My Journey from Chronic Addiction to Endurance Athlete and Scientist.

My Journey from Chronic Addiction to Endurance Athlete and Scientist.

I grew up in a very healthy, loving environment. I wouldn’t change a single thing about the love, nurture, and guidance I received from my parents, to this day. When I was deep in the chaotic throws of addiction, I used to secretly wish that I had come from a broken home, abusive, but that is just not the case. I wanted some reason, some justification, for the way I behaved, the way I lived my life. However, my upbringing was fortunate. We weren’t rich, but nor were we poor, either. We had nice vacations every year and lived in a somewhat rough area on the outskirts of East London, but it definitely wasn’t the ghetto.

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I first noticed that I was different from the other kids. Nowadays, I would describe it in a kinder, more eloquent way, but back then, I was a kid. So, that’s how I felt… different.

I tried to engage, learn and concentrate at school, I really did. I was precocious, bright, and learned more quickly than most of the other students. When I was 7 or 8, I remember my reading and spelling being years ahead of where I should be at.

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However, for some reason, I craved excitement, attention, something… more, always more. This led to me being labelled disruptive and a “naughty kid”. Now, many years later, I know a lot of that behaviour was due to me, now, being diagnosed with moderate to severe ADHD and mild Autism. However, back then, in the late eighties, early nineties, unless symptoms were very severe, teachers, doctors and parents just didn’t know how to feel comfortable being me. I didn’t like how I felt, so I acted out to get a reaction from other people, and that was the first time I remember trying to change how I felt.

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I always struggled to make friends and shifted from group to group, not knowing who I was, and I didn’t really start the journey of finding my place in the world like most of the other kids. I was anxious, agitated, bouncing off the walls a lot of the time, and, other times, totally burnt out and depressed.

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There were many, many experiences over my 20 years of addiction that made me realise I needed to change. From incarceration to multiple near-fatal overdoses, being the victim of violence. Yes, they were, and are, very powerful motivations for change.

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However, the real breaking point came when two distinct, terrifying prospects occurred to me. The first, and most powerful, realisation that came was that my parents had reached their breaking point. There was nothing left that they could do to save me. No more rehabs, psychiatrists, doctors, no amount of love that they could give was going to make me better. So, they mentally prepared themselves to bury their child. I could hear it in their voices every time we spoke on the phone. The pain, anguish, the complete sense of despair and acceptance. This scared me more than anything else that has happened to me in my life.

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The second, terrifying prospect was again another realisation. I’m not a nihilist; I didn’t want to die, I just couldn’t bear to live in that pain any longer. However, I realised that I may actually have to endure living in, and causing more to others, of this pain for many years. My fragile mental state wouldn’t hold up for much longer. I would either go literally insane, or continue shooting drugs, popping pills and drinking alcohol until my body gave up.

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These two things gave me something, something in recovery circles they call “the gift of desperation”. I felt fear and desperation like never before. I had to get clean. However, it is not as simple as waking up one day when you are physically dependent on heroin, alcohol, benzodiazepines, and Lyrica. That’s a lot, and none of them was even my primary drug of choice, that demon was crack cocaine.

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I reached out to an amazing man named Russell. That man, without a shadow of a doubt, saved my life and is the reason I’m sitting here today pouring out my deepest, most painful memories, in the hope that maybe, just maybe, something I write here will reach someone who needs to hear it. I begged Russell for a chance to go to his rehab in Thailand, and he told me, rightly so, in no uncertain terms, that I need to do what I’m told, when I’m told, because my way of doing things had led me to the darkest of places.

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My journey into recovery began here, but it wasn’t easy, nor was it simple; by god, it was worth it. First, I didn’t have a passport; I lost it when I was homeless. However, more pressing than that was keeping me stable on this cocktail of drugs and alcohol long enough to get me from England to Thailand. A long story, cut short. My apartment was robbed, and with it, all my supply of Rivotril was gone. I could not for the life of me find anyone with enough tablets who was willing to sell them to me to get to rehab. I became so unwell that I couldn’t even remember my passwords and how to buy from the dark web, something I had been doing for a decade.

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My body began to go into serious withdrawal. I had 4 seizures in 6 days, each time ending in A and E, being stabilised, discharged, medication wearing off and back to A and E due to another seizure.

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Eventually, a family member, whom I won’t name, did something totally against their morals to get me enough Rivotril to stabilise me and let me make the long journey to Thailand. I’ll never forgive myself for all the hurt and pain I have caused others and myself, but I am living with it and using it productively as motivation to be the best version of myself I can be and to make those I care about proud of me. No more using self-pity as fuel to medicate myself.

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My journey to Thailand was an interesting one, to say the least. I was up all night with a girl I knew, smoking and injecting copious amounts of crack cocaine and heroin, drinking alcohol and taking handfuls of pills. The early morning light and the chirping of birds came fast. I rushed around packing. all sorts of aberrant and strange items. Two winter coats and a couple of hoodies, for use of which I have no idea, as I was travelling to a tropical climate in South-East Asia with a daily average temperature of over 30 degrees centigrade. Bottles upon bottles of vape juices, all of which would be confiscated as I transited through New Delhi due to being illegal in both India and Thailand.

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Anyway, I rushed, slightly late for my coach trip to get to London Heathrow, but I decided to take a detour to a pawnbroker’s to sell my last and only possession of any monetary value, a laptop computer, which gave me enough money to buy heroin and crack cocaine to last me the journey to Asia. Looking back, now, with a sober mind, it scares me that it hardly even crossed my mind as to the severity of the consequences should I be caught trafficking hardcore narcotics through multiple countries and continents, many of whom look very poorly at those who violate their laws, customs and local traditions and penalize those people with very heavy prison sentences, usually many decades, in conditions that make Western prisons look like 5-star hotels.

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My insane thinking in doing this, resulted in me missing my connecting flight in New Delhi, India to Phuket, Thailand, because I just had to stop in the bathroom for a quick crack pipe, that turned into two, then three, then a 30 minute search of the urinal, convinced that I had dropped a small pipe’s worth, even though, I still had a few grams of both drug left and a bag full of Rivotril.

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Because of this, I was stranded in New Delhi for around 14 hours until the next flight to Phuket left. So, I did what we addicts do, I drank overly priced Jack Daniels at the bar, sneaking off with increasingly regular trips to the bathroom to smoke drugs. Now remember, I had been awake for over two whole days without so much as a wink of sleep at this point. I eventually fell asleep, somehow, in the first class lounge on a flatbed with pyjamas and slippers; the whole kit and caboodle, as they say. How I gained access to the first class lounge, God only knows, but I was awoken from a deep alcohol, benzo and heroin induced slumber by a frantic airport employee. Somehow, she had figured out that I was about to miss my second flight in the same day and rushed me all the way to the departure lounge, where I was greeted to an angry, but applauding plane load of travellers waiting to be on their way to their final destinations.

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The rest of the flight went reasonably smoothly, apart from me finishing the last remnants of my substances in the toilets and, apparently, some sleep talking/shouting.

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Finally, I made it; relief washed over me as I was walking through Phuket airport towards the exit. I queued and walked over to the stern-faced customs officer checking passports and fingerprints. Just a few steps away from the start of the rest of my new life. I showed him my passport, then scanned it, and next, my fingerprints. A sudden expression came across the officer’s face, from the stern-faced, maybe bored, passport control officer, to now, a look of concern and interest. He demanded I scan my prints again. He immediately rose from his seat, left his booth and handcuffed me. I was instantly terrified. Visions of cockroach-infested, disease-ridden, violent and ram-packed Thai prison cells, whilst detoxing of multiple life-threatening substance addictions flashed through my mind, over and over.

Seconds seemed like hours. I was directed to an interview room, and I must have been there only 10 or 15 minutes before some very mean and serious-looking police officers came in. I was immediately, without any preliminaries, presented with an Interpol Green Notice, with my name, photograph and particulars printed at the top… along with the words, in capitals “WANTED” in connection with fraud. Also, there were photographs of 5 other people, none of whom I had ever seen before or since, and about whom I knew nothing. It was strange, they grilled me for, what could have been no more than 25 minutes about my connection to the other people on the warrant and if I knew anything about them. I did all I could do whilst being detained in Thailand, not knowing what, or if, I had committed a crime. It’s not like being locked up in the Western world, where you have rights. In Thailand, you’re on your own and at the mercy of your captors.

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I told the truth, I knew nothing of these people, and, to my bewilderment, I was escorted back out to the passport control area, uncuffed, and told I was free to go. I’ve never before, or since, thankfully, felt such fear and intense relief all within such a short space of time.

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Now, the first stages of reality and the gravity of the situation I had to overcome to get my life back started to creep in slowly. I walked out of arrivals and was met by a smiling and welcoming Russell. He greeted me with a gentle, warm embrace, or maybe it had been so long since I had experienced that that this seemed extra special to me and made me feel at ease.

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I won’t go on forever about my time in Thailand because a lot happened there, and this isn’t a memoir or an autobiography… yet.

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I flew through my alcohol detox because I was already on a high dose of Rivotril, and, went straight into the heroin detox. Now, I felt, but not as much as I usually do. I think this is because in the back of my mind, I knew I had a long, very tough, high-dose benzodiazepine detox to go through after, and, if I couldn’t handle a heroin detox, there’s not a hope in this world I would be able to detox of a large, many-year, clonazepam addiction.

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I think, and I’m not making excuses, even if I were at my strongest mentally and physically, I would still have immensely struggled with this monumental detox. However, fit and strong, far from it was I. I was physically weak, over 25 kg/ 60lb underweight, and my mental health was the worst it has ever been.

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Russell and his team, as I said, without a shadow of a doubt, saved my life, and went above and beyond their duty of care to help me. The truth is, it was all too much for me to do in a short space of time, and I was far too weak and mentally unwell to get through the long, life-threatening benzo detox.

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I made the only decision I could at that time, the truth is, and I don’t say this lightly, I was either going to buy a small amount of diazepam to ease the benzo withdrawal symptoms, or I was going to take my own life, for sure.

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I discharged myself, against their advice. They made sure I had a flight booked home and took me to the airport.

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Of course, the second they left me at the airport, I got into a taxi to Patong, the party central of Phuket, the worst possible place I could go. I went straight into the pharmacy, and my idea of buying just enough diazepam to feel well enough to travel home went out the window. I was like a kid in a sweet shop. Anything I wanted without a prescription.

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I think, by now, you can all see where this is going. Seizures, hospitals, tied down to the bed in four-point restraints in a Thai psychiatric hospital, really is not where you want to end up. Please trust me on this.

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Even though only three-quarters of my detox was successful, I still desperately wanted and needed recovery. I just had to get some more help from the right people and a slightly different approach to get there.

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A long story short, I did eventually, over the coming months, successfully complete my detox and get clean. It’s been nearly 5 months since I became sober. I’m still struggling a little with sleep, but things in all areas of my life are improving. Life is getting better. I’m finding out who I am, what I stand for, and what my personal and business boundaries are. My mental health is levelling out, and my physical health is improving all across the board. I never thought I would ever say this in my lifetime. I am proud of myself.

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I’ve had, and still have, many challenges in. my recovery. In essence, I had to learn how to live. Everything, from paying bills, cooking, cleaning, and mental and physical health. All areas of my life were devastated by addiction.

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Without doubt, the biggest challenge is with my personal relationships. My family have suffered, even more than I, I believe. Even though I lived with unbearable mental and emotional torture each day, I had an array of substances to attempt to dull the pain. My Mum and Dad did not have that choice, they had to live every day and night, waiting for the dreaded phone call, or my latest emergency.

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Being in recovery, I still have an addictive mind. I want immediate gratification. I want everything now. The truth is, over 20 years of addiction cannot be repaired in a few months. My ammends to my parents and family, among other things, are that I remain sober and do my best to make them proud and to enjoy my life. Try my best to help others who have suffered the same ill fate along the way. I spent most of my life looking at every situation from the angle of, “What can I get for myself out of this?” Nowadays, I try to see what I can give to the world today, be it as small a gesture as opening a door for someone, or advising the family of a loved one who is dying of addiction.

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The two people who have always been there for me and, without doubt, the reason that, not only am I alive and breathing, I am starting to make real progress in all areas of my life, are my Mum and Dad.

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Since coming into recovery, I have been able to be honest with doctors and psychiatrists and finally get diagnosed with ADHD and Autism, which, in itself, answers a lot of questions and gives me access to the resources that I need to learn to live my life whilst dealing with these challenges in a healthy way.

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I have had to, and I know this is a cliche in the recovery world, change almost everything. When drugs were finally removed from my life, they, including the lifestyle, left a giant hole in my life. Almost, a period of mourning… mourning the loss of self, my identity, my comfort blanket. I was bare, felt naked and incredibly raw to the world. I was extremely oversensitive to even the slightest criticism. Things I saw and heard on television would cause huge shifts in how I felt and in my emotional state.

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The first thing I did was to instil a rigid daily routine, too rigid, if I’m honest, but I needed it. I got out of bed at the same time every day, whether I slept or not. I had a healthy breakfast and vitamins, whether I was hungry or not. Diet and nutrition were, and still are, a huge part of my life. The better I eat, the better I feel and perform. Which leads me to the next, extremely important thing I did.

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I had one friend, and my family were spread out, living in cities across the globe. So, I started running… every day. The only time my mind would quieten and I felt I could relax, and the constant fear of relapse would subside, was when I was running.

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I remember my first run like it was yesterday. I downloaded an app called “Couch to 5k”. The first day was to run very slowly, at almost walking pace, for two minutes, then walk for one minute. I couldn’t even run slowly continuously for 30 seconds, without my legs giving way and my lungs screaming for more oxygen. I was in a terrible state, but I never gave up. I ran as if my life depended on it, which, to some degree, it did. I had to repeat the app for weeks because I couldn’t keep up.

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However, things suddenly started to change. It was as if my body suddenly remembered that I used to be an athlete 20 years ago. Now, I’m not saying that I woke up on day 12 and ran a sub-3 marathon. But my first continuous long run, 20 minutes, wasn’t too hard, and I began to improve each week.

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I decided I needed a challenge, so I entered the Race for Life 10k in aid of Cancer Research UK and set myself a target time of 1 hour. Everything was going great. I even started doing small odd jobs to earn a few extra pennies to buy myself some running shoes. Then, one day, I caught a chesty cough. Nothing too serious, I felt fine other than a bit of a cough. I continued training, and a few days later, I went to work to paint a lady’s living room. I felt a little under the weather, but nothing too serious. Three hours later, I was rushed to the hospital, having serious breathing difficulties, and my right leg was a little swollen.

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I was rushed through accident and emergency, put through so many tests, I can’t remember them all. They thought that I had a DVT, deep vein thrombosis, caused by my past drug use, and some of the clot may have travelled to my lung, causing a pulmonary embolism. An often fatal medical condition.

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Luckily, there was no DVT in my leg; the swelling was because I was overtraining and needed to work on accessory muscles like hip flexors. However, I did have a very serious case of pneumonia, and was rushed to the respiratory ward and put on powerful intravenous antibiotics.

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Seven days I remained in hospital, until the doctor said I was well enough to go home and just take oral antibiotics for a week. My only question to the doctor was, “Can I still run?” Amazingly, the doctor said yes, but try to take it easy.

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That was two weeks ago, now 10 days out from my 10k race. The first few runs were very hard. I had no energy, and breathing was difficult. So, I took it easy and gradually increased the intensity over the past two weeks.

My last run, yesterday (05/06/2026), was, in fact, shocking. I didn’t feel like going for a run, but those are the days I sometimes get the most benefit from running. I ran at a steady pace, slower than before my illness, around 6’10 km, for 5 km and still I felt good, so I continued. 6, 7, 8 km past, and I still felt great. I continued all the way to my first 10 km run in my entire life. I finished in about an hour and felt as though I could have run forever.

I’m currently researching the relationship between lactate and VO2 Max, as well as the mind. The one entity of which is, relatively speaking, a relatively new area of endurance sports research. In the past, scientists such as Nobel laureate A.V. Hill and Hartley Lupton published a study on human performance titled “Muscular exercise, lactic acid, and the supply and utilisation of oxygen” (1923). They theorised that the human body is like a machine and can calculate the limits of human performance with astonishing accuracy. However, the trend was only accurate over shorter endurance distances. Over longer distances, there were unexplainable occurrences. The one important phenomenon they didn’t take into account was that of the mind. From the limited research I have conducted on my own, there seems to be some correlation between those with an addictive mind and being able to perform very highly in endurance sports.

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I would say I’m about 75% back to health, in terms of my running performance, which is amazing. I’m so happy I’ll be able to cross the finish line, no matter what the time is. Just finishing is more than enough for me.

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I have had to work very hard with my counsellor to change my pervasive negative pattern of thinking. My mind would fight against anything that I wanted to do that was good for me. Sometimes, it still does, but I’m learning how to deal with that each day.

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I’m also taking an online college course on personal fitness, health, and nutrition. I love it.

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The main thing I am currently working on is making friends. Something I haven’t done since I was very young, and it is still very alien to me.

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However, life is a never-ending work of art. Always something to be added, something to be introduced, something to improve upon, and that is what I am still doing today. Working on my little world. Being careful who I invite in, being grateful for those who invite me into theirs. Trying my best to put something positive into the world each day, rather than what I can take for myself.

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Today, my life resembles how it used to be, very little, if at all. The cathartic experiences I have are changing me daily for the better. I am so fortunate that words cannot even begin to describe having a loving family. To be taught by my father what it means to be a man, a good man. To have one’s priorities in order. Family first. Show up. Do the right thing, even when you don’t want to. Work hard and fight for what you believe in. Put simply, be a decent person. My Mum gave me the gift of love and safety, among many others. To this day, even speaking to my Mum makes me feel that everything will be ok. My parents taught me discipline in a loving, nurturing way. They taught me what it means to be part of a family, a home.

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Life today is simple, except when I choose, normally unknowingly, to make it complicated. I’m learning about and doing things that I am passionate about. I’m finding my place in the world. The only chaos is that which is in my own mind, which I am working on with my counsellor through breathing and meditation, and, also, importantly, being honest with the right doctors and getting the right care that I need to deal with all the trauma I have experienced, and my mental health issues.

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Life is good.

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I cannot think of a single thing I wish I had been told at the beginning of my recovery journey that I wasn’t already told.

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Take things slow. You can’t repair a lifetime of addiction and trauma in a few months. However, when you rise, like a phoenix from the ashes, from such a low, dark and desperate place, even the smallest of wins each day, things that would mean nothing to normal people, mean the absolute world to me, and feel amazing. Healthy feelings, not chemically induced with a huge crash at the end of it. But, childlike excitement, the feeling of conquering the highest of mountains.

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When you come from the darkest depths of despair, iniquitous places, the smallest joys in life seem magical. That’s because they are.

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Ask for help. Please. Not everyone gets the chance to grasp recovery in their lives. If you want it put simply, the plain truth. You have two choices: pain, suffering, loss, trauma… or happiness, freedom and love. Sometimes, silly as it may sound, it is not always easy. Please, think it through, and stop dying one hit or drink at a time, and get busy living.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Desbrow