DENVER — At the lowest point of his life, Jesse Brown set his eyes toward the top of one of downtown Denver’s tallest buildings.
He was struggling with a 13-year meth addiction, had no place to live and “no foreseeable hope.”
“It weighed heavily on my heart,” Brown said. “I was very lonely. I was very insecure and I really just had that sense of hopelessness that nothing would ever change because why would it change? It’s been the same for so long.”
Panicked and desperate, thoughts of suicide started to cloud Brown’s mind and he made a decision to climb to the top of that building and jump.
“You spend all this time really here at your worst, why not just make it easier on yourself and not have to worry about it,” Brown said.
Even though he had a plan, the thought of ending his life was the last thing Brown said he wanted to do. As he inched closer to the building where he thought he’d spend his last moments, he looked for any reason to not go through with it.
Though he never set foot in a church before, he briefly stopped at one he passed and sat in the back pew hoping for a sign that would encourage him to keep living.
“I sat in that pew, and I said, ‘God if there is anything you can do with my retched life, now would be a really good time,’” Brown said.
No sign became apparent to him at that moment, so he continued to that tall building at the forefront of his mind.
As he walked into the building, that hope Brown prayed for came in the form of a man in a lobby who called 911 to find him some help.
“I was very worried that they were going to be upset with me,” Brown said. “You know, you're wasting our time, or something of the sort.”
It was the opposite. First responders convinced Brown his life was worth it. The ultimately checked him into Denver Health’s psychiatric ward where he stayed for a week, “stripped of everything.”
“I didn’t have my personal style of clothes, nothing to hide behind,” Brown said. “You’re in the same gown that everybody else is so you’re really just stripped back down to you.”
So, he used that time to rediscover himself and do things he used to enjoy like connecting with people and helping others out when they needed it. He enjoyed it so much, he sought opportunities to continue that work after leaving the hospital.
“From that moment, I just moved forward and decided I was going to put my best into everything that crosses my path.”
These days, Jesse find himself on the other end of the phone. He works fulltime at the adult resource center for WellPower, a behavioral health center he discovered not long after leaving the hospital.
“Things are easier when you’re happy and smiling at people,” Brown said.
Since the day he thought about jumping, he now has his own place to live for the first time in 15 years and is 18 months sober. And instead of looking for a way out, he’s only focused on the days ahead.