Yeah, addiction's an interesting thing, because there's a lot of truth in
saying that is a wasted part of that person's life.
You see someone on the train that's bent over, seems like a wasted life, but that's
not necessarily true. That that was me.
It was me.
The survival brain is a powerful part of the brain.
Our first instinct is obviously to make it to tomorrow, and I
was running on that brain for so many years.
My parents got divorced when I was eight years old, and that divorce had left
me vulnerable to what would end up being repeated childhood trauma.
I started to change after those traumatic incidents, and as soon as
I got into middle school, I would start experimenting alcohol,
steal my dad's cigarettes, and eventually start smoking weed.
For me, emotionally, it felt good to escape my
baseline. My homeostasis wasn't comfortable.
I can remember doing psychedelics, cocaine, methamphetamine.
Then at some point, when I was about 20, my dad got me into therapy.
That was the first time that I had actually gone to talk to somebody, and it
felt good. Just that very basic thing, that I'm being heard.
So I would have a stretch from 20 to 24 with no use.
I got promoted at my job. I was in college. Things were actually going really well.
And then I would eventually meet
what would become my ex-wife or my son's mom, and she was actively
using, and boy, it didn't take long for me to get
back.
I started to dip into her pills. We would eventually start to sell those pills on
the street and then turn that money into heroin.
Had to use every day,
otherwise we'd get sick, or I'd get sick.
Once I went to IV use, I really lost control of my use.
90 days from that day, I was homeless, lost everything.
Lost everything.
Dragging a four-year-old around, sleeping in bus stops, crazy
stuff, right? Really guilt things that I'm embarrassed to talk about, but they
happened. My ex-wife would ultimately get convicted of
murder. That really to me was like, "Holy." Like, "How am I
here? How did I put myself in this situation?"
There's a couple points that things started to change.
I was pulled over in North Minneapolis. We had needles in the car.
There was dope in the car. But that cop, he had this human moment, this
compassionate moment where he said, "Hey, man, you look like you're dying." And he
gave me three hospitals here in the Metro
that had medical detox.
And the first night I was there, a lady spent two hours cleaning my ears out.
They were so compacted. That's not part of her job. You know what I mean?
That was a huge thing, when someone cared enough to listen or do
something that I needed.
It's hard to see society be punitive with what we now
know is a brain disorder. This isn't just a personality flaw.
You're not morally bankrupt, right?
Something's happening in your brain, and to be able to relearn something
new took a considerable amount of time.
Hey.
Hi.
I was on opioids for 20 years, right?
Street drugs for eight or nine, and then medication for
10, 11 years. To kind of be raw
emotionally today is a challenge.
It's a journey.
I was able to build a life on medication, on oral buprenorphine,
get employed, find a new career, meet a partner, raise my son, be kind of
successful, moving forward. It was even another step
to get the long-acting injectable. There was a lot of ups and downs with oral.
You take a dose,
your levels go up. Over time, they drop back down.
You can feel that in your body. You can feel it in your brain.
So to get the long-acting injectable, I started to leave a lot of
that baggage of the medicine behind.
The injectables kind of gave me some hope that there may be an avenue
post-medication.
My life today is kind of just taking care of my people, day in and day out.
I was never able to do that most of my adult life, so for me, that feels really
good.
I was on the long-acting injectable for about a year and a half.
I took my last injection November 1st,
2024.
My failing mental health led me into an addiction issue.
To get over the insecurities and the low self-worth, I think those are my goals,
which is kind of neat, right? Gives me something to think about.
I work in substance use and mental health, trying to pay it forward, help
the next man that no one believes in.
So I want to give that same hope that that police officer gave me, that same
humanity, that same compassion.
You have something to offer this world, and maybe you don't see it in this moment,
but I see it.
