Logan:
My dad worked a lot. I lived with my mom after they got divorced when I was 11, and she drank a lot. Don't get me wrong, my parents are great. I love them both. I wouldn't be where I am without them. But yeah, my mom was gone frequently just on binges and partying, so I kind of just got to do whatever I wanted. I thought it was great at the time. I talked to an Army recruiter and he said, "We'll take anybody." I was like, "Cool." Signed the papers. Eight months of training. After that, we deployed to Afghanistan. Somewhere in there, my wife and I, we got engaged and we got married about a month before I went boots on ground to Afghanistan. And then, when I got back is when I dove into the alcoholism pretty bad. All I was ever good at was lifting weights, shooting guns, and fighting really. So I got back and it was that, "What do I do now? Do I go to college?"
I was 22 years old sitting in classrooms with 18 year old kids. I was like, "I don't fit." And it was just driving me nuts. I couldn't sleep for months. And when I would sleep, it was nightmares every time. One day I waited until about the middle of the day to start drinking, and I could see the sadness on my wife's face. And she was always so upbeat and positive, but I could just see the pain and I was like, "This is my fault." It was when I was starting to get sober, it's that tiny little whisper that turns into a shout that's like, "It'd be easier if you died." And then it starts off as that, and then the next couple of weeks, if you're in that constant, it's like, "You should probably just end it. You're making your wife miserable. You're hurting everyone around you. You're never going to make it out of this. You've been suffering this long, you might as well just end it."
And it's always that constant battle with yourself of like, "Which one's easier? Do I get sober and go through that? I could make everybody's life so much easier." And it was always a toss up. Never tried. Always thought about it. So I called my mom and I said, "Okay, I need help. What do I do?" And she's like, "Well, come to Phoenix. I'll introduce you to some people." Because I was like, "I'm not going to a rehab or anything like that. I'm too rock and roll for that." So I went to Phoenix. I met Jake. We started working out. We started working out together and stuff like that.
Jacob:
We just started to develop this relationship on a very thin thread of we just had that similar background and that we'd gone down some of the same road and really just became brothers in a sense of that he started to open up to me, I started to open up to him.
Logan:
If Jake wouldn't have came around or if I wouldn't have gone and seen Jake, I don't think I'd be sober right now. Who knows if I'd even really be alive? For me, it took a special kind of person to be able to talk into my life. Somebody that could not only emotionally hold their ground, but physically. Because sometimes I was very, very physically threatening with Jake, and he used to always say, "Don't puff up to me. I'll punch you in the face." All the time. And it was so hard. It had to have been somebody extremely confident, had to have been a military man. It had to have been somebody that had gone through alcoholism like I was going through. He had to be relatable. He had to be able to say, "I know what you're going through," and I had to be able to believe him.
Oh, man, just take the armor off. Nobody's stopping you but you. There's plenty of guys out there that'd be willing to listen and talk. You just have to go do it. There's always that stigma where it's like, "If you cry out for help, you're a sissy. You're not a man." I got that example my whole life too. "Real men drink beer and chew tobacco. They never cry. They never ask for help," blah, blah, blah. Just take that first step and talk to somebody, and I guarantee it'll change your life. It changed mine. So just take the step. Jump. You might like where you land.