about is like, yes, the treatment center I was working at, like we actually had two facilities here in Las Vegas. One of them ended up shut down and I was part of a bunch of people who got laid off. And it was a cool company and like they took care of me, you know, I got severance and everything like that. But here's the thing, like I wasn't and this is not a knock at the treatment center because I worked with so many amazing men and women. But the thing is I wasn't happy there for a very long time. And this is something that, you know, even Smokey Glow might find out when she starts working wherever her social work career takes her. But I didn't like working there for a long time because a lot of treatment centers are very money hungry and they just funnel people in, try to treat as many people as possible, get them out. And one of the issues was is that people weren't getting enough personalized care, right? And that's one of the reasons why I stepped in a lot and did a lot of one on ones with people and I helped out with a lot of groups. I would do a lot of groups so therapists could do more one on ones with clients. I've mentioned this in previous video, many of the therapists we had aren't recovering addicts and alcoholics. So a lot of times they would tag me in to come help out because, you know, obviously my experience with addiction recovery. But this is also one of the reasons why I question going back and working at an addiction treatment center that's especially one that's for profit. Because there's certain things that like I just don't agree with that don't line up with my morals and my values. Now something I've been doing, if you follow me on social media, you've probably seen me talk about this like something I've been doing for the last month or so I've been actually going back to my old treatment center that I worked at every single week because I miss like I love all of you don't get me wrong. But I missed like that human interaction and doing groups and everything like that. So I volunteer every single week and I go over there and I do a group like I used to. There are about one and a half to two hours. And yeah, that's just something that I do. I've thought about getting back into treatment but and I'll honestly like because, you know, I'm not I'm not making that much money. There's other things that I look at to see what I can do and I don't necessarily know if I want to go back and work for a for-profit treatment center. And I'm not going to lie and I don't like this isn't me trying to get sympathy and take take that however you want. But like one of the issues that I have and I just want people to kind of just chill out and like take a step back and look at this is one of the major criticisms that Smokey Glow has and many other people in the comment section have is that I do not know Taylor Nicole Dean and that is very true. I don't. I am commenting on what I am seeing. All right, but in that same aspect people are saying that I only do this for the money. I don't actually care about anything and something that I have to come to terms with as a public figure and empathize with is a lot of you out there don't know me and the best I can do is make videos where I try to give a little bit more context on who I am and some people are going to learn more about me and believe me and some people never will and that's just something that I have to accept as a public figure. Now the next thing I want to talk about is commentary and being in the public spotlight like something I've talked about in the past and I actually talked about this in Taylor Nicole Dean situations. Demi Lovato and many others is that it's very hard to get sober and stay sober in the public spotlight because you have people commenting on it and here's the thing about Taylor Nicole Dean. A lot of people have been making videos on her in the past claiming that she's an animal hoarder and talking about the pets who have passed away and talking about her relationship with Johnny Craig and everything like that and I try not to only talk about those things but I try to talk about my personal experience with obviously addiction, mental health and all these other things so I'm talking about a different aspect of it so when somebody has such a massive following like that like the reality is the reality that we all have to come to terms with is that people are going to comment on it. So for example a lot of you over 19,000 people last time I checked have watched Smokey Glow's video right and part of that you know and this is just an assumption I don't know Smokey Glow even though we talked a little bit in her comment section is she knew that she was going to get views because Taylor Nicole Dean has a following there's been some controversy with me and it's something to have a conversation about and I'm glad that there is a conversation being had but the reality that we all need to accept is public figures are going to often have people talking about them that's just the way the world works. Something that I had to come to terms with before I ever turned on my camera for the first time is I am an addict in recovery putting myself out there so it is possible that people watching this can affect my recovery you know what I mean like this is something that I had to accept when I decided to become a public figure like I fully understand that I cannot expect nobody out there to talk about me and this is one of the reasons why I work so hard on my own mental health because I've been through a lot this year whether you love me or hate me I have personally been through a lot this year and I had to figure out a way to stay sober no matter what. Now in the aspect of discussing Taylor Nicole Dean Smokey Glow actually agrees with me that getting into relationships in your first year is not suggested and the first one is titled Taylor Nicole Dean has a new boyfriend already and in this video I was I was annoyed so he's the things the thing about Chris and I've said this from the get-go is that he very much is like a person who googled something and then is sharing that information it's googleable knowledge he's not sharing anything or it's like knowledge that you would know if you ever went to rehab like because I've gone I'm five years sober hi well gonna be in like 20 days hi hello um so I I did the whole thing like I did the rehab I did all of that whatever and he's correct that you're really they encourage you when you are leaving rehab and they encourage first of all in rehab if you're actually in a 30 day like 30 90 whatever day rehabilitation center you really aren't supposed to have relationships it's not supposed to happen people still do um because shockingly enough when you put 25 strangers together and force them to talk about all the deep crazy things that have happened in their life and you want them to relate to each other people form connections I know that sounds crazy it's human nature I know I understand the reasoning for not wanting relationships and I'll get into that in a second because some of the points he made were correct like I'll give that to him so now you have two people both a man and a woman in long-term recovery who are both educating people out there that it is suggested that you don't get in a relationship during your first year a lot of you don't have experience with addiction or you don't know if you have a loved one who went through treatment or goes through a 12 step programs you might not know what is discussed so now you have two people who are discussing this so now you know a little bit more about what addiction recovery is like there is one thing that I disagree with um Smokey Glow about and it's that and I said this in my comment and she replied to it and clarified a little bit too but um I wanted to address it here something that I don't agree with is that relapse is part of recovery and it's just something I don't agree with relapse is a part of a lot of our stories and those of us who are lucky enough we get another chance at this thing but like I said in my last video I've seen far too many people die um I had one young man who came into treatment and just didn't care and he was just like this young dude just like screw this I'm gonna do whatever you whatever I want and this was this was one of the first awful experiences I had working at the rehab but towards his last week there just something flipped in him and he got really engaged in groups he talked to me all the time and I ran the alumni program and he came up to me on his last day and he said hey Chris you know when's the next alumni event I want to come and I want to you know start speaking and share my story and everything like that and he went home and he hid some drugs that his roommates didn't find and he ended up using and he overdosed they put him in a medically induced coma and 24 hours later they pulled the plug and this dude was like 22 years old so I don't believe that relapse needs to be a part of recovery um just another situation I saw was because like something Smokey Glow talked about was that yeah relapses are going to happen you should never give up hope and I 1000% agree but um one time I was on vacation and I had a work cell phone on me 24 seven and this one young woman who was just she had like seven years clean and she worked a really good program but she ended up relapsing because she fell away from the program and she came to treatment and she was doing really really well she did really really well when she left but when I was on vacation I got a call that they found her dead in her sober living house her roommate in her sober living house found her overdose dead in her bed the very next call I got was about another young woman who had been clean for over a year and she relapsed and something I always share when I discuss this story because it both it happened right back to back like in the same hour is that I'd much rather get the second call than the first call you know what I mean but just because we can bounce back from relapse doesn't mean that we should gamble with it like something that we often talk about is you know I don't know if I have another recovery in me but I know I have another relapse in me you know what I mean so that's something that we try to talk about so people can prevent that because you never know if you're going to come back from that next relapse which is why we discuss things and try to avoid different situations that can make us vulnerable to a relapse so the video that Smokey Glow is commenting on that some other people are commenting on as well is the video entitled police stop enabling Taylor Nicole Dean and listen like this is something like I'm I'm looking at this and like I'm gonna screw up and I'm gonna make mistakes and I'm trying to learn from it and something I think I've realized is like my passion comes out and I get very aggressive and I can come off like a dick all right but again I address this in my last video is that a lot of this comes because I'm tired of seeing people die I am tired of seeing people die and if they're lucky it's just a relapse you know what I mean where they survive it but here's another instance of why when I see this and I enabling is just something that I've seen so much of that I just feel like we need to discuss it's because of stories like these and this story I'm about to tell this this young man survived but what happened was I'm gonna call this guy Billy um he was in treatment he spent a lot of time in and out in and out of jails because of you know he grew up with that lifestyle of like gang banging and things like that but also drug use well he ended up coming to treatment and he he didn't really care about treatment and he was always causing issues and something that he started to do was he tried to like create like this like mutiny type deal like saying hey these people aren't treating us right at this treatment center like we should sue him we should do this right and the clinical director brought him on the side and said yo man like we're we're trying to you know work with your insurance and keep you here like because he wanted to stay there because something you find in treatment is that some people are afraid to leave right so he wanted to push to get 90 days in treatment which is very difficult to do because a lot of insurance doesn't like paying for treatment so they were like yo dude like we're trying to help you stay here and work with you but you got to quit stirring up stuff right so they warned him next day he starts doing the other the whole thing again they warned him again next day he starts doing it again so finally they kicked him out and that night I was actually running an alumni meeting but with all the clients there was like over a hundred people there and people came running up to me after the meeting and they said hey like you know Billy he's outside he's drunk he got kicked out of treatment and now he's drunk and he's in handcuffs the cops are here and everything like that I'm like damn dude like this is one of the reasons why I'm just like why why don't we listen like why don't we listen like we cause our own problems like why don't we just take suggestions and I get it because I was so thickheaded when I first got clean but the reason why I talk about situations like Taylor and Nicole Dean that are happening in the public spotlight and trying to let you guys know what we talk about in addition recovery and in treatment is because the following day after Billy went to jail for showing up intoxicated to the meeting and it was actually where we did sober living and everything like that a lot of the clients were really pissed off a lot of clients were saying oh my god how could you kick him out how could you kick somebody out who's that vulnerable and everything like that and something I had to talk to the clients about was like well why weren't you guys telling him to calm down like you guys knew he was getting warned you guys saw him get warned multiple times that he was going to get kicked out of treatment if he didn't shape up why didn't you guys talk to him about that instead you guys enabled him so what was your part in this situation so again I'm sorry I come off pretty you know passionate and harsh and can come off like a dick sometimes but it's because I've experienced many stories like this so the last thing I want to talk about which Smokey Glow brings up obviously Taylor and Nicole Dean brought up and a lot of people are upset about like listen I hope I'm wrong I hope I'm wrong I hope this situation works out for Taylor and Nicole Dean I hope the best case scenario is that you know this is just a just a friendly hookup thing they go their separate ways and everything is cool right I hope that worst case scenario is that if this does turn out bad she stays clean no matter what because it looks like she has an amazing support system like I hope I'm wrong and sometimes I am that's totally cool I am just speaking from my personal experience what I've learned over the years part of my education part of my training and all those things and my goal with this channel is to hopefully spread awareness to a lot of people who don't know about these things again a lot of people are coming to this video they came to Smokey Glow's videos to get you know the quote unquote tea but you're leaving with a little bit more information about addiction treatment mental health and all those other things all right so anyways yeah again congratulations to Smokey Glow on her recovery and that's awesome that she's getting into social work and yeah like Smokey Glow if you watch this sorry I don't know your real name but yeah feel free to reach out DM me anytime maybe we can I don't know have a discussion you know what I mean anyways that's all I got for this video if you like it give it a thumbs up if you're new make sure you subscribe and ring the notification bell I'll see y'all soon