Volume 2: Hockey Was My First Drug – Living With Childhood Trauma and Recovery: 5 Minutes for Fighting… Myself.

⚠️ Content Warning / Age 14+

This blog contains descriptions of childhood sexual abuse, trauma, addiction, and

mental health struggles. Some readers may find this content triggering. Reader discretion is advised. If you are under 14, please read with a trusted adult.

Hockey Was My First Drug – Living With Childhood Trauma and Recovery

I was five years old the first time it happened. It wasn’t just once. It was more than once. And it really fucked me up.

People ask me about childhood trauma, and I tell them the truth: hockey was my first drug. The moment I picked up a stick, something inside me calmed. The chaos in my head, the fear of him coming back, the constant manipulation that made me believe things that weren’t true, it all got quieter when I stepped onto the ice.

Hockey became my medicine. My escape. I spent as much time as possible skating, mostly rollerblading, shooting, practicing. And I was always stickhandling, inside, outside, everywhere. I have vivid memories of being in my basement, stickhandling for hours while watching Hockey Night in Canada. It was my go-to because I was terrified. Terrified he would hurt me again. Terrified he would hurt my family. Terrified of a world that didn’t feel safe. Beneath the gear, I was just a scared little boy.

The manipulation left scars that went deeper than the physical abuse. For years I lived with questions I was too afraid to ask. I wondered if what had been done to me meant I was gay. I had never been attracted to men, but in my head, that didn’t matter. I had been sexual with a man, even though it wasn’t my choice. I was terrified people would find out. Terrified they would label me, laugh at me, bully me. This was my life through school, watching others get bullied and wondering what they would do to me if people knew the truth. I told myself: I will never tell anyone.

That’s the thing about trauma. It doesn’t just steal your safety, it steals your identity. It fills you with shame for something you didn’t choose. And then it locks you inside yourself with flashbacks, endless, unstoppable, crippling flashbacks. I don’t really tell people about those. To be honest, this isn’t something I’ve told anyone at all, but they’re fucking awful and I never really know when they’re coming. They can hit out of nowhere. And underneath it all, I was angry. Very angry.

When I went to Swift Current to chase the hockey dream, I thought I could leave it all behind. But one day I sat in the coach’s office and saw a picture on the wall. Graham James sitting beside Sheldon Kennedy in a team photo. My chest tightened. My hands shook. It didn’t trigger everything, but it was really hard.

Hockey had always been my medicine, but under that pressure, moving away from home, living inside hockey culture, facing the expectations, it started to fail. The pain leaked back through the cracks.

When hockey stopped numbing the pain, I turned to alcohol. Then drugs. And eventually, I found opiates. For the first time in my life, I felt like I had found the answer. It was the first time I could breathe. The first time I could stand being inside my own skin. Opiates took a hold of me and never let go. I had no real knowledge of what withdrawal even was. I never thought it could happen to me. Fuck was I wrong. But that’s a lesson for another day.

For the longest time I didn’t tell a soul. Carrying it alone almost crushed me. I was 32 the first time I really told anyone. Twenty-seven years of hiding that secret just about killed me. Honestly, I shouldn’t even be alive. But then I told one person. And then another. And finally, I picked up the phone and asked for help. That moment changed my life.

I went through sexual abuse counselling. I sat in rooms, mostly virtual because it was the beginning of the pandemic, and I told the truth I had buried for decades. It wasn’t easy, it still isn’t, but it cracked open a door I thought was sealed shut forever. I had already sat through well over a thousand hours of meetings in AA, NA, rehabs, and detoxes, but never once had I disclosed being sexually abused. It was always sitting on the shelf, and because of that, it kept me sick.

As much as we wish we could, we are never going to stop every traumatic event from happening. But what we can do is prepare ourselves, educate ourselves, and learn how to talk about these things. We can learn how to heal ourselves and, just as importantly, how to help heal each other.

That includes setting examples, especially as parents. I became a dad very young and I was so ill at the time. My kids suffered because of it. That’s one of the hardest realities I live with. We can’t change the past, but we can work on ourselves and try to show up better for the people who need us.

The truth is I still have a long way to go. In the first five years of recovery, so many miracles happened. Life was exciting, new, full of hope. It felt like I was riding a high of rebuilding. But once the dust settled, I realized there were still parts of me I hadn’t dealt with. Things that haunt me daily.

And I know I’m not the only one. Maybe you’re reading this and thinking, “That’s me. That’s where I’m at.” If so, please hear me, you’re not alone. Healing doesn’t happen all at once. It’s not a straight line. It’s messy, it’s painful, but it’s possible.

For anyone who hasn’t lived this, here’s what trauma does. It sticks with you. It shows up in ways you don’t always expect. Nightmares, panic attacks, stomach pain, racing heartbeat, anxiety that feels like it’s never going to end. And the worst part is the shame. Survivors blame themselves, question who they are, withdraw, and hide.

Childhood trauma is not something you just get over. It follows you into every locker room, classroom, relationship, and job.

I’m not five anymore. I’ve fought battles on and off the ice. I’ve lived through addiction, homelessness, prison, and pain. But this, the trauma, is the fight I wake up with every day.

Over the years I’ve had countless people come up to me after I share my story and say, “I didn’t go through anything as bad as you, but…” I always stop them right there. Trauma is not measurable or comparable. It’s not a contest, and there’s no scale that makes one person’s pain more or less valid than another’s. What matters is how it impacts you and how it lives in your body and mind. Your story is just as important as mine, and your healing is just as worthy.

When I was in prison, I heard some terrible stories from other men. The abuse and neglect they endured is hard to imagine. And yet, it explained so much. If people could just have a little more compassion and understanding of why people are the way they are, maybe they’d see that some people honestly never had a chance.

It doesn’t serve us to live in the past or wonder what could have been, but I’d be lying if I told you I’ve never thought about it. What if I had the courage to tell somebody sooner. What if I asked for help earlier. What if I didn’t carry that secret. What would my life have looked like. Those thoughts still creep in.

But here’s the truth. I would not trade my life for anybody’s life. I played on a line with Jamie Benn. The guy’s made like a hundred million dollars playing hockey. He’s won an Olympic gold medal, a world junior gold medal, and he’s living a life most kids dream about. But I wouldn’t even trade my life for his.

I don’t even know how I’m going to pay my rent every month, but I know this. I can make it through anything. I know I have a purpose. My story doesn’t look the way I thought it would when I was a kid, but it’s mine. Every scar, every mistake, every miracle, every bit of pain, it’s all part of why I’m still here. And why I can look someone else in the eye and say, “If I can make it, so can you.”

I don’t have much, but I’m alive. I have a beautiful family and I get to live a life that at one time I never thought was possible. It’s not perfect and it’s still really hard, just a different kind of hard, but today I can wake up grateful. And that’s everything.

If you’re struggling with childhood trauma, I want you to know this. You are not broken, and what happened to you is not your fault. Please don’t carry it alone. Tell one person. Ask for help. Reach out to a friend, a counsellor, a teammate, anyone. The first conversation can change everything.

The Bigger Picture

In Canada, about 1 in 3 women and 1 in 8 men report experiencing sexual abuse before age 18. In the U.S., about 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 13 boys will experience sexual abuse during childhood.Experts agree these numbers are underreported because of stigma and silence.

These numbers are not here to scare you, but to remind you: if you’ve been through something like this, you are far from alone.

Resources

CanadaKids Help Phone (24/7, free, confidential): 1-800-668-6868 or text CONNECT to 686868

Canadian Centre for Child Protection: protectchildren.ca

Talk Suicide Canada: 1-833-456-4566

Suicide Crisis Helpline: 988

USARAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network): 1-800-656-4673, rainn.org

National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-HOPESAMHSA Helpline (substance use and mental health): 1-800-662-HELP

Closing Note

Thank you to everyone who took the time to read this. I know this one was heavy and not easy to sit with, so it means a lot that you stuck it out with me. Sharing these parts of my life is never easy, but I believe it is necessary. If even one person feels less alone because of this, then it was worth writing.

Recovery is not all pain. It is also laughter, connection, second chances, and those little moments that make life worth living. I promise to share some lighter posts soon, because healing is not just about surviving the dark, it is also about celebrating the light.

For my next blog I want to take things in a different direction. I am calling it The People Who Carried Me Part 1. It will be a tribute to the teammates, coaches, friends, and even strangers who stepped up in my life when I needed it most. Some of them probably do not even realize how much they helped me, but without them, I might not be here today. Sometimes it is the smallest kindness or the quietest support that keeps someone going.