Tri-Recovery, founded in November 2022, meets every week at 3 p.m. at the pavilion by Hardee’s in Bluffton. Anyone is welcome to join.
Andy Yergler, the founder of the nonprofit, said the idea was born from his own path to recovery.
Yergler first experimented with substances in his early teenage years. He described his young self as a somewhat average child. Yergler said he experienced some trauma at a young age, likely had undiagnosed ADHD, and was not necessarily the star athlete or smartest kid in class.
At 13, he acquired alcohol poisoning after he raided the liquor cabinet at a friend’s house one weekend. Yergler said that he thought he would never try experimenting again. However, when he returned to school the following Monday, students thought he was more cool for having abused alcohol.
His identity quickly became formed around being the “party kid” in school. After graduation, Yergler went to a party where he tried cocaine for the first time.
“I fell in love with it,” Yergler recounted. “Over the next 100 days, I developed a cocaine habit. I was totally in the grips of addiction. I had acquired about a $1,000-a-week habit in 1997 and didn’t have a job to cover that habit. I turned to dealing drugs.”
Yergler was arrested for dealing cocaine just over 100 days after he graduated from high school. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison and spent 4 years, and 7 months incarcerated. He said the sentence saved his life.
“During that time I was able to put my life back together a little bit,” Yergler explained. “Being a young male, the maturity level, I didn’t understand things like I do now. I never went back to drugs. If it wasn’t for prison or that lengthy sentence I never would have gotten off of cocaine.”
Yergler said he returned home from prison in 2002 at 22-years-old. He got married at 23 and completed his bachelor’s degree at Indiana Wesleyan. After probation, he thought he could handle alcohol.
“Within 90 days I was a full-blown alcoholic,” Yergler said. “The same pattern I had noticed from the cocaine addiction was starting to take over my life with alcohol.”
During a humanitarian trip to Haiti in 2010, Yergler met a man who had been sober for five years. He said this was something he deeply wanted. The man agreed to be Yergler’s sponsor so long as he was trying to stay sober.
“I told him over 250 times — today was the day I was going to quit drinking,” Yergler said. “Finally one day, I went for a run for 35-40 minutes. I felt like I was going to die but I didn’t. And I made it through a day without drinking. It was sort of like a Forrest Gump moment where I just kept running.”
Yergler began swimming and cycling before he eventually entertained the idea of completing a triathlon. He spent 11 months fully focused on training. At the end of his first triathlon, he wasn’t sure what to do.
“I thought I would just go to the bar and get hammered,” Yergler said. “But that would have defeated the purpose.”
Yergler set a goal to complete a triathlon in every state by the time he turned 65-years-old. During this process, he realized that if he could wake up early and swim in a pool in January, he could walk away from a drink.
“I started realizing the self-discipline that was taking hold in my life,” Yergler emphasized. “It wasn’t right away. I slowly realized that each time I was in active addiction, I never liked the last lines of cocaine or the last 30 beers. I liked the first line and the first few beers.”
Yergler said exercise helps to release endorphins and sustain an accelerated heartbeat healthily. He said that while drugs make someone feel good temporarily and then very bad afterward, exercise is often reversed.
“It’s hard while you’re doing it,” Yergler said. “When you’re done — you’re feeling good. There is no shame in the morning. I tried to get sober through different religions, and different methods, and nothing ever worked. I know this isn’t for everybody, but I’m sure other people have a hard time and can’t get sober. This might help.”
In 2020, Yergler said he went back before Judge Kenton Kiracofe, who expunged his record. The same year, Yergler purchased the D&D food truck.
“I try to hire people in recovery or coming home from incarceration,” Yergler said. “Last year during Ossian Days, almost every person — if not every person — was in recovery. We had 42 years of sobriety that day in the truck.”
Yergler hopes Tri-Recovery can partner with local schools to facilitate a regular program or a community triathlon in the future. The organization also wants to reach local kids at risk of generational addiction.
“If a kid is in a house where active addiction is taking place,” Yergler explained. “I believe getting into some kind of sport, something for them to channel that pain and negative activity, can help. We are also there to help out with vouchers for sports accessibility. We are there to be preventive.”
Yergler also said that drug and alcohol addiction are not the only types of recovery the group can help with. He hopes to partner with local hospitals, specifically bariatric patients. The goal would be to help anyone recovering from weight loss surgery or struggling with food addiction.
“I think this is a need for recovery,” I think it will help people’s lives. Physical activity makes you uncomfortable and when you’re in an uncomfortable spot, things get real. We’re young, we are growing, we have big visions.”
Similarly to other programs, participants in the meetings are eligible for incentives, like a new pair of running shoes, after completing a period of consistently attending meetings.
The group continues to provide support during the winter months as well. Yergler hopes to partner with a local organization for indoor exercise activities in the future.
“We have met outside since Jan. 1,” Yergler said. “There are people that don’t come because it’s too cold. A lot of people out of active addiction don’t have access to the funds to be a member of a gym — this is offering people a way to make it accessible.”
Yergler said the meetings are a helpful add-on to additional programming people in recovery may be completing elsewhere. The goal of the group is to incorporate the physical side of recovery for those working through addiction.
“Whether you are the wealthiest or most fit person in the world or come from generational addiction or not, it can get to you,” Yergler said. “Once it’s there — it’s there. We are solely about the physical side of addiction and helping someone stay sober. We’re here to say, ‘Hey, as a community, how can we help you stay sober today?’”
Anyone interested in attending a meeting, volunteering, sponsorship or with general inquiries may contact Yergler at 260-273-8821.