Christian Review Magazine Issue 4 - April 2015 | Page 32

MORE THAN MUSIC
AN ARTICLE ON CHRIS AUGUST BY CAROLINE LUSK

t’s not uncommon to hear
stories of a life-changing
moment. The day the
cancer goes away… or the day the
bottle or the pills were thrown
out.

I

Books are written about those
days. Movies are made about
those moments. But what about
the next day? Or the week after
the last drink, when the
encouraging friends have gone
back home and all that’s left is a
new, uncomfortable normal?
Chris August knows a thing or two
about those days. Three years
ago, he was in a skateboarding
accident that could have taken his
life, not to mention his ability to
function. His brain was bleeding
and the prognosis was shaky at
best.
Eventually, the bleeding stopped
and things began to heal. The
prognosis was good. Chris was

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eventually released, he went
home and began living his life
again. But the months ahead
would prove to be anything but
easy or comfortable.
“It was by far the hardest year of
my life,” says Chris.
Following his accident, his doctors
prescribed him medication to
handle the pain. Then they
prescribed medication to handle
the other medication.
“My pill box was the size of a
laptop,” Chris recalls. “It was
crazy. I’d take one thing and then
need another to deflect those
side-effects, and then another and
another.”
Not wanting to live a life of
dependency, he tried weaning
himself off the drugs, but soon his
weary mind slipped into
depression. While never an easy
diagnosis to receive or manage,