Colt Smith calls it a pause button.
It’s the feeling of relief he experienced when a doctor prescribed opioid pain relievers after knee surgery when he was in the 10th grade.
“I have this really weird ability to feel very alone even if I’m surrounded by friends. It just takes so much work, time and effort to connect with someone,” he said. “I have these weird racing thoughts, fears, anxiety. I don’t know what it’s supposed to tell me, what I’m supposed to learn.”
Smith works with teens at iThrive, a Longmont-based early intervention program for substance abuse that requires participation by both teens and parents. Teens who receive tickets for smoking pot at school are often directed toward iThrive classes. In the teen sessions, Smith shares facts about various drugs, tells his own harrowing story and listens to theirs.
Before his knee surgery, Smith was using alcohol and cannabis, building up tolerance. After his surgery, he began lying to various doctors to get more pills. Another surgery in 11th grade brought more drugs and also a crushing blow: Smith was attending a military boarding school in Texas in hopes of becoming a career Marine, as his grandfather had been. After the second surgery, the Marine Corps said he was out.
The next year, another surgery, more prescriptions. With a 3.5 grade point average, Smith thought his drug use was under control. But by this time, he was not only doctor shopping, but crossing the nearby border into Mexico to buy opioids there.
Smith went to college at age 17, where he took up bass guitar. He was good. Good enough to get a gig touring with a rock band.
“Everywhere we went, there was someone there begging me to do their drugs,” he said.
Mostly, he took pills, but also smoked opium and even injected on occasion.
“We lost our drummer to an overdose. I was in the hotel room with him when it happened,” he said. “We hired another. Three or four months later, housekeeping at the hotel found him overdosed behind a locked door.”
The band broke up, and Smith moved to Seattle, where his money ran out.
“My using progressed. I find myself in a world of hurt,” he said.
When he was almost 23, he overdosed.
“A friend of mine found me in my bed, but couldn’t find a heart rate or breathing,” he said. “They came out and revived me with Naloxone.”
The hospital induced a coma for four days to allow him to go through withdrawal for what they called a “polysubstance overdose.”
Smith went through drug treatment and was discharged.
“Really quickly, the same despair and pain finds me,” he said.
As they always had, drugs beckoned.
He went to a second treatment center. After another relapse, he entered treatment for a third time.
“Society has a stigma on people who choose to use. Inside the recovery community, the stigma is on people who relapse,” he said. “I felt tons of guilt and shame. I’m not just a screw-up because I used, I’m also a screw-up because I can’t stop.”
Smith found a sober living community. After six months, he was offered a job there and stayed for 18 more. He went back to college on a partial scholarship to study drug addiction and recovery. He graduated, got married and moved to Colorado.
Now he works with teens to plant a seed early, before they destroy relationships and careers with drug use.
“If I can give these teenagers a chance to have a conversation with someone who has experience and knowledge, in a way they’re not able to (with others) … if they can safely explore ideas and express concerns … without fear of judgment, it shows me I’m in the right place at the right time.”
