 Last night I received some messages about Taylor Nicole Dean's Instagram stories where she discusses kind of trying to manage her life a little bit more and find balance between her regular life and her social media life, but she also discussed suboxone withdrawal and some people asked me to dive into that subject so that's exactly what we're gonna do in this video. 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 what I try to do is take different topics going on in the YouTube community or pop culture in general try to see what we can learn from them and addiction is something that I'm very passionate about and I'll dive more into that in a second but my goal with this video is I hope that it can help you if you're struggling with addiction or if you know somebody struggling with addiction hopefully it'll help so if you're into that stuff 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. Alright and with every video that we do we donate 20% of the ad revenue to a good cause so this video 20% of the ad revenue will be donated to Faces and Voices of Recovery. This is a great great great organization that goes out there and really tries to decrease the stigma around addiction they actually try to get different laws passed and everything like that so if you'd like to donate to them directly I will put a link down in the description below. Alright so yeah Taylor Nicole Dean I believe last time I checked she celebrated four months sober and yeah she came back and she made a video not that long ago sharing her her story about how she became addicted to opioids and it was it was a powerful powerful story and now she really wants to use her voice to try to help others out there but she posted some stuff on Instagram yesterday and we're gonna talk about it so before I dive into that those of you who don't know me hi I'm Chris I'm a recovering alcoholic as well as a drug addict much like Taylor Nicole Dean my drug of choice was opioids I got clean June 23rd 2012 so I've been clean a little over seven years I'm a certified life coach I worked in a drug and alcohol treatment center for a little over three years and we did everything from medical detox to inpatient to outpatient and aftercare and I'm currently pursuing my CADC which is a certified alcohol and drug counselor license alright so anyways let's dive into what Taylor Nicole Dean said in her stories yesterday so yesterday she posted this in her stories it says hi I've been taking a break from social media after I noticed I'm beginning to become too invested in my online presence compared to everything else in my life it began to be unbalanced and kind of crumbled after a dramatic and stressful day online which I then stayed up for around 35 hours and forgot to take my med so long I went into severe withdrawals my outpatient program got very concerned for me that day and we decided that I need to rebalance my priorities and move social media back down to the less importance it belongs with and sorry I don't have the other one I thought I screen shot it but I didn't and now it's gone but here's something else that she just posted right after this screenshot from her Twitter says gonna do a video that talks about the basics of the illness of addiction and how it all works for the few I discovered tonight that are still confused on how the illness is different than just becoming physically dependent on something I encourage y'all to watch it with open minds I almost got angry at the few profiles I found tonight that were focused on attacking me but then remembered I've yet to do a single video on how it all works in the brain I'm also gonna work really hard on it for everyone who's been so open minded and kind towards my journey alright so a few things from that like before we dive into the Suboxone topic and withdrawal like this is so dope like Taylor Nicole Dean as somebody you know who got clean and sober she's sharing her experience and she's also sharing what she learned I really admire that in people because here's the thing not everybody can go to treatment alright and not everybody can gain that knowledge for example me when I got sober I had no money no health insurance nothing I didn't get to go to a rehab and actually learn about addiction alright I had to go do that on my own so it's awesome that Taylor Nicole Dean is going to make some videos discussing what she learned in treatment about the science of addiction and relay that information like that's really really cool because like I said so many people don't have the opportunity to go to rehab like 12-step programs are free and awesome but like for example like the the big book of AA that was written in the 1930s and although there is a chapter in there called the doctor's opinion like that is old doctor's opinion you know from the 30s and stuff like that there's actually a lot of science out there today the other thing I want to talk about is Taylor Nicole Dean recognizing as well as people in her life like her outpatient program and I'm sure members of her support group noticing that imbalance and yeah like from my experience that first year of recovery is so hard I've been meaning to make a video about it but my second year of recovery was actually like three times harder than my first one but yeah we need people in our lives who can help point out like yo I'm noticing an imbalance because I remember when I first got sober somebody said I think in a meeting somewhere they said recovery is all about balance and I was like yes because those of us with an addiction like we go to extremes right and we don't just have one drink we have all the drinks we don't just have one drug we have all the drugs but this goes into other aspects of our lives and sometimes when we get sober from my experience as well as those I've worked with we can become addicted to something else whether it's relationships or whether it's our work or whether it's social media or whatever it is and we need to step back and say okay why why are things becoming difficult again right like we get clean we get sober to have this awesome amazing life and when things start getting all out of whack it's like okay what is happening because a lot of us and even those who aren't in recovery and have never struggled with addiction a lot of us have this kind of delusion that the drugs or the alcohol are the problem right one of the biggest things that I learned in early recovery was if you take the alcohol and drugs away from me my life can still become a hot mess because I can become addicted to anything so it's awesome that Taylor Nicole Dean is sharing about this experience and having that clarity all right so Taylor talks about how she stayed up and she forgot to take her meds and she went into withdrawal so Taylor coming off of opioids she's been on Suboxone maintenance she's shared about this before all right so those of you don't know let's talk real quick what is Suboxone okay this is a medication typically used for opioid addicts when they are getting off of opioids basically what Suboxone does is it tricks the brain into thinking that you're still using the drug all right opioid withdrawal is absolutely brutal all right so thank god for medications like Suboxone so these they can be taken short-term or long-term depending on your personal preference as well as your doctor all right so like Taylor Nicole Dean she went to a rehab but even if you don't go to a rehab there are many addiction specialists out there who you can see like kind of in an outpatient format and detox that way and discuss with them the options of short-term versus long-term I'm going to share my opinions in a little bit but anyways unlike Taylor Nicole Dean I didn't take Suboxone and listen I'm not saying that to brag okay here's the story behind that when I got sober my mom she was a clinical director at a rehab and there was a doctor there too and this doctor was a dick but he saved my life though but anyways when he evaluated me to see if I needed to be on Suboxone or anything for withdrawal I didn't know I was so ignorant about all this stuff I didn't know that I was gonna withdrawal like I was so I lied to this dude I lied to this dude about how much I was like yeah I just like snored a lore tab here or there but I was like snorting like 100 milligram morphine pills and other stuff right like it was way worse but like for some reason I'm lied to this guy so he's like okay your withdrawal shouldn't be too bad right and within a matter of a day or two once the opioid started leaving my system I went into a wicked withdrawal I was in a sober living house and I was just in bed and I made a video about what opioid withdrawal is like from my experience and it is just awful just aches and pains and cold sweats and shakes and stuff coming out of both ends and it is not good and I called the doctor back and I was like I was like help me I was like I lied I need to be on Suboxone because like everybody else in my sober living house like they were tapering off Suboxone for the withdrawal and the the doctor pretty much said to me he's like oh too bad you lied click so I had to do a cold turkey opioid detox but like I said like if I was given the option for Suboxone I would have taken it now again short-term Suboxone versus long-term Suboxone so some of my closest friends in the sober living house and they're actually still sober today so we all have you know over seven years now um they uh they were on Suboxone maintenance for like a long time so to put it in perspective at the treatment center I was working at when people would detox off Suboxone we would do pretty much one to two weeks max unless the doctor felt it was necessary to keep them on longer like there were different conditions like for example um I remember one young woman who was pregnant right and they had to keep her on Suboxone you know to help protect the baby because you know when your body goes through anything it affects the baby too but anyways so my friends they were on Suboxone long-term kind of like Taylor Nicole Dean is and they they finally wanted to get off but they were on it for months now the thing is about Suboxone even though it it helps with opioid withdrawals when you get off of Suboxone there are withdrawals as well so I remember watching my buddies like they they it felt like they just prolonged that withdrawal right um for like I think it was like four five or six months and anybody out there who's trying to get off Suboxone I'll tell you this um these two they started um eating healthy and things like that they also started doing yoga every day and they said it helped a ton all right so there's a lot of holistic ways to help you get off of Suboxone so like when I saw what they were going through I was like wow because my withdrawal pretty much only lasted a week week and a half I think like it was like this like you know terrible awful experience that I never want to go through again but I got it out of the way in the beginning you know what I mean and something that keeps me sober is I never want to go through that again right so Taylor Nicole Dean um you know when she talks about this kind of imbalance that happened in her life when she forgot to take her Suboxone her body started going into withdrawal so like I said you know there's long term and their short term there's pros and cons to both uh in case you didn't hear my qualifications earlier none of them listed that I'm a doctor so if you are thinking about getting clean or if you're on Suboxone never quit by yourself or anything like that like go talk to a doctor all right have them help you taper off if you're trying to get clean talk to them about the options between short term and long term like one of the reasons I make these videos is I have met countless people okay and this isn't to say that all doctors are bad but I've met countless people where they were not warned that long term Suboxone maintenance would lead to dependence and withdrawal all right so with anything like I don't care if you're an addict or not an addict when you go see a doctor ask questions like I'm a recovering addict so whenever I see a doctor especially a new doctor I have to sit there and ask them about medications the different side effects I have to say are these you know narcotics or any of these you know potentially addictive because I can't take any of those and all those kind of things so like whenever you sit down with a doctor like it is your right I think it's also your responsibility as a patient to sit there and say what am I taking what are the side effects is their withdrawal all these other things so you can work with your doctor and make the best choice possible all right and if you think this video might help someone you know who's struggling with addiction please share with them but again I do just want to say one once again like Taylor Nicole Dean I am really really proud of her journey and I look forward to seeing her her videos and I'm glad that she's using her platform to help teach and educate others and I'm sure she's inspired countless people from her audience to go out and seek help and that is just so awesome because the opioid epidemic the addiction epidemic as a whole is just massive in the United States as well as other parts of the country right now 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 I want to send out a huge thank you to everybody who supports the channel over on Patreon or who buys my mental health books or merch you're all amazing all right thanks again for watching I'll see you next time