Recovery Takes Flight

Although I could use my given name, my brothers in the program had other ideas. While I was neither a lieutenant nor injured in combat during my military service, they chose to call me “Lieutenant Dan” or “LT.”

I was born on a relatively normal day in a relatively normal hospital to a relatively normal, albeit young mother. I was put up for adoption shortly thereafter. A month later I was adopted by a sharecropper’s son and his wife who were unable to have children. My parents always made sure that I had the necessities of life and then some. They raised me right and you never saw through the cracks or how hard they worked to make sure that I was taken care of. They never really drank outside of social situations, and they certainly did not use drugs. They were, by and large, what most people would consider perfect parents.

I never really got into a whole lot of trouble in school. The minor in possession of alcohol charge I caught when I was 17 was a portent of things to come.

After graduating from high school, I went straight to college. I used two semesters away from home as my playground to experiment with drugs and alcohol. I did not go overboard but I also ended my tour with a 0.1 GPA. Later that year, I would join the Navy. My drinking and eventual drug use increased exponentially. Thankfully, the only person I put in harm’s way was myself. By the time my service contract was over I would say, in hindsight, that I was an addict and alcoholic. If there was only a program for folks like that. But I was not ready. I would go on to marry a wonderful woman, have two beautiful children and have what seemed to be a decent career.

Unfortunately, my drug and alcohol use increased. I started drinking after work and sometimes even during work. I would stay out all night or get plastered and hope that the cocaine I had on me would sober me up enough to get home. I would have drink receipts longer than I am tall. It is dumb luck that I never got a DUI or DWI. Family functions were no different – I would usually make a fool out of myself somehow. I barely remember a trip to Cozumel where I showed up to a black-tie dinner drunk, covered in sand, wearing flip flops, and speaking French – IN MEXICO!

In 2004, my grandfather passed away and I teetered towards the edge of the turnip truck. I felt abandoned. It was not his fault, but I made it my fault and made it all about me. I fell deeper into my vices. My mother would be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer shortly before Mother’s Day in 2005. I could not handle the thought of losing her too. She asked me to go to chemo with her to keep her company. She deserved that much and more. I went once. The last time I saw her was the day we turned off her life support. Instead of grieving, and being present for my family, and my father, when the nurse came in to ask if my mother was an organ donor, I was promptly removed for threatening staff with bodily harm.

The years that followed were a blur of alcohol and methamphetamines. Somewhere in there, I was arrested for felony possession and aggravated assault on a peace officer with a deadly weapon. I mean, when the SWAT team kicked my door in, the worst place to be is behind the door with a loaded shotgun. Somehow, I ended up doing about 7 years of probation. I never failed a drug test, but I will be damned if I was not high right after I left the probation office. A move to Florida was more of the same but it was more alcohol and cocaine. My wife at the time was promoted at her job which brought us to Atlanta.

I say that I wished we had never moved here but that did not matter either. What happened would have happened no matter where we were. The first time I met with the shadow-people, I called emergency services on myself and ended up in Ridgeview. I was not ready and just faked my way through the program. It was more of the same and in mid-2015, she had finally had enough of the misery I brought her and our children. I was out on the streets, and she was left with the pieces and all of the financial burden. What did I do? Well, I sure did not turn my life around. I connected with someone I met at Ridgeview and went wild in Atlanta. That is a longer, darker story. It was true misery. Atlanta will eat you alive.

At the end of my run, I was living in a tent in an open field behind the Goodwill in Powder Springs. I wanted to just be done and stop running. I was, as they say, tired of being sick and tired. I had run everyone out of my life and had nothing but a tent and the clothes on my back. I was also a wanted man in Cobb County. I walked to my house and asked to get some warm clothes for the winter. I ended up telling my sister-in-law at the time what she could do with herself and where she could do it after she questioned my being there. Her husband got involved and there was violence. He also called the police. They asked what happened and, even though he started it, and I finished it, I said nothing. I was arrested for violating my probation.

On Veterans Day 2018 at around 3 AM, I was released from Cobb County jail. I walked from the jail back to my tent in freezing drizzle and found it had been destroyed. As I sat on the wet wooden pallet, a voice in my head (for the record, it has only ever been my voice in there), which was not mine, told me to get up and leave. Even though weird, disembodied voices aren’t the boss of me, I did just that. After nearly 20 miles of walking and being denied a bed at MUST Ministries, I was fed by volunteers at Homegrown Moto. Now I needed a nap. I walked next door to what I thought was maybe a tile store or a firehouse, curled up in a dirty rug under an old desk to catch a few winks. I woke up with three people standing over me. One asked if I was okay. Another asked if I wanted a hot coffee. The last asked me if I needed some warm clothes and wanted to come to a meeting. It just so happened to be the Sunday 1 PM Alcoholics Anonymous meeting at The Extension. It was full of people just like me. I was not alone.

I finally had hope.

At the end of the meeting, I picked up my white chip from Rick T. I was told that the AA room was also a men’s winter shelter which opened at 8 PM if the temperature was cold enough outside. If it were not for Jason H. marking the temperature lower than it actually was, I promise I would not be here. His choice saved my life. He also explained that I should stick around in the morning if I was interested in the recovery program. I did stick around and was willing to do whatever it took to maintain my recovery.

On Monday, November 12^th, I entered the recovery program at the men’s campus. Over the next year, I would grow up. I would become employable again. I would forge amazing friendships and enjoy a camaraderie I had not experienced since my time in the Navy. I would learn that I no longer had room for complacency and dishonesty in my life. I would also learn that there is life beyond addiction.

Now I had a program.

Was it all sunshine and happiness? Certainly not. There was some intrapersonal conflict, there was a time in which I stood up for my principles and, by extension, the principals of the program when I was houseman that led to my demotion back to resident. I was not happy about the hit to my ego and pride, but I learned how to deal with disappointment and how to accept and work through the consequences of my actions. I knew my side of the street was clean, so to speak, in regard to the situation, but I put principals before personalities and apologized for my actions. I would never have done that in the past. This was real growth for me.

Did everyone make it through the program? No, they did not. Some of our brothers are out there. Some of our brothers have passed on into eternity. I still think of most of them from time to time. When I work a shift or visit the Extension, I see the ghost of my memory of them. Smoking in the smoking area, getting an award at a house meeting, anywhere really. They are home.

In October of 2019 I graduated from the men’s program. In March of 2020, I started working overnights as an employee of The Extension as needed.

For almost 25 years I let my addiction take the place of my dreams and destiny. Instead of putting my efforts into my addiction, I am putting it into achieving my dreams. In January 2020, I went to Eastman, Georgia on assignment as a government contractor and learned that they had a flight school. I did not think much about it until December 2020, but I have also had a lifelong ambition to fly. I applied to the flight program at Middle Georgia State University and was accepted. I packed most of my things in a storage unit and brought the rest to Eastman.

When I applied for my first-class medical certificate, which is required to fly, there is a little box on the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) medical certificate application that asks if I had abused drugs and alcohol at any time. If I had checked no and the FAA found out, I could have been permanently banned from obtaining a medical certificate of any kind. I was defeated and did not know what to do as the FAA had requested reams of treatment documents, personal statements, and all the things. I did some research and found a guy by the name of Lyle Prouse. He had gone through something a little worse than I had. His experience is detailed in the Big Book with his personal story “Grounded.” Lyle told me what I needed to do, who I should use as my aviation medical examiner (AME). He also suggested I join a group called “Birds of a Feather” which is an AA group that caters solely to pilots. JJ M. gave me the name of a pilot who was active in recovery and had gone through what I was going through now. Jordan S. and I spoke at length, and he agreed to sponsor me.

Without a medical certificate, I switched to the aviation science management program. In December of 2022, I graduated with an Associate’s degree.

After nearly three years of psychological testing, neuropsychological testing, interviews, medical exams, and FAA mandated monthly drug tests, I was granted a special issuance medical certificate shortly after Veterans Day 2023.

I started flying as a student pilot at MGA on January 22^nd of this year. In May, that little checkbox, and the result of my actions leading up to having to be honest and transparent with the FAA cost tens of thousands of dollars out of my own pocket. Dishonesty would have cost me everything. Even if, for some reason in the future, I am unable to fly professionally because of medical reasons or because it is almost prohibitively expensive, I will have done more than most – I never quit trying, and I always showed up.

In May of this year, I will graduate with a Bachelor’s of Aviation Science and Management. In August of this year, I begin my Masters of Business Administration at the University of Alabama (Birmingham). In addition to being a full-time student, I work full-time in sales and have just purchased a home in the Eastman area.

I have rebuilt the relationships with my friends and family that I thought would be impossible. My children see me as a positive role model, and we have a relationship that I thought we would never have. My peers see me as a leader and someone they can trust.

When I was homeless, the only person that I served was me. I have changed my life in such a positive way that I would be unrecognizable to the person that I was almost 6 years ago. I continue to be a positive force and give back to the community at large by volunteering my time, mentoring others, and sharing my story so that others see that it is possible to change. We all deserve another chance, but we have to earn it through our actions, not our words. I am living proof that not only does the program of Alcoholics Anonymous work, but that we do recover.

If this once hopeless addict can recover, so can you. All you need is honesty, open-mindedness, and the willingness to do anything for your sobriety. The Extension, its staff, my brothers and sisters in recovery, and my network of like-minded folks in recovery have helped me every step of the way.

For all of these things, I remain forever grateful.

LT.