My Descent into Addiction pt.1

[My transformation from preppy high school athlete to strung-out hardened junkie)

If you took a snapshot of my life on the day of my high school graduation, and compared it with a snapshot of my life the day I decided that being homeless was my best option, it would quite possibly break your heart, like it did my family’s. May of 2008 I was on my way to play football at the United States Military Academy at West Point and quite literally had the whole world at my finger tips. My senior class had just voted me “Most popular, Most talented, and Most likely to be famous.” I was muti-talented in sports as well as the arts. I was intellectually sound, emotionally intelligent, charming, and could make anyone laugh. On the outside looking in, it appeared as if I “had it all” for an 18 year old kid.

[West Point] plebe cadet packet

On the other hand, January of 2019, I was a long term intravenous meth and heroin addict, had been in jail six times, rehab 7 times, was suffering from hepatitis c as a result of sharing needles, had alienated nearly everyone in my life, and generally wanted to die most days. Although, at the time, I would have told you that addiction robbed me of everything in life my life, the devastating truth was actually much more simple than that. Addiction didn’t rob me of anything, I freely gave it away. Heroin and meth never knocked on my door and said “hey man you better shoot us into your veins, or else!” Don’t get me wrong, I definitely would have been cool with that, but unfortunately that’s not how it worked for me. To the untrained eye, the stark contrasts of those snapshots tend to evoke bewilderment, a sense of awe, wrapped in sadistic wonder. How could something like this have happened to someone like him?

[Some} of my HS College Football recruiting letters

What in the hell went wrong? This daunting question haunted my dreams for years. What if, why, and how come, became regular parasitic tenants in my head, poisoning my mind with hatred, resentment, and misplaced blame. Aimlessly wandering in self pity, I subconsciously searched for any chasm of guilt, through avenues of self-proclaimed evidence, that I could assign others and the world around me, in hopes of alleviating my own responsibility. Despite my monumental efforts to circumvent my own blame, throughout my treacherous journey down the lonely road of addiction and homelessness, I have come to what I considered in the beginning to be an unlikely conclusion. No one is to blame. Nothing went wrong. Everything played out the exact way it was supposed to. Supposed to, absent of ordained predestination, in the sense that this train of chaos I came to know as my life, was destined to “go off the rails.” As far as the world, family, friends, and outsiders were concerned, that epic derailment came when I was 18. However, as far as I’m concerned, this epic derailment never happened. It never happened because I was never on the tracks to begin with. Some people think that being naturally gifted in many different things, things that don’t often mix with one another, and having many personality traits that the world deems “valuable”, could only be a blessing. In my case, the blessing from above, became a curse from below.

[Spencer Brooks Otto]