Rochester vet finds new sober path through Steele Veterans Court

In September, Kyle Pike stood in a Dodge County courtroom surrounded by the Good Conduct Medal, Global War On Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, and other honors from his military service.

Just a few years prior, Pike was facing criminal charges.  But after over a year of hard work, he became the most recent graduate of Veterans Treatment Court.

He’s come a long way after developing a drinking problem at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Enlisting

Pike, a Rochester resident, first joined the National Guard in 2013, as a  25 Sierra, which is a satellite communications operator-maintainer.

Between 2015 and 2016, he went on a combat tour. He went to Kuwait first and then served for a month in Taji, Iraq.

He was part of a signal company deployed in support of the 351st Aviation Support Battalion as one of their attaches.

Pike ended up extending his tour a few months.

He received medals and awards, and his thoughts quickly turned to making the military a full-time career. 

“It was like, well this is pretty neat. I like doing this whole Army thing,” Pike said. “This is cool. I get to wear a uniform. I look sexy in my dress blues. Why don't I just do this the whole time?”

Stigma

Pike said climbing the ladder of the military ranks meant not speaking up about mental health concerns.

“While I was serving in the military, we were always told that if you go get help, you're going to get chaptered out of the military,” he said. “That's the lie that we were always told was if you have emotional regulation problems, you're going to get thrown out of the service.”

Pike said it created a culture that prevented people from seeking help.

“Nobody went to therapy. Nobody talked to anybody,” Pike said. “And if you did, you got blacklisted.”

Long wait for disability

In 2017, while back in Minnesota, Pike enlisted in the Army and was placed in the 11th Signal Brigade out of Fort Hood, Texas.

Pike said the unit was designed to help support battalions all around the world.

While there, he suffered a back injury that would end his career, but not before a long wait with the process to be granted his full disability.

Pike waited roughly 18 months, and in the meantime, the pandemic began.

“I got found with a 100% disability, but while I was waiting for that, COVID happened and COVID basically obliterated the Army,” Pike said. “The Army was not prepared for something like that.”

The Army ended up going into lockdown in early March, and most people stocked up on alcohol.

“It turned into basically a two-week long block party,” Pike said.

He got through the chaos but said, “I wound up becoming kind of an alcoholic because of it.”

Everything was different, Pike said.

In the meanwhile, Pike sought help for his mental health issues–and that turned into him being blacklisted.

“I talked to a psychiatrist, and they're like, ‘well, I don't know about you getting thrown out, but I do know that you need some medication,’” he  said. “So in the middle of COVID, in the middle of the disability stuff, my back's hurting, I'm not sleeping. I went and saw a psychiatrist, and I got blacklisted in my unit, and that is why I got thrown on that staff duty.”

Pike’s duty was a rotating six-month long assignment 24 hours a day stationed in headquarters building then two days off.

“I did that for weeks,” Pike said. “ My sleep cycle was screwed up. I took so much melatonin. I thought I was going to poison myself. I couldn't get any rest. I developed sleep apnea and insomnia.”

Due to the pandemic, it took months to see doctors about it.

Back to Minnesota

Pike eventually got discharged with full disability in October of 2020.

He thought the pandemic was over, but he came home to masks and social distancing rules.

A couple of months later, supporters of outgoing President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol. One person was shot and killed by Capitol police; four others died of other causes. Dozens were injured.

“That really messed me up because I was seeing a bunch of far right extremists, some of whom are military service members, some of whom are veterans, decorated members of the military who I may actually have served with, I don't know,” Pike said.

“They go on and they attack the U.S. Capitol building like they were storming Bastille in 1789. And I saw serious changes in the way that society was, and I felt isolated, and I felt like nobody really understood what I was going through.”

Pike went to the VA, which he described as a saving grace. He said neither the VA nor the Army liked to diagnose, “they like to treat.”

“But the military arm of the government tends to avoid diagnosis for things because diagnosis means medication and treatment and spending a lot more money on patients, whereas if you just treat something, you can kind of put a band-aid over the top of it for the rest of time and just leave it alone,” he said.

When he first started working with the VA, Pike said he was diagnosed with depressive disorder and bipolar disorder.

Legal consequences

About three years ago, Pike got into a situation with an ex-girlfriend's parents and ended up charged with criminal misconduct, he said.

Pike said she had a mental health crisis and he did “not exercise good judgment” when speaking to her parents.

“I said some things that were inappropriate to say,” Pike said.

At the time, Pike told the police he didn’t know exactly what he was saying and that he was in the middle of an “emotional crisis,” which prompted them to take him to the hospital.

Pike thought it was settled until he was charged.

His father, a combat veteran and veterans service officer, recommended his son try to get into Veterans Treatment Court.

Fast forward to July 2, 2024 and Pike’s case was adjudicated.

He was given a stay of adjudication, which includes five years of probation and required him to successfully complete Veterans Treatment Court. In exchange, there will be no criminal conviction on his record.

Commonly used in treatment courts, stays of adjudication allow those who successfully complete programming and probation the chance to clear their record. There are also consequences for not following through on the program.

A couple of years following the charges, Pike found out he had borderline personality disorder.

“When I got that diagnosis, that is what enabled me to start finding ways to self-regulate and self soothe, and I've been working with my psychiatrist since 2024 to find a better fit for medication,” Pike said.

He added: “It took. a mental health lapse and sort of a psychiatric break for me to figure out that I have emotion regulation stuff.”

Pike said the break, which had been building up since COVID, was the instigator for him getting better help and treatment.

Treatment Court journey

Pike began treatment court in Olmsted County in July 2024. The Third Judicial District has two Veteran Treatment Courts, one on the east side and one on the west.

After a few months, he got transferred to Steele County due to a conflict of interest.

Pike described Veterans Treatment Court as a roughly 14-month-long program.

It’s total sobriety treatment, he said. There’s usually restitution involved, and participants are heavily encouraged to work with other veterans.

“They want to foster this sense of community building with the veterans that are participating,” Pike said.

He said it also provides a number of resources for participants to heal.

“That's what happened to me,” Pike said. “I started healing. I got my head right, and I started working toward being a better version of myself.”

Pike gave credit to those who are involved with the court, saying they treat people with respect and understand the issues veterans face.

“I think ultimately the only reason why this program works at all is because of the people involved, the organizational leadership,” he said. “They are either involved with the Veterans Administration. Or they themselves are veterans.”

Pike said he also has the support of family.

“The biggest support that I have found in the last five years has been my little brother  Khristian and his wife, Courtney,” Pike said. “They got behind me in 2022, and they threw their entire weight against my being, and they pushed me into 2025 and made sure that I was going to wind up in better shape now than I was five years ago.”

Continuing sobriety

Pike will continue to be on probation for another two years, which includes remaining sober, something he hopes is the case even after he is legally required to do so.

“I'm sober, and I will remain sober for a long time, probably,” Pike said. “It took a lot of work. I can't even begin to tell you how much work it took to get a year, one consistent year of sobriety under my belt. That took so much effort to not drink every day. And that's how it has to go, right? It's day by day. You can't be like, well, I'm not gonna drink for the next six weeks because you don't know what the heck's gonna happen to you. You can only do what you can do in the moment.”

Pike knows being sober long term is all about short-term victories.

“I don't know if it is fully under control yet, but it's under control right now, and that's kind of all that I have control over for myself is what's happening in this moment,” he said.