From Rock Bottom to Real Estate Entrepreneur: Why I'm telling my story

I don’t tell my story because it’s pretty. I tell it because it’s real.

I’ve lived through addiction — the kind that doesn’t just ruin your life, but seeps into every relationship, every dollar you try to earn, every piece of peace you once had. I’ve buried people I love. My wife. My son. My mother-in-law. All gone by their own hand. The kind of pain most people only read about in someone else’s tragedy.

But this isn’t just a story of loss. It’s a story of rising — again and again — from places I shouldn’t have come back from.

It’s a story about tents and trailers, about grief and guilt, about DUIs and nights I don’t remember but wish I could forget.

It’s about faith. And failure. And the night I was one phone call away from relapsing, when instead, my Bible app opened to a devotional called Grief Bites — and everything changed.

It’s about waking up in my 40s and realizing that somehow, I was still here — and if I was still here, I had a purpose. I had to believe that. I had to make that true.

Today, I’m a real estate broker. A business owner. A guy who gets to help people find homes — when not that long ago, I was praying in a tent during an Oregon winter, wondering if I’d ever have a roof again.

But more than that — I’m a storyteller now. Because after everything I’ve been through, I know one thing for sure: someone else needs to know they’re not alone.

And this — right here — is the first time I’ve ever shared my full story at this level.

Not just the highlights. Not just the recovery. But the real, raw journey — the stuff most people hide away forever.

Because I believe that our scars can be our storylines. That pain can be a platform. That survival is only the beginning — and that your past doesn’t get the final say. You do.

You’re not broken beyond repair. You’re still breathing. And if you’re still breathing, there’s still time to turn it around.

I share my journey not to get sympathy, but to give someone else a reason to keep going. To show people who’ve battled addiction, buried their hope, or lost their way… that healing is real. That faith isn’t for the perfect — it’s for the desperate. That your story — yes, even yours — still matters.

So no, I won’t be sugarcoating anything here.

What you’ll read in the coming weeks is the truth. The ugly. The sacred. The in-between. I’ll tell you what it felt like to find her. What it felt like to lose him. What it felt like to fail as a husband, a father, a man — and still choose to rise anyway.

If that’s something you need to hear, then you’re in the right place.

I’m Tim Gregory — Army vet, real estate broker, and a man who’s walked through hell and came out with a purpose. This is my story. But it might just help you write yours.