Today we’d like to introduce you to John Cunningham
Hi John, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
My story starts back when I was 15 years old. I was a 3 sport athlete and no one was a bigger fan of me than my father. I grew up in a loving supportive household and although we didn’t have much in the way of money or possessions we did have a lot of love.
On Nov 19th 1995 all of this changed. I woke up to my sister banging on my bedroom door saying something was wrong with dad. I get up and walk into the kitchen where I find my mother frantically trying to call the paramedics and my dad laying on his back on the kitchen floor.
My father had just suffered a massive heart attack at the age of 38 and was pronounced dead. This was my first real experience with pain and how fragile life is. At 15 years old, I did not have the tools to deal with this kind of change and pain.
My mother devastated herself had to find a way to cope. Our house goes up for sale and I find myself living in in a new town not too long after my fathers death. I go from a 3 sport athlete, good grades and lots of friends to an a scared isolated kid in a new school. Drugs was something I never seen myself doing before my fathers death but in my desperation for normalcy I begin to drink and smoke weed and cigarettes.
There was no way I could see the destruction ahead of me due to this decision. It still blows me away how invisible addiction is when it first starts. It has never ran in my family and I certainly didn’t have any education about it. Its not like life falls a part after the first drink or use. It takes time and consequences to make a person look inward. If I was to be honest, at first , It was the answer to my pain. I had friends again, I no longer felt a lone and I was having a good time. Yeah, my grades suffered, my attitude changed, and I wouldn’t play sports again for a very long time but it seemed worth the trade at the time.
For the next 8 years I would get away with partying. I tried everything under the sun except heroin. I thought cocaine and meth were very addictive from what I heard but neither of them caused me to crave it. I would do it when it was around but never did I seek it out. I drank a lot but what 21 year old doesn’t and weed seemed harmless. This is right before the OxyContin pandemic exploded.
I got married to a women who was using pain pills at the time. Prescription pills as something we get high on made no sense to me. Doctors prescribe this? How can this be like street drugs? I remember having these thoughts. So I try opiates for the first time. Looking back if anyone would have said these are basically heroine in the form of a pill I would have been more cautious when I got high on it for the first time. It was like the sun had finally risen in my soul and I had finally found the best version of myself. Addiction had me and I was clueless to its power.
The following decade would take me to places I never thought I would go. I found myself stealing a lot, I began cheating on my wife and eventually all I really cared about was opiates. My wife leaves me. I can not hold a job and I start breaking into homes to support my habit. In 2008, I started using heroine to save money. This is also the year I caught my first burglary charge. I became a felon at the age of 28. I hadn’t been in a lot of legal trouble as an adult yet so with a paid lawyer provided by my mother, I was able to get out on pretrial and get a 10 year all suspended sentence. By 2012, I was facing two more burglary charges and was facing the kind of time in prison that some people got with murder charges. I had never hurt anyone but was facing 70 years in prison.
After receiving my first plea bargain of 30 years is when who I had been died. I was in jail and hated everything about myself. I hated that I was an addict, I hated what I looked like, I hated how I thought. I hated that I was a bad person and hated I let this happen. Change is what I needed. Its also something I had never done before.
Recovery in 2012 is not what recovery is in 2024. There were not any resources in county jail for me to utilize so I had to get innovative. I was certain I was doing lots of years in prison. I was watching this small group of guys in county whop was working out together. I knew if I was to survive prison I couldn’t go as I was. I was in bad shape.
I started by joining them and at first, the guys didn’t believe in me. They made fun of me. I was actually overweight as an opiate addict. It had the opposite effect on me. They guys would make there jokes but I never gave it much attention because I knew I deserved this. No matter how hard it seemed, this hard road was good for me. When my pushups went from 9 to 20, then to 30 then I was hitting 50 something magical began taking place inside myself. This was evidence of change. It was something I could measure inside myself that said hey, John you really can change your life and then I had the thought that changed it all for me. I had been clean for months now. I had not accomplished this feat since before my father died. I had momentum and I said to myself maybe this is why all this happened to me. Addiction had its claws in me so deep before that I knew this was how I was going to die. What if I could stay clean and sober for the rest of my life? They say the bravest thing a person can do is hold onto hope because there are so many reasons not to. I had no one and no reason to believe in anything but the worst but for some reason that thought lit a fire in my heart. It wasn’t much but it was all I needed, to find a small piece of hope when things felt so hopeless.
I would receive two more 30 year plea bargains and by the time I would face the judge I was on a roll. I had come to accept things as they were. I kept working out, I was able to run now. I had read so many books and before this I had never read at all. I had been clean for coming up on a year. When My father died my joy went with him. That joy that died had come back to life with vengeances. on Dec 12, 2012 I would look at the judge and say the words that produced my first miracle. I had no fear. I was just so grateful to not be in the vice grips of addiction which was the catalyst for what I said, “Your honor I deserve every single year that you give me”
I was supposed to get 20 years that morning according to my lawyer but after uttering such brave words and taking that kind of responsibility the judge said something else..”14 years with 7 suspended” I had to be the happiest person to ever receive a 14 year sentence. I have honored the judges decision that day to the best of my ability. I know he would be proud if he knew my whole story. I seen him once at tropical smoothie and thanked him. He didn’t remember, maybe that is because of how much I had changed. He said he didn’t know what he did but I was welcome and I left it at that.
I was supposed to be dead to the world, I was supposed to be thrown away that day. I have no idea what its like to come back from the dead physically but I do know what its like to come back mentally and spiritually. That little bit of hope I caught now had meaning and purpose behind it. I had never felt better about life. I went 110% at addiction. I vowed to do the same thing with my recovery.
Today is 10/10/24. That was 12 years ago and I am still keeping good on my promise. I started a Recovery Community Organization called Recover Out Loud that is now certified through the state and a 501c3 non profit. I was able to get a grant for 125K to start my Recovery Fitness In Training Program (RFIT). A fitness recovery program that we developed. We won the program of the year award in 2019 through Mental Health America. We have been featured in a documentary called the Addicts Wake that went national and I was able to rekindle my fire for sports by creating recovery based sports teams. We actually won the CSA softball league in 2022. We also do basketball and pickleball.
Recovery is a powerful entity. It comes in many forms. We mostly know about the mainstream ways of the anonymous programs yet recovery happens all the time in other ways. It was the summer of 2017 I took the softball field for the first time. As I run to shortstop Images of my 13 year old self began to flash through my mind. I could feel him. The kid that had his world ripped from him at an early age, I could feel my fathers presence. All the pain I went through and memories that never happened. It was just an adult league softball game but to me I was recovering the things that were stolen from me as a child. I hear the crack of the bat, the ball hits my glove and I throw it to first and no one can see the tear that streams down my face. Me and my younger self was one again and together we would do all we could to change the lives of the people we touched. To most its just a game but to us it was about life and death.
Life is great today. I am married with two step daughters. I work for the probation department in their recovery courts (THIS BLOWS MY MIND) I own two houses, rent one and travel all over the place but my favorite thing still today is that I know addiction will not kill me and my life belongs to freeing those who are in its grips.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I wish I could say it has been sooth sailing ever since but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Yes, we have had tons of success. in term of recognition but when it comes to sustainability, we are struggling.
In 2022, we were able to build our first CrossFit gym with the large grant we received. The gym was beautiful. We named it Rat Park based of the rat park experiment with Bruce K Alexander. We thought we would be able to sell memberships to sustain the RFIT program and even though our gym was beautiful we were known as the recovery gym. Our community liked what we were doing but they didn’t want to be associated with it. After 2 years of struggling and our business partner leaving us after 1 month we had to close the gym down and put it into storage. A local CrossFit gym did reach out to us and we were able to save the program until recently. they fell into their own financial trouble so we are back to square one after 4 amazing years.
Funding will always be an issue for RCOs as well. Most funding for addiction treatment is on the front end leaving very little for RCOs on the back end to sustain long term recovery. Part of the RCO model is we can not charge memberships or for services therefore we find ourselves reliant on donations, grants, and fundraising with the majority coming from the opioid settlement money. We fear once this is dried up sustaining RCOs will be very difficult.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
The job I get paid for is a peer recovery coach from adult probation. The thing that has made me the most proud is getting my non profit certified through the state. Once upon a time all I was was an addict and it felt like I would always be that way yet today, I am a certified Peer Recovery Coach II (CAPRCII), an L-1 CrossFit trainer, I serve on the board of community corrections, been featured in a nation wide documentary and developed a fitness recovery program under the umbrella of Recover Out Loud. As if this isn’t enough, I still serve tables on Saturdays, DOUBLES AT THAT!!!
I have been able to do all this with only a high school diploma and unbelievable passion for what saved my own life. What sets us a part is our non traditional focus on health rather than programs and connection outside the meetings as well as being proud of identifying as a person of recovery hence the Recover out Loud name. We have spread our meetings all over the state and have become a house hold name in our communities. It still blows me away that if you ask google who founded Recover Out Loud google knows my name. A big difference from what the newspapers used to say.
Any advice for finding a mentor or networking in general?
You have to put yourself out there. I wouldn’t have ever found my mentors without putting in the work first. It has been so cool to see how life works once you make a switch like that. Doors open and people almost come to you. I never even applied for my government job, they reached out to me. The same thing happened with the board of community corrections. When we honestly put ourselves out there the right things tend to show up in our lives. read books, go to the gym, listen to podcast, and speak up.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://recoveroutloudinc.org
- Instagram: @ROLinc
- Facebook: recoveroutloudinc
