I have a purpose.
You wouldn’t have guessed I thought that way about myself today if you knew me 15 years ago.
In the Marine Corps, I had been trained like every other. You are trained to win, to be strong, to fight. I was prescribed oxycontin for pain in my back and neck. First small doses. Then bigger doses. That euphoric feeling was indescribable.
After the military, I managed a gym, a circle ripe with opportunities to get more painkillers. Oxy turned into heroin. I blew through everything I had. I stopped showing up to work. I made it a mission to visit various doctors to get more prescriptions. Now onto meth. The triple cocktail of opioids, heroin and meth wasn’t even rock bottom at this point. Just more trouble I was causing and getting myself into.
When you live in this cycle, it’s an alternate universe. Everyone was following me. Helicopters were hovering over me. Voices telling me to do things. My logic is that if I stayed inside my car, people couldn’t get me. I’d drive to the desert, fall asleep, wake up and feel good. But that was easily altered by using again.
I drove myself to the middle of nowhere to overdose.
I failed.
***
I was so upset that I didn’t win at killing myself. Until finally, something clicked. When I ended up in a Jack in the Box shooting up pills in a syringe, I called my dad. I wasn’t close to my dad and of course, I had burned bridges, but he dropped everything to pick me up and take me to the VA.
I was in and out of treatment centers and still got in trouble with the law. There was even a sign put up in one of them. It said, “Don’t Drink the Goldfish.” That’s because of me and the day I gulped down a goldfish in a cup of water just to rile up the support staff.
After 20 days here, I punched a hole in the wall. I knew I had screwed up and I was going to get kicked out. But the director of the program gave me one more chance. I took it. After 30 days in the program, I wanted to stay longer. I wanted to go into the advanced recovery program. I wanted to attend meetings. After 83 days, I got the keys to my own apartment.
The story doesn’t end there. I still failed. I got addicted to opioids again. I entered a medication-assisted treatment program at the VA. Then I tore my shoulder and my neck injury got significantly worse requiring surgery. I was so afraid; I was afraid of the morphine I would get in the hospital for the surgery and of getting more pain pills and going back down a dark path. However, I said no to prescriptions. It inspired a lot of hope in me to be strong like a Marine and focus on my mission of getting better.
This darkness is not uncommon for people in the military. You are built up to have confidence. You are wired to resist asking for help because it’s a sign of weakness. You are supposed to work through your pain to accomplish your mission. It prevents you from looking at the things that have gone wrong.
I set out to help break this stigma. As someone who helps underserved populations in my work today, my aim is to eliminate the barriers to conversations about addiction and mental health. Asking for help doesn’t mean you will lose your rights or be seen as weak – which I think is a perception military veterans have.
I wish I would have had a better understanding of what mental health was in the military.
I wish I wasn’t wired to think being strong meant doing things alone.
I hope for more tools to help with prevention and recovery.
When I was in the early phases of recovery, the gym was a key factor in my physical and mental well-being. The gym was an outlet and a release. It helped in keeping me going.
Addiction often starts with someone taking a couple of pills at a time from a friend or loved one. From my experience, the earlier you can catch a growing addiction, the better. I do wonder why all medications aren’t distributed in locking pill bottles specific to the person the meds are prescribed. It provides an added barrier by keeping medication out of the wrong hands – especially in recovery environments. When someone is taking even a few pills from someone else, you might not even notice the pills are gone if they belonged to you.
Some veterans seem to avoid the VA because of the perception that going to the VA means you have a disability. The medication assisted treatment program at the VA was part of my recovery. I detoxed in the MAT program. It was a service that I was glad to use.
I am a practicum therapist intern today because mental health care is necessary. It’s not an option and shouldn’t be. Trauma is real. Recognizing that military families and veterans need support is critical. Shining a light on this will be a road to progress instead of a road to addiction.
One thing I have learned through all of this is, the more people know you’re struggling, the more people can mobilize to help you. It’s a battle they don’t teach you in the military.
—
This Post is republished on Medium.
—
Photo credit: Unsplash