- Drugs
- Friends & Family
Submitted by: Susanne Johnson
Nate was heading for a professional career as a baseball player when he became injured and things took a turn. He was a college baseball player, and the need for a reconstructive surgery on his shoulder due to a severe injury introduced him to pain medication. Nate became addicted to pain pills that were prescribed by his doctors. That’s what caused him to change from a pretty straight and narrow kid all the way through high school into an addict that he later became.
His dream of the professional baseball career was shattered, he was hurt, he had to switch schools, and he lost all his friends. He had his entire life based on this sports outlook and everything flipped on its head. Nate lost his identity, didn’t know who he was, didn’t know what he wanted to do or where he wanted to go. He had to pick up the pieces as he went along.
A lot of his former friends are playing baseball in the major leagues now. Most likely he would have been one of them. He was taking his career very seriously and doing whatever it took. He needed to get better and over the injury. The medication lessened the pain and let him play better and all of a sudden he noticed that he reached a point where he couldn’t go through the day anymore without painkillers, even if he was playing baseball or just going to class. He said he was prescribed basically everything under the sun, like Vicodin, Percocet, and OxyContin. Once the prescriptions run out he was buying them illegally off the street.
He realized it was an addiction after approximately one and a half years of progression, during which it changed from very inconsistent use to the main focus of his day. The pills were the first thing he thought about in the morning as he got up and the last thing in the evening as he went to bed. Nate knew he had to do something about it as he realized that he still had good things going in his life, like sports, family and good grades in school, but he saw it deteriorating over time. He saw his life falling apart, one little piece at a time.
He didn’t see this downfall in the beginning, but his family noticed the difference and urged him to get the help he needed as he graduated from college and moved back to his home town. His coaches had no idea about his drug consumption. A lot of his friends knew, but some of them were doing the same thing. His family could tell that he became different. Then his family started pushing him to get help and it took a while until Nate surrendered to the idea that he did not want to live like this anymore.
Nate went to Las Vegas to treatment for 30 days. He realized that there is no way to go back to the place he lived, the people he knew and the life he lived for so long. He decided to go for sober living and intensive outpatient therapy in Dana Point, California. After four months, he discharged from this program and started as an intern from the very bottom and worked his way up there.
Today Nate is 25 years old. He is completely done with his baseball career, but he has a great relationship with his family which is extremely supportive of his choices today. His new career consists of working for the IOP facility that helped him. He is a business development representative for them today and loves his job. He was only living for about 2-3 years in his addiction and didn’t create any wreckage that wasn’t repairable in his life and he considers that very fortunate. His family visits him every six months, coming from across the US. His brother just moved to California and he found a new additional family with all the new friends he made in his recovery.
Nate is so happy today that he got his life back and gets up in the morning without being consumed about the idea of drugs and alcohol. He gained new friends and relationships, a life in California he enjoys and has found his spirituality. He attends 3-7 meetings of his 12-step fellowship a week, which is very important to him. He has a sponsor and sponsees and keeps himself available to those around him who need help.
“Stay open-minded and be willing to do the action,” he likes to tell people new to recovery. He discovered that sobriety offers him a lot of things in life that he never had before. He just came back from a vacation with friends, has a job he loves, and enjoys playing softball with friends.