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.