 Hi, are you a drug addict? Do you know someone who's a drug addict? Or are you just fascinated with drug addicts? Well, in this video, this drug addict is going to explain why he cannot smoke weed. 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, my channel's all about mental health, addiction recovery, and all that stuff. So if you're into that, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. And if you're not yet, follow me over on Instagram and Twitter at the Rewired Soul. And why should you follow me on Instagram and Twitter? Because I am doing my next Shane Dawson Pallet giveaway this Sunday. And if you retweet this video, yes, this video, go check out my Twitter, retweet it. You'll get an extra entry into this weekend's giveaway. All right. So, yeah, let's talk about marijuana, okay? So before I get started and kind of share my experience and everything like that, I just want to say real quick, this is my experience, okay? Those of you who don't know me, hi, my name's Chris. I am a recovering drug addict and alcoholic. My addiction started with alcohol, then my primary drug of choice was opioids, okay? But I'm the type of drug addict where you give me anything that will get me out of the current state of mind that I am in, and I will try it, all right? So after destroying my life and almost dying, I got sober on June 23rd, 2012. So I have a little over seven-year sobriety. Aside from that, I am also in the middle of getting my CADC, which is a certified alcohol and drug counselor's license, and I have also worked in a drug and alcohol treatment center for a little bit over three years, okay? So I was working there, and not only do we help people with addictions, but also mental illness, okay? So the next thing I want to say is I live in Nevada, okay? Here weed is legal, and guess what? I voted to legalize weed because if you can smoke weed or if you like to smoke weed, I do not care, all right? Same thing with alcohol. I can't drink alcohol, but you want to drink? Get your drink on, baby girl, all right? So anyways, let's jump into this. So yeah, I'll just share my experience with weed. And like I said, if you're an addict in recovery, like I get a lot of people ask me, like, hey, Chris, I got sober off these drugs and I still smoke weed, or I get family members who ask me and like, hey, my loved one just got sober, can they safely smoke weed? So I'm going to share my experience, okay? So as a kid, I was a good kid. I was a great kid growing up, but I, like many other children, I succumb to peer pressure when I was young and I was always trying to fit in and everything like that. And yeah, I can't remember. I was probably, was it a high school? Yeah, I think I was maybe 14 or 15. Yes, this first time I smoked weed, we ditched class and we like, we smoked weed in this weird little tunnel thing by my high school. It was weird. And I came back and I was super paranoid, super paranoid at school, right? And I didn't like it. I didn't like how it made me feel at all. And eventually those same friends, like my dad was out of town and yeah, they brought over some weed and we smoked again. We did this thing called a gravity bong where it was like in a bathtub and everything and it got me messed up. And yeah, again, I was super paranoid. I just didn't like how it made me feel, right? And yeah, even though I'm a recovering addict and alcoholic, I didn't really drink or anything aside from smoking pot, like until the end of my senior year, okay? And then that's when I fell in love with alcohol. It, you know, the first time I drank it calmed down my anxiety, my depression went away, you know, like all these things, it was like this magical elixir that I've been looking for my entire life, all right? So as my alcoholism progressed and then I ended up finding, you know, prescription opioids, I didn't really smoke pot like that much. If the only time I would really smoke is if we were like having a party and like other people were smoking and I was just insanely drunk and like, you're curious, you want a bong rip? And I'm like, sure, right? Never liked it. But anyways, there were a few times when my drug dealer would run out of pills because I would mainly buy pills. And there were some times when he ran out of pills and he'd be like, I don't have any pills, but, you know, I got weed. And like, like I said, you know, part of my addiction is like, I would do anything. I would take any substance that would turn this thing off, all right? So even when my dealer did not have my drug of choice, it's like, what other drugs do you have? Sure, I'll give it a try, right? And yeah, like, so even in my 20s when I would smoke, like, I'd get really paranoid, I'd get really anxious and all that, right? So anyways, my addiction got progressively worse. I've done a million videos on this. So I won't go through my entire addiction story, all right? But I, you know, I was losing everything. My kid's mom threatened to take my son away. You know, I tried 12 step programs. I tried going to a detox center and I just kept relapsing. OK, I am a chronic relapser, all right? I love drugs and alcohol so much, OK? And I don't know how to deal with my life. So I kept turning back to those things. So after I went to a detox center to get off drugs and alcohol and I got out, like, things were going good for a while. I stayed clean. Like when I left that detox center, they recommended they're like, hey, you know, go to this outpatient program and go to these 12 step meetings. I'm like, I got this. I don't need your silly Jesus freak 12 step programs. I don't need your outpatient program. I got this, right? And I stayed clean and life started, you know, getting better. But one of the ways, and you guys might be able to relate to this, one of the ways I always justified my blackout drinking and drug use was I couldn't sleep. I have this brain that's constantly going and I couldn't sleep. So after I got sober, I was having a lot of problems sleeping and my roommate, he smoked pot and like, you know, something about my sleep issues and he's like, he's like, do you want to smoke? It'll help knock you out. And that's one thing like weed always helped me go to sleep. So I'm like, okay, whatever, right? Because I'm a drug addict. My problem is with opioids. My problem was with alcohol. My problem's not with weed. I can smoke all the weed I want, right? So I started smoking like just at night to go to sleep and everything like that. And yeah, basically what happened was I was, you know, clean, quote unquote, clean for a few months. I use air quotes because I was still smoking pot. And I ended up getting injured. I got a calcific tendonitis in my shoulder and I had to go to the emergency room and they prescribed me some Vicodin when I left. And like in the hospital, they didn't give me any pain medicine. They shot me up with some kind of anti-inflammatory. It felt a million times better, but they sent me off with this prescription just in case, right? And like usually when I tell this story, I don't even mention the weed part. Like unless I'm doing something like this or I'm specifically talking about weed, but like I talk about how this relapse happened. But whenever I think about my relapse, this last relapse I had, right? Like eight years ago, it started with weed, okay? Because what happened was they prescribed me that Vicodin and I got home. I wasn't in pain, right? I had these Vicodin and I remember staring at that Vicodin bottle and it says, take one as needed every four hours for pain. And I'm sitting there and one side of my brain is like, Chris, you can't take these once you start. You cannot stop, right? So don't even mess with these. Like you are not even in pain. But then the other side of my brain, the addict side of my brain is like, hey Chris, any idiot can take one pill as needed every four hours for pain, right? And like that side of the brain would always win out. But part of what that side of the brain would tell me was, you're already smoking weed. What's the difference, right? You haven't gone out of control smoking pot, you know, you haven't become addicted to weed. So why don't you take this pill? And I'm like, yeah, you're right. So I took that one pill. I took that one Vicodin pill after like, I think I had three months clean. And within seconds of taking that one Vicodin pill, I took four more, okay? Because my brain's like, what's this one little five milligram Vicodin gonna do for you, right? So I took four more. The next morning, that entire prescription was gone. That day I was calling my drug dealer again, okay? So that ended up, that one Vicodin pill and smoking pot ended up kicking off a year and a half long relapse that almost killed me. All right? And that is when I got sober seven years ago. So when I got sober, like I thought people were insane. Like when I went to AA meetings and they were like, we haven't drinking this many years. Right? I'm like, you guys are ridiculous. I'm like, there's no way you haven't had a single drop of alcohol. Like that's how crazy it was for me. Right? I'm like, why would you not even drink a beer? You know? Because I couldn't fathom it. That's the kind of insanity I was in. I could not imagine a life where you're not taking any type of substance to alter your current state of mind. Right? But as I sat there, I started realizing over time that people were living these amazing lives without taking these substances. And I started to believe them. All right? But like when I was working with my sponsor as I went through just my own stuff and my own difficulties and everything like that, I have this brain where whenever I get stressed, whenever I get overwhelmed, whenever I get anxious, whenever I get depressed, I want to take a substance that can help alleviate that. Right? But I learned about what addiction is. Like I don't take substances normally. And I don't cope with life normally. I'm not good with dealing with life on life's terms. I will find something and I will abuse the hell out of it. And even if I'm doing the substance that is not my substance of choice, it will lead me back to the hard stuff every single time. And that's what I learned. All right? So this is why I cannot smoke weed. Now, when I was working in the treatment center, I get questions like this. I get questions like this all the time. Well, can I still smoke pot? Can I still smoke pot? Right? And like I can just share with you my personal experience. Okay? But I have literally worked with thousands of drug addicts trying to get clean. So whenever I was running a group and somebody would ask me like, well, can I still smoke weed? Right? I would do this real simple experiment. Okay? I would say how many people in this room relapsed and it started by smoking weed? Right? You'd see so many hands go up. Okay? Because like, here's the thing. You don't got to believe me. Like if you are a recovering addict and you've had relapses attributed to weed, like you started smoking weed and then it led you back to your drug of choice, just let me know down in the comments below. Because here's the thing. Here's what I learned in my recovery. The drugs and the alcohol are not the problem. Okay? The way that I deal with life is the problem. I didn't know how to deal with life. I didn't know how to deal with any feelings, thoughts, emotions, anything like that. And let me tell you this. With seven years clean, like the freedom I have now is amazing. Okay? Like does life still get, I don't know, life-y? Yeah, absolutely. Those of you who follow my channel, you know that this year has been a mother effort. You think I didn't want to like have a drink? You think I didn't want to smoke some pot? Right? Like I wanted just the insanity in my head to stop for five damn minutes. But I know that that will just take me back to my drug of choice. And I have way too many things in my life right now to even risk it. And this is what breaks my heart because I see people in early recovery who are risking it. They're like, oh, you know, I'll try it. I'll see if I can do this, right? And it's just, you know, it's part of a bigger issue and I don't have enough time to dive into this. But it's part of a bigger issue that we are taught from a young age that if you're feeling any type of way that you don't want to feel, just put something in your body. Just put something in your body and change the way you feel, right? But what recovery has taught me and one of the reasons I have this channel and I try to help others is because I no longer need those things. I have so many tools. I have so many tools at my disposal that I can't even keep track of, right? Like today, I have my therapy appointment, all right? I have meditation. I have journals. I have just so many different other coping skills that do not involve substances. So like, yeah, like I said, weed is legal here in Las Vegas. I smell weed all the time, everything like that. But I know for me personally, it will just take me right back to my drugs of choice. And I will destroy my life and everything that I've gotten back over the last seven years, all right? So like I said, this is my experience. If you have experience with this stuff, feel free to share down in the comments below. But I get a lot of questions about this, everything like that. So I wanted to hop on here and share that with you, all right? But don't forget, go over to my Twitter, at the Rewired Soul, retweet this video and you will get an additional entry into the Shane Dawson Palate Giveaway happening this Sunday, 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 who supports the channel over on Patreon, as well as everybody who supports the channel. Bye bye, my mental health books over at the RewiredSoul.com, as well as my merch and all that good stuff, all right? Thanks again for watching, I'll see you next time.