John Evans was a directionless young man who felt a calling to join the military after 9/11. What he witnessed in Iraq rattled him, and he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and addiction for years. But he found help, and now he spends his life helping other veterans who are struggling.
This episode was adapted from "Soldiering On," a Back From Broken virtual live event presented by Colorado Public Radio and the American Homefront Project, a nationwide public radio collaboration exploring veterans' stories.
Back from Broken is a show about how we are all broken sometimes, and how we need help from time to time. If you’re struggling, you can seek help through a list of resources we've compiled.
Host: Vic Vela
Lead producer: Luis Antonio Perez
Editor: Dennis Funk
Producers: Jo Erickson, Rebekah Romberg
Music: Daniel Mescher, Brad Turner and Blue Dot Sessions
Executive producers: Brad Turner, Rachel Estabrook
Thanks also to Hart Van Denburg, Jodi Gersh, Clara Shelton, Matt Herz, Martin Skavish, Kim Nguyen, Francie Swidler.
On Twitter: @VicVela1
Transcript
Vic Vela:
Hey, it's Vic with a quick note. This episode contains strong language and discussion of suicide. Please be advised.
In three, two one.
John, let's start with 9/11. Where were you that day?
John Evans:
I was actually on a job site, Carrier Circle, Syracuse, New York. I was suspended from school at the time. And any time I'd get suspended, my dad would put me to work. And I was up on a roof, tarring a roof, with a construction crew. I remember somebody came up and said, Hey, you got to get downstairs. And they had it on the TV. And they said a plane’s just hit the towers and everybody's standing there watching the second plane hit the towers. And I remember there was a veteran on the work crew. He was a Desert Storm veteran and he was muttering. He was like, I don't want to go back there. So he already knew he was like, we're going. I mean, immediately. We're going to go to war.
Vic Vela:
The call to arms following the September 11 attacks would prompt John Evans to join the military when he was still only 17 years old. In 2002, almost immediately after completing his training, John would be on the ground in Iraq, enlisting to fight in the War on Terror gave John purpose and focus after enduring a difficult childhood. But what he experienced in war would only add trauma and send him spiraling into addiction and mental health problems. John’s story says a lot about the battles veterans face, even after fighting for their country and how we should never give up or lose hope.
I'm Vic Vela. I'm a journalist, a storyteller and a recovering drug addict. And this is “Back from Broken” from Colorado Public Radio — stories about the highest highs, the darkest moments and what it takes to make a comeback.
My conversation with John was recorded during a live event we hosted to talk about veterans issues in partnership with the American Homefront Project and the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. Because of the pandemic, we spoke online, so you may notice some glitches from time to time.
John Evans had a tough childhood. His parents were heavy drinkers and divorced when he was a kid. His mom was in and out of rehab. So growing up, John bounced around the country, living with several different relatives. He spent a few of those years living with his grandfather who would tell him stories of honor and glory from his military service in World War II. As the years passed, John's mother had gotten sober. She was clean for eight years by the time John was 14, until she relapsed the summer before John went into high school. In the midst of that relapse, John's mother fell down a flight of stairs. She was badly hurt and died from her injuries.
John Evans:
You know, my mother's death was tragic. Her life before sobriety was also very tragic. And so the years of high school for me were just riddled with substance abuse and a lack of interest in school. And, you know, I was really steeped in smoking weed every day and drinking every weekend and anytime I could get my hands on it. So I was pretty detached, just in this kind of intoxicated state throughout high school.
Vic Vela:
Were you hoping to break those habits when you joined the military?
John Evans:
Yeah, maybe a little bit, I don't know if… You know, I, I knew that my life was on a track towards probably jail or just nowhere. And I had a sense that if I did not do something, you know, my life was not going very far very fast and, and with 9/11 occurring and this call to arms culminating with my inability to really do much with school, it made a lot of sense to me to go in.
Vic Vela:
It gives you something to do.
John Evans:
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and feel good about. You know, I believed that we were doing the right thing.
Vic Vela:
What was it like landing on the ground in Iraq?
John Evans:
Culture shock. Absolutely. I'm a kid from upstate New York and within a couple of months, I'm pushing north through the country of Iraq with a degree of uncertainty that I had never, ever experienced.
Vic Vela:
While he was stationed at the Syrian-Iraqi border, John was a member of the ambulance platoon, responsible for carrying out ground medical evacuations. One day there was an incident near the aid station that would be hard to forget.
John Evans:
We were out on a small town called Rabia out on the Syrian border and we were attached with one-three bandit troop. It was kind of a normal day. We're gearing up for the day. And I was sitting on the edge of my cot and getting my boots on. And then there was a very loud explosion and it was, it was close enough to kind of feel the reverberation. And almost immediately there was some scrambling on the, on the radio and they said unknown explosion. 30 dead times two wounded. And those were numbers that I had not heard before.
You know, we just got into gear and we started grabbing bags, jumped into to this larger two-ton truck. We were probably on the scene in a minute, because this was really in a time in Iraq where there was a lot of people joining up for the Iraqi forces, police and army to stand up, you know, their own security forces. And what was happening there was that the entire town had kind of gathered around to sign their kids up for the Iraqi army. And they were having kind of a recruitment thing going on. And somebody walked into the middle of that crowd and detonated a vest or an IED. And that was a terrible scene, absolutely horrific.
I can remember stepping out of that truck and having a legitimate freeze response, an overwhelming sense of not being able to really compute what I was looking at. And somebody called my name or something; I kind of snapped out of it. And just, and we just got to work.
Vic Vela:
Does anything stand out in particular for you about that scene?
John Evans:
My lack of emotion around it. I think what was remarkable to me is that in the day, in that moment, I wasn't, I didn't feel moved by it. I just felt like, I felt nothing. I mean, I think you realize that you're in a combat zone and these things happen, or at least that's what you tell yourself.
It becomes work at that point and learning to shove that down and not deal with it, as there's not really space or time or room to really process any of that stuff. And this was three months into my second deployment, you know? And so there would be nine more months and, and these things were happening every day, you know? And so it was like, this could happen again tomorrow, just another day.
Vic Vela:
In 2006, after two tours in the Middle East, John went back home to Syracuse, but pretty soon what he witnessed in Iraq started to catch up with him. Going about your business, doing your job, feeling numb to everything… did that catch up with you?
John Evans:
Yeah. Oh yeah, sure it did. By the time I got home, I mean, you know, I finished out that deployment with a lot of exposure to wounded and dead, more civilians the second year. And that bothered me a lot, to people that were just caught kind of in the middle. And I think that me coming home quite disillusioned around what it was to serve, you know, what I thought we were doing, as kids, so naive, so naive to the way things work. I was so angry and so bitter when I came home. I'm not processing anything either, by the way, I mean, that's the whole other piece. It's like, I'm having all these very heavy experiences and I'm not talking about them. I'm not processing anything. I am just drinking, drinking, drinking, drinking, that's all I'm doing to cope. You know, I was just pouring booze on it and getting through it a night, you know, and then do it again the next day. It was just really, I mean, it was just constantly out of control.
Vic Vela:
John, you and I talked before tonight about how your experience in Iraq caused you to suffer a “moral injury.” What do you mean by that?
John Evans:
You know, I didn't know — I hadn't even heard the term “moral injury” until I started working at the VA a while ago. And I understood post-traumatic stress, I thought. I've learned a lot more about that as well. But for me my experience lines up with more of this idea that I'm kind of steeped in the heritage and the tradition of military service. To sign up as a young man to go and fight, be a part of this event with the belief, true belief that we were doing something good. And to feel very much lied to, in a sense, that I was fooled, and bitter and angry about that. And it becoming the reality of war and I'd come home and people very close to me would say things like, you know, you really should be proud of your service. And I wasn't, at all.
My relationship with my service became injurious. Knowing that I had taken part in something that I had fundamentally believed at the core of my being was wrong, is hard. It’s a hard thing to kind of square up and try to figure out like, well, where do I go from here? Trust me, I'd rather have the appreciation than the way that the Vietnam veterans were received, but the pendulum has swung. It swung for the Vietnam vets where they became the scapegoats of the whole conflict. And then, to the other side, it’s like strangling us with a yellow ribbon. It's like, back off, a little bit.
Vic Vela:
John spent the next several months continuing to abuse drugs and alcohol. He was blacking out almost every night. He crashed his car and got multiple DUIs. And the trauma he carried from his experiences in Iraq was really a heavy load.
John Evans:
The real heavy stuff was the internal sense of disconnection and of feeling alone. The sense of loneliness was so pervasive that it began to wear on me to the point where I just kind of hit a critical mass of emotional suffering. And I began to think about taking my own life. That just seemed like a relief. It seemed like a way out. It seemed like that made sense. And I was really fixated like, Oh, you weren't there, you weren't over there. And that narrative kept me very, very sick.
Vic Vela:
This was a very dark period for John. During a blackout, he called his best friend and gave him a final goodbye. His friend was worried because he knew John had enough pills in the house to end his life. So he called John's dad who rushed to his son's place with the police. They made it in time. John had passed out before he could take any pills. The next morning, John's father took him to the VA for help.
John Evans:
And I went in there and I was honest for the first time maybe ever. And I was just like, cause I wanted to, I really wanted to get, I didn't want to, I knew I was close. I mean, I was — things were real dark. And so I just told the guy the truth. I said, this is how much I'm drinking. This is how much I'm using. I was doing a lot of cocaine at that time too. And this is how I'm feeling. And they said, right this way. And they brought me into this locked psychiatric unit, right where I belonged. And I settled in for a few days. And I was in there and I was convinced that I was ready to turn over a new leaf and I was, you know, I'm going to get sober and I'm going to be sober. I'm going to change my life.
Vic Vela:
Just like that. How many days were you there?
John Evans:
I was there about 10 days. And I stepped out of that hospital and I was drunk in four hours, and that's the hold it had on me. I had no clue — I had zero comprehension of the grip that drinking and drugs had on me. I was diluted in the sense that I thought I was just going to be like, Oh, I'm going to be sober now. I'd never been sober before, you know? And just like I thought, I just, the ignorance, maybe, just arrogance, ignorance to think that Oh, I’ll do it now. And so I stayed drunk for another 90 days.
Vic Vela:
After the break, John finds himself on the other side of addiction, but facing a new struggle.
After only 10 days in treatment, John felt that he had the tools and the will to get sober, so he walked out. But he was back to drinking again that same afternoon. John spent the 90 days following treatment living with a friend, another veteran who was studying to become a paramedic. John was spiraling out of control again, blacking out every night, drinking and driving and stumbling through their apartment, aggravating his roommate. On day 90, John's friend had had enough and they got into a fight. He kicked John out of the apartment. Fuming and still drunk, John began to pack his things.
John Evans:
I remember being angry, just packing clothes and trash bags, you know, alchie suitcase, you know what I mean? And I stopped and I was drunk, but I, for whatever, I had this moment of clarity and I had nowhere to go. I had nowhere to go. It landed, that it's you, John, it's the drinking. It's, you know what I mean? It's just like, where are you going? There's nowhere to go. And I've had, up to this point, it's every problem in my life is directly related to substances, drinking. It's not as if I'd been just cruising along here. Like, I mean, every time I'm turned around, I'm getting in trouble for it. And it was just like the final, it's just like, ah, one more time, I'm dealing with something as a direct result to my drinking. Another friendship loss, another problem, every time problems.
Vic Vela:
It's exhausting.
John Evans:
Yeah, absolutely it's exhausting. And I remember just having this emotional collapse in that moment and realizing, more or less, you're going nowhere. And you gotta give it up. And the next morning I called the VA again and saw if I could get back in. And they said, yeah, get here Monday. We'll have a bed for you. And so, I drank like I was going to rehab, you know? [laughing] Yeah, hard. And I drank every day till that day. And that day was July 2nd, 2007. And I have not found it necessary to take a drink from that day to this, or any other mood- or mind-altering substances.
Vic Vela:
When you were in the hospital, what was different about this day?
John Evans:
Yeah, this time I just threw my hands up. Last time I’d been in, I had my own ideas of how I was going to do the thing. I had all these reservations — I'm going to do this, I’m going to do that. I mean, right out of the gate, I'm making a plan for my life out of the psych ward. You know what I mean? Like, and usually not that great. [laughing]
Vic Vela:
We're going to do it my way. We're doing it my way, right?
John Evans:
Yeah. You know, pump the brakes a little bit, let the dust settle, but I was ready to take over the world from the psych ward. Anyways, this time I had to, I was out of answers and they'd say the same thing they said to me the last time. They said, we think you should go inpatient. And I said, okay, this time. And I went to Canandaigua VA for 65 days for dual diagnosis for PTSD and substance abuse. And I ran into some other people who had found a solution and were staying sober. And they were sharing that solution with one another and sharing their experiences with one another and banding together as a crew of individuals who didn't want to drink or use drugs anymore. And I fell in.
Vic Vela:
Community.
John Evans:
Totally. So, that was a relief to find some people that were seriously committed to a path of sobriety and showing up in that way and showing up for each other. And that was really the key. You said, that's what changed is I was introduced to people. I was introduced to a community. And I felt, for the first time in a long time, that connection. And I've heard, it said, connection is the cure. Connection is the cure to addiction. And I believe that to be true.
Vic Vela:
In the years since his treatment, John began to piece his life back together. He went to community college, met a girl, got married and moved to Florida. John was sober and in recovery, but the trauma of what he experienced in Iraq still lingered, and his marriage began to fall apart. During couples counseling, the therapist asked John about his military service, about how he deals with what he experienced in Iraq. John began to cry uncontrollably. Even 10 years into recovery, he was still reckoning with the trauma of war.
When his divorce was finalized in 2016, John went from Florida to Denver to leave his belongings with a friend, and onto California after that, to fight wildfires with the forest service for a season. John knew he still needed help, though. So when he got back to Denver, he made an appointment to see a psychiatrist at the VA and it led to a new career.
John Evans:
So in my initial intake, the last thing I said in that interview was that I don't really know what I'm doing. I think I want to maybe give back, maybe become a counselor, therapist, something like that. And she said, there's this job here at the VA, and you'd be really good for it. It's called peer support. And I was like, what's that? And she told me a description of the job. I said, that's a job? You get paid to do that? And I was like, man, sign me up. That sounds like a pretty good deal. And for the last three years, I spent serving at the Denver VA as a peer support specialist.
Vic Vela:
That's incredible. I mean, that's, you never know what happens in recovery. You went in for therapy and you got a job.
John Evans:
[laughing] Yeah.
Vic Vela:
When did you first hear about PTSD or understand what it was?
John Evans:
When they put a diagnosis on me at the VA when I first got the job.
Vic Vela:
So through this new job as a peer support specialist, you're talking to fellow soldiers, fellow veterans about their problems, you know, kind of helping them get better. Did this work help you in your own recovery?
John Evans:
Yes and no. Yeah. I mean, it's funny how that stuff works. So I split — I was working half time in a substance use disorder clinic and half time in the post-traumatic stress clinic, outpatient, and you know, some heavy stuff. And I can remember my boss in the post-traumatic stress clinic saying, if you've got any skeletons in your closet, this stuff will pull it right out, when people talk about their traumatic events. I thought I was solid, 10 years sober, doing good, working a good program, all this stuff. And get in there, and it, man, it rocked me.
That particular role comes with some liability. You got to really be tight. You know, you got to make sure that your recovery is on point and otherwise it can, it really can throw ya. That's the thing about, for me, being in recovery; it's not just my stories. I get to watch this happen for other people. And that's probably sweeter than the things happening to me is, is watching it happen for others. It's a great gift and powerful. For me, that's what recovery is, is being willing to share your story in a way that might be service to others, you know? And so, just very grateful for that. [crying]
Vic Vela:
Those are tears of gratitude.
John Evans:
Yeah, certainly, but it's not just gratitude. It's also like there's a heaviness to see the effects of these conflicts continue to play out years and years and years later. And seeing that the struggle is very real for a lot of people and it's in real time and it's happening now. But just really grateful. Really grateful to be able to serve in that capacity.
Vic Vela:
Yeah. John is only now truly understanding PTSD, addiction and recovery. He felt like he reached a new level of wisdom when he went to Florida recently.
John Evans:
I actually just had the really great, great, good fortune to spend a couple months with a gentleman down in Florida at a retreat center, Zen retreat center named Claude AnShin Thomas, who wrote a book called “At Hell's Gate.” And he was a door gunner in Vietnam and his pathway to peace and to come home was through a lineage of spiritual practice, Zen Buddhism. And I went down just recently to sit and practice with him. Learning that I'm not crazy or broken or disordered is that I'm having this, I'm having a different relationship based off these experiences. And that's helpful, you know, that's helpful.
Vic Vela:
It's helpful to just be okay with that stuff.
John Evans:
Yeah. It's understanding that that I have post-traumatic stress and that's a very normal reaction to a very abnormal event.
Vic Vela:
John, what do you say to your fellow veterans who feel alone, right? Like that place that you were in before, who feels like nobody understands what it's like to witness death and despair, who feel isolated when they drink alone. Like they feel like life isn't worth living.
John Evans:
I would say that the greatest days of my life have been after I felt like that. And I'm grateful I did not give up and I would have missed it all. You know, I would have missed all the joy that has come into my life after getting help. And there has been a lot, a lot. I would have missed it, you know? And so I would say don't give up and reach out for help. And that recovery is possible, no matter what, no matter what you've been through, no matter where you're at, no matter how low you think you are, your recovery is possible.
Vic Vela:
John's life has come full circle. He now works as an engagement specialist in support of a national board working with veterans recovering from opioid addiction. And as part of his own continuing recovery, John writes and performs music about what he's gone through.
John Evans:
[singing and playing guitar] Inpatient guest at the VA. Sobered up and stayed that way. So they gave me a job. I guess they saved my ass. Now I talk to guys like me. I know I’ve seen things that they've seen, but did we fight for truth or just cheaper gas? Give me less. I always thought I wanted more, thought that's what I was here for. That was before. Now it's all a mess. Just give me less.
Vic Vela:
If you are, or know of veterans struggling with PTSD or substance use, you can find information at backfrombroken.org to find out how to get connected with a counselor.
Thanks for listening to “Back from Broken.” Please review the show on Apple Podcasts. It really helps other people find it. “Back from Broken” is hosted by me, Vic Vela. It's a production of Colorado Public Radio’s Audio Innovations Studio and CPR News. Our lead producer today was Luis Antonio Perez. Find a list of all the folks who worked hard to make this and other episodes in the show notes. This podcast is made possible by Colorado Public Radio members. Learn about supporting “Back from Broken” at cpr.org.
John Evans:
[singing and playing guitar] I always thought I wanted more, thought that's what I was here for. That was before. We were the brightest and the best. Just give me less.
