A Drug and Gambling Addict. By Austin McCullers

Hello, everyone. My name is Austin McCullers, and I don’t really know why I’m writing this—maybe just to finally let it all out. My life has been a series of missteps, regrets, and moments where I should have turned back but didn’t. I’m the younger brother of Lance McCullers Jr., the professional baseball player for the Houston Astros. While he’s spent his life achieving greatness, I’ve spent mine spiraling deeper into darkness, lost in the shadows of my own self-destruction.

This is my official coming out, though at this point, I don’t even know if it matters. I’m gay, and I’ve hidden it for almost 30 years. Not because I wanted to, but because I felt like I had to. I was terrified of judgment, of rejection, of feeling even more alone than I already did. So instead of love, I chased numbness. I drowned myself in gambling, in drugs, in anything that could make me forget who I was—if only for a moment. I’ve lost more money than I can even comprehend, burned through every ounce of trust people once had in me, and ruined relationships I can never get back.

To cope, I ate. Fast food became my comfort, my distraction, my punishment. I ate until I hated the way I looked, and then I ate some more. I gained so much weight, and with it came even more shame, more self-loathing. I fell into a depression so deep it felt like I would never climb out. I lost hope. I lost myself. There were nights I sat alone, thinking about how much easier it would be if I just stopped existing. I tried, more times than I can count. But every time, something kept me here. Maybe it was fear. Maybe it was just the thought that there was still one last bet I hadn’t placed yet.

But gambling never saved me. I wasn’t even good at it. When I finally had to face the reality that I couldn’t just gamble my way out of my misery, I tried working real jobs. But I was lazy, unreliable, and constantly looking for an escape. Meth helped—for a while. It gave me energy when I had none, kept me going when I wanted to shut down. But it also made me reckless.

I thought a fresh start would fix things, so I moved to Phoenix. I got into the vending machine business, and for the first time in years, I felt like maybe, just maybe, I could build something. But I ruined that too. I got greedy. I lied to people—good people—convincing them to send me money for vending locations that didn’t exist or that I secretly sold off. I strung them along, hoping I’d eventually make enough to pay them back. But I never did. I never could. When it all started to fall apart, I did the only thing I know how to do—I ran. I left Phoenix, left the mess I created, and went back home to Tampa.

I tried again. I got a job at Cyberfox, a cybersecurity firm, thinking maybe I could finally turn things around. But my past found me. Someone I scammed called my employers, told them who I really was. And just like that, I lost my chance. That job could have given me a real future, but instead, I ended up where I probably belong—frying fish at Long John Silver's, barely scraping by.

I think about the people I hurt all the time. I owe them so much money—more than I’ll ever be able to pay back. Part of me knows I should try to make things right, but the truth is, I don’t even know if I can. I don’t know if I’m capable of being better, of being someone worth forgiving.

So here I am. Stuck. Broken. Unsure if I’ll ever be able to fix what I’ve done or if I even deserve the chance. I don’t know who I am anymore. I don’t know if I ever really did.

Am I a bad person? Or just a lost one? Maybe it doesn’t even matter anymore.