An addict finds freedom: Gary Sheehan shares his story of recovery By James Neal jtneal@statesville.com Sep 26, 2017
G ary Sheehan holds his newly acquired associate degree during graduation at Mitchell Community College in 2014. SUBMITTED Attention is primarily placed on the dangers of addiction, but Iredell resident Gary Sheehan, 50, wants to shift some of that focus by sharing his story of addiction and reminding people that there is hope for recovery. “People need to know that people do recover from addiction,” Sheehan said. “It’s not always a sad story. Not everyone dies or goes to prison. There are millions of us in in recovery.” According to the 2016 Surgeon General’s Report on Alcohol, Drugs and Health, approximately 50 percent of the 25 million adults with substance abuse disorders have been in remission for over a year. Many believe that more addicts might seek help if the stigma is removed. “It needs to be considered a medical issue like heart disease, diabetes, cancer,” Rhonda Lazenby of BK Professional Counseling Center in Mooresville told the Record & Landmark earlier this year. “Drug addiction is a medical issue. If someone’s diabetic and they relapse and gain weight, we don’t dog them and send them to prison. If an addict relapses, we send them to prison. You’ll see people getting help when we get rid of the stigma.”
'LAST-DITCH EFFORT' It started when he was young and quickly accelerated. Sheehan was only 12 years old
when first exposed to alcohol and drugs. By the time he was 13, he was sentenced to three years in juvenile detention, a stint which introduced him to harder substances and had him freebasing cocaine by age 17. “Give me the next powerful, more-potent drug,” Sheehan said. “It went from alcohol to marijuana to mushrooms, acid, pills — opiates and opioids — finally up to cocaine.”
Sheehan said he tried a number of things to break addiction over the years, but nothing worked. “Once I got to that stage, marriage didn’t work, divorce didn’t work, having children didn’t work. I even tried to join the military,” Sheehan said. “That’s how I ended up in North Carolina. The last-ditch effort for me was a geographical cure.” Sheehan traveled from Providence, Rhode Island, finally stopping in Statesville upon seeing signs that read “Crossroads for the Future,” Iredell County’s slogan. After three months in Statesville, he was still getting high and decided to leave for a detoxification facility in Florida. “July 22, 2008,” Sheehan said. “It was my first day clean since I was 12.” Sheehan returned to Statesville with a list of 12-step programs he heard about during the 30-day detox. “When I got off the plane, I went to my first meeting and I never stopped going,” Sheehan said.
Life began to improve.
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