TO MEET JEREMY JAMIESON IS TO FEEL GOOD. His positive attitude is contagious, as is his laugh. Just hang around the gym and it’s quickly evident that the patrons all know him, and his clients adore him. But upon getting to know him better, it turns out Jeremy went through some dark times and struggled a lot to get where he is. Something he learned is that being open and talking about his past helps him. And he hopes it will help others, too.
You went through a big life change to get here.
After high school, I really didn’t have set goals as to a career path. I essentially took job opportunities that seemed beneficial at the time, for money, for benefits, things like that.
More often than not, I found myself in jobs I didn’t like and what I didn’t realize at the time is that it was leading me in directions that I shouldn’t go. I was unhappy and I tried to fill that void with alcohol. Or drugs. But primarily alcohol. Alcohol was always my go-to. If I had a hard day, I’d drink. If I had a good day, I would drink. Then I went into the Army.
Why?
I wanted an honorable job and I wanted to give back. But at the same time, I didn’t have much value for myself. So, I chose to go to the infantry because I felt like that was the ultimate sacrifice — if need be. And I didn’t really care if I lived or died. My mindset was to die. And so, I figured that would be an ultimate give-back and it wouldn’t matter if I was here or gone anyway. I had a really bad view of myself.
But in the Army my drinking escalated significantly. At that time, I was in the barracks. And I wouldn’t say drinking was encouraged, but it wasn’t frowned upon unless you got in trouble. Which I did.
I eventually got married in the military. That made things worse. A lot of my own doing. This was the bad part. The good part of it was I was always physically active, even though I was a heavy drinker.
Do you think without the physical activity things would have been worse?
Definitely, yeah. That was kind of always the light.
And God. I think even though there were times where I wasn’t a very good person, I always felt some spiritual attachment, a spiritual connection. That really saved me. Sometimes I didn’t realize it. Sometimes I did, particularly with the drug use. I was in bad places physically and mentally, right? And now I’m here. You know what I mean? I’m here.
I saw a lot of darkness. And I quickly realized what I didn’t want. You know, most people say, I want this, and I want that. And they go after that goal and, more often than not, they achieve it, at least to some degree. I had to figure out what I didn’t want first.
Even though the drugs and alcohol filled the void temporarily, it always left me empty. I think a lot of people who’ve been through it can attest to that. But then the cycle would repeat because you didn’t know how to fill this void other than with what you were already doing. I couldn’t see in the beginning that it’s a repeating cycle.
Finally, I tried to get help. And I had to get help several times to really have it driven into me, what I needed to do to prevent repeating the cycle.
I ended some of the drug use, with the exception of marijuana. I kind of credit marijuana for helping me stop drinking. Initially it helped me get my foot in the door. Because the drinking was really, really out of hand. I was drinking like a case of beer a day. Every single day. But I was also running and exercising a lot.
There were times where I was like, I don’t know if I’m going to beat this. You know what I mean? The statistics show that if you’re in it for so long, then your chances of ever getting out get slimmer and slimmer. So, I was starting to lose hope. But I didn’t completely lose hope. Because of my faith and physical fitness. It helped me hang in there, or at least kind of offset things just enough.
Just enough to keep the teeter-totter from…
Completely going into the abyss. Then there was an episode, December 21st, 2014. I had a major incident with drinking and the law which could have cost me my freedom. At this point I had a daughter, and this was a real game changer because I was afraid that I wasn’t going to be able to see her for several years. That was really the final straw for me. My bottom, if you will, to really end it.
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