Help is on the Way

I got my first tattoo two and a half years ago. I’m still waiting for the day that someone recognizes what the artwork is without my needing to explain it. But regardless of if it resonates with anyone else, to say that the child draped in an American flag - taken from the cover of one my favorite artist’s albums - means a lot to me, would be an understatement. 

On April 15, 2022, when I sat down in that West Hartford, CT tattoo chair, I was taking a plunge that I had been reluctant to at any earlier point in my life. Getting something forever affixed to my body was an anxious thought, and the permanency of it had kept me from the needle at any earlier point. 

But something had happened over the last few months that left me with the confidence that I wouldn’t regret the decision to sit in that chair: I had reached rock bottom. 

I had been living in a city where I had essentially zero social connections, and with Connecticut still enforcing covid restrictions at the time, the chances of expanding my circle were slim. I hadn’t been on a real date in two years, was working a job that dominated my schedule, and was drinking and doing cocaine - either alone or with similarly self-destructive people - to the point of blackout multiple times per week. 

I recognized that I was living a life that would lead to me killing myself intentionally, if I didn’t do it by accident first. 

“Its always darkest just before the dawn.” - Rise Against, Make it Stop (September’s Children)

But after a conversation with a stranger at a bar that enlightened me to the realization that I had the ability to change my circumstances, I decided to switch jobs and find a city with more opportunities than I found in the northeast. After visiting and loving Tampa, I set my move for the end of April, 2022. 

Which meant that when my favorite band, Rise Against, had a tour stop in Worcester, MA in early April, going was a must, and would be the last, and perhaps only, truly enjoyable night from my time in New England.  

Rise Against is a band that I found in my teens while playing Guitar Hero III. I fell in love with the song “Prayer of the Refugee” and downloaded every song I could find off LimeWire. A week into my freshman year of college, my next door neighbor gave me a flash drive with all of their albums, and I dove in headfirst. Their punk rock style fueled thousands of workouts and car rides over the years, and I fell in love with the music. 

But as my listening continued over the decade, my love for the band became less about the music, and more about the message. Their songs are real, heartfelt, and often include passionate reflections on the state of our world and what we can do to better it.  For example, “Prayer of the Refugee” speaks about forced displacement. Another of their more popular songs, “Hero of War,” speaks of the awful things soldiers experience on the battlefield, and “Help is on the Way,” was written to bring attention to the victims of Hurricane Katrina and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. It was those words, “help is on the way,” that were pictured above the American-flag-laden child on the initial rendering of the tattoo. For me, though, it had nothing to do with those natural disasters, but rather the disaster that was my life up until that point. 

I had begun a spiral when I got fired (which I, of course, felt was unjust) from my first job out of college after my office was broken into and robbed, and things just kept seeming to go from bad to worse. I made mistakes that hurt people close to me, fell deeper into a substance abuse cycle, and was apt to act without regard for my life or anyone else’s. I needed help, and was praying that it was on the way. 

This past Saturday, I was driving back to St. Petersburg from Sebring, FL when “Help is on the Way” played off of my Angsty Teen Spotify playlist, and it caused me to reflect on that day, when I decided not to tattoo the words over the child’s head. 

In that time, life moved pretty fast. The person sitting in the driver seat with my partner next to me, us both exhausted and exhilarated from having just completed a half-marathon Spartan Race, was a far cry from the one that sat down in that tattoo parlor. 

A week after the tattoo, I completed my move to Tampa. Six months later, I had an experience with psilocybin mushrooms that lead to sobriety from alcohol and cocaine, abstinence from gambling, chewing tobacco and porn, and a complete rewiring of my values. I was able to make incredible changes, and felt confident that my experience of habit change, thought pattern rewiring, and discovery of purpose could speak to people about the opportunities to better oneself with psilocybin. 

But my personal progress stalled during 2023. I had forgotten that the key difference between the pre-psilocybin experience John and the one that existed after, was that after-John was much more willing to take risks, to challenge himself, to go against the grain. I had found myself hoping that my life would continue to evolve, waiting for the right opportunity to come, rather than going out and getting it. And doubt that my transformational experience had been as impactful as I believed began to creep in. 

But an opportunity for growth came a year and a half after getting the tattoo, in December of 2023, when I challenged myself with my first Spartan Race - the same half-marathon I completed this past weekend. That race was a huge test for me. I had not run regularly since 2011, and didn’t commit to the race until two weeks prior. That left me little time to prepare, but I showed up on race day, prepared to give it my all, and willed myself to the finish line through miles of mud, obstacles and cramps. I finished the challenge in 3 hours, 38 minutes. 

You can do the math on a half-marathon pace to know that isn’t blazing speed, but simply completing the test before me reignited my passion for physically pushing myself that had been repressed for years. As 2023 turned into 2024, I found myself continuing to find new ways to jump in the deep end and see if I could swim. 

First, I undertook the challenge of 75 Hard, coinciding with an attempt to live without alcohol. Then I decided to quit my director-level job and start Get Psyched Fitness. Two months later, I completed a triathlon despite nearly zero experience swimming. I attempted to scale the tallest mountain on the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, Pike’s Peak. Then, at the end of summer, found myself at the end of a 46-mile ultramarathon. A week after that race, I competed in a fitness competition from Spartan called DEKA Fit, where I entered into the top-100 globally in my age group. Later that day, I met my partner who accompanied me on this most recent Spartan. 

As she and I sat in my car, cruising back to St Pete with “Help is on the Way” playing over the speakers, I was struck by the difference between the version of myself that had considered getting those words tattooed on me and the version I had become since. At the time, those words would have been a cry for help. I needed help. I was hoping, begging for it to be on the way. And it was.

It was on the way when I met that stranger at the bar who helped shift my mindset, and it was on the way when I found psilocybin and found the clarity of mind to choose a better path for myself. But those sources were never going to be what ultimately got me to where I wanted to be, it was the action that I took as a result. Because no matter what outside influence may have aided in bringing the help I desired, what I needed all along was within myself. It showed up when I decided to make tough choices, to go for aspirational goals, and to work like hell to make things happen for myself. 

And that is what I realized after completing Saturday’s Spartan Beast in an hour and nineteen minutes faster than last year - 2 hours, 19 minutes total - that while I was going through my dark times, I had been crying out for help, had been hoping and wishing for something or someone to come along to save me. 

I had thought for the longest time that it was psilocybin, but the mushrooms were simply the key that allowed me to save myself with intentional work. Anyone can eat some mushrooms. It takes an especially dedicated person to go out and make excellence happen. And that’s what makes my story remarkable. I was granted the opportunity to change my life for the better, and am not stopping at “good enough.”

Help is on the way. Help is always on the way. But only if you are willing to go help yourself.

Don't wait for a miracle
To tumble from the sky
To part the seas around you
Or turn water into wine
Don't wait for a miracle
The world is passing by
The walls, that will surround you
Are only in your mind
- Rise Against, Miracle