If I was going to use, I’d have to swim to get it

Believe it or not, when I first started this journey, Suboxone wasn’t even available yet.

I found a doctor who, for enough money, would prescribe buprenorphine, but back then, it was administered intramuscularly with large needles. For someone like me, the needle was still part of the addiction ritual, and I struggled to stay clean. I would get sober for a year, then relapse.

I lost friends, relationships, and even my career working with children with autism.

When Suboxone changed things

Suboxone changed that. It came with a cost. My teeth have paid the price, requiring six root canals, but I stayed clean. I moved back in with my family and tried to find work, but with arrests and multiple stints in rehabs and detoxes, employment felt nearly impossible.

More than medication

Today, I am happy and genuinely grateful for the life Suboxone helped me reclaim. But I believe, with my whole heart, that medication alone is not enough. Without professional support from psychologists and psychiatrists, and without the unwavering help of my family, I wouldn’t be here.

I had to change my environment, build a new circle of friends, find new hobbies, and most importantly, stop numbing the real reasons I wanted to escape myself.

Finding fishing

In the early years, my father and myself rebuilt cars and motorcycles. But that was his hobby not mine.

He one day placed me on a fishing boat saying if I was going to use opiates I would have to swim to get it. I sat on that boat and was sick and threw up and sat in a corner until one day the captain who knew my situation asked if I wanted to fish.

He handed me a fishing rod and I caught a blue fish.

That blue fish was then eaten by a huge Mako Shark which jumped out of the water and I have been addicted to fishing ever since. I love to catch different species and I always strive to release all the fish I catch to live another day unless someone offers me money to pay for my fare on the charter boats. I don’t like to eat fish but have become an avid saltwater angler.

Giving back

For years I ran to and from different twelve-step meetings and support groups throughout the five boroughs of New York City. Much of my free time was spent in church basements and listening to others and telling people my story. Today, I volunteer at local NA meetings, make coffee, and show newcomers that recovery is real and rebuilding is possible.