The Slow Burn: Shared Suffering & the Camacho Corojo

Sometime during the afternoon of June 12th, 2017, I called my wife at her brand-new job and pleaded with her to come home. I didn’t have the words to explain it, but I knew if I didn’t interrupt the pattern right then, I wasn’t going to make it.

Within hours, I was in a treatment facility.
Within hours, her reality collapsed into something she never asked for.
Her husband had become a drug addict….and we were about to walk through hell together.

People don’t tell you this part:
Meeting Jesus doesn’t mean everything becomes easy.
Sometimes it gets messier before it gets redeemed.

Rewind the the tape to July 5th, 2015.

Two weeks earlier, a colleague invited me to church. No expectation, no spiritual hunger…but for whatever reason, I said yes. So that Sunday, my wife and I grabbed coffee and walked in.

The music started.
I sipped my latte and tried not to look uncomfortable.
Then the pastor opened his mouth… and it was like he had secretly read my diary.

Every word cut deeper than the one before.
Not in shame but in truth.

I felt exposed. Seen.
Convicted in ways I hadn’t felt in years.

Because the truth?
I wasn’t the man I pretended to be.
Not to my wife, not to my friends, not to myself.

Behind the baller job, baller loft, baller dinners…
Behind the European vacations and Executive Platinum status…
I was a slave. Bound to nose candy. Drowning in lies.

I was a whitewashed tomb, polished on the outside, rotting on the inside.

So when the pastor offered an invitation to accept Jesus, I took it.
And immediately, something shifted.

Without telling a soul, I got clean. For a while.
Then I relapsed.
And six months later, I walked into rehab.

No one sets out to become an addict.
But you become the things you do….one small decision at a time.

Thirty days in treatment, then straight into an Oxford House for another 90.
New job.
No friends.
Living away from my wife.
Attending meetings multiple times a day.
Working the steps.
Finding a sponsor.
Eventually becoming one.

And then, the week I was released from treatment…we got kicked out of the church that originally embraced us.
So I became a barista.
A stranger in a strange land, trying to rebuild a life from ashes.

And in the middle of all of it… one moment changed everything.


One of my recovery brothers knew I loved cigars. For Christmas, he handed me a box of Camacho Corojos…bold, peppery, leathery, Honduran puro goodness.

Looking back, the cigars weren’t the gift.
He was.

He met me when I had nothing…no money, no status, no identity, no credibility.
I was a ghost of myself.

And still, he leaned in.
He took me to lunch.
Sat with me on patios.
Let me be broken and rebuilding without judgment.
Our wives became best friends.
Our families became intertwined in ways I never saw coming.

They even showed up, surprising me at my 40th birthday in Big Bend with a handmade piñata stuffed full of tubos.
Brother… I’ve never felt more seen in my life.

To this day, when I see a Camacho Corojo, something stirs inside me.
Not because it’s the greatest cigar ever made.
But because it represents what saved my life:

Brotherhood. Shared suffering.
People choosing each other when everything else was falling apart.


Here’s the truth most people never learn:

Brotherhood isn’t forged on mountaintops.
It’s forged in the valleys.

It’s forged in the nights when you’re detoxing, while the fellowship watches over you.
In the afternoons when you’re embarrassed to look your wife in the eye.
In the circles of folding chairs where you tell strangers your secrets.
In the small, steady moments when someone chooses to sit beside you when you have nothing to offer.

That’s what cigars have always represented to me…not status, not luxury, not pretense.

Connection.
Companionship.
A slow burn in a fast, brutal world.

We share cigars the way soldiers share stories…
between breaths, between wounds, between old ghosts that still rattle their chains.

When we light up together, it’s our way of saying:

“I see you.
You’re not alone.
We’re in this together.”

Because brotherhood isn’t about the easy seasons…it’s about enduring the hard ones side by side. If I’ve learned anything through addiction, recovery, faith, and fire…it’s that shared suffering becomes shared strength. The right people will meet you in the ashes, sit with you, and help you rebuild piece by piece.


Not because you’ve earned it, but because that’s what real brothers do.

And every time I smell that peppery Honduran aroma…every time I see a Camacho Corojo tucked in a humidor…
I remember:

I didn’t make it here alone.
None of us do.
And the journey is sweeter when you’ve got a brother lighting up beside you.


Light Up & Lean In.
- Joshua
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P.S. If You’re Struggling, Please Don’t Do It Alone

If any part of my story hits a nerve, if you’re fighting addiction, depression, or the kind of darkness that convinces you you’re better off alone…I want you to hear me clearly:

You are not a burden.
You are not beyond help.
And you are not supposed to carry this by yourself.

Real strength isn’t white-knuckling your way through the storm.
Real strength is reaching out.

For national substance abuse support in the U.S., you can get free, confidential help here:

SAMHSA National Helpline: 1-800-662-HELP (4357)
Text your ZIP code to 435748 (HELP4U)
FindTreatment.gov — search for local options
988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: call or text 988 anytime

If you need help, reach out.
You deserve support.
You deserve recovery.
You deserve life.

And if no one has told you this yet…
I’m rooting for you.