Social issues: Part two: drugs

By Alice Wadley

Editors note: This is the second part of a series on problems and issues in the country today as well as Emery County. Part two deals with the effects of drugs in the life of Court McGee.
Court McGee is a competitor in the welterweight division of Ultimate Fighting championship. He has been a professional MMA competitor since 2007. He has a record of 16-3 in UFC and a 2-0 professional boxing record. He appeared on and won the 11th season of the Ultimate Fighter. His next bout is scheduled for Dec. 14.
Sgt. Dusty Butler, Emery County Sheriff’s office welcomed everyone and introduced McGee. A video of McGee’s trouble with drug addiction was shown to the students. McGee said two years after high school he overdosed. He said “I was sitting in an assembly just like this in high school and someone was speaking. I don’t remember what he said but I remember the kid to the right of me, his name was Brady and the kid to the left of me was Cody. Those were my closest friends. Brady didn’t graduate. That’s whose boots I’m wearing right now. He overdosed and died April 15 of last year. April 16 is my sobriety birthday. Since that day on I was reborn”.
He said, “I knew what I was going to do and I didn’t care what you guys thought.” There’s hope if you get caught in the lifestyle, there’s recovery There’s a life worth recovering and there’s a life worth living. There’s a lot of important people in this room and a lot of you will do great things, but I promise you for me once I started to drink and use I no longer had the ability to decide what I could do. It came down to drinking in the evening and then I’d figure it out. One of my justifications was if I had a job or I could show up to work on time I didn’t have a problem. This is my first time speaking at a high school. I’ve spoke at prison, youth detention centers, drug treatment facilities, LDS churches, a baptist church, all walks of life. I don’t want to end up like the kid whose boots I’m wearing. The other kid next to me, Cody is in prison right now and the only thing we have in common is we drank and abused together.”
“We had good families, my mom and dad celebrated 34 years Court McGee is a competitor in the welterweight division of Ultimate Fighting championship. He has been a professional MMA competitor since 2007. He has a record of 16-3 in UFC and a 2-0 professional boxing record. He appeared on and won the 11th season of the Ultimate Fighter. His next bout is scheduled for Dec. 14.
Sgt. Dusty Butler, Emery County Sheriff’s office welcomed everyone and introduced McGee. A video of McGee’s trouble with drug addiction was shown to the students. McGee said two years after high school he overdosed. He said “I was sitting in an assembly just like this in high school and someone was speaking. I don’t remember what he said but I remember the kid to the right of me, his name was Brady and the kid to the left of me was Cody. Those were my closest friends. Brady didn’t graduate. That’s whose boots I’m wearing right now. He overdosed and died April 15 of last year. April 16 is my sobriety birthday. Since that day on I was reborn”.
He said, “I knew what I was going to do and I didn’t care what you guys thought.” There’s hope if you get caught in the lifestyle, there’s recovery There’s a life worth recovering and there’s a life worth living. There’s a lot of important people in this room and a lot of you will do great things, but I promise you for me once I started to drink and use I no longer had the ability to decide what I could do. It came down to drinking in the evening and then I’d figure it out. One of my justifications was if I had a job or I could show up to work on time I didn’t have a problem. This is my first time speaking at a high school. I’ve spoke at prison, youth detention centers, drug treatment facilities, LDS churches, a baptist church, all walks of life. I don’t want to end up like the kid whose boots I’m wearing. The other kid next to me, Cody is in prison right now and the only thing we have in common is we drank and abused together.”
“We had good families, my mom and dad celebrated 34 years of marriage on Saturday. I grew up in a good home in Layton. I graduated in 2003. My dad was a normal drinker, he used to drink beer but in 28 years of living I’ve never heard him raise his voice to my mom. He retired after 35 years at Hill AFB. My mom went to school to become an RN. My brother has four college degrees and graduated from high school with a 1.67 GPA. I graduated with honors. He met his wife Chelsea when he was 15 years old. We used to hang out from the moment I saw her I wanted to marry her. I didn’t know what that meant, but I wanted to marry her. A couple of years after high school She didn’t want to hang out with me because I was hanging out with police officers and judges. We are judged on our actions not our intentions. My intentions were not to drive drunk. My intentions were not to steal. My intentions were not to disappoint and lie. I saw the disappointment in my dads eyes. The last time I saw him cry before that is when my uncle committed suicide. Every time I see my dad cry it makes me emotional.
“I had felony drug charges, burglary charges . I hung out with druggies and alcoholics. When I take drugs and alcohol I’m no longer capable of being a good friend, a good father, a good son. Once I started drinking and using I no longer decided what I wanted to do. It didn’t start out like that I was 14 or 15 years old when I started experimenting with alcohol.
“At 20 years old I overdosed. I lived in a trailer that was used as a meth lab. It was my first cousins, she would have been 30 right now. She passed away two years ago. I moved into an apartment, but I had to move out because I couldn’t pay for it. All of the friends I had, I lost. They didn’t trust me or want anything to do with me. I found myself alone and homeless. Then I talked my cousin in to letting me in there. She said alright at $100 a month. I moved into this trailer and they were cooking meth. They were paranoid people. That’s what I moved into. I was hanging out doing drugs and going to work. On the night of Sept. 9, I wasn’t trying die. I was so miserable that I wanted to do that, but I didn’t have the gumption to kill myself because I saw what my uncle did to my dad and I couldn’t put my parents through that.
“I tried to regulate my drug use. I would take some cocaine, xanax and alcohol and pain meds to get rid of the pain. At 10:56 p.m. I was in the bathroom I had been drinking, took pain meds, coke and was going to do heroin. I shot up the same amount I had before. It was a little too much or a little too pure. I fell on the floor. My cousin and her boyfriend saw my girlfriend sitting outside the door crying. She thought I was dead. They broke the door down. One of them started CPR. They cleaned up all the drugs and called 911. Two doors down there was a women who thought she was having a heart attack. It turned out to be a false alarm. There was an ambulance within 100 feet. They started CPR and defibrillation. I have a close friend, his name is Officer Brady Fitzpatrick. I was Brady’s first DUI. It was my second. So we had a past. He walked in and saw me there and knew I was into drugs, so he was looking around the house. My mom and dad showed up. The paramedics broke my ribs, sternum and I had no pulse. I think of my mom and dad sitting there staring at me. How did they feel knowing they couldn’t help. Offier Brady found heroin in the bathroom. He ran out and told the ambulance and they gave me Narcan. I was in a coma for the next six days and I was in ICU for the next 32 days. The first thing I woke up to was my dad and I worried about being late for work. It was three weeks after I ODd. My dad said I didn’t have to worry about that anymore.
“I relapsed on three occasions. On April 16, 2006 I turned 21 years old. I drank legally for two weeks and one day. Every time I bought alcohol and drank I felt uncomfortable. I could be in a room full of people and I always felt alone. In school I didn’t fit in. I really liked wrestling. I really grew a bound with my coach. Later on he married me and my wife. He was a bishop, he told me he had a foul mouth just in wrestling. I took my oldest son to his very first wrestling match and the first person I saw was my coach. My coach didn’t know what happened after I left high school cause I left on good terms. I had a half academic scholarship and half wrestling scholarship to a good school. I was hooked on drugs so the last thing I wanted to do was to move to another state, wrestle and go to school so I could provide for my family later on that I didn’t have yet. It kept me from doing those things.
“Those of you that are here today, you have a chance. Wherever you’re at in your life there is a way out. For me it’s a 12 step program and I surround myself with a group of people. When I first got sober I didn’t have any relationships because everyone that was close to me I had harmed. They didn’t want to hang out with me anymore. I had to learn to do the simple things again, dishes, garbage and little chores. On April 16, 2733 days ago I was reborn. I had to learn to take out garbage, smile, how to shake peoples hand, how to look them in the eye. But now I almost feel like I’m an imposter. I woke up this morning in someone else’s house. They, invited me into their home to stay the night at a bed and breakfast. I was brought here by the sheriff, someone who I had feared before.
“Growing up I wanted to be like my dad. I wanted to grow a beard, go to work and come home and have a beer. I had my first drink of alcohol when I was seven years old. My cousins and I snuck into the liquor cabinet and stole a cap full of peppermint schnapps. We all walked around and pretended like we were drunk. I went back in and drank cap full after cap full until I felt drunk. I never got caught. For me that was the moment I realized I have alcoholic tendencies. I never drank comfortably. I lived a life of fear and bewilderment and it ruined me and if it wasn’t for that officer I wouldn’t be here today.
“Growing up I wanted to be a productive member of society. The depths of hell that I got into when I was abusing and drinking was so miserable, so miserable that I couldn’t explain it to you about how bad it was. I hope none of you will have to go through that. It’s very unfortunate, there will be people in this room who will die from substance abuse. I can almost guarantee that. From my understanding there was a girl or guy who overdosed just recently. That happens all the over the place.
In the last seven years I’ve attended over 20 funerals. One of the hardest ones I ever did and this is the people I surrounded myself with was Brady, the kid whose boots I’m wearing. I’m not a huge fan of boots, but I wear them in his memory. Because his mother and his father asked me to personally. Will you wear his boots? I said yes. So I wear them as a tribute to him because he couldn’t make it out. He couldn’t sober up. He couldn’t stop. He wanted to. He was a great guy.
“I got sober April 16, 2006. In 2007, I had this new aspiration for life and I went to try and help Brady. I took him to Cabelas to buy fishing tackle and we were going to go fishing. I took him to this group where people get together and they talk about recovery and staying sober. He went to the bathroom and snorted xanax. When we were driving home I noticed he was nodding off and I had him pull over and drove the rest of the way home. We got into an argument. I told him how wonderful it was to be sober. The problem is you can’t help someone who isn’t ready to be helped. I dropped him off at his house. I was sober for one year, I had a wife and a son, good job and was doing great. I got to my house and about 20 minutes later Officer Fitzpatrick came to my house and arrested me. He said I know you’re doing good, but I’m going to have to arrest you on burglary charges. I just signed a big fight. I got arrested I had to call my boss and tell him I got arrested. This is the only time I went to jail and I didn’t deserve to be there. I was mad. That’s what I do I surround myself with people I shouldn’t hang with. It was suggested not to hang with that guy. I knew he had a criminal record. I knew he used drugs and alcohol and I was told not to hang out with those people. I wanted my buddies to be saved. I don’t have the power to save anybody. I can’t save any of you. I can share my story that’s all I can do. A year later I had a jury trial. I didn’t plead guilty to this. I didn’t do it. I was found not guilty. I paid thousands of dollars for this charge and I was mad. The District Attorney didn’t send me to prison. I asked her the week before I got sober to send me to prison. That’s what I wanted. I need to go to prison I can’t stop using. She said you’re not bad enough to go to prison. It took a few years but I forgave Brady.
“I got a call on April 16, my sobriety birthdate at 6:02 a.m. I thought it was my mom congratulating me on six years of sobriety. It was Brady’s mom and she was crying. She said Brady died and she was crying and didn’t know what to do. I don’t know why I made it out. There is a lot of glamour in fighting, but it’s very short lived it’s fake. I feel as if I’m an imposter. I get up on stage. The only thing I have is a desire to do better and that’s what I’m going to give you guys. I live life one day at a time. I’m here to share a message with you that no matter what your going through if you are struggling or if you’re not I guarantee that later on there will be someone in the room who is stuck in the very spot I was stuck in. I’ve been there. I didn’t give myself any hope. Today I have hope and the opposite of hope is despair and that’s what I was in I didn’t want to live. I didn’t know what to do. When I came out of that coma I was mad cause I wanted to die. For me there is now. I get excited to come and share with you guys to speak and tell my story. I’m ashamed of some of the things I did, but I’m getting over it because I know some of you are going to start if you’re not already starting.
“A good friend got busted for just a little marijuana and he’s facing a whole bunch of prison time. I have a good friend that sold just a little less marijuana to a guy and he was shot and he’s dead over just a little marijuana. So think of that the next time you pick up a joint. It’s serious. I’m not going to tell you not to do it because I did. I was sitting out there and I did. I want to leave you with this. This is a one day at a time for me. Life is one day at a time for me and that’s all I have right now. On my trek to Green River High School to speak to them I may be hit and killed. But let me tell you if I go out I have peace of mind. I didn’t have that when I was in high school. I didn’t care about much. I was just doing what I thought I was suppose to be doing. You’re at a very important stage in your life. I’m here to carry a message to you that there’s hope. If you’re struggling there’s hope. If you’re alone there’s hope. If your depressed there’s hope. So if you’re having a bad day you can start your day over right now. Just know there’s hope for you.”