I came across your Podcast because I was looking for something to listen to which was a direct reflection of what I live my life by now. I live my life by never giving up and never quitting like the stories that are on the web site and the stories from the awesome guests that you have on the show.
I have held back in telling my never quit story after hearing the guests on the podcast and reading some of the stories because I felt as though my story was not qualified to be in the same category as some of the amazing people that have overcome so much more, but I came to grips with the fact that no matter what your story is, someone out there may be going through the same thing and need to hear it for themselves. Even if there is only one person that this story can change, it is well worth the time to type this up.
My never quit story started like most people my age that joined the military on September 11th, 2001. This was the Pearl Harbor of my generation and many of us decided that we were going to stand up and defend our country and me being me, I was going to join the United States Marines and go into the infantry because I knew that would put me on the front lines because at that time, I was young dumb and full of (you can finish the rhythm lol).
My first deployment with 2nd Battalion 4th Marines was to the great city of Ar Ramadii Iraq where the enemy brought the fight to us, but we brought it right back to them. The time that stuck out to me the most as an 18 year old kid, was watching another Marine from my platoon get killed by the enemy on April 4th 2004. This moment would stick with me and eat me alive throughout the deployment until I came back.
During my time being back from that first deployment, I wasn’t the same person that went in the first place and this all came to a head during my second deployment. While in Okinawa Japan, I was using alcohol to take my meds instead of water because this is what would help me sleep through the night. One night, I was done doing this and took the whole bottle of pills and waited to die.
That being one of the longest nights of my life, I was found puking and was brought to the hospital, drank charcoal, and was put in a psych ward. This was the lowest part of my life and the worse part about it was that now I was working through my demons with the added weight of letting my brothers down and my brothers down that put their lives on the line.
As I worked through these demons and this dark time, I was able to complete my time in the Marines and was discharged honorably and myself and my wife moved to Vermont.
Throughout the years of getting out, I found myself disconnected from the world and even being disconnected from myself. I would start the day still drunk from the night before, go to work, and start drinking the second that I could get my hands back on alcohol. At this time, I never wanted to say that I was an alcoholic or I didn’t have a problem because of two bull shit reasons: I always went to work and my father was an alcoholic, not me.
Is was not until a buddy of mine asked if I wanted to run a race called Tough Mudder with him in 2013 that things started to change.
This race brought what you want about any obstacle course race, this brought fitness and racing into my life which would transform my drinking to fitness and racing. Since then, I have cut out most of my drinking (I still love a good micro brew, but no hard liquor), and swapped it with fitness.
What drives me day in and day out is the mindset of never quitting. I know what it feels like to be at that point in your life when you want to quit and you choke down all your pills in the hope that you wont wake up and I am not going there. Not every race I run, I am running against no one else but me. Everything is silenced and it is me versus myself. I have since become a fitness coach and tell this story to people so they can push themselves through what they may not want to do, to push through the times that suck and it hurts, but no matter what, you aren’t going to give up on yourself.
I came to realize that everyone in life is handed a pile of shit in life and you can either grow a garden outta it, or bitch about the fact you weren’t given the garden in the beginning. I continue to run different endurance races and push my limits and be a role model to anyone that needs it to show them that no matter what type of shit you are going through, you can always grow your garden if you work hard enough at it.