Part 2 of 3 – Austin’s Addiction

Like I mentioned in part one of my blog, Austin was haunted by what happened on April 20^th, 1999. He was holding onto his best friend who got ambushed and he witnessed 11 other classmates get killed in the school library that day.

Austin witnessed something nobody, at any age, let alone 16… should ever have to endure.

Also, Austin had physical injuries. He was grazed in the hand and the knee by gunfire.

As a result of all of this, he was prescribed medication right away. He was prescribed: pain pills, Adderall, and sleeping meds.

Austin was told that he didn’t have to go back to school the rest of that school year. Austin received the grades that he had up until April 20^th and the teachers/administrators left it at that.

Four months after the tragedy at Columbine, the high school opened back up to the students. It was August 16, 1999 and it was the beginning of the next school year.

The school was newly renovated.

I read an article that the school had undergone a $1.2 million dollar face lift to rid the building of any evidence of the events that took place in April. The hallway carpets that had been ripped by gunfire and stained by blood were all pulled up and replaced with white tiling. New tables and chairs were installed in the cafeteria. They even replaced the schools alarms so students did not ever have to hear the same sound that bleated for hours during the shooting spree.

One place where the constructions workers did not try to smooth over the signs of the horrifying day is the library where 12 students were killed. The library: where Austin witnessed his best friend (Corey DePooter) be killed. Instead, the workers cleared out the room and put up a wall to completely conceal the entrance and lined the wall with new lockers, instead. They shut that room out like it never existed.

Some victims of the shooting chose to go back into the school building and start fresh on that day the doors opened back up in August of 1999.

Austin chose not to do that.

Austin told me that he did NOT want to go back into the school. He did NOT want to go back into a classroom.

So, he had a tutor come to his house about 3 times per week.

Austin graduated from Columbine High School in May of 2000 and marched with his classmates at the graduation ceremony. He was able to do this without stepping foot back into the high school.

His words he used to describe his situation at that time were “The Perfect Storm”… A 16 year old boy on pain meds, sleeping pills, and other prescription drugs, who had gone through a terrible trauma, and was able to stay home with no added responsibility .

This “perfect storm” led Austin to begin to abuse his prescribed medications. Soon after that, he started to drink alcohol, smoke weed, and use cocaine.

He stressed the following statements to me…

“Before April 20^th 1999, I never touched a drug in my life. I never did anything.”

“Within 7 months of that day, I was a full blown drug addict.”

This next part of his story really amazes me…..

Austin did not want to go back into any type of classroom and so he did not attend college.

He was a very bright young man and had a lot of computer skills. He knew a lot about the internet and web design starting at 13 years old. He started to use those skills and went out into the advertising world of Denver, Colorado.

“In that industry”, Austin said, “It’s all who you know.” If you know the right people and hang with the right crowd you can succeed in the corporate world without a college degree.

So, here he was becoming a successful advertising executive. Climbing the corporate latter by doing all the right things in downtown Denver.

All the while, he was using his earnings to continue to feed his addiction.

Based on the way Austin was describing it to me, it seems that he was a highly functioning drug addict. The industry he worked in required creativity and the drugs actually worked to his advantage as they helped him be creative.

Austin described to me that one of the many disadvantages of the drug addiction is that it shuts down certain logical parts of the brain.

The drugs caused him to do things that were not legal. He had no conscience. He started getting involved with random criminal behavior. He stole a car for no reason (he already had his own car). He explained that when he stole the car, it was almost like he was playing the video game “Grand Theft Auto” in his head, and then brought it to life.

He also started writing bad checks.

Austin said at this particular point in his addiction and his life, he was taking 200 mg per day of Adderall. (Just to give an idea of how much he was using.)

He said “I was constantly under the influence and constantly in pursuit of drugs.”

It was getting bad. His family knew it.

At this point he was in his early 20s. His, then, girlfriend became pregnant. They chose to get married. All through his wife’s pregnancy for their first child, Austin continued to abuse drugs.

Austin said when his first child was born; he was still feeding his addiction. He was not being the father he should be to his new son. He said “I was not stable at all.”

His family finally convinced him to go to rehab a few months after his son was born.

At that time, in his mind, he had not yet hit his “all-time low” yet. But, he still agreed to go to rehab.

Sadly, the reason he agreed to go to rehab was to receive an inheritance he had coming his way from his grandma. The family would not release his share of this money unless he attended rehab.

Austin attended rehab for 22 days. It was for the wrong reasons and he knew it.

His words: “I did not care.”

As soon as he got out of rehab, he was right back to using again.

The Advertising executive circle that Austin was involved with knew he was good at what he did, professionally, and most of them also knew he was a drug addict. They pretty much accepted that those facts came hand in hand.

And so, by 2008, Austin said it felt like he hit “the lowest of lows”. His son was 3 years old at this point. He was separated from his wife. He was continuing on this destructive path.

He decided to go into rehab, again.

Austin went to Dallas, Texas (where his parents were living) and detoxed and rehabbed. It took him 3 weeks to detox. He said he had so many drugs in his system; he literally did not sleep for the first 8 days. Like, totally up and wide awake. Austin tried to explain to me what it was like to go through detox. He said it was one of the worst experiences of his life. He said when he could not sleep for those 8 days, he was hallucinating.

Then he returned to Denver and continued on to a 90 day program.

He was clean. He was sober. He rekindled his relationship with his wife.

Things were going so well in their relationship that they decided to try for another baby. So….Soon after, child number 2 was on the way.

Austin was sober for 8 months.

He felt in control enough to be able to drink alcohol again. He told himself that alcohol was never his main problem. That was just fine.

Next, he started to smoke weed. He felt that was ok, also. Weed wasn’t his weakness. He felt he could handle that.

Then, one day a friend gave him a Xanax. While high on the Xanax, he called his drug dealer and there began his “storm”, once again.

He hid this from his wife.

By the time his wife gave birth to their second son, Austin was back to his addictive behavior and he was hiding it.

Austin said “My second son was 3 months old when my wife figured it all out. That was it. I had to move out. I moved to downtown Denver and went “balls to the wall” with my drug use.”

“I was trying to be a professional and at the same time spending $500 per day to feed my addiction.”

This was all in the 2010-2011 time frame.

“OXYCONTIN is what ultimately took me down”, he said.

“Oxycontin became my drug of choice and it’s what took me down hard.”

This story is not over yet..

Austin hit another low !.. And I’ll explain it all in part 3.

Stay tuned ..

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