A Veteran’s Struggles – From Crack Cocaine to Starting Over With the VA
The first miserable incident, when Mark got electrocuted, happened he was only 21 years old. That was the time back in the Marine Corps. On a Sunday, he was going to nail two speakers in a pole. By accident he nailed to the power wire, which holds 7200 volts of electricity. He got shocked right away. The worse thing is that because it was a Sunday morning, nobody came out early; he did not get found and sent to the hospital until several hours later. Fortunately, he was still alive. After he woke up from a coma in the hospital, he found out that the volts that shocked him were so high that they it melted everything made of metal. He was wearing a dog tag and a watch at that time, so his chest and arm got burned badly. The big scars caused by the electrocution of his body clearly show us how bad the shock was. He came really close to dying by the electrocution. He rejoiced that he survived the electrocution; however, several years later, he put himself into an even worse situation: smoking crack cocaine.
Smoking crack cocaine brought Mark into a miserable life. That was back into 1987. He was carrying mail for U.S. Post Office at that time. He worked 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. Day after day’s hard work made him really tired. One day, Mark was carrying mail; one of his friends saw that he was really tired, so he told him to come by his house after work in order to relax. It turned out that the method relaxation was using crack cocaine. He smoked it anyway. He felt good after he used it, but he was really addicted to it ever since. Since that day, crack cocaine came into his life. It not only took his interests away from his job but also took away his most beloved girlfriend and almost his life by a car accident. Cocaine has strong effect on human’s brain; it can turn users’ interests away from their jobs, schools, sports, and a lot of other things but cocaine itself. Mark did not escape from this effect. He put more and more time in cocaine and was not interested in his job anymore.
The worse thing happened later on. He had a really beloved girlfriend named Kim. They were really close to each other and happy to be with each other. However, Kim did not like to see Mark smoking crack cocaine. One night, Mark was helping Kim to babysit her little child while she went shopping. Everything went well at the very beginning. He put the baby to bed and took care of everything. However, later on, he could not resist his addiction of cocaine and went down to the basement to smoke crack. Unfortunately, Kim came back at the very time and found out that Mark smoking in the basement. She was extremely angry and told him to leave right away. She did not want a boyfriend who smokes crack. After a huge fight over the crack issue, they broke up. Mark left with sadness and anger. By the effect of high and sadness, he got into a big accident. He wrecked his car, which even caused part of his brain to come out of his skull. He was hurt so seriously that he thought he was dead when he wrecked his car. Surprisely, he survived again from a severe injury. However, the accident brought him some mental problems. He became really forgetful and his IT went down to 75 degree compared with the normal IT of 140 degree. By going through the suffering of breaking-up with a loved one and surviving from this severe physical injury that both indirectly and directly were caused by crack cocaine, he finally woke up from this crack nightmare and realized the value of life.
Mark started moving on in his life since he got to VA. He decided to start a new life, a healthy and happy life. He decided never to smoke crack again even though he still wants to every now and then. He had been putting a lot of effort in controlling himself from using crack. Whenever he wants to smoke crack, he will say to himself: “Mark, see what crack had done to your life. See how you lost your beloved girlfriend and suffered that severe accident. You do not want to go back to that road again.” The life for Mark in VA has become better since he got rid of cocaine. He is recovering from his severe accident, and he gets better and better every day. He also becomes a lot healthier because he does not smoke crack anymore. He met a lot of veterans and become friends with them in VA.
He has been having fun spending time with them and helping them. He also became a Christian, which he considered the most important thing in his life. He is really happy with his life now because there are so many positive things going on. He really feels like he has been reborn. Even though he will never forget the miserable parts of his life, he moved on like he always says: “You should not complain about events in your past because you can not do anything about them. However, there is one thing that you can always do: move on and start a new life, a life that you want to be in.” Mark is doing what he always says now because he learned something from his miserable experiences: Focusing on a negative past can prevent a person from having a positive future.
