Amanda Update-April, 2021

all right amanda hello world amanda how are you darling good it's another day in sobriety and recovery how long has it been now um seven and a half months seven and a half months you've been here right seven and a half months of my sentencing but i think it's like a year now almost a year because you were a little over two months in in jail right you've been clean for you think how long i've been clean for like probably 11 or 10 months yeah i think you're right um yeah and you you've the last time i interviewed you which was when you were at the other rehab and yeah i was craving real bad no more cravings so i got it's a blessing so when did the cravings fade away for you when i got here today yeah so so the cravings have faded no more cravings listen to you you're more anxiety you're more clear-headed yeah i'm more clear-headed my mindset has changed about drugs and everything so i feel really great about my next step and just coming here it's been a blessing good for you yeah it's hard to believe i think i'm talking to a different entirely different person you are i mean no more schizophrenia no more crack no more in the streets you know i'm a completely different person rehab has done me well yeah no you've done great and you've never tried to escape you never you know yeah no escaping yeah get out of control and you'll be out of here in a few months right i'm supposed to be going to sober living in vegas that's connected um it's a sober living so i should be going there by the end of april if if everything goes through right yeah so i have a little freedom like on the weekends or whatever and you seem really happy yeah i'm happy the second i see you you're smiling yeah yeah you're cheery and talkative and everything yeah i'm so glad you hooked us up with lima she feels like a mom you know i never had my mom so it feels like such a blessing just to have her in my life and just have you guys for support because i really only have my dad so you couldn't pick somebody better than lima yeah she's great liam's great yeah yeah lima came out of nowhere and just kind of made this all happen didn't she definitely she made a lot of things happen a lot of things and uh looking back at your days on skid row how do you see that now my days on skid row i just see it as a learning experience um i'm i want people to see that it just takes time and effort being sober and being in recovery are two different things i just want to put that out there and i'm in recovery i'm i'm here to make action and do the things that i can do to stay sober for the rest of my life good for you yeah it's hard to believe you're speaking like like yeah i'm an adult how do you know you're 20 years i'm 25 25 yeah and what are your plans when you get out of um i'm supposed to have a job lined up with lima but most importantly i want to become a cna i helped out with my autistic brother growing up so that's something i think i would be really good at and and i would enjoy it that's great yeah good for you i have a hard time looking at you and visualize imagining you were the same person yeah that was crazy i watched the videos on skid row it's just like schizophrenia is a true demon if you have schizophrenia you gotta stop using so that you can see your true diagnosis and your true mental illness because they can't diagnose you if you're on drugs so you have to get off drugs first and once i got off drugs the schizophrenia just went away so it was drug induced schizophrenia so you see your problem as yes you were addicted to crack but you were also schizophrenic from the crack right it was from the crack once i stopped smoking crack it it went away yeah cause i've seen other people down on skid row that that were fairly normal and then all of a sudden they just became like you were yeah out of their minds and it wasn't just the drugs they were using i think it's schizophrenia or something like that i mean i was tripping and the things that i accused my dad of in those videos is not true i had schizophrenia i had a mental illness where things i hear voices hallucinations all that so my dad has done nothing to hurt me he's a great guy he's always been there for me and i really love him i just want to put that out there i mean i can attest to that i mean you used to say everybody was a child molester yeah i would just edit those out but they didn't leave that way from watching steve wilkos and mari and all that stuff yeah yeah excited about your dad that one time and i left it in because i didn't know who you were or your dad and you were just some little street urchin that came into my studio with her right there's no bra no shirt no shirt no nothing no shoes i was tripping i watch those videos all the time it's crazy it's crazy how do you feel about about seeing yourself like that um sometimes it makes me cry and sometimes i'm happy because normally when people come up to you and tell me they've seen my video they see how great i'm doing so it's kind of like a confidence boost like yeah i'm doing it yeah you are yeah i think you're going to become like the the example of how to beat these really tough addictions yeah because without the without the jail time so so you i think assaulted your dad and your dad called me that one night and said what do i do amanda just assaulted me the police are here and i said i told your dad like just put her in jail she's going to walk the streets barefoot and and probably get killed eventually so putting her in jail for a month or two isn't gonna hurt her so that's you went to jail and then from jail you went the court decided that you needed to do rehab for one year right and if you if you didn't do one year of rehab then you went to prison for five years and that wasn't my motivation to stay in recovery honestly my motivation was just those videos of me on skid row it was never oh i'm here maybe the first couple months it was but then after a while watching the videos and learning about recovery that's something that i'm really interested in and it's doable that's what people have to understand being sober is doable you can do it yeah i think the way you did it the combination of forced jail for a couple months and then forced rehab for another year almost that basically meant a year of and that's the problem with these rehabs they're kicking people out only 30 days 30 days look who you were 30 days for real i would have been out there doing the same thing and and worse you know what i'm saying so these rehabs really have to be more sensitive to insurance and all that and just know that 30 days is not enough 90 days might not be enough but it just depends on the person but definitely two weeks is just that's just not okay to kick somebody out after two weeks and that's happened i've seen that happen like a lot and you turned the corner after about six months it seemed right right like three or four months in i wanted it for myself yeah yeah yeah so and then there was also some probably some psych meds you were taking and things like that they were right right the meds really helped too and helping my mood and my cravings and i think the last time we did an interview with you you were still a little groggy yeah yeah and today you're very clear-headed yeah wow it's an amazing story amanda definitely i'm i'm i'm blessed to have you and lima you guys are the best like honestly well all i can say is lima is an amazing woman she is because when she asked me who would i recommend for my channel she wanted to do something for my channel she would do this for and i recommended you know like you know maybe five or ten people yeah they would all have been good candidates but i said or you can choose the hardest of all right which was you man i never thought of rehab out there and never even thought of the word i was just so in my mental illness that i couldn't see it and that's why things like al-anon and stuff like that is important for the family to get involved so that they can understand addiction it's not about policing them it's not about cutting them off it's about being there for them and being there every step of the way because relapse is a part of the stages of change and addiction so they're noticing that so you just got to stay there and be there for your family um remember i hope the whole recovery world learns a lot from this from your story yeah definitely because i think there's some really great lessons to learn here because like like i think 100 of the people just said you're you're an impossible case right and look at you now yeah amazing story yep and your dad must be so happy right yeah my dad we talk three times a day i mean he's just such a great guy i mean i can't wait to leave here we're probably going to travel around the world together that's just being sarcastic but we're probably going to do a lot of fun things together because he's like my best friend now we talk like three times a day so yeah yeah amazing amazing and do you think there's any chance that you'll ever go back to that kind of life um there's always a chance honestly that's what they teach us here in rehab but it's a great answer um no i don't i don't i don't want it i don't like the feeling and i don't know why i was doing it if it was making me feel paranoid like that and just like it was just crazy yeah it's almost like it's a trap yeah running out of cars running at hotels it was a schizophrenia honestly but i don't want to blame it on the schizophrenia it was me but it it was a schizophrenia yeah but the crack kind of induced it right right yeah exactly and there's a lot of people down on skid row just like that that seem out of their minds but it's it's the the drugs whether it's you have to get off the drugs first and then go to the doctor so that they can give you the right diagnosis that'll never happen in a month or so yeah it's gonna take several months right right it's gonna it takes time that's why these rehabs gotta stop kicking people out after two and three weeks and four weeks i'd be mad because it's like that's not okay that's not enough time does your dad come to visit you here has he been here to visit you no oh you've got to see this place yeah it's very nice here yeah next time maybe he'll get to come see me when i go yeah yeah yeah maybe or if we come out again like this yeah before you leave he'll come with us yeah that'll be cool yeah i miss my dad i love him so much he's my rock honestly yeah he supported you by himself right right no we had a little help from my mom's side of the family but they were really immensely they they mentally abused me a lot so it was good having my dad come there every day because i see my mom and me so they had a little problem with that so yeah that's a rare father you've got yeah we've been through a lot together yeah he was very patient with you while you were you were doing some questions yeah he could have pressed charges on me way back when there was one time where you disappeared for a week or two you were down with south central i heard somebody saw you down there right i was on every cat corner in la i've been to i've been in every california in l.a and that's a fact amanda i'm so proud of you thank you mark can't wait to see where your life goes from here yeah me too it's a beautiful story thank you thank you man bye guys you

Channel: Soft White Underbelly

Views: 1,180,445

Rating: 4.987123 out of 5

Keywords: soft white underbelly, swu, amanda

Id: rt9OoLSavKM

Length: 12min 2sec (722 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 19 2021