Author: Phillip Vitela

I wasn’t a big drinker when I joined the military many years ago. I was a binge drinker. Train hard, party harder. That’s been military culture since before Roman soldiers marched on Gaul. If you couldn’t hang, were you even a man? I was young, strong, impressionable, and a bit lost. I went on to spend 30 years of my life repeating that cycle. A clean week followed by a dirty weekend. Once, I got into the wrong car and drove away. Once, I slept in a train station in Berlin because I missed the last train out. I don’t…

If you walk into a twelve-step meeting in Olympia, Washington, you might be the only brown face in the room. The Pacific Northwest, while more diverse than it was in the past, is still a very white place. I really didn’t notice it while I was in the Army, this feeling of being other. The military is a great equalizer. You live, sleep, laugh, and cry with each other; you are united in so much commonality that you have no other option but to depend on one another. An old paratrooper brother of mine, Brandon, recently reminisced about the friends…

Three wives, three lives, one journey The story is a bit familiar: troubled youth, early exposure to substances, and running from oneself. Gahan grew up in Epping, UK, in the 60s with his mother and stepfather, who would pass away when Gahan was 10. He would find out later that his mother was keeping from him that his biological father was trying to reach out to him often during his youth. She did this for reasons known only to her. His biological parents had split when Gahan was an infant. Self-destruction is the pattern. Having no contact with his father…

In the world of sports, athletes are celebrated for their physical prowess, technique, and indomitable spirit. However, beneath the surface of their impressive performances, many athletes grapple with a hidden adversary: addiction. While society often sees them as invincible, they are no less susceptible to the struggles of substance misuse than anyone else12. The Athlete’s Paradox: Performance and Pressure Performance-enhancing drugs have continued to evolve, driven by ‘advancements’ in doping strategies and improved drug testing detection methods1. Commonly used substances among elite athletes include alcohol, nicotine, cannabis, stimulants, and prescription opioids3. The intense pressure to perform, coupled with the physical…

Mike was a walk-on wide Receiver at Yale from 2001 to 2004, graduating as a history major. Although not an amazing athletic specimen at 5’9” and 150 lbs. Mike already showed a genius mind for the game with his understanding of defensive schemes. In fact, Mike has zero stats as a player but lettered all four years. In 2005, at 22, he was hired as an intern coach with The Broncos under the great Mike Shanahan. Between 2006 and 2021, he would coach with the Texans, the California Redwoods (UFL), The Redskins (now the Commanders), Browns, Falcons, and 49ers. Finally,…

I recently reached the one-year milestone and thought of my journey to get here. I also thought of the people who helped get me here. My wife, my sponsor, and a few friends I met along the way in recovery. One thing that struck me was that my journey, although my own, was not alone. As an Army veteran, like many, I struggle with PTSD. With that comes feelings of isolation and anxiety once you leave the military family you’ve known most of your adult life. The feeling that it’s you against the world. This bottle or pill may numb…

Leave no one behind is a phrase I heard hundreds of times during my days in the Army. I served from 1996 to 2016 in some of the best units around—storied units, the 10th Mountain Division, 1st Armored, and finally the 1st Special Forces group. For the most part, we lived that mantra. Never left a fellow soldier on the battlefield. We searched for almost two years for Fouty and Jimenez in Iraq. We made sure that they were not left behind and returned home. But something happened as America’s longest war dragged on. When a person experiences trauma and…