 There are a lot of people out there who are really upset that Taylor Nicole Dean is giving her audience addiction recovery advice. Some of the criticisms are that Taylor Nicole Dean only has four months sober, she's not a licensed professional, so I, somebody with seven years clean and sober and experienced working in a rehab, I wanted to chime in on this topic. What's 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, my channel is all about mental health and addiction recovery and what I like to do is take different topics from the YouTube community and try to see what we can learn from people's successes, mistakes, and all of that to improve our own mental and emotional well-being. So if you're into that stuff, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell and if you're not yet, make sure you follow me over on Instagram and Twitter over at the Rewired Soul, all right? Yeah, so jumping into this topic, I've had quite a few requests about this and yeah, people are saying, you know, there's two different camp camps for Taylor Nicole Dean, right? There's people who are like, oh my god, the animals and the abuse and everything and she's lying and all this other stuff and then there's other people who are very happy and proud of Taylor Nicole Dean and her recovery. So like I mentioned in the intro, I'm a recovering drug addict myself, although I didn't do heroin. My drug of choice was prescription opioids and I got cleaned seven years ago. So those of you who haven't met me yet, I've been cleaning sober since June 23rd, 2012. I worked at a rehab center for a little over three years. I ran groups. I also did one-on-ones and things like that. I'm currently in school right now to get my CADC, certified alcohol and drug counselor, licensing, all right? But I want to chime in on this because I actually taught classes on the science of addiction and that's a little bit of what Taylor Nicole Dean has been doing and I taught this not only to the clients, but I also taught it to their family members to help them understand addiction a little bit more, all right? So one of the videos out there, I think it has a little over 20,000 views. It's a video from a channel called Whatever, all right? And it's talking about Taylor Nicole Dean and saying she's lying and she shouldn't be, you know, giving people addiction recovery advice. So this video is kind of a response to that because it sums up a lot of the different concerns that people have. I'll link her video down below if you want to go check it out, all right? But anyways, the first thing that we need to talk about is if any of you have been to therapy, something that comes up is cognitive distortions, okay? This is something that all of us struggle with. Me, you, everybody struggles with cognitive distortions, okay? A lot of our mental health issues comes from the way our brain is processing information and kind of the lies our brain tells us. So the first thing that I want to talk about which came up quite a bit in whatever's video was the cognitive distortion of catastrophizing, all right? So catastrophizing, this is a clip from cognitive behavioral therapy of Los Angeles and it says, the cognitive distortion of catastrophizing is pretty much what you might think it is, making something into a catastrophe when it's not. When we catastrophize, we tell ourselves that something is so awful, so terrible that we won't be able to handle it, that we would fall apart or die. The more we tell ourselves the problem we are facing is a catastrophe, the more hopeless and helpless we feel to effectively cope with it. Catastrophizing can result in increased anxiety and depression and can make difficult situations feel even worse than they already are. So in whatever's video, she talks about how dangerous it is for Taylor Nicole Dean to be giving advice. She's giving such dangerous information to her audience and her young audience and this is an example of catastrophizing, all right? Like people believing that Taylor Nicole Dean is a danger to people and I can relate to this. I have had people catastrophize about me, all right? There are people like driven industries, Smokey Glow and you'll find dozens of videos out there just acting like I am just this like cult leader or something like that. This is catastrophizing, all right? It's a cognitive distortion. We get rid of those in therapy. It is not a good idea to play into those and think that the whole world is falling apart because of what one person is doing. I believe that people should be able to hop on YouTube, share their opinions, share their stories, share their experience, right? But people saying Taylor Nicole Dean is dangerous or saying I'm dangerous, this is similar to people who are saying that violent movies and video games are like the primary source of what's happening in the world with all the violence, you know what I mean? Like that is catastrophizing. Now I want to talk about some of the pros and cons of Taylor Nicole Dean discussing her addiction recovery, all right? So something that you know people like whatever have an issue with is Taylor Nicole Dean is talking to a massive audience about this subject. For me that is definitely a positive. That is a good thing, all right? Like I learned a long time ago in my recovery that the best way to help others is to open up and share your experience because I don't know if you guys heard but there still is a massive stigma around addiction, around mental health because people don't talk about it, all right? People are embarrassed, people are ashamed and Taylor Nicole Dean is opening up that conversation and even though I try to do that here on my channel, Taylor Nicole Dean has a massive audience, all right? So the next thing that people are freaking out about is Taylor Nicole Dean only has four months, I believe at this time going on five months sober so she is in no way shape or form qualified to talk to people about addiction, all right? And those of you who know me, like I completely disagree with this, okay? There's a few reasons I disagree with it, all right? One of them is anybody can hop on and share their stories, share their experience and anything like that, okay? But here's the thing, like going back to when I first got sober, when I first got sober seven years ago I would have not listened to me, okay? Like I have seven years sober when I first got sober, seeing somebody with seven years sober I was like they don't even remember what it's like to be in this struggle. I was looking at people like Taylor Nicole Dean who had four months sober when I first got clean and I'm like how'd you do that, right? Because when we first get clean and sober like it's hard for us to stay sober for a day, a week, right? Sometimes it's hard to stay sober for an hour. So when people got a month, two months, my ears were perking up like how did you stay sober for just three months at a time? How did you stay sober for that first year? So I truly believe it is a definite positive thing that Taylor Nicole Dean is sharing her experience in early recovery. Now the next thing is she's been sharing experience from the rehab. Again, I think that's a positive, okay? The rehab I was working at like if you didn't have insurance inpatient treatment was $30,000, all right? Even people with insurance were sometimes paying copays or deductibles of thousands of dollars. So one of the reasons I started this channel was because I knew I knew how many people out there would never have the opportunity to go to treatment. So Taylor Nicole Dean had the opportunity to go to treatment and she is doing her best to share what she learned there, all right? There are so many people who are watching her on YouTube, on Instagram, on Twitter, who will never have the opportunity to go to treatment. And you also got to think about the friends and family members who have a loved one going to treatment or a loved one struggling with addiction. So they're never going to go to treatment so they're not going to understand this stuff. So Taylor Nicole Dean is taking that experience and sharing it elsewhere. It's like imagine somebody going to college and getting an education and then using that information to teach people who are underprivileged and would never have an opportunity to go to college. So that is definitely a benefit. The next concern people have about Taylor Nicole Dean is that she has a quote unquote young audience, all right? And she should not be talking to them about drug addiction, okay? And I'm just sitting here like really, really, like in my opinion and some studies even show this, like that's half the problem with the drug epidemic that we have here is that people aren't talking about it and kids are naturally curious. Like my son is only 10 years old, okay? And I would be a damn fool to believe that my son is never ever going to try drugs or alcohol. So I made a video a very long time ago about how to talk to kids about addiction. But my son's 10. I've been sober for seven years. So I got sober when he was about three years old, okay? He was going to all the events I ran at the rehab I was working with and everything. And if you want me to do more videos about this, like how to talk to kids about it, but I talked to him in a child-appropriate way, okay? He's understood addiction for years, okay? He understands why I don't drink alcohol. He understands why I don't use drugs and everything like that. But if he eventually tries them and he develops an issue, he can come to me, all right? But we got to realize like programs like dare massively failed in schools. Like a lot of people want to hear real talk. And I also think, like this is just another opinion, like it's really ridiculous to think that most of Taylor and Nicole Dean's audience is young. Like some of them are young, but not all of them. Like it's almost like when Logan Paul was saying that Shane Dawson was being dangerous with his Jake Paul series because he has such a young audience. Like, come on. Yeah, some kids are gonna watch it. But at the end of the day, in my opinion, as a parent, it's the parent's responsibility to know what their kid is watching. So one of the main things that keeps coming up, it keeps coming up, is Taylor and Nicole Dean has been talking about how 15% of the population has pretty much the addiction gene and can become addicted, okay? So let's talk about that. All right, so I'm sure this is something that she was taught in her rehab center and everything. And when I went through my training and education and everything on this, I believe a statistic was about 10 or 12%, something between 10 and 12% of people were prone to addiction. Like they've actually found an addiction gene. So for example, addiction runs in my family. So the reason people are upset with Taylor and Nicole Dean is they believe, they believe the message that she's saying is that the other 85% of people can just snort cocaine and shoot heroin and never have a problem. I don't know if that's what Taylor Nicole Dean saying, but I don't think it is, okay? So I'm gonna link down in the description my free course on the science of addiction where I go through all of the risk factors. So yes, there is a genetic component to addiction, okay? Like some people become addicted based on their genetics. Sometimes people have what's called epigenetics where a certain gene isn't activated until a traumatic event, but many people become addicted for other reasons. Some of the other leading risk factors are mental illness, okay? Also your environment, how you were raised, where you were raised, poverty and everything like that. But people can become addicted. The way to kind of look at the progression of addiction is you have substance use, substance abuse, you have dependence and then you have addiction, okay? So even people without the addiction gene can become addicted. Like I don't know how many of you saw the TED Talk from Johan Hari about how like the opposite of addiction is connection and everything like that. Like he got in similar trouble because his TED Talk was focused around you know the social aspect and how people get disconnected and become addicted. But we need to understand that yes, anybody can become addicted. Like this is why I always say it's you know a bad idea to be on medications that are potentially addictive for a long period of time such as you know pain medications, benzodiazepines and everything like that because the longer you use them the more you become dependent and eventually that can turn into addiction. So the last thing I'll talk about is I haven't talked to Taylor Nicole Dean in a while since we had a back and forth on Twitter. But anyways here's my hope, okay? Taylor Nicole Dean has four months sober. She has a lot of experience. She can help a lot of people. But like myself and I have seven years sober, I don't know everything, all right? I am not a doctor, I'm not a licensed therapist, okay? I'm working on it but I'm not yet, okay? So my hope would be that Taylor Nicole Dean is talking to people and pointing them into the right direction, okay? Because neither me nor Taylor nor anybody else has the power to get someone sober, all right? Like this is really a group effort. It takes people in recovery who have experience. It takes doctors for medication management. It takes therapists to help people work through their issues that you know are the root of their addiction in the first place. It takes all of us working together to help one another. So I would just hope that Taylor Nicole Dean is like, yo, do you have the opportunity to go to rehab? Go to rehab. Oh, you don't. Taylor Nicole Dean also has experience in free 12-step programs which saved my life. So she'd be like, oh, maybe she'd go hit up a meeting, right? But Taylor Nicole Dean, somebody with that massive amount of influence and that huge audience, just heard even saying, hey, maybe she'd check out a meeting is a great thing. Like I remember seeing Taylor Nicole Dean explaining to people what Alanon is, right? Like how many people, how many people out there do you think checked out an Alanon meeting just because Taylor Nicole Dean like recommended it, okay? Alanon is for loved ones of addicts and alcoholists. Like that is huge. That is phenomenal, all right? So while I might not always agree with the way Taylor Nicole Dean goes about things or anything like that, I think it is a net positive that she's talking about addiction and trying to help people, all right? Like what good is all the pain and suffering that we've been through? All of us, even if you're not an addict, what good is all that pain and suffering that we've been through if we don't use it to help others? You know what I'm saying? But anyways, that's all I got for this video. Don't forget, check out the description below. My Science of Addiction course is free if you would like to learn about the Science of Addiction and everything like that, all right? But anyways, that's all I got for this video. If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up. If you're new, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell and a huge, huge thank you to everybody supporting the channel over on Patreon, as well as everybody who supports the channel by buying my books, my merch, and all that kind of good stuff, all right? Thanks again for watching. I'll see you next time.