My name is Michael, and I was diagnosed with HIV in 1999 and actually had an AIDS diagnosis in 2005.
If somebody was recently diagnosed, I would probably tell you, there's hope. There's hope. There's life. You don't necessarily have to make incredible changes all at once. Life's a journey, and this is just part of it. This isn't the end. You know, when we're six feet under or cremated in a bottle of ashes, you know, maybe that's the end, I don't know. But I know as long as we're here, you're here, there are things to be done, there's lives to be touched. And you're here for a reason.
I do feel that drug use led me to contract this disease. It gave me a lack of judgment. You know, a lot of people talk about contracting HIV and AIDS through IV drug use, dirty needles. You don't hear a lot of talk about contracting HIV from snorting cocaine or from smoking methamphetamine. No, you can't get the virus from say, a pipe. You can't get it from snorting through a straw, there's other things you can. But once you do that, it changes you. It changes you, the lifestyle with drugs and alcohol. It's just a party. And when people look for an escape, when they're depressed, when they're down and out, a lot of times they indulge in that, and those decisions they make are probably not the best for their health, probably not the best for their family. I didn't use protection. Anything that came along looked good to me. Well, I know if I had been sober, I probably wouldn't have made those same decisions, but the fact is that I did. And that led me to where I am now. And now, I live my life differently.
I make sure I make decisions about me that are going to benefit not only me but also other people as well. I live a healthy life. I eat better. I work out now. I go to the doctor regularly, which is probably not something I would have done if I hadn't had this disease! My drug addiction has uh...I'm in recovery now, which is an awesome thing. That in itself was life changing. I try to tell my story to other people because hopefully I can get through to someone, someone out there. If they're going through the same things that I have gone through, that they know that there's a possibility, a way to get out.