OUR HISTORY

At 19 I had just earned my Airborne wings and was home on leave. That night my father, a decorated Vietnam veteran with two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star, died by suicide in our living room. He was my best friend and my hero. Finding him shattered me and sent me into four years of drinking, losing jobs, and pushing away everyone who cared about me.

My story is not unique. Many young service members enter the military already carrying heavy burdens. If you are willing to walk away from everything you know at 18 or 19, there is usually a reason. We are rarely taught how to face those wounds. Instead, we are taught to endure, to numb, and to stay quiet. Alcohol becomes a tool for survival. It helps for a while, then it turns against us.

I drowned everything in alcohol. Not just my father’s death but memories from the military, memories from before, even feelings I could not name. Drinking worked until it stopped. I lost jobs. I lost people. I cut myself off from those who loved me. I was no longer living, only white-knuckling through life and heading toward a bullet.

I never would have asked for help on my own. Only when other veterans intervened, carried me to treatment, and refused to let me fall did my life begin to change. They saved me and showed me what real support means.

That experience became the foundation of the American Veterans Relief Fund. AVRF exists to ensure that when a veteran reaches rock bottom, the turning point is within reach. We offer peer-led pathways into treatment, bridge supports that keep life steady during recovery, and programs that restore belonging and purpose.

AVRF was born from grief and transformed into a promise. Rock bottom is the turning point, not the end. For every veteran who reaches that moment, there will be a hand to hold, a plan to follow, and a community that will not let them face it alone.