Talking about the Loss of a mom at age 8

Some folks have obstacles thrown in their direction while it seems from the outside looking in, others are handed ladders to climb over the obstacles in their path. But, if we look a little closer we will find that those who have obstacles are the ones who are often helping others make it directly through obstacles in a way that helps them grow for the good.

In this interview Scott Walker talks to Chip Douglas who lost his mother in a car accident at age 8.

Some 28 years later at age 36, Chip talks about the hard emotions that come along with the loss of a parent and also dives into his brother who grew into an addict. That same brother also lost his wife to death, the mother of his child.

WHY? Life on the Streets for Many

Today, by the time a child is a senior in high school, 70% have already tried alcohol. 50% will have tried some type of an illegal drug. 40% have smoked tobacco or used a nicotine product. 20% of children will have used a prescription drug for a nonprescription use. Despite these numbers, we look at the broken who live on the street with discourse in thinking, "They choose their addiction which landed them on the street." The relation to childhood drug or alcohol use to adult addiction is overwhelming.

The environment around a teen greatly impacts teenagers choosing to experiment with drugs or alcohol. Violence, physical abuse, sex abuse, emotional abuse all play a role in the temptation of alcohol and drug use. Personality traits such as ADD and ADHD also increase the likelihood of a child trying something that will have a negative impact on them.

If a child experiences trauma at a young age and / or becomes addicted to drugs or alcohol, it will change the growth pattern of the prefrontal cortex. That said, the impact will last a life time. Addiction can soon set in and life is forever changed.
The other side of addiction:

On top of the above information, addiction equals a lack of human “meaningful” interaction. In other words, the addicted may interact with other users, but at a very surface level while clean or sober.

Furthermore, the addicted man or woman who lives on the street usually has zero healthy relationships nor knows how to form one while addicted.

So, could adult addiction be a combination of child trauma, lack of relationship? My thought would be yes.

Why? The damaged prefrontal cortex, that was damaged in childhood, is the planning region of the brain. It is where personality and expression originate from. Most importantly for continued use of negative behaviors, the prefrontal area is where decision making takes place along with moderating social behavior.

Knowing how sections of the brain function further verifies that addiction and lack of social interaction and healthy relationships go hand in hand. Especially when you dive into damage to the brain caused by childhood trauma followed by alcohol or drug use.

Many on the street do not know how to have positive connections with other human life. More so, their brain does not know how to cope with life without medicated help. The addicted brain related to childhood trauma does not know how to navigate behavior and life.

Of course, it is much deeper than my above words once you mix in mental illness and depression. That is an entire book on information.

This is His Life

Watch the video interview below: 

Rebuilding lives in Tennessee after job loss, pain pills and heroin

Imagine losing everything, battling an addiction and eventually living in the woods. That is basically what happened to Audrey and Steven. The loss of a job followed by pain pills which lead to heroin are just some of the details. 

Hear their story below (5MIN and 37SEC):

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Steven walking back to the camp via the railroad tracks coming from town. 

“We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies. ”

— Martin Luther King, Jr.

Above are photos from inside their campsite. 

From Prison to Recovery

A Murfreesboro man by the name of Dustin Keith Brown will be facing the courts on Friday in Rutherford County. However, he will be in court for a more positive reason. 

Brown, who already served time for three felony drug charges and maintaining a dwelling for the use of drugs, will be asking for a reduction in fees and fines. 

While in prison, Brown underwent drug treatment and spent 32 months behind bars. After being released he got a job and has been on the right track. 

“Everything I’ve ever let go of has claw marks on it. ”

— David Foster Wallace, writer

Addiction happens long before the injury

He sat quietly with his dog on a bridge over the bustling Las Vegas strip. Alone. His hat sat in front of his knee in hopes of those passing would drop a dollar to help him survive.

“I use to play professional poker,” he told me. As our conversation continued I realized it was not the poker that he lost to.

It was an accident that sent him to the hospital with a back injury. He then almost whispered as he told me that he was prescribed painkillers that he quickly grew addicted to. When the prescriptions ran out, the heroin began.

Methadone is his next step in life as he aims to get off of the heroin.

“My opinion: Opioid addiction happens because of previous trauma long before the injury that led to the prescription.”

— Scott Walker

Why do some grow addicted to drugs and alcohol while some do not? I do not know, but I can guess. That guess would be a previous trauma long before the injury.

The traumas could be any number of pains in life, from domestic violence to war. From child abuse to sex abuse. From witnessing a loved one murdered to watching a friend die a painful death. We all have our own trauma that we learn to medicate without proper help.

Once that medication wears off, the pain comes back greater than before. More detailed than first remembered. More real than reality.

“Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it.”

— J.K. Rowling

Overcoming a past life

He was born blind in his left eye, he suffered a major car wreck while a teenager, his mother and father left him when he was a kid and he was addicted to cocaine… but is now clean and working to change the course of his life.

David Potter was born in Murfreesboro, TN and grew up in neighboring Woodbury. He spent his younger days chasing cocaine, but has been clean for 10 years now. However, a sketchy past with felonies on his record keep him from obtaining a decent job to support both he and his girlfriend. Together, the two live together in the woods.

Potter suggested that a lack of both a mother and a father growing up likely helped to contribute to his problems. The 42 year old said that he was raised by his grandmother who did the best that she could.

Below is a short 4 min interview with Potter that was recorded in his camp.

“The greatest minds are like film, they take the negatives and develop themselves in darkness...” ― Brandi L. Bates, Remains To Be Seen

Daniel's Heroin after the accident

He has been clean from heroin for 11 months now, but currently lives on the streets. However, the most positive part about his story is the fact that he is indeed clean.

Daniel lives in Murfreesboro and for the most part, keeps to himself. His first taste of heroin came a couple of years after a car accident.

It was the car accident that landed him on prescription pain pills. When the doctor stopped writing prescriptions for the pills, he said that he needed to continue… so he did, eventually with heroin.

Daniel’s Story (Below) 6 MIN and 50 SEC:

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Food, Drug and Alcohol Addictions

Scroll down for audio interview

The old saying of you can't judge a book by its cover is quite true today. This is one story where you may look at the photo and later have second thoughts after hearing the message.

Ericia Baggett was bullied throughout her school years due to her weight. "People would mistreat me," she said. Nevertheless, she found an escape in artwork. During middle school and high school she won numerous awards for her talent. One of her pictures was even hung in the Governor's Mansion. But, the art would only take her so far and the other children likely failed to notice her talent.

Due to her weight she stated that she "developed" at a young age. That early development lead to additional problems on the daily school bus ride home. "I would get harassed on the school bus and held down and boys would..." she paused and took a breath. She then talked about how such behavior was not handled the same way as it is today. In the 1980's, such behavior received a slap on the wrist. Today, that same behavior ends with an arrest.

At age 20 she got married and soon found herself with a newborn baby. Her artwork was on the backburner while depression took over along with more weight gain. Baggett said that she ate for comfort, "The only way I knew how to deal with things was by eating." She then continued to describe what was later learned to be destructive behavior, "As long as I was eating I was taking care of myself, stuffing those emotions down."

In an effort to feel better about herself, Baggett said that she received surgery to reduce her weight, which had risen to 349 pounds. The art was picked back up and the idea of becoming a tattoo artist was something that was growing for her. However, more problems followed shortly after the operation.

"When I had the surgery it took that feeling away," she said in describing how food once comforted her. After the operation she didn't feel like eating as much. When Baggett ran away from her addiction to food, she turned to alcohol. When the alcohol didn't work for her, she turned to meth, cocaine and crack. Her once healthy escape with art seemed to have disappeared.

Finally, Baggett decided that she needed to fix whatever was hurting. So, she spent time recovering at Cumberland Heights while realizing that the hole she needed to fill lacked God. The 40 year old Nashville native said, "Once I quit doing drugs I was like - What's gonna' fill this spot?" With a pause she finished... "Then I ran to God."

Road blocks were not completely fixed for Baggett. She later practiced in "Cutting" to deal with anxiety and depression. Her upper thigh hidden by her clothing, was marred with multiple small cuts and scars. During that time she started to be bullied again, this time by adults. Of course this time around she knew about healthy verses unhealthy habits which is why she decided to get help right away for the cutting and once again start focusing on art. She also understood that hurting people - hurt people... so the bullying directed at her was because others around her had issues of their own.

Today, her dream is to continue moving forward with artwork and to open her own tattoo studio. Someday, she wants to operate a tattoo studio on a level that is not usually expected in such places... She wants to tell people who look like her, yet are different on the inside, that they too can turn to God as opposed to running from one addiction to another.

To hear the entire 19 MIN and 48 SEC Interview, listen below:

CONNECT: Find her on FaceBook under her tattoo artist name of Alayna Devine at https://www.facebook.com/alayna.devine.79

“When you encourage others, you in the process are encouraged because you're making a commitment and difference in that person's life. Encouragement really does make a difference.”- Zig Ziglar, Motivational Speaker (1926-2012)

Sidetracked

“My dad died of Alzheimer’s and we didn’t have no insurance. They took his place from me when he died and I was on the streets,” he told me while thinking back on his life. He told me that he is 41-years old and graduated from Smyrna High School in 1994. He later came to Nashville where he currently lives on the street.

“Do you stay at the mission,” I asked. “No, it is too much like a prison, but they have to keep it that way to keep it safe,” he explained. He went on to tell me that the mission is a good place for many, just not for him. “One guy got stabbed there like fifty times,” he told me. I suggested that many on the street have extreme mental illnesses or problems with addiction which you see magnified in some shelters.

Examining the Stabbing that he mentioned (My sidetrack):

In 2007, Frank Edward Nixon stabbed Joseph Mark Chandler approximately fifty times. The two were staying at the mission and were inside the building when the stabbing occurred. But, the stabbing was not a random event that occurred. One week prior to the stabbing, the two had an incident on the streets of Nashville. Evidently the victim tried to sell drugs to Nixon, but Nixon changed his mind and Chandler and another man beat up and robbed Nixon, according to court documents.

The stabbing took place at 7:30 in the morning on February 9, 2007. Nixon entered the shelter and headed to the TV room where he recognized Chandler from his previous encounter with the victim. Nixon briefly walked out of the shelter to smoke a cigarette and then re-entered first heading to his locker to retrieve a knife. He later went back into the TV room where Chandler had fallen asleep in a chair. Nixon then started stabbing Chandler.

With the first knife wound Chandler awoke and tried to run from Nixon, but fell to the ground where the stabbing continued. Homeless men in the shelter heard the commotion and rushed to the aid of Chandler. Those men held Nixon until police arrived. Their actions prevented Chandler from being stabbed to death. The victim was transported to Vanderbilt Medical Center where he spent four days in intensive care. He then spent three more days in the hospital recovering from surgery due to punctured lungs sustained in the attack.

In case you are curious, Nixon told the courts his marriage failed and he turned to drugs. He soon found himself homeless. Prior to his marriage failing, Nixon served in the U.S. Air Force and later the Air National Guard. He also spent several years in college at Savannah State University in Georgia. He testified in court that he originally turned to drugs to cope with “traumatic things that happened to [him] on Okinawa.” Prior to the stabbing he was a mentor to children at the Juvenile Justice Center and a “Volunteer Preacher.”

Today, Nixon is out of prison and 63-years old. He now lives in Georgia.