Big Dreams

Almost since he was old enough to pick up a bat, Joby Riggs was being groomed for athletic greatness. By the age of 16 Joby was well on his way to fulfilling his lifelong dream of playing in the Major Leagues. In fact, his pitching instructor told him that the only question left was whether he wanted to live in New York or Boston.Unfortunately, at 16 years old Joby began experimenting with drugs. By the time Joby was a senior in high school he had dropped out of all his extracurricular sports and the recruiters were nowhere to be seen.What followed was a string of compromised goals and repeated failure brought about by the abuse of opiate painkillers. Joby decided that he would go to school to become a police officer, but eventually dropped out. Then he decided to become an architect, but eventually gave up on that as well.After a year of living with his parents and doing nothing with his time but watching Netflix and popping pills, Joby reached his lowest point. He overdosed the night before an important job interview that his father had helped him line up. Joby vaguely remembers watching his mother pack his clothes for him before putting him on the phone with a stranger who worked for a treatment center. No longer able to contain his sorrows, Joby began to pour out his tears and pain. That treatment center was The Last Resort and the stranger on the other end of the phone was our very own Austin Berry.Today Joby is 25 years old and has nearly 2 years sober. He now leads a life that is filled with blessings in which he is able to be an active member of his family and work with other guys who are struggling with the same issues that he had. He now has new dreams which includes creating a program that will benefit addicts in his hometown and getting involved with coaching baseball.