No matter how bleak a situation may seem, there is always a little hope. Terin DeVoto Noonan had to hit rock bottom before he was able to see his path back out, but in the end, he discovered that wherever there is a will, there is a way.
Terin, who lives in Fort Collins, Colorado, had a rough start to life by discovering his love for altered states of mind at an early age. “The first time I had a drink was around 9 years old,” the man told Love What Matters. “I asked my mother to try her wine…and I loved it.”
As Terin grew older, he realized he had a love of other substances as well. At the age of 11, he started smoking, tobacco and other things. “By 12-13 I was getting high and drunk on a regular basis on whatever I could get my hands on,” he admitted. “At this young age, I would regularly resort to huffing paint and drinking stolen over-the-counter cough syrup when I couldn’t get my hands on weed, booze or prescription pills.”
The young man was arrested when he was 14 years old because he stole his mother’s bike. After that he made a habit of ditching school, “getting high and drunk with the homeless and running away from home on a regular basis, sleeping on park and bus station benches.”
It was a tough situation to be in, and Terin’s situation only seemed to grow more grim. He tested positive for cocaine when he was only 15. His parents were at a total loss for what to do, so they sent their son to a wilderness treatment center.
Terin spent a year here, then he moved into a sober living home. “I was eventually kicked out for relapsing,” he shared. By now drug use was just a regular habit. “I dropped out of high school and moved out on my own at 16 years old. I worked hard to eat, pay rent and survive; but I used drugs even harder.”
The cycle only seemed to continue. Terin spent his time trapped between highs and withdrawals, and he couldn’t imagine any other kind of life. “The older I got,” he said, “the harder the drugs got and the heavier my drinking got.”
At 17 he met a girl, and although the two were in love their relationship was anything but healthy. She was clinically diagnosed as bipolar but refused to take her medication. She did, however, drink and consume recreational drugs… a lot.
“Our relationship had a pull, a passion, an ‘I need you to breathe’ feeling to it,” Terin recalled. “Like the drugs, she had a grip on my heart, my life, my emotions, my everything. I worshipped her and despised her at the same time.”
The romance was about as toxic as you can get. Terin and his girlfriend would scream at each other, physically fight, and fuel themselves with drugs. “She would hit me, yell at me, tell me how much she hated me. We would drink, do some lines and get high just to fall in love all over again every night. We would fight so we could feel something.”
As the volatile relationship continued, Terin’s drinking habits grew more intense. He would black out every day. Sometimes he would wake up in jail, not remembering what happened and having no clue what his charges were. One day Terin woke up in an isolation cell, and he decided he’d had enough.
“Our final arrest together, I remember waking up to the sound of the neighboring cell door slamming shut, startling me awake . . . I had taser burn marks on my arm and chest,” Terin told. “I was missing a sock, one of my fingernails was completely ripped off, and I could taste dry blood in my mouth. Fear took over my entire body realizing I had no idea what my charges were or what had happened the night before.”
Terin and his ex-girlfriend were separated by a court order. Suddenly the man was left with no job, no home, and no car. He was at his lowest point, and he was still rolling the dice by consuming copious amounts of drugs.
“Every morning I woke up with the shakes, needing to consume alcohol to make them go away, repeating the blackout drinking cycle on a daily basis . . . Finally, I sat in jail for 2 weeks, sobering up enough to decide that it was time to check myself into rehab. I had lost everything in my life, I literally had nothing to lose.”
After all he had been through, Terin was finally ready to give up the drugs. He wanted his life back, and he was going to be proactive about reclaiming it. He had to start out small. At first, he made it to 10 months sober, but he relapsed again. He started to live his life hour-to-hour, constantly convincing himself not to pick up the bottle.
This must have been a hellish experience at first, but as time went on it got easier. When he stepped out of the Glenwood County jail for the last time, he felt like he was at a fork in the road; the path he took from here would determine his fate.
“In that moment, I faced the biggest decision of my life. Either go back to the lifestyle, with no guarantee of ever making it back out alive; or fight for my life with everything I had. I had to fight.”
And fight he did. In each moment Terin had to tell himself not to drink, smoke, or pop pills. It was a constant struggle, but he made it. Now this man who had once written himself off as a lost cause was well on his way to getting everything he wanted out of life.
“Everyday clean and sober makes me feel blessed. I am a husband to an amazing woman. I am a proud father to a beautiful 19-month-old baby girl. Even with over 8 years sober now, not a day goes by that I don’t feel an overwhelming amount of gratitude to be alive, sober and happy. 8 years worth of 24 hours is such a miracle to me in itself!”
Terin shared his story so that he could provide hope for others suffering from addiction. He believes that as long as a person is alive, it is not too late to turn it all around. “The truth is,” he wrote, “the worst day in recovery will ALWAYS be better than the ‘best’ day using; there’s no pride in being out there getting f*cked up, arrested and playing roulette with our lives.”
“There was a time when I didn’t know of any other way to live; jails, institutions and death were all the future held for me. But as addicts, as long as we aren’t six feet under, there is still hope! ADDICTION IS NOT A DEATH SENTENCE. To those still struggling, always remember that! My life is better now than I ever could have imagined.”
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