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Story Time
A lot of people have asked me to share my story, so here it is.
I joined the Army in 2011 as a 35N at 22 years old, thinking I had life all figured out. Early on in basic training I injured my knee and could not bend my leg for about four weeks. I pushed through the pain, graduated, went on to AIT, and eventually landed at Fort Meade, which became my first and only duty station.
That is where things started to unravel.
I began struggling with my mental health and was prescribed SSRI medications for a long time. The problem was that I was not taking care of myself in any other way. I was not eating right, exercising, getting sunlight, or doing anything that would actually help me heal. My mental health kept declining, and when I injured my back everything spiraled even further.
The pain was brutal. I had severe sciatic pain that made every day miserable. I herniated two discs, had two more bulging, and my spine was so degenerated that a doctor once told me it might eventually collapse. I could barely move. Some mornings I would wake up paralyzed from the waist down and have to be carried to the couch by my wife or a friend because I physically could not move my legs.
Nothing helped. Physical therapy, massage, acupuncture, chiropractic care, none of it worked. Eventually I was put on pain medication, but it barely touched the pain. That is when they put me on long acting morphine. It helped for a little while, but I was still expected to do PT, show up to formation, and keep up with Army life.
Eventually I was switched to Percocet. It worked well at first, but it started affecting my liver, so I was moved to Oxycodone. I started at 5mg three times a day, but as time went on that turned into 5mg five times a day.
Meanwhile my mental health was crumbling. A retired Army colonel who was my psychiatrist started me on Xanax, more SSRIs, Valium, Seroquel, and Ambien. By the time it was all said and done I was taking 6mg of immediate release Xanax per day, 2mg of extended release, 400mg of Seroquel, 40mg of Valium, and 10mg of Ambien every night. I was a walking zombie.
I could not function anymore. I was placed on convalescent leave, which ended up lasting nearly two years. I was at medical appointments five days a week, sometimes multiple per day. My unit basically left me alone as long as I kept going to my appointments.
At one point the pain clinic tried switching me from Oxy to Tramadol. That change caused a seizure that made me collapse and break my thoracic spine. After that I stopped going to the Army pain clinic and saw a civilian provider. On top of all the psychiatric meds he added 40mg of Oxy per day.
That is when things got really bad.
I would go through a 30 day prescription in five to ten days. I was in and out of emergency rooms across the area, visiting different hospitals just to get more opiates so I would not go into withdrawal. Sometimes I would hit the ER three to five times a week. Tricare eventually sent me a letter asking why I was going to the ER fifteen times a month.
Then I got a kidney stone that got stuck in my ureter. During the procedure to place a stent, the doctor accidentally destroyed my ureter, which led to an autologous kidney transplant. The surgery lasted twelve hours. I spent three days in the ICU on a constant Ketamine and Dilaudid drip. After that I was still on a Dilaudid pump for another month. That only deepened the addiction.
Eventually I was medically discharged and moved back to Florida. I stayed sober for about a year, but once I got to Tampa I started slipping again. I told myself I had it under control, but I did not. I started buying Oxy again, using about 200mg a day. It was expensive and destructive. I am sure I snorted fentanyl a few times, but because my tolerance was so high, I somehow survived.
My days revolved around finding pills, finding money, and staying high enough to function. I would withdraw in agony, sleep for 36 hours at a time, overdose, and wake up at my computer with white foam on my lips. I lost years with my wife and son. I became angry, short tempered, and unbearable to be around. I know for a fact that I could have easily lost my family or ended up dead.
Somehow I did not.
I started realizing how deeply addictive my personality really is. I have been sober now for a while, and I have channeled that same obsessive energy into something positive, taking care of my health, eating right, lifting, and improving myself every single day. I can honestly say I am in the best place I have ever been.
I know @CGTCFA gets a lot of criticism online for some of his opinions, and that is fine. We are all entitled to our own views. But I can say without hesitation that his influence helped me more than I can ever express. He did not get me sober, but he helped me elevate beyond just being clean. He helped me fall in love with the process of growth.
I am not here to preach about addiction or how to recover from it. Everyone’s journey is different. But if you ever want to talk privately, I will always make time.
If you think you are in a bad place, physically, mentally, or financially, remember that someone out there is fighting through worse. Your situation can change in an instant. Life will not just get better on its own. It takes accountability, effort, and time. You get out what you put in.
I stopped making excuses, took ownership of my life, and decided to move forward. My past does not define me, but it has shaped me into someone who never wants to fall back into that darkness again.
I'm sure there's plenty of details and events that I've left out such as totaling 3 vehicles because of my issues, but I don't want to bore you all too much more.
This too shall pass. I am not special. I just made the decision to change for myself, my wife, and my son, and I would not trade this journey for anything.
Life gets better. You just have to be willing to do the work.
If anyone wants to reach out, comment, or talk privately about their own struggles, my messages are always open. I am here any time.
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