Substance use was my priority. That came before everything, including my son. My son watched me get high on meth. I would take him with me on drug deals. If you're making the same choices that I was and you have kids involved, you're impacting your kids' mental health as well, and I was guilty of that.
Ricky, United States Marine Corps, 1391 Bulk Fuel Specialist, from 1999 to 2003. I was 19 years old, I was a very young father and I needed some structure, some guidance and discipline, and the Marine Corps swiftly obliged. At the age of 21, I was very young and naive. New to the area where I was stationed at, which was in Beaufort, South Carolina Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort. I worked security at a club or a bar, and I was invited to an after party. At that after party, I got extremely intoxicated. While I was incoherent, I was awakened by another man whose face was somewhere it shouldn't have been. He was attempting to perform a sex act. I was sexually assaulted, and for me, that started a downward spiral of a lot of trauma.
When I discharged from the Marine Corps honorably after five years, I had no money in my pocket. I spent basically everything that I had to have fun while I was there. Many narcotics, alcohol, pills, criminal activity, promiscuity, anything that would help me to numb myself or to avoid what happened to me, that's what I did. I was divorced twice. I burnt every bridge that I had. I'm a three-time convicted felon. Multiple treatment facilities. I stole from my own son to get high. The message I was sending to my son was, these people in this life over here mean more to me than spending time with you. And ultimately, my son took his own life in 2015. He was 18 years old. People often asked me, "Do you blame yourself for your son's death?" And a lot of days I do. Am I solely responsible for his suicide? Not necessarily. But did I play a huge role in it? Absolutely.
Today, the way that I honor him is every single day I ask myself, "Am I being the man that I once needed and am I being the man that my son deserved?" And those are some things that help hold me accountable. I knew in order for me to survive and actually have a productive life, that I needed to seek some help and I needed somebody to guide me in a different direction. That's what ultimately influenced me. I would rather be dead than to be who I used to be. That was a living hell. It was a long transition, but the therapeutic part of it for me was just to be able to sit in front of somebody and be open about what I had gone through. Just to know that other men have gone through that. Connection saves lives.
I think most of the treatments, I took something from each of them. I think most of them are all structured around the same things. When I started actually applying what was being shared with me is when the transitions for me began.
When you surround yourself with people who have nothing to lose, they're going to help you lose everything that you have. I eventually crossed paths with an angel who's now my wife. My wife was working down the street from the rescue mission that I was staying at. That's ultimately what began my transition after that ten-year stretch of being in active addiction. I'm a way much better man in recovery and sober than I was when I was in my addiction. Meeting her save my life, and I would not be here without her today. I have no problem telling you that. My wife's got two master's degrees and I've got three felonies, so we balance one another out.
I'm here to tell you that you're not alone. I too have gone through it. This happened to me as a 21-year-old young man that just compounded what I'd gone through. You're not losing your mind. You're not weak for asking for help. You're not less of a man. From my perspective, to ask for help or say that I'm not okay, that takes true courage and strength.
