Still Standing: My Story Behind Iron Pines

I was sixteen when the world tore wide open in front of me.

A school shooting.
Blood, silence, chaos — scars you don’t walk away from.

I didn't have the tools to face it.
I didn't even know what survival was supposed to look like.

So I carried the weight.
Smiled when I was supposed to.
Lied when people asked how I was.
Worked myself raw just to outrun the ache.

But pain’s patient.
It catches you no matter how fast you run.

Borrowed Time

A few serious injuries later, the pills came easy — prescriptions meant to dull the edge, soften the flashbacks, quiet the noise.

For a while, it worked.

But it wasn’t healing.
It was survival on borrowed time.

And before I knew it, addiction wrapped around my throat.

Not because I chased it.

Because it felt like the only way to breathe.

What Brought Me Back

There was no movie-scene moment.
No lightning bolt from the sky.

Just the quiet, stubborn loyalty of a few people who refused to leave me wrecked and drowning —
My girlfriend (now my wife).
My family.
My kids.

We spent days in the backcountry.
Walking broken game trails.
Fishing cold, stubborn streams.
Sitting under brutal, endless skies that didn’t ask questions.

The land didn’t demand I heal on a timeline.
It just let me exist — battered and unfinished.

The Climb Out

Piece by piece, the woods helped settle the war in my head.

I got sober.
I fought like hell to stay that way.
13 years now — still climbing, still swinging.

Building Something That Lasts

When the fog started lifting, I made myself a promise:
If I was getting a second shot, I wasn't wasting it playing pretend.

I set out to serve the broken, the battle-worn — the kids nobody else saw.

I became an educator in the same town that raised me bloody and bruised.

Over a decade later, I’m still there.
Still standing beside the ones carrying scars they don’t know how to name.

I’m still broken.
I always will be.

But the cracks are part of the architecture now.
Proof that broken things can still hold up the sky.

Why Iron Pines Exists

The wild saved my life more times than I can count.

Hunting.
Fishing.
Sitting under skies too big for the bullshit of the world.
Teaching my kids what survival really looks like.

Somewhere along the line, I realized —

There needs to be a place for us.

The scarred.
The stubborn.
The ones healing in dirt and rain, not clinics and polished rooms.

Iron Pines wasn't built for comfort.
It was forged for survival.

A place for real people with real scars — fighting forward without apology.

If You're Carrying Something Heavy

If you’re carrying the kind of weight the world can’t see —
If you’re walking alongside someone who is —

You're not alone.

The Forge is here.
The wild is waiting.
The first step is still yours to take.

Still standing.
Still fighting.
Still here.

— Cory Edwards

#IronPinesStrong