WHILE IN A HOSPITAL? –
Mar. 20, 2026 – “I went through seven years of my life, wasted on opioids — still trying to figure out what was wrong with me, but I didn’t know,” he said. “It was just needing to numb… It was the only thing that made me feel normal.” No one knew about his addiction — not even his wife. He knew he needed help … but was afraid to get off the drugs because of the withdrawal symptoms. Still, he sat his wife down and told her the truth, and from there he was able to go to counseling and doctors to get the support he needed.
At the root of his substance abuse issues was his need to cope with his tumultuous upbringing, Young said, and in hindsight, there was a fair amount of trauma embedded in his early years.
Young grew up with divorced parents, and the constant custody shift between his mother and father was unsettling as a kid, he said. He also came from a “humble upbringing,” he said, with his family relying on welfare and food stamps to provide for him and his three older siblings.
