Day by day

In his darkest hour, Travis Reuben Begay took time to pray for some much needed help from the Almighty.

Begay had just about finished clearing out the Albuquerque apartment where he lived with his wife and two daughters. She had taken the kids and left him, sick of his drinking, his sleazy friends, his lack of ambition.

"I went back to clean up and pack up what was left," he said. "It was hard to go back because I was in the apartment alone. I was lonely. I was drinking and had gone through a whole fifth when I started to load up my truck."

As he emptied one bottle, another was in the apartment that he planned to drink later.

"I was just thinking about what had happened," he said. "I wasn't really religious or spiritual at the time but I said a prayer while I was there. I asked for help."

He considers what happened next as the moment when he was saved.

He was arrested for DUI as he sat in his vehicle outside his apartment, keys in the ignition, so drunk he couldn't think straight.

"I didn't know that even if you have your keys in the ignition and being under the influence, that was considered a DUI," Begay said. "I didn't know that, but when I look back on it, I was saved.

"When they arrested me the officers told me that (my) blood alcohol content was at 0.389," he said, over four times the legal limit. At 0.4, he would have reached the lethal zone.

"If I went back into the apartment and drank that last bottle I don't know what would've happened," Begay said.

That was last November 2009. He was arrested and ended up sentenced to four months in jail and suspension of his driver's license. He's been living in St. Michaels, Ariz., since his release in March.

Fifteen years earlier, Begay, now 33, graduated from Window Rock High School where he was an all-around athlete and earned the nickname "Rattlesnake" on the football team.

"People still know me as that," he chuckled, saying he can't recall how he came to get such a moniker.

After high school he moved to Phoenix and took up welding as a trade.

Under stress

Begay met his now ex-wife in Crownpoint after he moved back to the reservation. They married in 2003 and lived in Gallup where they both had jobs. They had a baby girl, and then another.

Then his wife, whose name he withheld, decided she wanted to get a bachelor's degree and talked him into moving to Albuquerque where she planned to attend the University of New Mexico.

"She was always thinking of the future," Begay said. "Everything was good. We had an apartment and everything was going pretty good."

But with only one paycheck coming in - his - things got tough on the young family.

"The bills started adding up and the rent was coming (due) each month," he said. "It started to stress me out."

His wife had her hands full being a wife, mother and full-time student, and communication between the two began to dwindle. Begay spent his spare time drinking and hanging out with friends, the wrong kind of friends.

With much of the stress unavoidable, given their situation, he felt that drinking was therapeutic, a harmless way to relax. He ignored the weight gain, the way his athlete's body had bloated up.

"I thought everything was good," he said. "I was working and she was in school. She was always looking towards the future. Me, I just got comfortable with the way things were living paycheck to paycheck."

But the bills started adding up. He was looking at about $2,500 a month just to make ends meet, counting rent, utilities, furniture payments, vehicles and insurance, on top of gas, groceries, and necessities for their daughters.

"When we were living in Gallup everything was fine," he said. "She was working and I was working. Then we moved to Albuquerque because she wanted more with her education."

Their relationship disintegrated, and eventually his wife decided to call it quits. She left, and not long afterward Begay found himself sitting in his truck with two policemen asking to see his driver's license.

"I think because I was in jail, she thought that was it," Begay reflected. "She didn't think I was going to come back."

Reclaiming life

But jail changed him in the way that correctional authorities always hope that it will. He went through rehab and decided to start taking better care of himself.

He worked out, putting together different routines to eat up the lonely hours - sit-ups, push-ups, stretches, running.

"Other inmates were telling me, 'Man you lost some weight,'" Begay recalled.

He began to experiment with nutrition, too, swapping the meat in his meals to other inmates in exchange for the vegetables and fruit on their trays. There were always plenty of carnivores eager for the extra meat.

One of Begay's jailers was training for Mixed Martial Arts competition and noticed his efforts to rebuild himself physically. The officer offered guidance that added to Begay's routine, and the results came gratifyingly fast.

Between the constant training and reading his Bible, Begay's remaining time in jail flew by. After he was released, he hoped he could show his wife that he had changed and they would reconcile. It was not to be, however.

She had moved on, and just wanted a divorce, he said.

Begay sought guidance in the local churches in Fort Defiance, Window Rock and St. Michaels. Meanwhile, he continued his commitment to live healthy.

As part of that, he signed up to use the Special Diabetes Program's Wellness Center in Window Rock.

He weighed 289 pounds when he started and registered about 28 percent body fat, well above the 8-19 percent considered healthy for a man his age.

As of July he'd dropped 100 pounds, his pants size going from 42 to 32. He didn't have a current body fat percentage as of press time Wednesday, but he doesn't need a number to know he's feeling a lot better these days.

Begay has nothing but praise for the diabetes program and how it can help your life. It offers variety, fellowship, and a reason to get the lead out and get moving.

The emotional support meant a lot to him personally, he said.

"I missed my family," he said. "It was tough. That's why I started going to the gym and took all the classes they had. I work out three times a day and I started to eat healthier."

Sunday morning Begay competed in his first half marathon and surprised himself by coming in second in his age division and 15th overall. It felt good when race officials asked if he would stick around for the awards.

Begay knows he still has a long way to go to cope with his divorce, but in the meantime he's found a much better way to handle stress in his life. He plans to keep working on himself in order to be a better father, and hopes one day that he and his ex-wife can be friends.

In the meantime, he continues to heal and uses his time in the gym for that purpose.

Back to top ^