Animals & Us
Michael Stewart · 61 min
A veteran who survived war, multiple near-fatal accidents, PTSD, and addiction reveals how action, adventure, and returning to face the past became the unlikely medicine that saved his life.
You don't have to be in crisis to call.
Michael Stewart has lived a life defined by extremes. A veteran who served in war, he survived a microlight crash into forest canopy north of Durban, a waterfall accident that trapped him overnight in his kayak below Victoria Falls, an ultra-distance race through Madagascar that cost him his toenails, a head-on collision that killed his date's dog, and a cyclone rescue that severed tendons in his hand. He's also survived the quieter, slower kind of breaking: a hit-and-run motorcycle accident in 2009 that triggered PTSD and depression so severe his body shut down. For years, he chased adrenaline through extreme sports, kayaking, skydiving, paragliding, microlighting, convinced this was how he managed the war that never left him. When the motorcycle hit him, that strategy collapsed.
What saved him was motion of a different kind. Michael got clean from methadone, bought a motorbike, and rode across Africa for six months. During that ride, he returned to his boarding school, the place that haunted his nightmares, and met with the headmaster and housemaster he hadn't seen in decades. That single act ended the recurring dreams. He came home changed. When he met Meryl, he gave up the bike without hesitation. Now, living quietly in Mission Beach with his partner, Michael spends his days paddling the Tully River, fishing on the reef, and rebuilding a house that's survived two once-in-a-hundred-year floods. He plans to bring struggling veterans north for quiet adventure, to show them what he learned: that hope is not passive, that action shifts everything, and that integrity, keeping your word, treating people as you want to be treated, is the only foundation that holds.
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