Recovering Addicts Are Going Cold Turkey on YouTube
Influencers have shot to fame by sharing experiences with addiction, but their success is fraught
Throughout most of his twenties, Jason Ortega only once used drugs — a “minor mushroom trip,” he says. But after his first edible, he was hooked. Soon, he was using work credit cards to buy supplies from his local dispensary in Colorado. Edibles gave way to smoking marijuana, a daily habit that affected his everyday life.
“I hated leaving my apartment, and I became very antisocial,” Ortega says. “I acknowledged it was a terrible habit, but I was very content.”
Eventually, for the sake of his three children, he decided to quit. That’s when he turned to YouTube star CG Kid, a former addict who shares his experiences with drugs and recovery to over 270,000 subscribers.
CG Kid, whose real name is Philip Markoff, created his YouTube channel in 2016 after three years of sobriety and uses it to help his audience recover from addiction. The platform is home to a dedicated handful of former addicts like him and casual users who detail their experiences using, and recovering from, all manner of illegal substances in thousands of videos. If it gets you high, viewers want to know how it feels — and how to quit.
