 First and foremost congratulations Karim Lee on 30 days of sobriety but in this video we're going to be asking is Karim Lee an alcoholic? 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 is all about mental health and what I like to do is pull different topics from the YouTube community to try to teach you how to improve your mental and emotional well-being or maybe help someone you know so if you're into that kind of stuff make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell and before we jump into the topic two quick announcements this video is posted at 7 a.m. saturday february 23rd and at 10 a.m. pacific standard time I will be doing my charity livestream to help support project beauty share which is what that Tayla is doing her 15 days of foundation on so come join the livestream I will be doing makeup answering questions and all money that we raise will be going straight to project beauty share and it's going to be wonderful but the second thing is since we're going to be talking about addiction alcoholism and all that stuff don't forget over on my website the science of addiction course is now 100% free go check it out learn educate yourself more about the disease of addiction whether you're somebody in active addiction in recovery you have a loved one or just simply share it and help educate more people about addiction so we can help in the stigma and help even more people all right but anyways so yeah Karin Lee she just uploaded a video about how she was sober for 30 days now I was unfamiliar with Threadbanger and Karin and all that stuff my beautiful girlfriend Tristan recently introduced me to their channel absolutely love it but my twitter started blowing up and people were asking about you know Karin Lee hey you should make a video on this so Tristan and I you know we're just chilling on a Friday night and we decided to watch it so I checked it out and I just want to you know kind of break uh break it down a little bit and I want to talk about different parts so in some parts I might be talking to Karin if you ever watch this girl I'm gonna be talking to you or I'm gonna be talking to you the audience if you can relate to Karin or I'm gonna be talking to you the audience if you know somebody who is like Karin all right so let's get started probably doesn't sound like a lot to most of you but I think the longest I've gone without drinking since high school was maybe two weeks and that's not a long time I'll be 38 years old at the end of January and I feel like I really need to get my s*** together all right so first and foremost like yeah she talks about drinking as well as smoking for years right and later on in the video she talks about how I think it was around day 12 that's you know she's only been sober that long you know like two or three times in her entire life and girl I can definitely relate to that and by the way if I forgot to mention it earlier I am a drug addict and alcoholic in recovery I've been clean since my 27th birthday in June of 2012 all right but yeah there are different reasons why people decide to sober up and by the end of this video I'll be talking about how addiction is kind of like on a spectrum okay but you know the new year is always a great time to start and when I first saw her start to you know do this I'm like girl you got a journey ahead of you because you talked about some of the things you know you know birthday concert all sorts of stuff and it's like that's a lot to stay sober through and I've dabbled throughout the years with meditation and trying to start a regular practice but never fully committed myself and I'm thinking this would be a good time to maybe try to do that oh I can't even tell you how excited I got when Corinne said she was gonna start meditating and and I'm gonna be completely honest I mean girl I thought you were gonna be like yeah audible you know that's the only reason why you plugged it but at this part right here so there's a theme that keeps presenting itself to me over and over and over again and that is the theme of meditation now I learned about meditation many many years ago from a Buddhist monk named Tana Heng definitely saying his name wrong and I apologize for that I believe it's pronounced tick not hon all right and I'm so glad she mentioned him he is one of my favorite favorite favorite meditation teachers he has so many books that are just amazing some of them are not you know on audible and you can only get the regular copy like the the paper copy or the the kindle copy and yeah I absolutely love it like I think the first book I read of his a short one was called the miracle of mindfulness I highly recommend that one I know that one's on audible but like he covers so many different topics you saw Corinne kind of scrolling through it everything from fear to anger you know to all sorts of things and I absolutely love this dude one of my favorite books if any of you are like trying to diet or lose weight like I am when I started my weight loss journey about a year ago or so maybe a little longer there's a book that he wrote with a doctor and it's called savor so there's a lot of science in there as well as different mindfulness techniques for losing weight so I highly recommend that book savor as well I'll link down below some of these books by him absolutely phenomenal I'm so glad that Corinne decided to start meditating and she actually surprised me a little bit later in this video so I picked up the camera right now because I'm experiencing a little anxiety Rob went to the store to pick up some things for a project that he's doing and it just like freaks me out gonna make me cry I'm just always so afraid that something bad's gonna happen so I try to prepare myself for the worst and it really sucks to live like that I'm hoping I can find some coping mechanisms so I don't have those negative thoughts all the time because right now I'm just afraid Rob is never gonna come home are these normal feelings that people have I don't know why does my mind always go to the dark side I'm gonna try not to think about negative things I'm gonna go work out do some yoga and meditation and hopefully that makes me feel better all right so right there right there so when she was talking about like the anxiety around Rob never coming home this is this is very common okay like Corinne was talking about her anxiety forming after her mother unfortunately passed away and this is something that can happen it can trigger anxiety like some like even though Corinne later talks about her trauma and I'm gonna touch on that in a second like trauma is different for everybody and especially when it comes to grief like losing someone like that close to you especially like you know your mother like this can cause a trauma and trauma triggers anxiety all right so like her fear of Rob not coming home like it's very very you know realistic for anybody who struggles with anxiety now as she was talking about that and she was like normal people think this and these thoughts and blah blah blah and I was like girl you better start meditating and then she said she's like she's gonna go do some yoga and go meditate yes yes yes yes so meditation is not about stopping your thoughts it's about noticing your thoughts it's about noticing the wacky places that our brain goes and catching it and with meditation depending on what type you're doing you have an anchor by the way all of you need to go like if you want to get into mindfulness meditation just start doing yoga yoga is like moving meditation and by the way the channel that Corinne mentioned yoga with Adrienne uh that's the channel I actually was doing yoga with I did like a month or two of yoga and I might get back into it I should get back into it like there was a lot of stuff that I could do like I was afraid to do yoga as a heavyweight guy but like there was actually a ton of stuff that I could do and there was like a bunch of different positions all that but anyways get into yoga why don't I do more videos on yoga you need to remind me to do more videos on yoga not you Corinne but my audience y'all need to remind me to do some more videos on yoga the point is is that prior to today I probably would not watch this arch heli documentary because I myself experienced sexual abuse in high school at the hands of someone I trusted a relative and I really believe that was the catalyst for me to take on drinking as an almost everyday hobby that right there is something so so so relatable to so so many people okay so Corinne was talking about the abuse she suffered from as a teenager and this is what started to lead to self-medication all right and the reason this can develop into an addiction is because we're trying to get rid of those feelings there's three reasons people drink or use drugs okay just three we think there's a million but there's just three to get a feeling to get rid of a feeling or to have an escape so like right there it could have been a combination of the two if I were to guess like to get rid of a feeling or to have an escape and what happens is we start rewiring our brain so whenever we have those thoughts those memories those feelings whatever they are and we turn to substances our brain immediately connects that it grooves into our neural pathways and it's like okay anytime you're feeling like that turn to alcohol or drugs and the longer you do this more consistently that you do this it turns into an autopilot like for many people who struggle with addiction of drugs or alcohol they they don't even think about it like a lot of people like like I know me personally like I didn't want to drink I didn't want to use it wasn't even like having the same effect on me but I just kept doing it anyways because it was just so habitual I trained my brain to turn to substances for a wide range of triggers it's the first time in a really long time that I haven't been self-medicating all day with marijuana the alcohol really seems like it was the easier of the two to stop doing daily boom right there okay so those of you who know my channel I am pro weed okay if you want to smoke weed do your thing baby like even though I don't smoke and you know I'm 100 sober no no alcohol no drugs or anything I'm pro marijuana like I voted to have it passed for recreational use here in the state of Nevada and like you know it's great for medicinal reasons and you know it's it's actually less harmful than alcohol but I do want to point out that it is addictive so what Corinna is talking about is that she's recognizing that it was it's harder to live without weed than it is to live without alcohol okay it's a psychological addiction okay so like although like weed can be very beneficial to people for medical reasons or you just want to chill relax or whatever say for that alcohol but you can develop a psychological addiction okay like some people like ooh it's not a drug it's a plant like listen very carefully if you can come become addicted to gambling food shopping like you can become addicted to weed okay so on day 13 like Corinne is seeing the psychological dependence and where those cravings are coming from because she's so used to smoking just shake the rump hmm well I'm starting to lose track of how many days it's been so I feel like that's a good sign so on day 17 Corinne is like oh I don't even like what day is it well stop all of you stop right there doesn't matter what you're doing whether you're trying to quit alcohol drugs uh a poor habit or whatever take out your phone okay I'm not gonna tell you which one there's a million of them just go to your app store or the google play store whatever the heck your phone uses and just type in sobriety counter or clean time counter or whatever it is there are a million of them so I actually use one on my phone um it's part of a 12 step program but anyways anyways I have 6.66 years sober 79.96 months 2,436 days which equates to 58,461 hours sober all right you can get it on your freaking phone okay this way you never lose track just put it on your phone okay this is actually a very special day because it is the start of aquaria season there is a full blood wolf moon tonight and we're going to a concert which will definitely test our resolve for staying sober I think I've been to maybe one concert where I didn't drink alcohol yeah oh I got nervous right there Corinne I got nervous for you right there like going to a concert like sober and staying sober congratulations that is a huge one all right and I think there's two takeaways we could take from this right one of the biggest fears that people have when getting sober is like it's not gonna be fun I can't do anything fun like you're crazy I do everything that I used to do you know I I love going to shows in a month or two I'm gonna go see uh taking back Sunday with some of my buddies and things like that I live in Las Vegas okay like I do a ton a ton of fun things while being 100 sober took me a while to learn how to do that but I did okay so first thing huge myth is that you can't have fun sober Corinne is living proof I'm living proof millions of other people are living proof the second thing is it is difficult especially in early sobriety I think I went to my first concert when I had about four months sober I came back to Las Vegas real quick story time I came back to Las Vegas to visit my son and there was actually a show I think it was yeah it was Newfound Glory and me and my buddy were gonna go one of my best friends I grew up with and right before the concert which was at a bar we were playing some video poker and I won a thousand dollars okay so I was in Las Vegas, Nevada where all my dealers are there's alcohol everywhere right and I won a thousand dollars and then we were going to a concert at a bar and oh my god it was just the most difficult thing right and it was because I was still early in sobriety now it's like you know that doesn't really matter to me but anyways like some people say you gotta stay sober a day at a time like that night I was staying sober like one minute at a time all right I was just like okay Chris just pay attention to the band pay attention to the band just pay attention to the band all right so it was very difficult it was a test that I passed what I ended up doing to get rid of that money so I quit getting crazy thoughts was it was in like November so I ended up just buying my son a bunch of Christmas presents there was a moment when I was at the retreat I was back in my hotel room and I was putting moisturizer on my face and looking in the mirror and I realized how much I look like my mom I had this feeling that she would be proud of me and it made me smile and it made me happy instead of sad which is usually how I feel when I think about her and it felt like a breakthrough I love I love and Karen if you're watching this I love how you touched on that right there and part of that process of dealing with grief and like she was saying like we never 100% get over lost like I have lost so so so so many people in my life but Karen had some clarity because she wasn't you know using substances to cope and she was thinking about how proud her mother would be and absolutely that is something that that just brings joy to my life on a daily basis especially when I start to get down and I think people who I've lost I've lost one of my best friends I've lost other friends I've lost you know clients I've lost people in recovery I've lost so many people right and when I look and like you guys know so those of you who follow my channel my channel's been going through some here's what I'm going through some stuff lately and I remember driving home the other night and I was just thinking about how you know one of my best friends who passed away I'm like you know she would be really proud of what I'm doing right now right and that's a great way to reframe your grief but not only that but it's also a great way to kind of like live on the right track like you know um something that I do like my grandma like I she was the most important person in my life and she passed away a few years ago and something that I asked myself is like would I be honoring her memory if I took this action you know what I mean like what would she want me to do in this situation so there's a lot of ways that we can honor somebody's memory and also you know ask yourself would they be proud of what I'm doing and who I've become you know what I mean and it kind of keeps us on the right track that is just one of the ways that I deal with grief personally so again Corinne super super super proud of you for 30 days sober and at the end of the video Corinne asked like if we have any questions or anything like that my question is did you stay sober did you stay stopped drinking smoking weed like I was surprised so I was like wait you're not even gonna like what that's what we all want to know because you like uploaded it like 23 days after you know the 30 days or whatever so Corinne if you see that video or this video that's my question for you now lastly the question the title of this video is Corinne an alcoholic or an addict I don't know I don't freaking know what do you think I am what do you think I do here on the reward so you think I'm over here diagnosing people you must be crazy um but anyways what I would say is addiction is on a spectrum you know what I mean so like I don't know like I was uh just you know just my observations you know and assumptions it didn't look like Corinne was like experiencing withdrawal or she didn't really talk about it like alcohol can have some pretty wicked withdrawal symptoms and like she was pretty cheery you know like during that first week there could be a lot like I've made videos about my alcohol withdrawal not only like the aches and pains and the puking and stuff but like I had hallucinations and you could have seizures if you're not uh you know going through like a medical detox and stuff like that but anyways there is a spectrum of addiction there's like severe moderate like you know and then there's just like kind of like you're in the abuse territory so I don't know you know but that's something for her to find out the last thing I will say Corinne if you are watching this video and if sobriety is still your thing and anybody out there who's into meditation sobriety and all that I cannot recommend enough an alternative to 12-step programs it's called Refuge Recovery and it's based around Buddhist philosophy not Buddhist religion Buddhist philosophy so rather than 12 steps they follow the eight-fold path in the Four Noble Truths absolutely phenomenal meetings typically start with a meditation and there is a book too called Refuge Recovery um you could download it you could buy it you can get it on you know audible all that stuff so go check that out if that's something you're interested in working with a lot of clients who are resistant to 12-step programs but they're kind of like interested in meditation or even like Buddhist philosophy and stuff like I am I'm a big nerd about that stuff like Refuge Recovery is an excellent excellent excellent option all right but anyways if any of you have been sober for 30 days ever in your life let me know down in the comments how'd you do it how did you do it let's share that with some other people so maybe they can do it too all right don't forget charity live stream 10 a.m. two day February 23rd 10 a.m. PST all right and I will be doing my makeup answering questions and we're going to be raising money for project beauty share 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 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 and get some exclusive perks exclusive videos all sorts of stuff click the top right there all right thanks again so much for watching congratulations Korean and we'll see you next time