Photo: VCG

Editor's Note:

Drug abuse is a chronic problem in the US. From August 2021 to August 2022, drug overdoses claimed more than 100,000 lives, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Tim Ryan (Ryan), an American who was once a drug addict, got clean and set up the "A Man in Recovery" foundation after spending 13 and a half months in prison. In an interview with Global Times (GT) reporter Wang Wenwen in her I-Talk show, he shared his experience and explained why drug abuse has become such a serious issue in the US.

GT: Before you started using drugs, you had a successful career and a loving family. What led you to start using drugs? 

Ryan: I didn't realize that a lot of my addiction was caused from underlying childhood trauma. A lot of people that struggle with addiction and mental health have childhood trauma, which could be emotional, mental, spiritual, or physical. They are not looking to use drugs to get high. They are looking to numb the pain.Unfortunately, that's what happened to me. Unbeknownst to my parents, I was sexually abused as a child. I also had learning disabilities. I hung out with the older kids and I started drinking. I experimented with cocaine and fell in love with it. Unfortunately, it took away a lot of the madness in my head. I ultimately stumbled upon opioid and was a heroin addict for 12 years.

I didn't know how to put my hand up and ask for help. Nobody grows up and says, "I want to be an alcoholic or I want to struggle with drugs." Unfortunately, due to a bad choice or doctors' prescribing it or whatever, people become addicted, and then they don't know what to do.

GT: How did it change your family? I know your son passed away because of drugs. 

Ryan: It was my oldest son, Nicholas. I adopted him when he was 3 years old. His mother and I had got married and we had three other kids. But with Nick, I treated him more like a friend than a son. He smoked and drank in high school and unfortunately, he started experimenting with drugs and he was selling them too. When I found out he was using heroin, I got sober straight away. At that time, I was in prison for my third DUI (driving under the influence). I hit two cars. I overdosed on heroin while driving. But when I started fighting the case, I caught my son doing heroin and unfortunately we started using heroin together. That's how my son and I bonded by getting high together every day. I went to prison and did 13.5 months. I got sober in prison and changed my life. Then I walked out of prison and stumbled into working in the treatment industry. I ran a nonprofit, helping people that had no resources get treatment and start sober living.

Unfortunately, my son passed away at 20 years old on my 21-month sobriety date. He had been to treatment six times. He knew what to do. He tried to use again. His friend gave him what's called a benzodiazepine. When you mix opioid with benzodiazepine, it shuts down your system. He basically overdosed and died. 

Today, I never look back. My wife and I work in treatment. We do interventions worldwide. We do speaking events internationally on mental health, substance abuse, suicide, bullying, and trauma. We try to take our pain and turn it into purpose and help people today.

GT: During your time in rehabilitation in Illinois, you made the decision to quit drugs. What changes occurred at that time that made you determined to quit?

Ryan: I had enough of the pain. Once you've had enough of the pain, you're going to change. I knew what to do for 30 years, but I always thought it would be different this time. I can use like a normal person. Once an addict, always an addict; once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. And sitting in a prison cell, I had two choices. I could do everything I can to change, or I could go right back to what I was doing before. 

I changed. I got into a 12 set-based program. I read a lot of books on spirituality, business, energy and cosmic healing. I applied all these tools to my life today. And for me to be coming up on 11 years clean and sober, it's a blessing, especially considering I was once unable to stay sober for even a single day. 

GT: According to statistics, many people take drugs in the US. Why is overdosing on drugs such a big problem in the US? 

Ryan: Because our pharmaceutical industry is run by the politicians, and it's all about making money. The US uses 90 percent of the prescription pain pills worldwide. The problem with the US is they have a pill for every ailment. It's all about money. It's all about big business. I don't think our government wants to stop this. I live in Los Angeles, California. Mexico is 100 miles away. The Mexican cartels are flooding the American streets with fentanyl. But the bottom line is we could be sending our special forces to eradicate the cartels. But there is such a demand for drugs in the US. It's absolutely out of control, from alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, prescription pain pills and opioids.

I was a guest of the 2016 State of the Union Address, Barack Obama's last year as a president. He spoke about opioids for 2 minutes. And then at the next State of the Union, president Trump spoke about opioids for about 3 minutes. The current president doesn't talk about them. This is the No.1 killer in the US, but they've accepted it. It's like another kid died, 10 more people overdosed. And then you have the homelessness, which is everywhere. 

People need to learn how to get through life without having to take a pill constantly. There's meditation. I looked at the Chinese. A lot of them are into martial arts and they work on the mind, body and soul. They use a lot of natural remedies so they don't have to take a pill for everything. America is very lazy, and we want a pill to feel good. Half of the country is obese. We're promoting overweight people. We're in a health crisis here and a drug pandemic. It's out of control.

GT: Recently, when President Joe Biden was asked about cocaine being found in the White House, he just smiled and said nothing. 

Ryan: That really bothers me. There are more cameras in the White House. They know exactly whose cocaine it was and where it was. They're just not saying anything. They are normalizing this. We are finding cocaine in the most secure location in the United States of America, and nobody's been charged. That worries me when the president had not done something about it being found in his home. This is serious. 

GT: You established the "A Man in Recovery" foundation and advocated for legislative change in American drug policy. Has there been any change? 

Ryan: Nothing. I worked with a lot of congressmen and senators. One of them told me (I won't use his name): "Tim, I will take you to Congress. I'll have you speak for 20 minutes. You're going to get a standing ovation. The second you walk out of the chambers, everybody's going to be back to their own agenda." With the policies they're putting into place, they're now utilizing hypothetically people like me that are 10 years plus in recovery and understand what's going on-getting us involved helping with these decisions. I can tell you the solutions that need to be put in place. But I'm screaming from the rooftops because they have politicians making the decisions. They're not in recovery. It's like me making a decision on a radar system for our government. I don't work with radars, just because I'm a politician doesn't mean I should be making decisions on that.

GT: In the US, some share the view that the Republican Party tolerates firearms while the Democratic Party tolerates drugs. What is your view on the influence of party politics on the rampant drug problem in the US?

Ryan: What people need to look at is that this isn't a Republican or Democratic issue. This is not a bipartisan issue. This affects everybody, but the US is so divided right now. Even if I work with a politician now, and it takes me a year to build a relationship, another year to really get in working with them, two years later they're voted out. I've got to start all over again. But guns will never go anywhere. It's in our Amendment. Most of the people that are killing people have mental health and drug issues. So we need to work with the mental health and substance abuse pandemic. It's going on not only in our country, but worldwide. Quit talking about it and provide more solutions to help people.

We need more people in long-term recovery helping make the decisions. Like the homelessness. We've got 70,000 homeless people in the state of California. 90 percent of those people have mental health and drug abuse issues. And they want to take these people and put them in a hotel. They are gonna die. They have no foundation or tools. We need to build long-term treatment centers and inpatient detox and residential. Then we need another program that's a yearlong that people can integrate and make it up higher and higher, but then help them with job skills, getting them into the proper housing, making them be a productive member of society, helping them get their kids back or whatever legal issues. Again, we have a bunch of politicians making decisions they don't know anything about. 

GT: The US politicians like talking about human rights. From the drug point of view, do you think the US really protects human rights?

Ryan: I don't think America is doing enough to help its citizens, or the people that have immigrated here. There are too many people that are struggling. All the politicians are multi-millionaires. How did they become multi-millionaires when their salaries are $175,000 a year? In my eyes, there's a lot of corruption in politics. And it's all about the money and I'm all for people making money and having a good living. But how much do you need? And when is the money going to trickle down to the person that calls me and says: "Look, I'm living in my car and I want help." There's nowhere that will take that person, because they don't have 40,000 a month cash to pay to go to treatment or they don't have good health insurance.

We've got a big pandemic now. When COVID happened, everybody got locked down. Mental health went through the roof, alcoholism went through the roof. Who this really affected was the kids, the youth of America. These kids need help. There are not many resources from psychiatry, like psychiatrists or addictionologist. There is not enough people going into the medical field to combat what's coming. It's just going to get worse.

GT: Recently, the US Department of Justice announced the indictment of several Chinese companies and individuals on charges of manufacturing and selling fentanyl precursors. What is your opinion on this action by the US?

Ryan: I think they're looking at it the wrong way. Drugs are everywhere, they've been around for centuries. You can get the chemicals or whatever everywhere. We need more solutions. They're going after the wrong people. And in my eyes, we want to be aligned with China, we don't want to be fighting with China. We should be working together in trying to solve this. That's what I would be doing, instead of pointing fingers here and there.

But it's easier to blame other people instead of saying we made a big mistake or we are doing this wrong. It's much easier to blame people and that diverts away from the problem. It might divert away for a couple months, but the problem is not going away.

The bottom line is we cannot blame everybody. Nobody forced me to drink or to do drugs. I chose to do that. But what I didn't know how to do was put my hand up and say I needed some help, because of my ego and my pride. If you're struggling, put your hand up and ask for help.