 That's right. Taylor Nicole Dean is back and she made a very very brave post over on Instagram and as a recovering addict myself I wanted to explain why this is such a big deal and what all of us can learn from it. 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 something I like to do is when a youtuber is out there talking about something that I'm very passionate about which are things like addiction recovery the opioid crisis mental health in general I like to shine a spotlight on that so if you're into that stuff makes you subscribe and ring that notification bell and if you are somebody who wants to learn more about the current opioid crisis going on in our country right now feel free to check the video I did just last night about John Oliver from last week tonight's new episode talking about the opioid crisis I'll link that up there in the info card all right so Taylor and Nicole Dean she is back she just made an Instagram post with notes kind of explaining where she's been what she's been through and everything like that I wanted to discuss that and I'm coming from a place not as a licensed therapist or anything like that but like I mentioned I am a recovering opioid addict recently I also shared my story about my opioid addiction and recovery and I was one of the very fortunate people where I didn't progress from prescription opioids to heroin but I was about this close so I'm speaking from my own experience but I also worked in a drug and alcohol addiction treatment center for a little over three years and I have a lot of experience in that realm so I want to talk about some things that she discussed so if you're interested in learning more about that or you are somebody trying to get clean or you are clean or if you have a loved one who's trying to get clean I just want to explain a few things that she touched on that helped her out with her own recovery all right so those of you who don't know this whole story Taylor and Nicole Dean she is a channel and she has a lot of animals a lot of pets I think specifically reptiles um but yeah anyways when I was focusing more on youtubers and talking about that I had a lot of requests about that um a lot of people want me to talk about Taylor and Nicole Dean and hoarding but like I mentioned as somebody in recovery as well and seeing some of Taylor's videos talking about addictive personality and some struggles that she had you know it's something that I think I only touched on once when she opened up about her addiction but anyways I hope to to increase some awareness and some empathy for a lot of people who don't understand because in Taylor and Nicole Dean's first note the first picture on there she talked about how she was making this post because of all the awful things she saw people were saying to her about her addiction and how she wants to be someone you know giving a voice to this and she was very fortunate to have a support group and yes like the addiction stigma is absolutely awful so like I get it I understand from the perspective of somebody else from the outside looking in and Taylor and Nicole Dean having all of these animals saying how it's unfair to them and all these things so I'm a recovering drug addict I've been clean for over six and a half years I'm a son right addiction is an an awful terrible disease that it actually takes over the primal part of your brain that is responsible for survival so basically the way our brain prioritizes things for those of us who develop an addiction to substances or even process addictions like gambling shopping sex love things like that it puts that on the top of our priority list right so there's a lot of parents out there who develop an addiction and they aren't taking proper care of their children it is not fair to the children in any way shape or form so I understand where people are upset about Taylor and Nicole Dean's addiction taking priority over the care of her animals but we need to understand that this is a disease and we need to quit shaming people who are struggling with this and encourage them to get help like Taylor and Nicole Dean did so again it's very brave of her to open up and share this story there's a very there's very vulnerable for a lot of people and like I'm so proud of her because for me it took me two years took me two years to open up publicly about my addiction recovery and she's just boom right there because she wants to help people she wants to decrease the stigma she wants people to have the ability to open up and talk about this thing and that is just absolutely amazing so in her instagram post she talks about the treatment method that she used she went to an outpatient treatment center so the treatment center that I was working at we had all levels of care okay so we had detox we had residential slash inpatient treatment we had partial hospitalization which is we had like a nursing staff and everything we had doctors psychiatrists who could disperse medications then there's intensive outpatient program then there's outpatient program so me personally when I got clean I just went through a sober living house which isn't a treatment center it's kind of like treatment but not I've made some videos about this when I talked about Wendy Williams but anyways the only treatment I ever went to was um an inpatient detox facility and I was only there for I think four or five days right so outpatient is typically for people with less severe addictions Taylor Nicole Dean talks about how she was using uh china white and it was you know not not as potent as like black tar or heroin mixed with fentanyl so outpatient may have been a good option for her if you're somebody with a very severe addiction if you're somebody who struggles with chronic relapse I highly highly highly recommend an inpatient program because for a lot of us we aren't even safe for ourselves so an outpatient you can travel um from home to the treatment center or you might be living in sober living go into outpatient and things like that at the treatment center I was working at you had to be doing well in you know residential treatment in order to um reach the next step which is outpatient so that might be a good option for some people one of the recommendations I have is talk to an addiction specialist there are different criteria that they use like the asam criteria where they assess your addiction and they talk about different things in your life like your your dependency to it your withdrawal potential your relapse history what kind of support system you have and based on all that they'll say okay I think you should do residential I think you should do outpatient and all that stuff so talk to a professional before you make this decision okay because I've seen many people make the mistake of doing outpatient when their addiction was more severe and they needed inpatient so it led to a relapse and if they were lucky they got into an outpatient and realized that so the next thing is Taylor Nicole Dean um she's on suboxone and she talks about vivitrol so she talks about how this blocks the opioid receptors yes suboxone is a great great great medication what it does is it also helps with withdrawal typically um I personally and there's a bunch of different opinions on this and again I am not a doctor or anything like that this is just from my experience and what I've seen with people typically with suboxone I recommend a pretty quick taper okay so suboxone helps getting off of opioids and it also blocks opioid receptors then she mentions the vivitrol shot so vivitrol is different than suboxone so vivitrol what that is is it's an antagonist okay so it prevents you from getting high all right suboxone is a partial opioid so some people get on suboxone and they stay on a way too long and then they can have withdrawals from that too at my treatment center we would taper people off within a week or two so vivitrol is a 28 day shot some insurance companies cover this some do not I personally when I got clean something that saved my life was naltrexone so naltrexone is like vivitrol but it's a pill form so I would take that pill every single day the reason I did it is because I didn't have insurance so I would take that once a day some people prefer vivitrol if they have the option because what some people would do is if they got no naltrexone they just wouldn't take the pill that day and would get high all right so with a vivitrol shot it lasts for about 28 to 30 days there are some other medications that are out there where they give you the shot and it's like vivitrol but it lasts for like three to six months some people prefer that but naltrexone saved my life because what it did for me is it helped to reduce my cravings from my experience talking with other people who have used naltrexone or vivitrol for not for everybody it reduces cravings for me it did and that's why I saved my life until I was able to kind of um get my recovery kick started and then I was able to start working a 12 step program now years later I'm in therapy I still go to 12 step programs and things like that but naltrexone and vivitrol are great options talk to your insurance provider for me I was taking the pill form with no insurance and this was six and a half years ago so I think I was paying like 50 or 60 dollars a week something like that all right so um the shot the actual vivitrol shot I think without insurance depending on where you're getting it from I've heard it of being upwards of 1200 or 1500 dollars but with insurance it'll cover some of that cost okay so yeah lastly I just want to talk about like I really hope that the community is supportive of Taylor and Nicole Dean again like I my hat is off to anybody anybody not even just youtubers or celebrities but anybody who has the willingness to open up about their struggles because what that does is it creates this kind of chain reaction and what we see is okay this person opened up about it maybe it's okay for me to open up about it too and again it took me two years so I don't like say like go run around and like scream from the rooftops like hey hey I'm a recovering drug addict like you don't have to do that but just remember that it can help other people like two years ago when or when I had two years clean and I first opened up about my addiction publicly so many people thanked me and that's kind of what encouraged me to start working in treatment it's something that encouraged me to start this youtube channel and talk about talk about all the things that we don't like talking about so I'm super proud of Taylor and Nicole Dean um she gives some um advice in her post to she opens up the door to say if anybody wants to reach out to her like she talks about uh in her post um like uh you know if you don't have money for treatment there's 12 step programs and everything like that she's looking great looking awesome and I wish her continued success one day at a time in her recovery and for any of you out there who want to learn more about addiction like I have a free course about the science of addiction it's a course that I taught in the treatment center that I was working at it's now available for free so if you want to check it out go check it out it'll help you understand the way the brain works when it comes to addiction 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 because I make a ton of videos and a huge huge thank you to everybody supporting the channel over on patreon you are all amazing and if you would like to sign up for patreon and get access to our monthly q and a some other perks and things like that you can click or tap right there all right thanks again so so much for watching I'll see you next time