The Road That Almost Took My Life

When I look back at my life, I can see a lot of things I wish I could change. I can see mistakes, bad decisions, broken relationships, addiction, incarceration, and times when I didn’t know if I was going to make it.

But I can also see something else.

I can see how far I’ve come.

I grew up in a family where addiction was already a part of our lives. I had two older twin brothers who were using drugs before I was really old enough to understand what they were doing. I remember looking at them and thinking, I’ll never be like that. I’ll never do what they do.

Ironically, those words would eventually become one of the biggest lessons of my life.

Because I did.

I wasn’t the easiest kid growing up. I was getting into trouble even in elementary school. But at the same time, I had a good childhood in a lot of ways. My grandparents were a huge part of my life. They gave me just about everything I wanted and made sure I was taken care of.

My father was never really a part of my life. It always seemed like he didn’t really want much to do with me or my two older brothers. My mom was there, but she was occupied with her husband and her other two children. Looking back now, I realize there were things I needed emotionally that I didn’t know how to ask for.

Around the age of 9 to 11, I started smoking weed and huffing glue. It eventually stopped for a couple of years, but the progression had already started.

When I was 16, I dropped out of high school going into 11th grade. At the time, I didn’t care much about school. I wanted to spend time with my friends, drink, smoke weed, and do whatever I wanted.

Then came the pills.

Percocets. Tylenol 3s. Anything that contained codeine.

I started chasing the feeling more than I realized. By around 17, I had progressed to IV drug use.

What started as experimentation became an addiction that took control of my life.

I kept using until I was incarcerated at 19. I stayed incarcerated until I was 21.

When I got out, I managed to stay away from drugs for about nine years. But I wasn’t really living a life of recovery. I was still drinking and smoking, and I hadn’t truly dealt with the things underneath my addiction.

During those years, I got married. I bought a house. I had two cars. I had a family.

From the outside, it probably looked like I had everything together.

Then my marriage fell apart after my wife had an affair.

That pain became part of the reason I went back to drugs.

I started using again.

For years, my life became a cycle of using, stopping, trying to get my life together, and then falling back into the same patterns.

Around 2020, something unexpected happened. I started working at a treatment center as a transportation driver. Eventually, I became a lead tech.

I was working around people who were trying to get sober while I was still fighting my own demons.

I wish I could say that being around recovery automatically changed me.

It didn’t.

I relapsed again.

This time, it was fentanyl.

And it nearly killed me.

I overdosed three times in one week.

Three times.

Eventually, I ended up in the emergency room after another overdose. I remember knowing that I couldn’t keep doing this. I had been given chance after chance, and I was running out of them.

June 16, 2023 became the day everything changed.

I had just gotten out of the ER after an overdose. There had already been two other overdoses that same week.

That day, I made a decision.

I was done.

I didn’t know exactly what my life was going to look like. I didn’t know how everything was going to work out. But I knew I couldn’t keep living the way I had been living.

I chose to put the drugs down.

And this time, I decided I wasn’t going back.

Recovery didn’t magically fix everything. I still had to face myself. I had to learn how to live differently. I had to take responsibility for the things I had done and the people I had hurt.

I had to learn how to forgive myself.

I had to learn how to be present.

I had to learn how to live without drugs.

The 12 Steps became a major part of that process for me. Recovery taught me that getting clean wasn’t just about putting down a substance. It was about changing the way I lived.

And slowly, my life started changing.

I wasn’t just surviving anymore.

I was building something.

One of the biggest blessings in my life is my partner. She chose to stay by my side for the last 12 years. Through everything, she stayed. She saw the worst parts of me, but she also stayed long enough to see me fight my way back.

Today, I have an amazing partner who continues to stand beside me.

I also have another beautiful part of my life that I never want to take for granted—my six-year-old daughter.

And then there are my other children, who I love more than I can put into words.

Addiction took a lot from me, including relationships with people I love.

For a long time, there was distance between me and some of my children. That is one of the hardest things for me to look back on.

But today, I’m grateful that I’m getting the opportunity to change that.

I’m talking to my children again.

I’m rebuilding relationships.

I’m showing up.

I can’t change the years that were lost. I can’t go back and be the father I wish I had been during those years.

But I can be there now.

I can listen.

I can love them.

I can keep showing up.

And that’s what recovery has taught me. Sometimes you don’t get the chance to erase the past. You get the chance to make something different out of what comes next.

Today, I’m not the same person who walked into that emergency room.

I’m working in the addiction field, helping other people who are struggling with the same disease that nearly took my life.

I went back to school because I realized that I didn’t just want to change my own life. I wanted to help other people change theirs.

I’m working toward becoming an addictions counselor and eventually earning my CAC. Every day I get to take what I have been through and use it to help someone else see that there is another way.

I know what it feels like to be completely lost.

I know what it feels like to hurt the people you love.

I know what it feels like to think you’ve gone too far to come back.

And I know what it feels like to be given another chance.

My life isn’t perfect today.

But it’s mine.

I have a family I love. I have a partner who stood beside me. I have children I am rebuilding relationships with. I have a career that gives my past a purpose. I have goals. I have a future.

Most importantly, I’m here.

June 16, 2023 wasn’t the day I became perfect.

It was the day I finally decided that I wanted to live more than I wanted to die.

It was the day I stopped running from my life and started fighting for it.

My addiction will always be a part of my story, but it doesn’t get to write the ending.

I used to think my past was something I needed to hide.

Now I see it differently.

My past is proof that people can change.

That families can heal.

That relationships can be rebuilt.

That a person can lose almost everything and still find a way back.

I can’t change where my story started.

I can’t change the mistakes I’ve made.

But today, I get to decide where it goes.

And for the first time in my life, I actually want to see what happens next.