Reword and rewrite the following article in HTML, use a hip journalistic writing style and make the heading statements in H3 or bold font where necessary: Editor’s Note: This story contains descriptions of suicide and mental health struggles that may be distressing for some readers. If you or someone you know is in crisis, you can call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, or visit 988lifeline.org for free, confidential support.
I came back from Baghdad in 2005 in a fog so thick you could cut it with a KA-BAR. Two years overseas between Europe and the Middle East, and the re-entry felt like smashing face-first into civilian life at 70 mph with no seatbelt. Panic attacks. Valium. Booze. Therapy sessions where you don’t want to open your mouth because you know the moment you admit weakness, your military career is dead in the water.
So I drank. From sunrise to blackout. Pilled up, liquored up, strung out. The VA was my drug dealer with a badge, and I was their favorite customer.
The next three years were a demolition derby of self-destruction: bar fights, ER visits, psych wards, jail cells, divorce papers, foreclosure notices. The final stop was back home in Tucson, in the same childhood bedroom I once swore I’d never return to. That’s when I pressed a pistol to my temple, letters written, blankets on the floor to catch the blood. My parents walking in on that scene flashed across my mind, and shame ripped the gun from my hand. I collapsed into the fetal position and sobbed myself unconscious.
Lighting the First Lifeline
When I woke up, I knew: the pills were killing me, the booze was drowning me, and the only way out was a hard pivot. I moved out, ditched the VA cocktail, and lit up my first real ally—cannabis.
Cannabis didn’t just dull the pain. It cracked open a window to something resembling life. Suddenly, I could wake up, breathe, walk to school, maybe even think about the future. I took what I had started at Cochise Community College, clawed my way to the University of Arizona, and found a tribe in the VETS Center. I learned my service didn’t end with the uniform; it just shifted targets. Helping other veterans became my rehab, my purpose. Volunteer, show up, give back—repeat.
Rebuilding Purpose Through Service
And here’s the thing: all that progress, all that productivity—the leadership roles, the grades, the speeches, the organizing—was fueled by cannabis. Medicate before class, after class, and between volunteer shifts. It wasn’t a crutch. It was a tool. My record speaks louder than any DEA scheduling chart: cannabis kept me alive and functional when the VA’s chemical cocktail had me one bad night away from the morgue.
By 2013, I was flying high in another way. Accepted into the Flinn-Brown Fellowship—Arizona’s so-called pipeline for civic leaders—and working with Dr. Sue Sisley on the nation’s first federally approved study of cannabis for treatment-resistant PTSD. This was history in the making, and I was ready to carry the torch.
But civic leadership in this country is a snake pit wrapped
