Michael Murtaugh, 52, stands staring in the cemetery. He hasn’t been to his hometown of Allentown, Pennsylvania for more than two days in the last 35 years, but his grandfather’s funeral brought him back to his roots from Cave Creek, Arizona.

This is not where his grandfather is buried. This was one of his old spots—one of the many spots Murtaugh got high as a kid.

After years of avoiding his home, he’s made it his mission to go back to each one of the places where he got in trouble in his youth. In every location, he says, I win.

Not every drug addict gets the chance to confront their past. Murtaugh, now seven years sober, knew the return would be both painful, but cathartic. He wanted to let go of his memories—of a childhood where his father was away serving in Vietnam, where food was scarce and dinner was sometimes dog food. And of the times when the he and his siblings were watched by a babysitter who would bring them into a bedroom all together in their own home and engage them in sexual acts.

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At 11 years old, Murtaugh started smoking weed in the local cemetery. He was never bothered there. On the weekends he drank.

In ninth grade, he scored his first gram of cocaine. Cocaine led to meth. Meth led to a downward spiral that took him to California. And in his never-ending quest for the greatest high to dull the pain, he even tried heroin, but quickly learned it wasn't for him after shooting it twice.

At 22, he got busted breaking into a vehicle and found to be in possession of multiple narcotics. But jail and treatment only made him cover up the problem. For the next 20 years, he lived as a functioning alcoholic and successfully held jobs while drinking every night. He married and divorced, twice.

“I’d go to church, say my prayers, read my Bible,” he said. “But I was living for the party. I would still do cocaine and I would disappear and get hookers and be gone twice a year until I ended up in rehab. Then I’d go to work and everything was okay again.”

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Through it all, he was racing. Endurance sports had always appealed to him, especially since giving up team sports after high school. When he was 40, he started running and cycling and swimming as a way to start exercising again. Even drinking, he was still able to finish an Ironman and other distance races. He once downed an entire bottled of booze the night before a long-distance swim event.

“I was completely hungover, and I was scared,” Murtaugh said. “I prayed with every stroke and made it.”

But finally, mercifully, his employer, The Arizona Bitmore, found out about an 11-day drinking escapade. They didn’t fire him. They were concerned, so they helped him up and his family took him to the hospital before rehab.

“They took me to the hospital first because my blood alcohol level was five-and-a-half times the legal limit,” Murtaugh said. “I went to Calvary Healing Center for 38 days and got severe counseling. Once I told them my story, they told me why I did these things. Abandonment, sexual assault, things I didn’t understand when I was younger, but now I could start working on my myself from the inside out.”

He turned to endurance sports again, but this time sober. Running casually was not going to cut it. He signed up for races every weekend. When that wasn’t enough, he turned to virtual races.

“Running is the greatest feeling in the world,” he said. “That runner’s high you get after you break the first wall, it’s like shedding away your skin and gaining strength.”

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Since getting clean, he's dropped 48 pounds. He is about to celebrate his fifth wedding anniversary in November with his third wife, Stacy. During their vacation together, the two plan to run the Monterey Bay Half Marathon.

He has a son, Connor who is 22. He still speaks every Tuesday night at Calvary, and is director of purchasing at the Four Seasons Resort Scottsdale at True North.

He thinks about this new life he has as he stands in the cemetery in Pennsylvania, and he remembers smoking weed as a kid, robbing houses just to get by. He gets back in the car to drive to other spots that used to haunt him.

“When you look at my gravestone, it’s going to be a story that brought hope to the world,” Murtaugh said. “It will say, ‘this is who I was, this is what I did, and this is the result. I’m a good husband. I’m a good father to my son. A good employee. Good to my dogs.”

Andrew Dawson Gear & News Editor Drew covers a variety of subjects for Runner’s World and Bicycling, and he specializes in writing and editing human interest pieces while also covering health, wellness, gear, and fitness for the brand.

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