Graham Correia sensed he was in the right place when he realized how much he savored a cup of coffee with a stranger in a country store somewhere in Pennsylvania.
“I was in my glory in those 30 minutes,” said Correia, who says he is learning to place value on every experience that comes along.
A year ago, he wouldn’t have been able to sit still long enough for a sip of that coffee. “I felt like there were bugs crawling in my skin all the time,” he said, freshly recalling a hopeless preoccupation with his physical appearance and his profession.
Now he is somewhere between New York City and Massachusetts, a disheveled mess who feels like he can breathe freely and see clearly, even through the long hair and salt-and-pepper beard that hides his face. “It’s the most ridiculous thing,” he laughs.
A recovering addict, Correia has come a long way and knows he has only just begun.
“I was almost dead the day before I flew to Colorado,” he said, recounting his night on the streets of Fall River before he was picked up by an ambulance and brought to St. Anne’s Hospital. His parents picked him up.
A key ingredient in substance-addiction therapy is replacing self-absorption with activities taken up on behalf of others. To engage in this form of therapy, Correia needed to separate himself from all the familiar places where his problems began, and Colorado resident Keeler North, fellow athlete and old friend, opened his doors.
With an ex-wife and school-aged children at home, Correia fully understands why his decision came under harsh criticism. But the irony is he left Massachusetts in order to be present for his family. “If people don’t understand that, that’s okay because the only person who needs to get that is me,” he said.
He obviously hopes his kids will come to see it that way as well because, when Correia was present geographically, he might as well have been the 1,970 miles away that separate Denver from Boston.
In pursuit of therapy for his alcohol and drug addiction, Correia sought guidance from the Herren Project, the brainchild of former Fall River basketball legend Chris Herren whose professional career was affected by his own challenges. The non-profit charity bearing Herren’s name puts him and his story before at-risk children, and his career as a motivational speaker has been a source of inspiration to many but more importantly has helped those listeners understand that they have hope.
“I want people to know there’s a way out of things. … Life was never meant to put somebody in a box and keep them there,” said Correia. “You can follow your heart and, if you trust your difficulties, you’re going to get to a place where it’s going to be good for you.”
The run back from Denver quickly turned ugly for Correia, who embarked on January 1. On the third day, North was forced to abandon his plan to drive along to accompany Correia and return home. The new situation left Correia running with a 10-pound backpack and hotel hopping at the end of his days. Some days he ran 31 miles, others logged in at 42 and 26.
Two weeks into his trip, Correia was dressing a gruesome foot blister that he soaked in hot water while biting down on a towel and squeezing the foot as hard as he could. To begin that next day’s run, he wrapped paper around his socks and laced up as tightly as he possibly could.
For three weeks, it was an everyday, five-minute routine. Eventually, the blister healed well enough inside for him to remove the dead skin on the outside. “It was the most pain I’ve ever gone through in my life,” he said.
On February 6, he ran 40 miles and had put in 31 running days, closing in on the 1,000-mile mark.
“I knew somewhere along the line, my legs were going to catch up to this thing. … I thought it would take me about two and a half weeks. It took me until January 27,” said Correia, who had done ultra-marathons, 100-mile races and 50 milers.
He was treated to “an awesome surprise” on the morning he passed through Flora, Illinois, a small city 100 miles east of St. Louis. It was a call from his sister who lives in Houston. “How’s it going?” was the conversation until … “all of a sudden – and I haven’t seen one runner on this road – I look up ahead and I see this person running towards me.”
It was Megan Correia Bittner, his sister.
The ice-cold tears shed running in a minus-10 wind chill through Kansas had awakened something in Correia. “What I’ve learned out here is, if you can sit with the discomfort and even embrace it, at the end of the day it opens you up to a whole world,” he said, overwhelmed with the kindness he encountered along the road. “I will not take a dollar, I won’t take one dime. But I will take a room.”
A more-serious threat to the successful completion of his journey occurred during the 19th mile of his February 18 run approximately 15 miles south of Columbus, Ohio, when he felt like a screw was penetrating and sending shockwaves into the right side of his right knee. Correia had fully understood every ailment he had encountered to this point, be it tendinitis or shin splints, but he also knew that a sprained ligament would cancel his project.
The mystery was daunting, but a hospital in Circleville, Pennsylvania, conducted a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) test right away. The test revealed extreme inflammation where the iliotibial (IT) band rubs against the knee but no ligament damage and therefore no surgery required. The attending physician prescribed a steroid shot with anti-inflammatories.
Broken in body, Correia found himself being knocked down to size by a power greater than himself. Through Kansas and Missouri, he recalled being limited to a jog, then a walk, looking up and talking to God. “I need to run, I’m a runner.” “No, you need to make it,” were the words he heard.
“This is all God at this point and the people who have gotten around me. I’m just trying to move forward every day. I love every piece of life at this point,” he said.
The word “grateful” gets tossed around these days more as an ideal than a reality, but Correia trembles in gratitude. He says he’s beginning to understand how fortunate he is, not only for the bullets he has dodged but for the simple realization of the precious souls who have cared about him while he was, spiritually, a million miles away.
On his way through Pennsylvania, he said it was too far out of his pathway to run on the bridges over the three rivers converging on Pittsburgh, but he detoured 2.5 miles off the route in Somerset County to visit the Flight 93 site where he experienced the long, granite walkway and spent 90 minutes contemplating the open field ahead.
A beneficiary of many gifts including hotel rooms along the way, Correia feels like a richer man than the one who used to earn an annual $180,000 commuting to Boston. “I have the clothes on my back (that I) let dry on the (hotel) heater vent, a backpack, a muffin and a banana every day,” he said. “Life isn’t about money, it’s hard, it’s about struggle. I always thought I understood that, but now I know it’s the case.”
Correia wasn’t the only person out for a run in Cincinnati on Valentine’s Day, but he was probably the only one who started his run in the Rocky Mountains with plans to finish it on the east coast.
He rested on Monday in New York City, and North was scheduled to rejoin him as a running partner for the home stretch. While in New York, Correia planned to do some media for the Herren Project.
“Our Herren Project community is honored and grateful our teammate Graham has chosen to help support, inspire and empower others throughout his journey. The funding and awareness he’s raising is helping to grow so much good. It’s together that we recover, and helping others is one of the most powerful ways we do that,” said Pam Rickard, director of Active Engagement at the Herren Project.
Having been in Alcoholics Anonymous, Correia says he wasn’t fully ready to engage in recovery.
“I’m still an addict and an alcoholic, I’m always going to be,” he said. “I’ve done a lot of ‘A-A’ prior to this where I wasn’t ready to be truthful; I’ve done a lot of therapy prior to this where I wasn’t ready to be truthful.”
When the high of this effort wears off, Correia knows he will be challenged every day. He freely admits he’s not qualified to dispense advice but says his divorce has altered how he looks at his own life and recovery.
What he’s doing differently is learning to embrace his struggle, and inside of that, he cannot wait to be back home “just give my kids a hug. I’m not dead and that’s the important thing because I was going to be,” he said. “Five months of my life focusing on this recovery process is 100 percent worth the next 45 years with my children.”
Correia is due to arrive in North Rochester on Saturday, March 12.
By Mick Colageo