- My name is Rick.
I was the United States Navy Fire Control Tech.
I went in in 1989, got out in 1995.
At the time I enlisted, I was 20 years old.
My father was becoming ill
and I was looking for a place where I could go.
There wasn't any options.
I turned down a scholarship for school
so I joined the Navy instead.
It was an adventure.
It was a very fun time.
I met a lot of wonderful people.
I saw many beautiful parts of the world.
I served five years, just a little over five years
of my six-year enlistment,
ended up getting injured and I took disability
and stepped out.
The fact that I had complex PTSD
before I ever went into the military to begin with,
that was something that had never been addressed.
It was very hard because I had no significant evaluation
as to what it was that was driving my behavior.
The only real opportunities I had to kind of abate it
was to drink it off
and I drank a lot as did most of my fellow shipmates.
As I got out of the service of course
and I started finding barbiturates and opioids
and that love affair for self-medication continued on
quite for a long time actually, 23 years.
Going from being in a very structured military environment
to completely unstructured,
was one of the hardest transitions I'd ever made
in my life
and I did not really make that transition successfully
until about five years ago when I started to seek some help
in dealing with my PTSD issues.
There was one-on-one therapy involved,
there was CBT of course,
there was writing therapy.
The cognitive behavioral aspect of it
led me to understand my triggers.
It led me to understand where I had gotten sidetracked
and gave me a path through it,
through self-evaluation, through group discussion
where I could really bring it out into the open
and deal with it for the first time in my entire life.
I see an outside therapist
through (mumbles) Community program
that the Veterans Administration has put together.
That was just the beginning of the process
but it opened the door enough that I could get a foot in
and many things have transpired since that time
that have made me really functional now.
This morning we engaged some inter-species communication
based on an equine program developed by a gentleman
who has become a friend of mine
now over the last five years.
The experience of this morning
was about using the pureness of my intention
to ask that animal if it would do things for me.
If it would move a foot to the side,
if it would turn its head to me,
if it would walk in a circle around me
and that program taught me how to do that.
That was really at the core of getting past the masks
of who I was.
There is a fly fishing organization
that of course associates veterans in recovery
with the act of fly fishing.
So I adopted that and it became part of who I am.
And then I started aligning myself with other people
who were veterans,
who were also into fly fishing.
And we found that there was great meditation
in all of it.
The act of tying flies is one thing
but the act of being out amongst the nature,
amongst the trees and then the flowing water
and you're out there finessing this fish to rise
to something that you're throwing at it.
It's transformative you know
and it's peace bringing.
My entire life up until about five years ago was
a series of very
chaotic mistakes that somehow went right.
But the end result of that was recovery.
Recovery from the drug addiction,
recovery from the alcohol problem
but most importantly
recovery from the complex trauma of my life.
Every day I reflect on how lucky I am.
So the most important thing that I think I can share
beyond any of the things that I've share with you today
is it, it's not worth throwing any of it away.
There are legitimate ways to heal from it
and there are people out there who genuinely care
and will listen and help you.
It's really an awakening experience.
So allow yourself to be awakened.
(light music)