Lots of addicts wallow in darkness. But Colin Browen experienced the ravages of addiction in tandem with some of the darkest subject matter possible. The creator of the popular YouTube investigation series The Paranormal Files and co-host of the leading true crime podcast Murder in America immersed himself in some of the most disturbing cases imaginable. Now, coming up on three years sober, he talked to The Sober Curator’s Teresa Bergen about how recovery has changed his connection to and investigation of the paranormal.
[Note: This interview has been edited for length and flow.]
Teresa
I’ve been sober a long time, and I write a lot about sober travel. I love nature and wellness, but I’m also really drawn to the dark stuff. I like to visit a lot of places that people think are kind of creepy to go on vacation, so perhaps you can relate to that.
Colin
Yeah, I could obviously speak to that, being a sober ghost hunter.
Teresa
Were you always drawn to dark stuff? And tell me about some of your early memories with getting interested in the paranormal.
Colin
When I was growing up, my parents always took our family on ghost tours. So every city we visited, every town, we had to do the ghost tour at night. We took a lot of trips to the East Coast, so there’s a lot of history out there. And I just remember as a kid visiting some of those places and really being able to feel the energy. I remember one ghost tour in Salem, Massachusetts, specifically. There was this building we visited, and I didn’t even want to look at it as a kid standing on the exterior of the building. It was like, I don’t know, a place that filled me with this feeling of dread. And my parents agreed and thought this place was really creepy.
Years later, I ended up through my YouTube channel being able to investigate that location, and yeah, it was definitely pretty crazy in there. So it was a really full-circle moment of this place scared me as a kid, and as an adult, I got to go back and do one of the first proper investigations of the building. But yeah, it was still scary. So I grew up in that kind of environment where my mom loved Halloween, and we always went on ghost tours. It’s hard to explain why a person’s attracted to darker subjects and creepy things. But that’s just always been who I am.
Teresa
So it sounds like the subject matter came before the addiction for you.
Colin
I definitely had all these interests long before I even moved out of my house in high school to go to college. The house that I lived in when I was in high school was actually haunted. Basically, my parents built the house, and we moved in. The first day that we moved in, we were experiencing activity. There were things that were like mimicking my parents’ voices, stuff that was crawling around on all fours around my bed. Really, really violent. Yeah, scary stuff. It was like a “Conjuring”-style haunting, like you’d see in a movie. We had to have a psychic come cleanse the house, and it didn’t work. It actually only made this thing more pissed.
My family eventually moved out of the home. So leaving my home state of South Dakota and going down to Texas for college, I was already determined to kind of chase the paranormal as a career. I went to film school at the University of Texas. So, yeah, 11 years later, after I started my YouTube channel, I’m still here doing it every week. It’s crazy.
Teresa
Do you feel like people with addiction problems are especially drawn to dark tourism or dark sites?
Colin
Yeah, I feel like people who have gone through the process of getting sober have already kind of touched the darkest parts of life. And if you come out on the other side, you’ve had those experiences that aren’t paranormal, but they’re definitely very frightening. Every sober person I’ve ever met has been an incredibly strong individual, both mentally and physically. I don’t know if being sober, you’ve built your mind up to be this fortress almost, where you can handle diving into these topics. But it’s interesting. For me, I was always just the creepy guy. But there probably is a correlation somewhere that I just haven’t noticed yet.
Teresa
When I go to creepy old haunted jails that are open as a tourist attraction, I realize that there’s a correlation between institutions and addiction. And also true crime, right? I mean, alcohol and drug use can lead to bad decision-making.
Colin
No doubt about that.
Teresa
So have some of the sites that you’ve investigated involved addiction?
Colin
That’s a very interesting question. I mean, we’ve done almost every type of location imaginable. Like visiting asylums and learning about some of the history, where back in the day, if you were an alcoholic or you had a drug problem, you could be locked up and essentially tortured for years on end. That’s always just kind of shocking to read about, and then to actually stand in those spaces and feel the energy of those people who have come before and kind of empathize with them. It’s really powerful. Same with jails. I’ve investigated a number of jails, and usually, with some of these county jail buildings that we film at, there’s an old drunk tank. So it’s funny for me to stand in the drunk tank now and imagine where I could have been and what could have happened. Luckily, that never happened to me.
But I’ve also filmed interestingly at a lot of bars. When we were in Ireland last year, we filmed at a place that claims to be the oldest pub in Ireland. It was very bizarre being in an environment like that, surrounded by alcohol and having gone through this recovery process. And we believed that we spoke to somebody who drank at that bar every single day and had come back in the afterlife and was still there. But what was interesting to me is that they seemed to be a very happy spirit or energy. So it wasn’t like a sob story or sad. My parents actually were filming this video with my brother-in-law and me, and everyone was laughing. It was like this person or energy that was there, sitting at the bar, you know, 50, 60 years after they allegedly died, was cracking jokes. Everyone was laughing.
I filmed at a bar here in Texas a few years ago. And one of the resident spirits was allegedly someone who literally drank themselves to death and died sitting in a chair at the bar due to alcohol poisoning. And so that’s just really sad, you know, no matter how you look at it. And that energy was darker, clearly. So, yeah, it’s interesting to be able to tell these stories from a fully sober perspective. It’s given me a whole new lens to look at all this history through.
Teresa
So, when did you get sober, and how has it changed the way you relate to your subject matter?
Colin
I got sober back in 2023. So I’m almost at my three-year anniversary. I haven’t relapsed or had any desire to do so.
Years ago I used to drink during some of my ghost hunting, and there were times when I was so messed up from what I was doing that I could barely focus on the investigation. And being now completely clear of all that and completely level-headed, I have felt this dark, kind of oppressive energy, not to sound cheesy, lift off of me. Because things got really dark for a while before I actually got sober.
Interestingly, when I got sober, I got way more connected to whatever energy is out there, and I started noticing patterns and signs. And some of the things that I have experienced since getting sober have been the strongest in terms of like paranormal activity. It’s been a very weird spiritual journey for me because I’m still not religious or anything, but my mind’s definitely more open now to the possibility of a sort of universal spirit. Because I’ve seen it, and it has been absolutely crazy.
The paranormal is all about personal experience. Because everybody’s family has a ghost story that they’ve passed down. Almost everybody has experienced something that they can’t explain throughout their life. For me, I’m just a dude with a camera who’s been filming this stuff for a decade, and I’m no closer to the truth than I was when I started. You know, I’ve been able to definitively prove to myself that it is indeed happening. I just don’t know what’s happening.
Teresa
You were saying that you were sometimes really messed up on these investigations. And when you’re inebriated in public, that can bring all kinds of dangers, like, say, drinking and driving. Well, what about drinking and demons? Does substance use add an extra layer of vulnerability?
Colin
That’s a theological question that now I’ve really deeply considered over the last few years. Was I opening myself up to some sort of negative influence, and was something choosing to surround me because I was doing such negative things? I think that it’s possible for sure. I mean, you get into the realm of spirituality, like in the middle of the worst part of my addiction, I had a bout of sleep paralysis for about six or seven months. Those were some of the scariest experiences of my life. I would wake up. I couldn’t move. I would hear people in my apartment, hear voices. And the final experience I had, I felt something push me down into my bed, lean up to my face, and whisper, “I’m the demon.” Just like that in my ear. And it scared the absolute hell out of me.
I genuinely do feel like if you’re already struggling with something, and you’re dealing with these kinds of personal demons and fighting these battles, there are energies out there that will take advantage of that. Which is why, no matter what belief system you carry, you’ve always got to try to surround yourself with positive energy. And you know, cleanse your space and keep your spirit up. Because, yeah, I mean, I never used to believe in demons, or kind of negative spirits. But 10 years later, I’ve had so many unexplainable and frankly frightening experiences that I definitely believe that there’s something darker out there. I just don’t know what it is. But if you’re in active addiction, I feel like it’s almost a beacon for a dark energy.
Teresa
Oh, I completely believe that.
Colin
Well, with the paranormal, you know, the thing is, it doesn’t matter if people believe in it or not. It’s real and it’s out there, and it believes in you. You can’t deny that something is happening out there that just cannot be explained. Not only are there millions of videos and evidence captures from legit paranormal teams, but there are millions and millions of stories from throughout history of people experiencing similar stuff. So yeah, I’m more in the camp where, like I always tell people, I don’t really know what I just captured on camera or who we’ve been talking to, but as you can see, something was there, and something wanted to speak.
Teresa
Why is ghost hunting so important to you?
Colin
I love the paranormal and I love ghost hunting. But for me, I’ve always been the most interested in history and telling stories. And I’ve been able to use the paranormal as sort of a lens over the years to be able to expose some of this darker history. Like I’ve been fortunate enough to have grown this platform to where it is, where I’ve been able to tell stories that I feel like haven’t been told properly, and I’ve been able to raise important questions and even start petitions advocating for justice in a number of different cases.
It’s like talking about the hard stuff and almost forcing people in a way to confront history that, especially nowadays, a lot of people don’t want you to really talk about. Like we can’t sanitize American history. It is bloody. It is gruesome, and it is horrific. There’s definitely some positive in there, but you know, for the most part, there’s just so much that we haven’t dealt with in this country that I don’t think we’re going to really properly deal with anytime soon.
Teresa
Yeah, in reading world history, I feel like it’s not just an American problem but a human problem. We’re just not the nicest species.
Colin
No, definitely not.
Teresa
Any last thing you want to tell an audience of mostly people in recovery?
Colin
I’d just say stick with it because you can do it. And I know for a fact when I first entered the rehab facility, I thought there’s no way that I’m getting sober. This is never going to work, and I’m going to get out and I’m going to drink every Halloween and still do this and that. But after I really started giving it an effort, life just got so beautiful in so many ways. And I didn’t think it was possible, but it is. And it’s not always going to be roses. But you know, life can be so much better. So, yeah, if anyone’s out there struggling, I definitely would recommend sticking with it. Because, yeah, the world’s already dark enough, and we don’t need to make it darker for ourselves.
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Who is Colin Browen?
Colin Browen is a paranormal investigator, filmmaker and true crime podcaster best known as the creator of The Paranormal Files, a YouTube investigation series he has produced weekly for more than a decade, and as co-host of the true crime podcast Murder in America. A South Dakota native, he studied film at the University of Texas and is based in Texas.
Is Colin Browen sober?
Yes. Browen got sober in 2023 and is approaching his three-year sobriety anniversary. He says he has not relapsed or had any desire to, and credits recovery with lifting a dark, oppressive energy off his life and work.
What is The Paranormal Files?
The Paranormal Files is a long-running YouTube series in which Browen investigates reportedly haunted locations, including asylums, jails, historic pubs and private homes, blending paranormal investigation with the darker corners of American history.
How did sobriety change Colin Browen’s ghost hunting?
He says getting sober made him more connected to whatever energy is out there. Some of his strongest paranormal experiences have happened since he quit drinking, and he now investigates with a clear head instead of being too impaired to focus, as he sometimes was in his drinking years.
Does addiction make you more vulnerable to dark energy?
Browen believes it can. During the worst stretch of his addiction, he experienced six to seven months of sleep paralysis, including an entity that whispered “I’m the demon” in his ear. He feels active addiction can act as a beacon for negative energy, which is why he urges people to surround themselves with positive energy regardless of belief system.
What equipment do ghost hunters use?
Ghost hunters typically use an EMF meter to detect energy fluctuations, a recording device and camera to capture evidence, and at least one flashlight.
