I can do anything: But, not on drugs

By Patsy Stoddard

Court McGee returned to Emery County after five years. He first spoke to Emery High school students in 2013. He is now six years sober and wanted to return to the school where he had his first speaking engagement at a high school.
The McGee Project has grown over the years. McGee speaks at numerous events and schools each year. He’s been to more than 150 since he started. He also has another speaker that goes with him to some of his engagements, Kenley McAvoy. McAvoy spoke first to the students. “I only drank a couple of times in high school, but I had a scholarship to college and it’s a right of passage that college age kids drink. Right? After a few months I started having consequences from my drinking. I woke up in the hospital with alcohol poisoning. After three semesters of college the drinking became so bad, I withdrew from school. I told myself my individual drinking was not out of control. I had decent grades. But I went home and got a job. I was a good employee and I was making money. I moved to a nearby city, Knoxville and there’s a party subculture there. They drank like me. I had some pretty horrific consequences from drinking. In April 2006 I was leaving someone’s apartment I got my keys and got the door unlocked and fell into the vehicle. The next thing I remember was the air bags deploying and a chemical smell and broken glass and bleeding. I couldn’t see. I was dragged from the car. I had crashed into two other cars. I was hitting my head on the plexiglass and thinking I wanted to die. I was sitting in jail wondering if I had killed someone. It was very terrifying. I had gone from someone with so much potential to wishing I had never been born. Within a week, I was drinking again. I had lost my ability to choose.
“There were legal charges and my parents were on my case. But, instead of going to rehab. I quit drinking and started smoking pot. For the next two years, my life didn’t move forward. I was miserable, I was an addict. When weed no longer worked I started drinking again. Without treatment it comes back and it gets worse. I was drinking and driving again and had no friends. My parents would have to come out and find me. I prayed that God would help me or finish me off. I couldn’t imagine my life without alcohol. I went to rehab. I was 25 and disagreeable. One day at a time. I worked through the 12 step program and I continue to do that. The first rehab didn’t work but the next time I was ready. I did everything they told me. It became so important to me. I would counsel the others in rehab, those that were going to leave. I would persuade them to stay with the group. At least I had a purpose to help people not to leave treatment. I continually used my energy to help people and to do service. I had only been sober a few months when it was almost time to leave the program, I was scared.
“They asked me if I wanted to be the director of a halfway house. They believed in me. They saw me as a leader. I was able to work with the guys. I had been the lowest of the low. I can do incredible things, but I have to do it sober. It’s been truly amazing. I was able to go back to school and went to BYU. I did research at Cambridge. I was recruited by the top PHds. I published a book. I get to do cool things. I’ve been sober nine years. My family wants me around. I get invited to family vacations. This is my story. I know what happens when I drink. You guys are going off to college. Stay sober. It’s easier staying sober than getting sober. God kept my car on the road so I could be before you. Over 500 people a day die from overdose. I want you to live the lives you dream. Not a life impaired with drugs or alcohol. There’s a path back. You are not a throwaway. Grow up and live life without drugs and alcohol. I am grateful I got that chance,” said McAvoy.
McGee told the high school students he was addicted to heroin. He learned that he couldn’t help someone else until he helped himself. He was a junior at Layton High in 2002. He liked to wrestle. His mom had always told him to give 1,000 percent in anything he does. He had nine surgeries, broken collar bone and after that everything went down hill. He began abusing drugs. At a friend’s suggestion he snorted oxycodone. He used Xanax, cocaine, meth, black tar heroin and was shooting up. “I wrapped a belt around my arm. I found a vein, tears rolled out of my eyes and at that moment, all my problems went away. I fell in love with the drug. My parents threw me out of the house.”
McGee’s dad said, “That’s what we had to do. We lost faith in him. It was really hard on me.”
A few weeks later McGee was living in a trailer and was in the bathroom and shot up. He immediately got all sweaty. This was on Sept. 9, 2005. He turned blue, they began CPR. For eight minutes there was no heartbeat and no pulse. He was 20 years old. “He came back, it was a miracle,” said his dad. His mom said, “We are so blessed and fortunate he didn’t die.”
McGee said, “I was disappointed I wasn’t dead. I went to treatment for 32 days. I snuck into my parents room and took a beer and cracked it open. My dad said he thought I wasn’t supposed to drink. My dad had such a disappointed look. But, I can’t replace something with nothing. I had to fill that need for drugs with something else. That’s when I turned to mixed martial arts,” said McGee.
McGee was a competitor in the welterweight division of Ultimate Fighting Championship. He has been a professional MMA competitor since 2007.
McGee said he spent four years fighting locally then tried out for American Fighter. With hard work he turned his addiction to a focus on fighting. He channeled all the negative into a positive. “My new life started with my death. I will carry a message to people that there is a way out.”
McGee said he is in long term recovery. He has had two surgeries and will no longer take any pain pills. He has spend 10,000 hours training with boxers and coaches. “I’ve had highs and lows. I have met famous people. I have been paid to go to big parties. I’ve trained for big fights. Nothing compares to what I went through before I got sober. One in five of you in this audience will struggle with addiction. I made it out. I won the Ultimate Fighter, but my ultimate achievement is that I didn’t pick up a drink today. Emery County is one of the top counties in accidental overdose. I was raised in Layton. I had one brother who was 18 months older. My mother was a nurse. I had a wonderful childhood and upbringing. I am asked what happened to you. I was an average kid with a regular upbringing. In elementary school I felt like I didn’t fit in. In junior high I was fond of wrestling. It was challenging, it was really hard work. I wasn’t LDS, but I had loving parents, but I didn’t really feel like I fit in. In school in seventh grade I had a challenging time reading. I worked hard to get good grades. In junior high my English teacher said, If you work hard you could go to college.
“I led a double life. My friends started experimenting with drugs and alcohol. I was trying to fit in. I started smoking pot with my buddies. I had been lied to. I had the disease of addiction, long before I every took that first hit. That first hit triggered the addiction,” said McGee.
McGee cautioned the group about their friends. He had two best friends and now one is dead from a drug overdose and the other in prison.
They took pills, they snorted oxycontin. They took Xanex. High school came to a close. McGee got into an accident while under the influence. He drank during the summers, but not during school. He wanted to go to college and start a career path. He graduated with honors and received a wrestling scholarship. He wanted to be a professional athlete. Due to Title 9 his scholarship was taken. He went to Weber State, but he couldn’t keep up with the work. He started mixing pain pills with alcohol. He knew it was a bad decision to snort pain pills. But, misery loves company and someone who is down can bring you down.
He was urged to go to treatment by Patrick Mahoney a clinician. “I wanted to change, without drugs and alcohol, I can do incredible things. I won the Ultimate Fighter. On April 16, 2012, I started my sobriety, it’s been six years. You don’t have to change yourself on a Friday or Saturday night. You’re OK how you are. There are people who are struggling. Drugs will ruin your life. 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.  I’ve had friends die from overdoses. There are people who are suffering and I want to help. Always work hard and never give up on your dream,” said McGee.
Savannah Eley is a recovering addict who lives in Emery County. She tells her story through a poem she wrote.
So young to be a mother
So young to be a wife
But with the choices I made I had to pay the price. My daughter she’s my baby
So please don’t get me wrong. But I too was just a baby. Playing wife and mom. Not knowing what to expect Not knowing what to do. Not understanding why after giving birth. I felt so down and blue. Headaches after headaches.
Lots of sleepless nights,
Had me really doubting
I could be a mother or a wife. Then one day it came to me, thought this has changed my life. No longer was exhausted, depressed or doubting myself as a mother or a wife.
Cleaning, Cooking, Laundry was done like a breeze.
Playgrounds, picnics and playing was actually happening. Supermom is what I felt like, Like I could accomplish anything, Even seemed to help my marriage, laughing and enjoy everything.
But only if I had known it wasn’t actually a gain, That these pills that gave me life Would take away a lot more then pain.
They took away a house, a family, jobs, two kids, mom and dad. They took away my feelings good and even the bad.
They took all my memories I have of my kids growing up.
They took away my relationships with my mom and dad.
They took away a lot  more then I thought I even had.
Addiction is what it gave me, quickly became my life
Hunt and chase these pills
Soon consumed my life
Slow deep depression
I knew I had enough
I tried so hard many times
But never could give them up.
Meth is what he called it,
It will help you come off
This is less addicting
Something you can just stop
Don’t be scared, just try it
I promise it will help
Help it did, came off the pills
Right to something worse
Seemed like this meth came with a big black curse
Started Hanging with a crowd
I knew was not my type
But they had the drug
That now had ahold of my life. Never would I have thought that addiction could get worse. It had me feeling doubtful and questioning my self-worth.
Couldn’t handle these feelings
Hated myself so bad
Then I lost another family
Boom Fast he ran
I was at my lowest
You think I would have stopped. But I was addicted to something, I thought I could just stop. I decided I couldn’t do it.
  I saw everything I had lost. I did something I’d never even thought, never wished to leave my kids, never wished for my life to end. Never felt so damn scared.
I’ve never felt like I just no longer cared. You would think waking up in ICU. It would of been the last straw and you’d be through.
Here I am attempt number two. Sitting there crying in a bathroom. That when I knew I was so far gone,
Sitting there I no longer cared. Only knew that I was scared
If the Xanax I took wouldn’t have kicked in. I would have pulled the trigger
Brought it all to an end.
Paranoid and scared I lived for months.
Until honestly I was feeling nuts.
So I did the scariest thing I thought. I came to my family. Told them a lot.
Now here I am 90+ days clean. Doing things, I used to dream.
Being a mom to three beautiful kids.
Filling my days making memories with them.
I had to let down my will,
Asked God for help
Let him take the wheel
He helped more than I’ll ever know. He continues to help me everyday to grow.
To change my life I had to see. All the bad was a result of me,
I made the wrong choices
I took the wrong path
But now I choose to take my life back.
Embrace recovery, never turn back.
Hard days they come.
But they also go.
But on those hard days,
Is when I mostly grow.
Recovery is tough.
But addiction is tougher
With addiction all you do is suffer.
Suffer from pain, suffer from loss
Suffer from memories you’ve soon forgot.
Chasing that drug to feel normal Is no way to live
It’s not normal.
Addiction doesn’t care how you were raised
Addiction doesn’t care if you have little ones to raise
Addiction wants all of you
Before you know it your life is consumed.
You will steal from your family,
Lie to their face,
All for a high you have to chase,
You’ll run to you dealer,
Hand over your cash,
Sad thing he’s knows you’ll soon be back,
Because now your high it doesn’t last,
You’ll do more and more,
Not even get high,
Before you know it,
You’re dead inside
You’ve gave up everything you had,
So now you’re out doing bad,
Knowing it’s wrong but you just don’t care.
Withdrawals are something you try and steer clear.
Before you know it you’re in a bad place.
Believe I’ve seen the saddest on my own face.
Hating myself for being an addict.
Wonder what I had to give.
Not wanting to even live,
I gave it everything I thought it wanted,
I was stupid,
I didn’t see,
Addiction was after the life in me.
If I wouldn’t have stopped,
embraced recovery
My family would have buried me.
I would have left three kids.
They would never have known clean me.
Addiction is evil.
It won’t stop until it has taken all you got.
Even then it will want more, Until you’re lying dead on the bathroom floor
Do something brave
Don’t give up
Believe in yourself
Find self love
Love yourself enough to say
Today I faced the challenges of recovery. All the energy you spent getting high.
Used to tell all those people bye.
Today you choose to no longer get high.
Dear God.
Thank you for this life you gave me.
Thank you for my three beautiful babies.
Thank you for all the bad.
I embrace and acknowledge. Now put it in the past
My mission here is to help others
Help the babies. Help mothers, Help fathers, sons and brothers, Help the sisters the family misses
Help show them how much their life can be different.
Give them hope for better days.
Let them know there is another way.
Eley recently celebrated her one year mark of being drug free. She is currently working with the suicide prevention group Reach Up. They meet each Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. at the Castle Dale Senior Citizen Center. Everyone is welcome to attend. Eley would like to continue to help addicts recover.