John Hulgan just ordered a new vanity tag for his truck. His new tag number is “DRUG FR3” — Drug Free.
On April 1, Hulgan celebrated his first anniversary as a drug-free man — a year after receiving treatment at the rural Atrium Health Floyd Cherokee Medical Center. In addition to providing emergency and acute care, the Centre, Alabama, hospital also provides substance detoxification treatment.
He credits the care he received at Atrium Health Floyd Cherokee Medical Center as the turning point that led to sobriety.
Hulgan was transferred to Cherokee Medical Center from a hospital in another city following his last overdose.
The experience was immediately and noticeably different, he said. The physician listened to his concerns, and the staff didn’t judge him.
“There was a nurse there. She didn’t treat me like I was treated the many other times when I was in hospitals. She didn’t treat me like a drug addict. She treated me like a person,” Hulgan said. “There were six different times when I went to the hospital, and I could see it in their eyes: ‘He’s just a drug addict.’ That’s not the way she looked at me.
“I just want that doctor and the people at Centre at the hospital there to know how grateful I am.”
Hulgan said he knew he had crossed a threshold in his sobriety journey when he shaved his own head for the first time in decades.
“I spent a lot of money paying people to shave my head for me because I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror. I couldn’t live that way anymore,” Hulgan said. “I hadn’t been able to look at myself in the mirror for a long, long time.”
Forty-four years of substance abuse had brought him to several substance detox programs and emergency rooms over the course of his addiction. The last was in April 2025. It was his sixth overdose in a journey that started before he was a teenager.
Hulgan was introduced to alcohol and marijuana by an older friend when he was 12 years old — the start of what he calls a love affair with drugs that quickly progressed to cocaine, Valium, Xanax and opiates.
The cost of addiction was high: broken relationships, missed opportunities and the loss of friends whose addictions led to their deaths. Yet he continued to use. “I was doing the same thing, expecting different results — the true definition of insanity.”
Today, Hulgan has a new-found faith and is healthier than he has been in a very long time. He has lost 72 pounds. He exercises, swims and walks regularly, and he spends a lot of time fishing.
“I love my life now. The sad part is that it took me 56 years to get me where I am today,” he said.