How Hitting Rock Bottom Led Me To A ‘Life Beyond My Wildest Dreams’!

 For those who have known me for a long time, you already know this story-but for the newer people in my life, I thought I should share. March 12, 2017 was the first day I went without a drink or drug in a very long time. Last Friday, March 12, 2021, I celebrated four years of continuous sobriety. I am not writing this for praise or sympathy, but rather I want everyone to know that if you are like I was or you know someone that is, there is a solution and you can recover and live a life beyond your wildest dreams. 

For the purpose of this story, my childhood was pretty uneventful. I come from a loving household, I played every sport that I could with my friends, and I was a relatively happy kid growing up. Fast forward to high school, I’m playing varsity lacrosse, going to parties and casually drinking a few beers with my friends on the weekends. It wasn’t legal and I don’t condone that nowadays, but at the time it just seemed normal. I was a decent student who kind of just blended in with my friends. I never really had an identity of my own until I entered lacrosse season. On the lacrosse field I was comfortable, off of the lacrosse field, I was lost. As junior and senior year went on, I started drinking more and started smoking weed more heavily. The kid that once had no identity off the lacrosse field, could now be identified as the “partier”. When I would drink or smoke, I felt like I could finally relax. I wasn’t worried about what everyone else thought. I was content sitting silent in a corner with my thoughts while everyone else was mingling and having fun. That was just the beginning. Going off to college escalated these habits because now partying was extremely normal and the kids I went to school with would say, “we’re not alcoholics, we’re college students!” I lived by that mantra for 6 years. 

I started my college career as a scholarship athlete at a small school in North Carolina. It was Division 2 so we would get drug tested but I still wouldn’t quit smoking, and I never really saw anything wrong with that. I had made a life of trying to beat the system and it just continued in college. My freshman year I almost got kicked out for smoking and drinking on campus and again, saw nothing abnormal about that behavior. After the fall of my sophomore year, I transferred to a community college back home. It was at this time that my weed and alcohol depency grew into a full blown drug and alcohol addiction. I started messing with pain killers on nights after the games acting as if it would help with injuries from the day and help me wind down. Within weeks it became a daily habit. My best friend was dying of cancer, I didn’t know what I was doing with my future, and drugs and alcohol always seemed to provide a comfortable space that I could relax in.

After community college I transferred to Salisbury University to play lacrosse and kick my addiction. It didn’t work. When you’re addicted to something, everything else takes a back seat and if you know about college athletics, you know you can’t succeed like that. I lasted half of a semester before I dropped a class, accidentally making myself ineligible to play lacrosse. I was supposed to go back out in the spring and I was told they were looking at me to be a starting attackman, but drugs and alcohol were more important. They won a National Championship that year while I was at home in a daze, withering away. 

The next few years at Salisbury, I floated on and off academic probation, played club lacrosse and even won a National Championship with them, but I was never satisfied with life. I went to rehab twice and went through spurts of being sober for a month or two, but it was always followed by another binge and another feeling of hopelessness. I ended up leaving college and going back home for a bit before moving down south to Charleston, SC,  where I thought I could run away from my addiction--but Charleston just brought more of the same. Spurts of sobriety followed by binges, being in very bad mental places, and essentially scraping by. At times I was living out of my vehicle, crashing on couches, or sleeping on the beach when no one would answer my call. The things I said I would never do, the things I thought only low lifes would do, were now not so crazy. I had grand aspirations of being a “traveling bartender” bouncing from city to city bartending and mingling with locals. My buddy moved to Charlotte, NC for work, and I randomly decided it seemed like a good idea to go with him. He’d hook me up with a bartending job and I could try to kick my habits again. It didn’t work. I got a job but I also found myself in the darkest place I’ve ever been mentally. On March 11, 2017, I was laying in a bathtub ready to kill myself. I thought I had hit rock bottom before but this time, I could dig no deeper. I had a moment of clarity, I like to believe my higher power stepped in, and I reached out to my family who I maybe spoke with once a month at that time. I told them what was happening and within hours I was on a flight up north to live with my parents on the coast and clean my life up once and for all. 

When I moved here I immediately got connected with a local support group and made friends going through the same stuff. Friends whom I still rely on to this day. They would pick me up and take me out and show me that I can have a life I always dreamed of. A life beyond my wildest dreams. I’ll never forget I was riding with them one night and one asked what I really want to do with my life. I had absolutely no idea. I said I have always wanted to coach or teach but that is obviously not an option now with my past. They, very seriously, told me that it is absolutely an option, it’s not going to happen overnight and I’m going to have to right a lot of wrongs before I get there, but I can do anything I want in my life.

First thing I had to do outside of my support group was get a job. I had basically grown up in a weight room so I walked to the gym around the corner to apply for a job. I got it. I worked at the front desk but I also was basically the janitor, cleaning toilets and sweeping floors. It was humbling to say the least. The gym had a lot of successful people my age and I was walking by them with a mop bucket and reracking their weights. I kept my head down, worked hard, and got to start working out again. I would follow the trainers and the gym owner and listen to everything they were telling people. Eventually, the gym owner asked if I had any interest in becoming a personal trainer which I was definitely interested in. I got certified, started training everyone from athletes to restaurant owners and even built a lacrosse training company out of it. The rest, as they say, is history. I focused on cleaning up my past and making a good future and people saw that. When coaching jobs opened up, people were willing to write letters of recommendation for me. They were speaking about the man I have become rather than the man I was. I am honored to coach multiple lacrosse teams and even run a local showcase team for players trying to get recruited to college with a friend. I work very hard and continue to learn and do everything I can to be the best trainer possible, and in doing so I was prepared for opportunities that came about like opening up my own gym. Very quickly through this process, I saw how I could be a positive influence to high school athletes that I train or coach and how I could try to help them avoid going down the same path as me. I really do believe my journey started innocently. I didn’t mean to become what I became, but one thing led to another and I was living out of my van, 2,000 miles from home. Not only do I now try to help them avoid that path, but I also let it be known that if they or someone they know is going that direction, I am here to talk and help any way I can. I hope my experience can encourage people to not try the new cool drug, “just once.” I hope my story can inspire people going through it right now, let them see that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. If you work for it and truly want to, you can live a life beyond your wildest dreams.  

- Coach Tom