FIRST THE MIND, THEN THE BODY

2002

A friend rhetorically asked after my last post, “How does it start?” Holy Guacamole! THAT is what I spent 6 years thinking about. Last post I focused on the chemical beginning. I believe that everything happens in the mind before it happens in the body.  Spiritually put, everything happens in the spirit before it happens in the flesh.  The following is my opinion about myself; so technically, I can’t be wrong…misinformed or amiss, perhaps, but definitely not wrong. 

Addiction is not the problem. It is only a symptom of an underlying, unresolved issue or issues.  Addiction is the nausea that accompanies the flu.  It is the runny nose that accompanies the common cold.  It is the acute fever and vomiting of blood that accompanies The Plague.  It is an outward manifestation of an inner virus or bacteria.  Unfortunately, we fixate ourselves on the ugliness of the outward symptoms and are unable to see or focus on the real pathogen that lies deep within us.  This is especially true for the “functioning” addict. 

Motorcycle accident 1988

I don’t believe it is just the chemicals that whisper sweet nothings in your ear until you succumb, at least not the first time.  I spent over 9 months as an inpatient in the hospital after a severe motorcycle accident.  During that time I was given enough opiate pain medication to render an entire parade of elephants comatose.  When I left the hospital as a naïve 22 yr. old with relatively few “issues” in life, my body went through physical withdrawals, but my mind was free of psychological withdrawal. I was fixated on spiritual things and the blessings of life. I was preparing to leave for a two year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  Later in life, at the age of 35, I had a few more life experiences and disappointments on my hard drive.  This time I rebooted vastly different.

My uncle spent 32 years as a full-time career Firefighter/Paramedic.  He retired (the first time) at the same rank where he began in the 1970’s. He was my “go-to” guy for all things medical, spiritual, and work-related.  I called him after I had performed CPR for the first time on a 76 yr. old man while going through EMT school.  I called him again during paramedic school after a losing the battle to save a 16yr. old girl who had been shot in the chest. The effect of the first incident caused me to wonder if I was cut out for this type of work. His response to me was comforting and unsettling at the same time.  He said, “Good. It should bug you. That means you’re normal. It’s when it doesn’t bug you that you know you are in trouble.” On one hand I was assured I was not overreacting. On the other hand, it made me realize that I would reach this crossroads many more times on my journey as a paramedic.  The opportunity to veer left or right was always just one more call away.

One young medic

He also gave me a greater understanding of my “baggage” in a simple metaphor.  He explained that every time we see something horrible, ugly, or stressful, we quickly stuff it in a mental duffle bag and put it out of sight in order to perform as a competent professional.  Sooner or later our duffle bags get full.  In this profession it is not popular or common to talk to people about things that “bug” us on the job. The macho majority says, “Just deal with it, Nancy!”  My uncle taught me that every now and then you have to talk to someone, perhaps a professional, and “empty your duffle bag.” It’s not to impress. It’s to express.  Anybody in law enforcement, EMS, or the military could unload a barrage of “Gore Stories” without having to think for more than 2 seconds.  If we shared it all to a mental health professional, every cop, firefighter, and veteran would be on mandatory lithium. But we aren’t “normal.”  We have “rescue” personalities.  We can’t see chaos and NOT try to mitigate it.  That’s why these men and women are so good at what they do. We deal with it; some even thrive on it, I dare say.  It doesn’t make us stronger than anybody else, just…different. We deal with our issues largely with dark humor.  We make light of tragedy.  Death, pain, and mutilation are topics open for sarcasm and levity (except when it involves children). It lessens the sting. I’m not sure if it heals or conceals.  Perhaps that depends on the individual.

As I searched for the “it” in HOW DOES IT START, I don’t think I stumbled on the missing link.  I think I just stumbled on one of several links that created the chain that bound me.  Here is an excerpt from my journal dated 2/23/07. I had been locked up for just over a year. (Remember, this is not a post or a paper. They were the thoughts of my mind and heart as they spilled out)

…I wrote her [my wife] a letter letting her know how hopeless at times I had felt. I had even contemplated “throwing in the big towel”, thinking perhaps my family would be better off without me and all their pain and disappointments I seem to bring. Rebuilding at this stage of my life sometimes seems futile. Not too long ago, I truly was a different man.  For someone who was in the business of “saving lives” for so long, it seems ironic to give up on myself and not even desire to save myself.  I did the math and it comes to between 15,000-20,000 emergency calls over my career.  In all of those calls I seem to have been “privileged” to partake of death and bloodshed much more than life and “rescue”. I have heard of medics who have delivered upwards of 300 babies in their careers.  Not once did I deliver a live baby into this world.  It seems I never got to escort life into this world, only out.  How many people were “blessed” to see my face as the last image before they left earth? I know I was (and still am) a damn fine medic, an excellent one.  Then why did I get so much death and tragedy disbursed to me over my career?  It certainly doesn’t seem fair, to say the least.  For being in the business of “saving lives”, the payoff seems too small and too far between.  I threw my emotions into my calls.  It was my biggest strength and, ultimately, my biggest reason for burnout (and self-medication). 

I remember one young medic bragging that he had experienced 4 cardiac saves over the period of a week.  I honestly don’t remember 4 in my entire career!  As I look back, I don’t remember many “feel good stories”, but I can unload an endless amount of “blood and guts”, gory death stories.  I knew I shouldn’t have gone back to the job after my first Rehab in Dec. ’03.  There was one stretch in 2000 when my partner (nicknamed the “Black Cloud”) and I went 3 months together and had someone die on us, or we found someone dead every shift. At least one, usually two dead guys per shift.  The other crew printed out a skull and crossbones on the computer and taped it over the city emblem on the doors of the ambulance when we started our shift.  What all this has to do with my current situation, I’m not sure.  Maybe I didn’t deal with it well, or properly.  Maybe after having such high hopes as a young medic and then after serving the community for 15 years, the least they could have done was live more often than die. Hell, I would have even taken a 100:1 loss ratio!

We all have baggage. We all have our own personal duffle bags filled with issues, incidents, and insecurities.  We zip them tight and hold them close to our body so there is no risk of anybody else discovering their contents.  Some days when we’re all alone, we open them up and examine these extremely personal artifacts and internalize them. Relive them. Remorse or regret them.  Some things in our duffle bag were placed inside because of our behavior, or lack thereof.  Some of the things we perceived about ourselves as children and were stuffed  in there long ago. Some things are in our duffle bags because we HAD to put them there in order to live to see the next day. We all have them in varying capacities and quantities. This is life. I am still learning how to handle my baggage. The question is: Do we deal with the things in our duffle bags in a HEALTHY or UNHEALTHY manner?  Do we spend too much time brooding over the contents. Do we proudly hoist them high on our shoulders for all to see? Do we pretend we don't even have a private bag of woes? We should examine each issue, incident, or insecurity that is impeding our happiness, address it, then place it where it belongs...For me, that is at my Savior's feet.  HE will take out our trash and place it in the dumpster of "Things learned."

HEY MISTER...YOU'RE IN TIMEOUT!

Prison would have been great if it weren’t for all the people.  I was PENALIZED and incarcerated to be PENITENT. Incarceration was designed to keep you from harming society and to be penitent or humbled, hence the term PENITENTIARY.

Not everybody is given the opportunity to have a 6 yr. “timeout” to think about (and fix or redirect) his or her life.  What a wonderful blessing it was for me. Yes, blessing.  I know I would have ended up dead if given the opportunity to continue on my self-destructive path.  I tried to look back and find the most infinitesimal choice or decision I had made to start me down that path.  A conference talk from Deiter F. Uchtodrf explains it better than I ever could.  It was a matter of a “few degrees”.  As a jetliner begins to stray off course by just a “few degrees” it may not seem very significant at the beginning of the journey, however, over time, uncorrected, you will find yourself thousands of miles from your planned destination.  He also states:

“The longer we delay corrective action, the larger the needed changes become, and the longer it takes to get back on the correct course—even to the point where a disaster might be looming.”

This was the course of my life and I was determined to find out when and where that course deviation originated. 

A STARTLING REVELATION: My chemical addiction did not begin at age 35.  That is when the abuse of chemicals began, specifically, opiate pain medication.  While incarcerated, I immersed myself into the SCIENCE and SPIRITUALITY of my addiction. Scientifically speaking, the seed of my addiction was years before.

I had left for Marine Corps Boot Camp just 11 days after graduating high school at the age of 17.  After four years of honorable service I was preparing to exit the service and serve a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  48 hours before my release from active duty, I collided with a city bus on my motorcycle. I proved the theory that solid matter cannot pass through solid matter.  I was on the losing end of what I simply call, “The Law of Lugnuts”; basically, he who has the most lugnuts, wins. I shattered my right lower leg in 8 places, separated my shoulder, fractured my right upper arm and chipped most of the teeth on the right side of my mouth. A helmet saved my “squash” from getting “squashed.” In a nutshell, I spent almost a year in the hospital, faced amputation of my leg twice, learned to walk again, and ultimately recovered with a few deficiencies.  The 6 reconstructive operations would be painful beyond belief.  I was treated at the Naval Hospital and was given a powerful pain medication 33 times more powerful than Morphine.  When I finally left the hospital months later I went through a week of flu-like symptoms, joint and muscle pain, with fever and chills.  In my ignorance, I had no idea that I was going through classic opiate withdrawal symptoms.  I just thought I got sick.  I left the hospital weighing a meager 125 pounds and walking with a cane.

Shortly thereafter, I left for my mission to Buenos Aires, Argentina at the age of 22 and just never looked back. I immersed myself in spiritual things.  I handled life with it’s joys and disappointments.  I married, became a Firefighter/Paramedic, had children, and launched my new career.  I had always considered myself an athlete and had healed to the point where I could teach Physical Training in the Fire Academy. Life was life. Ups and downs, joys and sorrows.

Then it happened.  14 years after my motorcycle accident, I injured myself while trimming a tree in the backyard. I strained or tore a muscle in my chest.  I was prescribed pain medication…and I couldn’t put it down…for years! My medication use skyrocketed to an alarming level in a relatively short amount of time.

Why?  What malfunctioned in my brain to cause me to latch on so hard to this vice? WHY? WHY?  WHY? I could not stop. I tried. I failed. I tried again. I failed again. All of the voodoo that comes with chemical addiction began to show up in my life.  Did I suddenly become this “bad person”? I know that as I made choices to feed my addiction shame and guilt came flooding in like a tsunami on steroids. WHY? WHY? WHY?

It would be years later while serving my prison sentence that some semblance of understanding would reach my mind. The Christian in me needed to find out what happened spiritually.  The paramedic in me needed to find out what happened physically.  It would take years of SPIRITUAL recovery to understand the physical SCIENCE of what had taken place. From strictly a scientific point of view, I was enlightened.  (I feel the spiritual enlightenment led me to this discovery.  I will speak of my spiritual enlightenment later.)

Times Square on New Years Eve

Times Square

A book was gifted to me from a dear friend titled, “Healing the Addicted Brain.”  I can only keep it simple right now for the sake of time.  Our brains create an “Opiate Memory.”  When we use opiates our brains pleasure center lights up like Times Square on New Year’s Eve! There is quite the party going on up there with massive releases of serotonin and dopamine. Over time it takes more and more “fireworks” to excite us.  Before we know it, we need the release of these chemical messengers (neurotransmitters) just to keep us on an even keel.  Euphoria becomes elusive. We put more and more into our bodies just to function.   If we stop for a day or even for years, our brain will always remember what it needed AT ITS HIGHEST DOSE to function and will quickly “ramp up” your need to the highest level.  We don’t get to start over at zero with abstinence.  Thus comes the saying, “One is too many and a thousand isn’t enough.”

I asked myself why I couldn’t put down the meds.  What did I lack regarding my moral fiber? Why wasn’t my will power enough?  The more destruction I saw in my life, the more I self-medicated to hide from it.  It is a ruthless cycle that perpetuates it’s own energy. It is rarely conquered alone.  This is why an addict MUST hit bottom before seeking help.  Unfortunately for some, that bottom is death and help doesn’t come in this life. You create your own diabolical hurricane of self-destruction.  Just as a hurricane grows in intensity, the only way it begins to diminish is by an outside immovable force…this is usually landfall.  Its self-perpetuating energy must be obstructed in order to break the cycle.  My landfall was State Prison.