 Much like other people I was extremely skeptical about 12 step programs but in this video I'm going to talk to you about my experience and why I decided to work on. What is up everybody this is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem but focus on the solution and welcome back to another week where I take a subject about mental health and I dive deep into it to help better educate you and help you out with your own mental health. This week I'm going to be focusing not only addiction but 12 step programs in particular and here's why. There are a lot of people and I was one of them who are very misinformed about 12 step programs. They think all these things yet they've never fully tried to even consider that they might be wrong about the situation. There's a lot of misinformation so please do me a favor even if you're not an addict or alcoholic in recovery or trying to get clean please share this video. Addiction affects one out of every 12 people which means there is almost a 100% chance that if you know at least 12 people you know an addict or alcoholic so please do me a favor and watch and share these videos so you can be better educated and maybe help somebody's life. So the first disclaimer that I have to throw out there which I might put on all these videos this week is I am not a representative of any 12 step program I'm not a spoke person I don't know anything more than anybody else I am merely here to share my experience okay okay so my first little bout with a 12 step program was through Alcoholics Anonymous all right uh many years ago about eight or nine years ago my baby mama threatened to leave me and she said look you're either going to a 12 step program or I'm leaving you so just to shut her up I went to AA and when I say this when I talk about this first time with AA I usually use air quotes and say I tried AA because I didn't try anything as soon as I pulled up it was in a church parking lot and just like the breaks in my head went what like I immediately thought that this was a bunch of religious fanatics who were going to try to shove Jesus down my throat and growing up here in Las Vegas I grew up around a lot of Mormons who were always trying to like get me to convert and baptize me and stuff I'm like no I ain't about that life so basically what I did I went to these meetings for three months just sat there stared at the clock zoned out didn't do anything so that's why I say I tried it I didn't really try anything I just sat there on June 23rd 2012 that's my clean date and I had to go to 12 step meetings part of the sober living program I was in was I had to go to five meetings a week so I was so skeptical about these meetings and I can't emphasize that enough see if you're like me I thought that people who just walked into a 12 step meeting they were like hey you know what like I'm ready to get clean I'm ready to fully embrace these 12 step programs like that's not how it was and I couldn't be further from that like I was so skeptical I thought it was religious I still thought that they were a cult I'm like why do I need to read this book why do I need a sponsor why are you telling me I need a higher power I don't even believe in God what is all this nonsense but I'm a very analytical person so I decided to analyze the situation and see what's going on so I started going to these meetings and for three months three months I didn't do anything I often tell my clients who I work with like I'm never gonna pester you to get a sponsor because I sat around and did nothing but listen for three months I was so skeptical that I just want to watch I just wanted to watch people and see what their experience was and see if this is something maybe I should do something that makes me laugh to this day is that people think they're so unique like people in general but addicts and alcoholics so no I'm different I'm different I don't need this I'm different I'm different right now in these meetings you can have dozens of people or hundreds of people and you can divide them into two groups two not 50 just two groups this is what I saw from gathering the data after three months of just sitting there I saw that there were just two groups of people okay so in group number one we'll call this the happy group okay everybody in group number one not only were they happy but they were sober and they were sane and here's the thing like I was so out of my mind when I first got clean like these people had this calm about them right it didn't seem like their brain was going a million miles a minute it didn't seem like they were hating their life it didn't seem like they were talking down to themselves constantly these are all the things that I was struggling with I felt like a crazy person I'm sitting here I'm like how are you doing this the other thing that baffled me about their happiness was their happiness was independent of circumstances here's what I mean by that you could have one person in there who's like a lawyer making like six figures a year and then you can have somebody who's like a McDonald's drive-thru employee and they're both equally as happy and that blew my mind because I lived an entire life thinking that in order to be happy you needed stuff you needed the house you needed the cars you needed the vacations you needed the big screen tv the video game systems the nice furniture you needed all these things but how did you have somebody who's way up here financially and someone who's down here financially but they're both equally as happy like that's something that I wanted and let me tell you this too I went to plenty of meetings where homeless people were going in there to get sober and stay sober and some of them were happier than I was and I really had to sit back and reevaluate my life and say Chris it's pretty messed up when a homeless person is happier than you are so that's group number one now let's take a look at group number two and we'll do a little sad emoji right there okay so these people there was kind of three different types of people in this group the first one is something that we call the dry drunk what's a dry drunk a dry drunk is somebody who's sober but they're still miserable like I remember hearing people share and they're like yeah you know like my kids were kind of a pain in the butt today my wife's making me mad I hate my job but you know I'm like three years sober so that's cool and I'm sitting there I'm like what are you talking about like I kind of made a deal with myself very early on I said if I'm gonna be miserable I'm gonna be miserable drunk and high like I wouldn't do this thing if I was gonna stay miserable okay so that's the first person in the bad group the next person I call these people the revolving door people right you see these people come back into a meeting just crying and shedding tears and just angry with themselves and situations and stuff like that because they keep relapsing they keep coming in and out in and out in and out and the last group of people I'm gonna put a little question mark it was like where where did they go some of these people who knows maybe they didn't like it and they never came back I don't know what happened to them but it didn't take long for me to get involved in these meetings and say hey we're so and so and they're like oh they died I'm like oh okay right so now that I'm sitting back I've I've gathered my data I've divided everybody in these two groups what is the difference what is the difference between these two groups so the first group the happy group they all said the same thing okay they said I go to meetings I have a sponsor I have a support group and I work the steps every single one of them said that every single one I was waiting for one of these people in group number one to be like hey I don't do anything and my life's incredible but I never heard it then there's group number two right the the second group I don't think I really want to be in that group well what are they doing what is wrong over here what are these dry drunks doing why are these people coming in and out they always said the same thing I don't go to meetings I don't have a sponsor I don't work the steps I don't have a support group they all said the same thing and I'm sitting there I'm like okay there's this happy group happy sane and sober then there's group this group over here who's legitimately miserable or dead right like and here's the thing whenever somebody relapsed I listened very carefully like one of the best ways to stay clean is to learn from other people's mistakes and the people who relapsed always said the same thing they never got the sponsor they never worked the steps they they weren't going to enough meetings all sorts of things right and here's the thing in my groups at my rehab I often say it's almost like a magic trick that I don't even plan out when I share this in groups I say can anybody relate to what I just said and you always see hands go up there are countless people who come back to treatment who were doing well for years they were doing well for years but they stopped doing what they were doing before and then led to a relapse and that's something that I remember every single day you got to understand I'm coming up on six years sober I have met people with 10 15 20 years sober at my treatment center and I listen very carefully I'm like what happened what happened and they say the same thing I stopped doing what I learned how to do and I'm like okay so like I said like I will let all of you do the same thing like if you don't have faith in these programs if you think they're full of crap if you think they're religious calls do what I did don't do anything just go there listen and observe and I promise I promise you that you will see the exact same two groups that I saw in fact let's do this I know I got a bunch of people in recovery who subscribed to my channel leave comments down below let me know let me know your experience did this happen to you did this lead to a relapse or do you see this a lot is it the same set of things that leads people back out or keeps them miserable let me know down in the comments but anyways again like I said please share this video I really just want to educate people about these programs because they're free free okay so there's a lot of misinformation that is potentially keeping people away from something that might save their lives all right but if you like this video please give it a thumbs up and if you are new here I'm always making videos to help you out with your mental and emotional well-being click that little round subscribe button and if you want to check out some other videos I've made about addiction boom I put an entire playlist right there called Ask an Attic check it out all right thank you so so much for watching go check out some meetings and I'll see you next time