Sobriety: the High Cost of Living.

i get messages i get people who write in
to me after watching my youtube videos one that i received last week in response to my video on drugs at the end of his message he said i don't even know if you'll read this if you do maybe you can make a video about it and that's precisely what i'm doing in this youtube video he thought that it wasn't so black and white this issue of staying sober and he was writing to me from the experience of someone who's mostly been sober this man who wrote into me is now atheist but he grew up in a household that was strictly religious so he didn't have any exposure to drugs and alcohol in his teenage years and from 18 to 25 he only had a little bit of exposure to drugs and alcohol but for the most part he's avoided this mainstream culture of drinking and doing drugs in canada he says that for him it's not so obvious that it's the right thing to do to just not drink alcohol to just not do drugs to stay separate from this kind of culture that if you don't do this then you'll miss out on opportunities so i will read his quote here with this complete sober attitude i missed out on a lot of great moments in life people i could have met women i could have been with connections i could have made and leveraged into better employment and other opportunities he goes on to say even in your case at least you had some adventurous experiences as an alcoholic in your younger days um i'm not offended i just wanted to clarify i was never an alcoholic and i thought i made that clear in my last video where i was saying that alcohol made me sick when i started college i was 5'4 and about 110 pounds so it was really for me like one or two drinks could make me feel really sick for example on my 18th birthday my freshman year somebody gave me a four loko drink this was in 2010 when for loco was a new product i'm not totally sure but i think it had caffeine and alcohol in it we were actually in one of the guys dorms downstairs and i didn't even finish the can and i started feeling sick i went up to my dorm quietly i didn't tell anybody and then maybe half hour or an hour later one of my roommates came up and checked on me and to see if i was okay i was slumped over on the bathroom floor like sick i had bad experiences when i was first drinking that made me not want to drink so most of my time in college i smoked marijuana because that didn't make me throw up that didn't make me feel sick i was never an alcoholic and in fact i i think i was kind of alienated from some of these experiences with drinking alcohol in my college years because i just wasn't able to drink very much without getting sick so yeah i don't know if i wasn't clear on that you know i know what he's saying here like a lot of great moments in life at least you have adventurous experiences people think of it that way and people remember these parties in a fond way my oldest brother's wedding everybody was drinking alcohol at my oldest brother's wedding all my family members and i drank alcohol that night and i got sick i didn't tell anybody i just went back to the cabin that we were staying in threw up and felt a little bit better after drinking some water and going to bed but no um i don't remember that positively i don't know if i just have high standards but most of the times that i remember fondly with my connections with people are sober because we both remember what's said there's a certain level of respect that you're giving the other person when you're both sober and talking on the level with each other whereas i know some people will think some of the happiest times in their life happened when they were drinking happened when they were doing drugs but for me that wasn't my experience the man who wrote in to me he says that he missed out on meeting people he missed out on women he could have been with if he would have drank alcohol if he would have done drugs what you're missing out on is being with a group of friends who drink they do stupid stuff that night the next day they get together go out to breakfast in the morning and talk about what crazy shenanigans they got into the night before and that's really it i mean that's how you build the relationship you build a relationship basically by drinking and then acting childish just the other day i was walking through a park and i overheard a group of people doing exactly this they were laughing and giggling hysterically about how one of their friends had behaved the night before because he was so high you know and that's what you're missing out on really you're missing out on this kind of childish stunted development into an adult that's what you're missing out on i don't agree that the experiences that i had in my younger days when i smoked weed with friends at a party i don't really think that those were the best times in my life for the most part it's just remembering sitting together in a room watching a movie you know like sitting together in a room playing video games man i remember when i was high playing fifa with you like dude remember when i was stone playing mario party with you in college like i'm sorry those are not the most amazing experiences in my life and if those are the most amazing experiences of your life the most adventurous experiences of your life then you've lived a very deprived life so his second point and his email to me is about the alternatives he says when you don't do drugs and you don't have the proper mental development and maturity you substitute that for a different drug in my case it was porn and he goes on to talk about his video game addiction and he says i think it's better to fail in life as a party animal alcoholic than it is as a fat gamer porn addicted loser i don't think it's the case that by default if you don't do drugs if you don't drink alcohol then the alternative is to watch a lot of porn and play video games watching porn doesn't impair your brain the way that smoking marijuana does it doesn't impair your brain the way that drinking alcohol does watching porn how much time does it really take out of your day if you drink alcohol it really can take up the entire evening it can even affect you the next day or a day afterwards because many people will drink and then have a hangover even if you don't drink that much like i said in my case when i did drink i never drank in massive quantities i would drink just a small amount and feel sick and i would feel bad the next day that's why i depended so much on marijuana when i was in college because if i wanted to be at a party and engage with other people who were doing drugs or drinking alcohol i would smoke weed because it didn't make me feel sick but even that i know even though the effects i was able to ignore them over time it does make you a slower person it affects your mind it affects your ambition it affects your motivation you know when you don't wake up feeling alert when you don't wake up feeling motivated to get things done that day it becomes habitual and even if you aren't on the drug at the time you know that's what you become used to it takes up so much of your time and porn doesn't you know most people the amount of time that they waste drinking alcohol takes up a lot more time than what people spend watching porn this man who wrote into me he said with alcohol at least he'd have the confidence to have sex look this is a factor of drinking alcohol this is a factor of this culture that there's this idea that if you are drunk that you're more likely to get laid many people in their early 20s don't know how to have sexual experiences without being drunk without being under the influence of something if two people want to have sex they should trust each other enough that they want to have sex with each other sober not just when they're drunk the kind of habits that you form do extend into your sexuality as well your sexual experiences will inform the rest of your life and if you start out only engaging in sexual activity when you're drunk or when you're under the influence of drugs i really think that's setting you up for bad experiences later on i think it's normal to feel a little bit intimidated by sex when you first have sexual experiences it doesn't make sense to feel sexually confident when you don't have the experience you know ideally you find somebody that you're compatible with but part of growing a sexual relationship with somebody is being really clear with each other and working together and finding out what you like together this kind of relationship building this bond forming that happens with sexual experiences i think this is actually really impaired by drugs this is really impaired by drinking alcohol in an ideal world people wouldn't have sex when they were drunk or on drugs because the kind of consent that you can give when you're under the influence of a drug it's it's different honest discussion with your partner about sex about uh what's okay and what's not okay consent and not consenting you know these lines get blurred and that's not healthy for either party both parties should develop the ability to communicate with each other that you can both express to each other what you're feeling when drugs and alcohol are involved it only makes the situation worse it makes it harder to communicate and people can more easily hurt the other person or more easily hurt their feelings as well say things that they don't really mean or say things that they don't want to say it's not the way to get into sexual relationships it's not the way to form romantic relationships either is to make the basis of it that you're able to get drunk and have sex you're able to be high on a drug and have sex like no you should want to have sex with that person sober you should be sexually attracted to the person sober in order for a relationship to really form growing up with the influence of the abrahamic religions there's a lot of shame having to do with the body there's a lot to overcome if you grow up in a religious household and at a certain point you have to get over that and i don't think it's good to go through that experience through alcohol or through drugs i think it also must be said that these two things are not mutually exclusive that the fitting into the culture of drinking alcohol and doing drugs in canada or america this is not separate from watching porn and playing video games most people do all four of those things combined so at least you've done this sober you were addicted to video games and you overcame this video game addiction and you did it sober you've had the experience you say it's a porn addiction you've been through that sober right you haven't done that while on drugs you haven't done that while drinking alcohol so even that i think you're a level up than the people who have been on drugs and have drank while being addicted to playing video games and while watching porn at least you have the clarity of mind at least you have the ability to look back on your life and realize that you did this sober and you have reflected on your choices his next point his third point is that in some ways it's better to have lived through that experience of alcoholism and experienced it fully and come out the other side than to avoid it completely i just disagree again i didn't go through alcoholism you know a lot of people don't even say that marijuana can be addictive i really don't think for me i was ever at a level of addiction to a substance i was never addicted to smoking marijuana and the level of alcohol consumption that i had was never at the level of alcoholism i was never even at the level of most of my roommates and most of my friends and acquaintances in college so this man who writes into me basically his opinion is that because he didn't have these experiences he looks at their experiences and he feels that they must have been through something that made them a better person going through this addiction going through alcoholism they must be a better person for overcoming it and he says living through any addiction makes you stronger and the more traumatic the addiction the stronger you become mentally this i really have to disagree with and he says is the ex-heroine user a person with stronger willpower and character than you absolutely no question man this we are we are really different from each other the way that we view this my ex-boyfriend when i met him he was living with his brother who was a heroin addict he full-on overdose he almost died i think multiple times he overdosed and nearly died and had to be revived do i think he's a stronger person for it no i think he's a worse person for it he's never going to have the kind of ambition he's never going to be successful in life like somebody who had never ever touched heroin this is not how i see life you know this is somebody who who thinks what doesn't kill you makes you stronger this is something that's very commonly talked about in american society and canadian society that going through drug addiction and coming out of it means that you're you have more willpower you're a stronger person than just avoiding it this i i just disagree with i think it's better to avoid it all together what i focused on in my last video was that although i was not an addict like i wasn't building up the kind of coping mechanisms to deal with stress and anxiety to get through difficulties in life and take them in stride to just be positive about some of the difficulties that you experience on a day-to-day basis and not panic not worry about things to take a positive approach to life this is what i wasn't building when you get through life without drugs when you avoid it completely you don't have to go through all this you can focus on other things in life and you are better for it and i don't know in cultures around the world how prevalent this belief is that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger you know some people think that more exposure to germs will improve your immune system this i disagree with i think when you're a child if you come down with an ear infection there are delays in language development that happen that other children do not have you are putting your child at a disadvantage to other children if your child has an ear infection and you don't give them antibiotics versus a child who doesn't get an ear infection and these are caused by bacteria that are spread between children as we've learned this past year with coronavirus some people who had this virus are forever impacted by the virus they will live with this their entire lives people who have lost their sense of taste their sense of smell people who have to deal with fatigue that has lasted for months and months after recovering from the virus you know some diseases you have the disease and even though you've recovered from the primary symptoms of the disease you will still have some side effects that remain for the rest of your life and that doesn't make you a stronger person that actually makes your body worse you know you're you're struggling to overcome these things all the time that somebody who never had the disease doesn't have to deal with somebody who never dealt with alcoholism like you for example the the guy who wrote into me you never had to deal with alcoholism and therefore you don't have to overcome this on a daily basis where they are always distracted by their alcoholism they're always thinking about their next drink you've never had that you don't know what it's like to live that way i mean maybe you feel that way about you know you you characterize your watching porn and playing video games as addictions maybe you can remember that with with playing video games where even when you're not playing video games you're still like thinking about the video game you're still thinking like as you fall asleep i know i have i've had the experience where you're dreaming about the video game you fall asleep thinking about the video game you're at school and you're thinking about playing the video game this is the kind of addiction mindset where you're not able to focus on the here and now you're not able to focus on what's right in front of your face because you're thinking about the thing that you're addicted to some people they don't have that experience and when you don't have the chemical in your mind when you don't have the actual physical chemical presence of alcohol or marijuana or whatever drug it is your mind is better able to cope with these things so you know porn is not a drug right uh playing video games that is not a drug at age see by the time i was 12 i was actually playing in bars already in a band i was actually in like a garage band that played in bars at 12 years old turning my 12th to 13th birthday on my birthday i played in the bar so i was actually drinking at 12 years old already at my friend's house his mom would buy beer and jack daniels and [ __ ] and we would drink it so that led to starting marijuana which really wasn't a big deal marijuana never really did anything for me so i didn't you know have any kind of issues with that it wasn't a big deal it probably wasn't until i graduated high school 21 is when i hit gear i decided to hit gear i blew up and i started to be a bouncer in the nightclub so that was where everything kind of really started there i would take a couple pills you know whatever the case would be drink a few beers and it kind of you know progress from there a little bit and it rather never got out of control until i started new bane a friend of mine gave me a shot of nubain which is a opiate based morphine like um drug that they give to pregnant women so i figured you know everybody was like well if you give it to pregnant women it's safe for us to take little do we know that it hooks you in like the first couple of days and basically you'll go through withdrawals the new bane led to more vicodin which is more expensive which led to oxycontin which was something new at the time the oxycotin and vicodin new being completely dried up very quickly because there wasn't that was kind of like a specialty thing that bodybuilders were using went on to heroin eventually it went from pills to heroin now pills are the gateway to heroin there's no doubt about it so this guy who wrote into me saying by complete avoidance unless you have the proper mental framework social support which no 18 to 25 year old does you are definitely gonna fail so choose a good drug and i would say alcohol is the best i just disagree i think it's possible to be successful in life without drinking alcohol i think it requires a real cultural change that this isn't the assumed path this isn't the assumed trajectory that if you don't do drugs if you don't socialize in this way then you'll fail because people can fail anyway even though they do socialize this way even though they do drink alcohol even though they do do drugs and it's not because of the fact that they didn't drink enough alcohol or they didn't party enough you know it's never too late to start drinking alcohol it's never too late to start doing drugs even though you've written to me saying this i don't know if you really believe it and if you did i don't think you are going to start drinking alcohol now at age 25 and i really hope you don't because you are at such an advantage compared to so many people in life when you don't have the lived experience it's easy to look at somebody else's life and think that they had a better life than you or think that they went through things and became a better person for it but in this case with what he's talking about that by being sober he missed out on life in time i hope he'll see that he's better off having stayed sober you can really change your life you can improve yourself and it's always easier to change your life and improve yourself and build healthier habits when you aren't addicted to a drug even if nobody else around you seems to think positively of your sobriety even if you yourself at this point in your life don't think positively of your sobriety eventually i really think you'll be able to look back and say i'm really glad i didn't drink alcohol i'm really glad i didn't do drugs you talk about how because you didn't drink alcohol you had more clarity of mind and that you were able to examine your life some people don't some people haven't had that and they will then be at a significant disadvantage as they move ahead in life as they try to find their meaning in life part of this man's message to me is that for people who have these very serious addictions and come out from the other side of it they have shown that they have very strong character they have willpower and they overcame their addictions they overcame their struggles in life and that makes them a stronger person what about the people that never overcome their addictions what about the people who die from drinking alcohol what about the people who die from heroin overdosing on serious drugs you know i used to say this about marijuana i used to think that marijuana should be legal and alcohol should be illegal because nobody's died from marijuana people don't overdose on marijuana and die but often enough people drink alcohol and die from drinking alcohol or they drive a car drive drunk kill other people really hurt other people video games don't kill people porn doesn't kill people watching porn does it make the world a better place no does playing video games make the world a better place no but it doesn't kill you it's really a lot easier to get past addictions that aren't chemically changing your mind that aren't causing brain damage it's a lot harder to get over drug addiction when it physically alters your brain you will have that brain damage permanently i really have to say i disagree with you there are not pros and cons to serious drug addictions i think it's just cons that come from it with these other forms of addictive behavior like playing video games and watching porn you aren't going to kill people and in some ways you might actually learn something from the process but what you can learn from doing drugs and drinking alcohol it's not worth it it's not worth it for anybody you