Cleared Hot - Powered by BRCC
Cleared Hot - Powered by BRCC

From the VA Prescription to the Street | Travis Gribble & Brandon Spangler | Ep. 465

August 24, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

From the VA Prescription to the Street

Travis Gribble and Brandon Spangler sat down with Andy Stumpf to talk about a path they both know intimately: the slow slide from prescribed painkillers to street drugs, the collapse that follows, and what actually pulled them out. Spangler, a former Marine aviation mechanic turned licensed clinical social worker, spent eight years on opioids after breaking his C5 and crushing his L4-L5. The VA gave him the pills. "I had no limiter for that myself," he said. What started as physical relief became psychological relief — "my brain finally felt like free." When tolerance built and the prescription stopped being enough, a friend offered heroin. "It was a foundational jump," Spangler recalled. "I was like, all right, cool. None of the stuff — all the stoppers are off."

The Jump and the Bottom

The transition from pharmacy to street drug took two to three years. Spangler kept working — batteries, ranch work, aircraft mechanic — but lived a double life. "As soon as I was off work, just like rails were off again." He was functional enough to hold jobs, but parenting suffered. He describes being checked out, doing the bare minimum. "I never hit my kiddos, but it was always very much just the bare minimum of what I thought a dad was supposed to be."

Continue reading the full summary in the app — free to try.

Read Full Summary →

Free • No credit card required

Listen to Audio Summary Open in App

What you'll learn

  • 1 (02:39) **From VA Prescription to Street Heroin** - Brandon Spangler describes how his opioid addiction began with VA-prescribed painkillers and escalated to street heroin.
  • 2 (05:33) **Functional Addiction and Hiding in Plain Sight** - Brandon details his life as a high-functioning addict, maintaining a job and relationships while living a secret second life.
  • 3 (12:55) **The Intervention and Hitting Rock Bottom** - Brandon shares the story of his girlfriend's father giving him an ultimatum that ultimately saved his life.
  • 4 (15:15) **Going All In on Recovery and Finding a New Career** - Brandon describes his mindset shift in treatment and how he discovered his calling as a therapist.
  • 5 (18:53) **Reframing Addiction as a Superpower** - The conversation shifts to whether addiction is ever truly "kicked" and how to channel addictive behavior positively.
  • 6 (22:03) **Moving Beyond the PTSD Diagnosis** - Travis Gribble shares his evolution from being a "PTSD advocate" to focusing on post-traumatic growth.
  • 7 (25:15) **The Importance of Culturally Competent Therapists** - Travis and Brandon discuss the challenge of finding a therapist who understands the unique experiences of first responders and veterans.

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

Brandon Spangler did five years in the Marine Corps. He broke his neck, crushed his lower back, and walked out with a VA prescription that turned into eight years of addiction. The last stretch was heroin. He got sober in 2013, started college from zero, and is now a licensed clinical social worker with his own practice for cops and veterans in northwest Montana. Travis Gribble spent 24 years in law enforcement, 16 on SWAT, and retired out of Mesa PD in 2022. He now works for the Boulder Crest Foundation.


He walks through the jump from pharmacy to street, detoxing cold turkey three times, and a month and a half living out of a truck in the Blue Mountains waiting on a bed.


The second half is the system. Why cops are carrying moral injury more than post-traumatic stress. Why a diagnosis turns into a cage. What five days of training did that years of therapy did not, the 400 to 600 traumatic calls a cop absorbs over a career, why the average officer dies seven years after retiring, and the retainer model that put a therapist inside a sheriff's office.


The Boulder Crest Foundation: ⁠https://bouldercrest.org/⁠


Join the Cleared Hot Newsletter: ⁠https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com⁠


Take the Operator Code Assessment: ⁠https://www.theoperatorcode.com⁠


Today's Sponsors: 


Montana Knife Company: 
⁠https://www.montanaknifecompany.com⁠

Firecracker Farm: 
⁠https://www.firecracker.farm⁠

Cleared Hot - Powered by BRCC

More from this podcast

Cleared Hot - Powered by BRCC →