 Hello there my beautiful internet friends. Welcome to what I actually look like in the morning when I wake up and I'm also sick. I'm not blame the being sick for why there are these deep dark bags under my eyes. I just want to share some news with you guys that I just found out and it's obviously a topic that I'm pretty emotional about. What I'm about to talk about is something that I've been personally affected by in a variety of ways. I never experienced addiction, but I've been on the medications I'm about to talk about for years and I know people who have been deeply affected by this. I think pretty much everyone knows someone who has battled addiction or who has been lost to addiction. Over the years, I've made a number of videos about the war on drugs, about the opioid epidemic, but specifically about the fact that this was manufactured. That there are people and companies who are directly responsible for spreading misinformation so they could get rich for lying about the addictive properties, for miseducating doctors, for miseducating the public, for pushing for long-term use of opioids and stronger and stronger opioids when that was not medically necessary, for super messed up deals with pharmacies and for so many things. Drug addiction is a topic that breaks my heart. It's a complicated thing that affects so many families and people. And one of the biggest companies, Purdue Pharma, I've mentioned them before, was really at the forefront of making oxy in particular a problem. And the things that they did were so abhorrent and so knowingly wrong. Quite literally in the literal sense of that word, lied to people about the addictive properties of this medicine that they were making and tried to get more people on it because it made them rich. And they've like lost court cases and had to pay friggin' fines, but fines that were not actually that much money for a company of their size. Like, oh no, we lost $600 million. What are we gonna do? I guess we'll take another vacation on our private jet and cry into our mimosas in the morning. But I was sitting downstairs just now. I'm not doing a good job of getting through this video. I was sitting downstairs just now and Brian headed me his phone with this news article. Purdue Pharma has pled guilty to a number of criminal charges. Agreed to pay $8 billion towards opioid treatment and also their closing down. And that, my friends, is some of the best news in my mind in 2020 so far. I feel like very rarely do we see actual justice. And I am not gonna make the argument that this is actual justice, but I think it's the closest thing that we can get to it. I don't know all the ramifications. I don't know all of the details of this deal or how they're closing down or when or any of that. But to have a massive business that has billions of dollars actually be held responsible for its criminal insidious actions, I am so glad to read that. And the thing is none of that is gonna bring back the hundreds of thousands of people who have died, but maybe it will be a drop in the bucket towards lowering rates of addiction in the future, towards providing people with good resources to get help. Like I said, this is a topic that I am really passionate and emotional about. My heart shatters for people and for families who have had to deal with addiction and opioid addiction. I was on these medications. I was on Oxy and other varieties of this for just about a decade for chronic pain. Pretty recently, which I documented in some videos here on this channel, I was able to get off of all of that, which was amazing. And I am incredibly lucky and grateful that during my time on these drugs, I never experienced addiction. I always had good supervision and good people around me and tried to make sure that there were checks and balances in place in my mind with people around me when I was taking these really dangerous medications because they are really dangerous. And one of the other direct or indirect, I would say direct consequences of their actions was that getting medications that someone actually needs became exponentially more difficult. And I saw this firsthand. I saw and I experienced all the hoops that I had to jump through that people who I knew had to jump through to stay on these medications that were the only way that I could get out of bed for many years because I hurt so much. Getting access to pain medications that are legitimately needed was made so much more difficult because of the actions of companies like this. If you're a chronic pain patient and you're on some kind of medication, I know that you know what I'm talking about. If you're interested in this topic at all, please pick up a copy of American Pain. It's a book written a few years ago that really details the beginning of all of this. And there are a lot of people involved and a lot of people responsible, but Purdue Pharma was at the friggin' top of that list. I don't know, I just wanted to get that information out there and say, Thank freaking God, it's about damn time. And I hope that those who are responsible are continued to be held responsible for their criminal and horrible actions. And I hope that people who are dealing with addiction are able to find the healing and the help that they need. I will continue to be an advocate for that. The shame and guilt and blame that we put as a society on people who are dealing with addiction breaks my heart. Nobody wants to become an addict. There are so many factors at play. And to watch the story unfolding in my country of very large, very powerful, very conniving businesses creating this problem, lying to people about this problem. And then to see those people who have died from this or who were battling this be shamed and blamed without any accountability held to those who freaking created this in the first place was heartbreaking to me. Yes, addiction is a deeply personal issue, but it's also systemic and also with some of these medications. It has been created understanding that this is what would happen. Understanding that people would die. Understanding that people would lose years of their lives and lose friendships and family members. And so much to these drugs so people could get rich. It's too little too late, but at least something was done. And I feel a little bit silly for getting so emotional over this, but this is something that I've been having conversations about and looking into for half a decade now and to see the company that in my mind is one of the absolute worst be closed down, forced to pay billions of dollars and be held criminally responsible for their actions. Hallelujah. Okay, I'm going to end this video here. Bit of a different video than I normally do. The audio quality is trash because my husband is taking a shower, but this is the window I had to film as soon as I got this information. I wanted to get it out there. Thanks for listening. If you made it this far, thanks for making it through all my emotional moments. I'm really glad that progress is being made on this issue and I hope that it continues. I hope that people who need help continue to be able to find access to it. If you're someone watching this and you're battling addiction right now or you know someone who is, I've put some resources in the description box down below to reach out to. And with that being said, thank you for listening. I don't have my normal closeout because my hard drive died and I lost the music and the intro file and all of that, which I will get back hopefully. But I'm just going to end this video here and say thank you so much. Thanks to my patrons for sponsoring these videos. I truly appreciate you. Thank you for spending a few minutes out of your day here with me today. Lookin' glorious. You could be anywhere in the world doing anything. You need to chose to hang out with me for a few minutes and that means the world to me. Thank you. I love you guys. I'm thinking about you and I'll see you in the next video. Bye guys.