Transcript
I came home 23 years old
in the same city that I tried to escape
when I was 18 years old.
And here I was around the
same people, the same kids,
the same environment that
I hated when I was a kid.
And I had issues, PTSD,
mental health issues,
physical injuries that nobody else had.
I couldn't talk to my
friends about going to Iraq
because they didn't go to Iraq.
I couldn't talk to my family
about being in the military
because they weren't.
So I coped with alcohol, abusing opioids,
smoking weed with my
friend from high school,
staying out 'til two or three o'clock
in the morning drinking.
And eventually I tried to commit suicide.
And I drove myself to a hospital,
and I handed them a note.
And on the note I had wrote,
"I just took a bunch of pills
and drank a bunch of Bacardi.
I'm here."
And I remember parking
my car, blacking out,
waking up in a padded room
with my mom and my stepdad looking at me.
And once I saw that pain on my mom's face,
that's when I decided I needed to get help
and do something with my life.
Seeing the hurt that was on my
mom's face, it just broke me.
After that, I got the help that I needed.