Audio not working after updating MacBook Pro to 12.5 Monterey

Hello guys, this is my first time on this forum, I am not very sure how to word this properly as I am not very tech-savvy so I will do the best I can.

I recently updated my Macbook 2018 Pro from Mojave to the latest 12.5 Monterey and immediately after updating, all of my audio from Macbook speaker to earphones/bluetooth would not work despite my Macbook recognising the devices I used. Occasionally, the sound would come back but after awhile, it would be gone again. The only "remedy" I have found was to restart, but the problem still persists after some time. I also noticed that anything audio related such as Youtube/Spotify would either be extremely laggy, or only the video and not the sound would play. All other Macbook functions seem to be fine. This issue only occured after I updated.

Steps I have taken:

• I reinstalled Monterey to no effect
• I tried killing core audio
• I did the usual settings check
• I run a virtual machine, so I went to check on it as well and it shows that all drivers and audio devices are updated and supposedly working

Is this a bug that will get patched in the near future? I am at a loss because I do not know if this is a software issue that would get fixed or if its a problem with my own computer. I have heard of reinstalling to an older OS but I stupidly did not create a backup for all my data and I do not want to risk losing everything for nothing. I also unfortunately am not covered by warranty as it expired awhile ago.

Thank you very much for reading, and any help would be greatly appreciated.