Brian's Journey to Stability

Brian, our Mattress Recycling Lead, shared what it is like to overcome the hardships of disability, homelessness, and addiction. His journey to stability was not an easy one and covers topics of neglect, abuse, substance use, and other sensitive topics.

Brian’s story begins in a small and rural town in western Iowa. With a population under 2,000, a kid with behavioral issues living in an abusive home did not have a lot of options for support. By the end of 1st grade Brian was set to be institutionalized for his uncontrollable behavior and perceived mental disabilities. Luckily, there was a visiting specialist teacher who intervened and helped prove that Brian was not cognitively disabled, rather, he had severe dyslexia that was impacting his ability to participate in school and express himself verbally. The next year of Brian’s educational journey took place at a specialized program at a Catholic school in Minnesota where he learned how to read!  

At 8 years old, Brian was back home when his mom left his abusive father. They traveled out to California with his other siblings, but they had no place to stay and very little money. This was the first time Brian experienced homelessness. It was at this age when his mother allowed adults to molest him for money. “I’m not justifying what my mom did, but she had no money, had to take care of the family, so she would sell me”. Over the next few years Brian grew more isolated, began drinking alcohol, doing drugs, and had feelings of anger overwhelm him. At age 11 Brian’s dad found them in California. His father filed for divorce and gained custody of him and his siblings, bringing them back to Iowa. Shortly after moving, his mother arrived in the middle of the night and took his brother and sister, leaving him with their abusive father.  

Life with Brian’s father was not easy, but school became easier. “I didn’t really like sports I guess, but sports kept my dad off my back, so I got really good at sports!” Brian gained popularity with his classmates because of his excellence at sports and gained community because of it. With his dyslexia, Brian struggled to learn in school from this point on. He excelled at sports and art as they were not word-focused subjects, but he was progressed through school with C’s.

Brian became hyper-independent as a preteen. Not wanting to rely on his father for anything, he worked on his stepfather’s farm over the summer. “I paid for everything myself because I didn’t want him to have any control over me.” Throughout his school years, Brian would run away from home using the moped he bought at 14 and the money he earned from summer work. “The first time I ran away I really expected my parents to be worried about me, to come find me, but it was like 2 weeks and when I came home they didn’t even notice I was gone.” Brian would escape to the woods when things were not good at home, so much so that he became a proficient camper and knew how to get items he needed while away from home. During this time his drug use grew. “I began smoking pot at 8, I believe I was 11 when I first tripped on acid, and then by 14 I started doing cocaine, 17 methamphetamine, and 19 heroin.” Drugs helped Brian survive with little as he escaped his abusive home. He shared that drugs can trick your mind “you could be sitting in a puddle and think you are in a warm bath” while it's freezing outside.   

In his junior year of high school his stepmother suddenly wanted to move back to her hometown in Minnesota. Even though a concerned friend’s parents offered to let Brian stay with them to finish out high school, he moved with his family back to Pocahontas, MN.  

As the new kid at a new school, Brian got caught selling weed on campus. He was suspended and chose to not go back to his high school. After a few weeks of daily fights at the alternative school, Brian decided to leave school altogether and get a job. Shortly after starting his first job Brian got arrested for possession of marijuana again. This time he was sent to treatment in Cherokee, IA. Brian began to pursue his GED at the treatment center and realized just how much of his education he had absorbed. By scoring a 98% on testing, he was able to get his diploma with that year’s graduating class instead of needing to study for the GED.  

Brian was lost after treatment. He sought to be an adult, have romantic relationships, and pursue a career. His relationships were broken by his past sexual trauma and inability to open up to his partners about it. Brian did not want to have kids due to his experiences. “I love children, but my whole life I have been scared of them, because of that.” He was a hard worker, holding down multiple jobs at a time. He often moved up in his positions but did not find anything that was a good fit for him. One of his positions was a seasonal worker for the textbook and testing company. When he was 22, Brian got offered a full-time job at the Cedar Rapids facility and took it. With what seemed like a great opportunity quickly became his downfall.  

A coworker at the Cedar Rapids plant got him connected to a new source of methamphetamine. “They had some really, really good meth, and I started doing it way too much.” Eventually, Brian’s employer began to notice something was wrong and tried drug testing him multiple times. Brian was able to successfully tamper with the testing to show a negative, but driving a forklift high was not safe and he was terminated. “At first I was mad, but it was a blessing that I got fired from that job, because I would have killed somebody or who knows what could have happened.” This was at the age of 35. 

For the next 10 years Brian continued this pattern of doing drugs and experiencing his mental health decline due to his unaddressed trauma. After living this way for some time, he was determined to end his life. Brian withdrew all his retirement savings and spent it within the next 10 months. One day as he was living outside, someone attacked Brian in the chest with a sledgehammer. The damage the hammer caused stopped his heart. He had died. Luckily, the ambulance had gotten him to the hospital fast enough that the doctors were able to get his heart started again. As they were repairing the damage from the attack, the surgeons identified that he had been in complete liver failure for 3 or 4 days. It is uncommon for someone to live so long in liver failure, but the large amount of methamphetamine that Brian was on kept him alive. The doctors placed Brian in a medically induced coma for 2 weeks for his body to heal from the damage of the attack and to address his liver failure. Upon waking up the doctors gave him a 2-year prognosis, told him he’d be confined to a wheelchair, and need to undergo daily dialysis. Initially, he was upset that the doctors resuscitated him. “I was dead, and you guys brought me back”. Recovery was difficult mentally and physically. Brian tried to get up and leave multiple times, but the alarms on the equipment always gave him away. He wanted to jump off the roof of the hospital. Finally, he pushed himself to get up and follow-through on his plans. Taking four steps away from his bedside, Brian felt the exertion impact his heart and lost consciousness. This time, Brian had a near-death experience that changed his future.  

“It was like I was falling, there were lights going past me, and there was something there. I couldn’t see it, but it was terrifying.” Brian shared that he felt like he was in this place for a long, long time. Eventually his vision changed to watching himself be carried via stretcher to an operating table. He watched as they shocked his body six times and was brought back to his body. After waking up, he spoke to the nurse at his bedside and named every nurse and doctor who was in the room for his code. She told him there was no way he could have known that, because he had died again. After this experience, Brian asked for a bed at Area Substance Abuse Council (ASAC). “If I hit the streets again, I knew what is going to happen: I’m going right back to drugs.” 

Brian was first introduced to Willis Dady while he was waiting to get a bed at ASAC after leaving the hospital. Our Shelter Services Director, Denine, placed him in a bed and immediately advocated to the hospital that Brian was not ready to be released. He was unable to get out of bed at that time and couldn’t participate in searching for stable housing. Shelter was not the right fit for his needs.  

As soon as a bed was available, Brian completed ASAC’s residency program with a nurse assisting him, then stayed a halfway house for a time, and tried to move into a live-in program before he returned to drugs. Returning to drugs also meant returning to the homelessness. It was at this time that he started working with Willis Dady. Our Street Outreach Case Manager, Wes, listened to Brian’s story. When Brian shared that he was a bad person, Wes interrupted him and said, “You’re a good person. You’ve just done some bad things.” Brian started staying at the Community Winter Overflow Shelter that year and reflected that “Overflow saved my life a bunch of times. I would have frozen to death out there. Willis Dady put me up for longer than they should have while I was using, which probably kept me alive.”  

Shortly after he began working with Willis Dady, Brian got arrested for theft and was charged with a 3-year probation period. Brian asked his probation officer to send him to jail because he didn’t want to stop drugs willingly, but the probation team decided not to give up on him. After 6 months of waiting in jail, they sent him to treatment in Des Moines and got him an apartment in Marion. Having a safe place to stay, Brian adopted a kitten and grew determined to maintain his sobriety. “I thought that if I went out on a binge that I could just leave the sink dripping, but that cat wanted me home every night!” Brian maintained his sobriety for a year before having two relapses. A third would mean his probation was revoked. Being the honest person Brian is, he did relapse again and told his officer. It was only 3 months before the end of his probation period and as Brian walked into the follow-up meeting, he believed he was going straight to prison. To his surprise, the probation officer had filed to have him released from his probation instead. The officer encouraged him that with every relapse Brian had been through, he came out stronger, so the officer believed he would make it on his own. Brian reflected that after he was released the main thing he felt was scared. “Part of me thought that the only thing keeping me sober was the hammer over my head. I didn’t think I could make it on my own.” However, Brian wasn’t alone. His apartment in Marion had been held while he was in treatment and Willis Dady paid the rent so he would have a safe place to stay once he was out. A Rapid Rehousing Case Manager worked with Brian to get him on Section 8, allowing him to afford his apartment as his rental assistance ended in our program.  

Today 55-year-old Brian has been sober for 18 months, has become a Lead in our Mattress Recycling program, and has remained stably housed. Since 2020 Brian has been working in our Employment Services program through paid opportunities to rebuild stability. He participated in our Gardening Ambassadors initiative and completed landscaping training, worked in our Litter Abatement crew, and a special on-site Frontier Co-op project as he worked on his sobriety. In his job as the Mattress Recycling Lead, Brian supervises the receiving and deconstructing of mattresses for our team. “I really, really enjoy my position. I really like working with Dave and all you guys. Moving up into this position shows I’m a valued employee.” Working at Willis Dady has given him a supportive environment to maintain his sobriety, avoid triggering situations, and drive to make the Mattress Recycling program successful. “It’s a safe place to work; we’ve got nowhere but up to go with it!”  

Brian is excited about the idea of moving on from Section 8 and was recently taken off SNAP benefits due to the income from his promotion. Being able to make more money through employment to cover more of his expenses makes Brian proud. “I make enough money to pay for my own groceries, pay for my cat's food, and I can even do more than that now. I’m helping out a family in Africa to try and make sure they can have a living. It’s crazy the stories you hear about how the poorest of us are richer than most of them.”  

Thank you for sharing your story, Brian!