“It saved my life.” Recovery Programs Helped This Veteran Get His Life Back
My counselor, she said, "You've been spending "over 30-something years hating yourself. "Let's try liking you first. "We'll get to the love." And I understand what she meant. She saved my life. She helped me.
My name is Greg. I joined the United States Army. My years of service were 1985 to 1988. My MOS was 76 Charlie. I joined the Army because, at the time, I wasn't doing much of anything. I was actually acting out, getting in a lot of trouble, using drugs, drinking a lot. It got to a point where either I was gonna go to jail. Our alternative to that was to join the service. When I went into the military that, I know now that I didn't know then I was depressed. I held the company record for Article 15s. So they sent me back, and I went back to Monticello, New York, where I was born and raised. I used more. And by this time, the crack epidemic had came out, and I got involved. I kept getting in trouble. I remember going to my mother's house and getting ready to steal her TV. And I unplugged it three times. On the third time I unplugged it, she came in. And I cried, and I didn't know what to do. And I went into treatment for 28 days in the VA hospital.
This was my first ever. I knew nothing about this. It had been years since I had not used. It felt good that I had an apartment, my first apartment. 13 months, I stayed clean, and then once again, I picked up a drug. So, it was about '90, end of '93 and I just ran the streets. It even got to a point where I was eating out a garbage can. In 1998, I got caught, and I got arrested. So, I went upstate for four and a half to nine. What people don't understand, wherever you go, you take you. In 2005, I came home, and I started to use, but then I said, you know, what about that place in Montrose, New York called the VA hospital? And I started to take medication, which helped. I started going to the, I met these people in a program. I was talking about a 12-step recovery program, and I started to feel a little bit normal. I really started to deal with the mental health.
What people don't understand is mental health for me, for this, for this person, it wasn't just the depression, it's a thing where I needed to talk. So that's what happened. It felt like this overwhelming relief. To this day, I still take medication, depression medication. I've been clean, I haven't had a drug in almost 12 years. And I went to college. That's where I met my wife. Just to have her by my side means the world to me. That's my partner, that's my friend, that's my everything. I just, in February, me and my wife, I bought my first home. 2020 in January, I lost my oldest brother, and I was able to be there for my family. In October of that year, I lost my mother. And I remember sitting on my mother's dying bed and she said to me, she said, "I'm so proud of you." She, she's the one that never gave up on me. And she said, "Don't go back." She said, "Stay the beautiful person you is." So it was in her honor that I could never go back. I couldn't, I would do her an injustice.
There's a lot of Veterans out there that suffer from mental health drug addiction that need help. And if I can tell them one thing, go to the VA. It saved my life.
