Stan's story
Stan's story reflects his experiences as told in an interview. The photograph is not of Stan, to protect his privacy.
For
close to 40 years, Stan woke up each day feeling as if he were going to die.
"Mornings were like doomsday," he recalls, describing his
depression, alcoholism, and prescription drug abuse.
"It was like
everything was just dead … that you're going to die today, the kids are going
to die … the sun isn't shining."
But now the 58-year-old Vietnam
veteran says he wakes up with a zest for life he hasn't felt since he was a
kid.
He's gotten sober. He kicked addictions to morphine and
methadone, which were prescribed to him for pain. And he's coming off the
antidepressant medicines he's been taking for more than 30 years.
Getting there hasn't been easy.
Stan's depression began
after he came home injured from the Vietnam War. He started drinking heavily.
He had nightmares and hallucinations.
No one talked about PTSD
[post-traumatic stress disorder] back then, he says. "They called it something
like a psychotic, depressive reaction. It just gradually got worse and worse."
Surgery for his injuries led to a medical retirement and the end
of a hoped-for military career. The depression, medicines, and alcohol made it
hard to keep a job, he says, which made him more depressed. And angry.
Alcohol made him dangerous. He was jailed or hospitalized several times
for violence. His body is covered with scars from vehicle accidents and
surgeries. And he's been through several drug and alcohol rehab programs.
A trip to a hospital in 2006 made him realize what he was doing to
himself and his family.
"I was dying of drugs," he says. A doctor
told Stan he had severe PTSD. "I always thought that was seen as a weakness."
He went through drug rehab one more time. Six months later, Stan
walked into an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting again. "I'd been to AA before, but
this was the first time I was willing to do anything to recover. It's changed
my whole life," he says.
Through AA, Stan's done lots of
soul-searching. He's made amends with those he's hurt over the years, including
himself. And for the first time in his life, he's started down a spiritual
path.
He says that talking things out, whether it's been with
other veterans or at AA meetings, has helped him. But depression can make
talking hard.
"When I'm depressed, I'm so far down that I can't
reach out to people to tell them I'm depressed. It's literally like a hole I
can't get out of."
Now, he says, the "noise in his head" is
quieting and his nightmares have stopped. Listening to music helps. And for the
first time in years, he can read and focus.
"It's a miracle that
my life has turned out the way it has."
