Norwich - For former Army sniper Joshua Michaud, running a gym in Norwich is as much a "road to redemption" as it is about fitness.

As the name CrossFit Payback implies, the gym is one way to give something back to the community where he was raised and where he hit some of his lowest times upon his return from a war zone in Iraq.

Michaud, 28, arrived home from four years of military service in 2008, fresh from an environment where killing was part of his job. Within a year he was on a path of self-destruction: opiate addiction, several overdoses and finally prison after he robbed a CVS Pharmacy in Norwich and made off with several thousand OxyContin pills.

Surrounded by workout equipment in a portion of the sprawling former Ponemah Mill, Michaud stands straight and crosses his arms with a focused look in his eyes while discussing the 9-month period of chaos that followed his return home.

"That was not me," he said. "It went against everything I believe in. For me, it's important to make amends ? make my life meaningful."

He began his service in 2004 at the age of 18 and trained in as many disciplines as he was offered. Michaud served as a sniper as part of a reconnaissance group in Iraq with the Alaska-based 501st Infantry Regiment. He spent nearly two years in Iraq and was known as a hard charger, a guy "focused on body count because that was the job."

Three members of his sniper group were later charged with murder in connection with three different killings: Staff Sgt. Michael Hensley, Specialist Jorge Sandoval and Sgt. Evan Vela, according to a published account in the New York Times.

Michaud says they were disciplined for doing their job and in ways he felt betrayed by the country he was serving.

He struggled after his honorable discharge from the Army in 2008, which coincided with a back injury. He was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, suffered from anxiety and didn't quite fit in with civilians.

"I just didn't care. I felt I had a lack of purpose. No reason to wake up in the morning. I spent four years of my life trying to be the best, most well-trained soldier and trying not to be a liability to anyone I was with. Two months later, I'm sitting in Billy Wilson's looking outside ? thinking what the (expletive) am I doing here. Even to this day, my mindset is sometimes in Iraq."

He had planned to become a correctional officer or work for a private paramilitary group such as Blackwater.

The large bottle of Vicodin he returned home with helped to derail those plans.

"I knew I was addicted when the bottle ran out," he said.

He turned to OxyContin and later heroin, receiving inpatient and outpatient treatment at the VA center in West Haven, where he was living at the time.

"They did the best they could with someone who was not willing to change. You've got to want it," he said.

It was during that time he had several near-death experiences after overdosing.

His life was already spiraling out of control when, on March 21, 2009, at the age of 23, he walked into the CVS Pharmacy in Norwich with a handgun and demanded all of the OxyContin it had.

He said he still thinks about the victims.

"I've never had a chance to apologize. I constantly think about what their life is now. I'm trained to have a gun pointed at my face. They are not. I made that decision because I was sick. I didn't want to feel sick," he said.

He was sentenced in July 2010 to 30 months in prison. He emerged not only clean of his painkiller addiction but with a new drive to somehow make amends.

In 2012 he opened a CrossFit gym in Clinton, where he said he felt part of a community again with a sense of belonging.

"I've always been about fitness," he said. "I've tried to break myself physically and mentally. I never found anything that could do it physically. The only thing that broke me was the drugs."

Michaud opened the Norwich gym in April with longtime friend and business partner David Marshall, who also fell prey to addiction for a time.

Michaud calls the gym and the people taking part in classes there part of his support structure. He says he is getting as much out of it as the people who come in.

Now a full-time student studying Homeland Security, Michaud gives talks to returning veterans at the VA center in West Haven about how things can turn ugly and "you don't know it until it's too late."

He tells returning combat veterans that the doors of his gym are always open. He also sees the gym as a release for other veterans who may have returned home to find themselves in the same position he was - "lost."

"I've always gotten 10 times more talking to combat veterans rather than sitting with some ivy leaguer," he said.

The gym has begun a fundraiser called "Beyond the Barbell," in coordination with Rushford, a substance abuse and mental health organization. The program is in its infancy, but Michaud said he is working to raise funds to help pay for treatment of people suffering from addiction.

He is featured on a Rushford video as part of the fundraising campaign for naloxone, commonly known as Narcan, the opioid overdose-reversal drug that helped save his life on more than one occasion. Rushford is involved in pushing to get more naloxone rescue kits out into the community.

"It's first step to paying back the community for everything I did," Michaud said. "I don't want sympathy. I want to do something meaningful."

He has applied for a pardon of his crime through the Board of Pardons and Parole.

He's hopeful for a fresh start with a clean record.

g.smith@theday.com

Twitter: @SmittyDay