Official introduction

I’m usually not so writer challenged

For whatever reason I could not figure out how to do a new post on the app, so I am doing it the old fashioned way - online.

I love reading Sensible Medicine by Vinay Prassad, Unofficial Pediatrics with Adrian Gaty, and writers like John Mandrola and Adam Cifu. And, since I’m an avid hunter and lover of nature and the 2A, I follow Jared at Guns and Gadgets as well as Braden from Langley Outdoors Academy.

I also write, produce, and record all of the music for the best hunting shows in the industry; leading with the main show, The Hunting Public. Catman Outdoors, Shane Simpson, Pinhoti Project, Tethrd, DIY Outdoors are also shows I have the honor of writing music for as well.

I guess I will start with health. I was born a first generation GenX, with spina bifida myelomeningocele. Back then the usual treatment was euthanasia, but my stubborn Irish Catholic Marine old man was clear to the only person who recommended my quick death by withholding feeding. After dad was done the top neurosurgeon in Cleveland did the first of ultimately 58 surgeries I’ve had. Interestingly the man who fixed John Mellencamp when HE was born with spina bifida trained the doc who did mine. More on that in a bit.

I like to see what’s happening in the world of medicine today as I not only survived the past 58+ years, I’ve done well with great medical care. The only “bad” part of my care occurred with the liberation of opioids, which unbeknownst to me would help my eventual addiction nearly kill me.

But let’s back up. I was grateful to have been blessed with a love of music and parents who nurtured it with violin lessons from age 5. They were quite proud until I started growing my hair and picked up the guitar. I think mom was always proud, and the old man was too - he just grumbled when he handed the credit card over to spend only what I had earned on a guitar and an amp. Tough choices because what I wanted and what I got were two different things, however, I was able to become a good guitarist thanks to all those violin lessons. And lo and behold I discovered that I liked singing as well!

A RUSH clone band in high school led us to Terry Brown, the great producer and engineer who ultimately came to Indiana to produce and record a three song demo with John Mellencamp’s original rhythm section - Kenny Aronoff, Toby Myers, and the late great John Cascella. Man those were great tunes - and they led me to Clive Davis at Arista Records, where I signed and made a wonderful CD (and LP RECORD!) in 1990. I toured with the Moody Blues, John for a few shows, got to play on a bunch of amazing albums, and in general lived a musician’s dream.

Sadly though, addiction was well in place and I traded all of that for percocets, a “victim” lifestyle (it was hard to avoid being the sick kid my whole life), and ultimately IV Demerol (yes - prescribed, but I blame only myself for that). Thank God I started drinking - I never did any other drugs except a one time nightmare with pot in high school - so the only drugs I did were prescribed. I had no idea how bad my addiction was until one night dealing with a raging UTI, the home health folks brought antibiotics and Demerol to avoid another hospital stay. Well I remember banging that Demerol and thinking, “This must be what a junkie feels like…”. Denial being what it is, I made that thought disappear immediately.

I was now in college - and this will tell you how fucked up my mind was - in pre med. You see, in 1992 I lost the record deal, went through pain rehab with Dr. Ed Covington’s chronic pain rehabilitation program at the Cleveland Clinic, and was opiate free and chronic pain somewhat managed. I learned new things that made it easier to tolerate chronic non cancer pain and remained as productive as I could be. My pain quality was not a whole lot better, but the quality of my life was immensely different in the positive.

By the time I was ensconced in college around 1995, I had relapsed on opioids and addiction was ramping quickly. But strange times; many docs were being trained that MORE opioids would help people with chronic non-cancer pain so I went with the flow and loaded up! I almost manically believed I could go to med school and rock it. SMH. But opioids gave me energy and I graduated in 1999 with a Demerol and Percocet habit that made many heroin addicts blush. Like I said, thank God I started drinking, because the combo took me down far enough to try getting sober a few times before finally surrendering and going back to see Dr. Covington in 1999 wondering why pills, booze, and Demerol could no longer help my pain.

Coincidentally, the folks in the chemical dependency program were housed with us “pain folks” - where we looked down our noses having no clue that some of us were more fucked than “them.”

Denial fell like drops off spring icicles and I had my last willful opioid on August 26, 1999, and my first truly sober day was September 11, 1999. This was back when accountability was number one; detox meds were an actual opiate wean with a long acting opioid and once completed there was maybe a catapres patch. There was no free lunch for “comfort meds” like what I see today.

It inspired me to go into the field of addiction and pain, and I did. Got my graduate degree in Cleveland, and eventually started a 12 step program for pain and pain and addiction in Indiana. They were marvelous times, and many people got OFF of meds, AWAY from the medical system, and all was right in the world. Meantime my own sobriety became my number one priority, where it remains to this day.

Then came Purdue Pharma doing what it did - and I gratefully dodged the oxy boom by a hair. I shudder to think of what might have happened had I ended up at a pill mill. And I lasted 20 years practicing in pain and addiction until my own health took me out.

We say God will do for us what we cannot do for ourselves, and I believe that. I tried my best to navigate opiate crisis part 2, the buprenorphine epidemic as I call it today. My body quit and I had to make some decisions about whether or not I wanted to live a little longer or die at my desk.

The answer was clear. I am glad that I get to share things I wouldn’t have been able to had I died at the desk. And man do I have some thoughts. Tell me what u wanna hear from me now that you have an idea from where I come; I’ll be straight. Sometimes too straight but you will get my opinion!