Joe Putignano found redemption in writing and performing. (Photo by Thomas Synnamon)

There are movements, sounds and smells in sports that become an important part of the ritual of each particular sport and they often become a comforting factor for the athlete.

It could be the lacing of your cleats on the soccer field, the pop of the tennis ball coming off your racquet or the smell of chlorine when you walk into a pool.

For gymnast Joe Putignano, it was the feel of the mats hitting his feet during tumbling passes, the squeaking of his hands as he did giant swings on the high bar and the smell of chalk when he prepped for a routine.

Eventually his rituals changed and he found his comfort from the look of a tarnished spoon, the sound of rubber tubing and the smell of rubbing alcohol. Putignano was no longer a gymnast, he was a heroin addict.

The rituals of his once athletic lifestyle were replaced by a much darker way of living.

“You know those days when you don’t want to go to the gym, but you still go?” Putignano says. “There were days when I didn’t want to shoot up, but I did anyway.”

Putignano grew up in the Boston area and showed promise as a gymnast early on in his career. He was twice invited to the Olympic training facility in Colorado Springs and won several state and regional competitions while competing on the six apparatus in men’s gymnastics.

With the pressure mounting in his late teens from his sport and his sexual identity, Putignano fell into the rave culture of the 1990s and all the drugs that came with it.

“In gymnastics, everyone sees your imperfections,” Putignano says. “I didn’t want to be judged anymore.”

Over the course of the next 10 years he bounced between his heroin addiction, rehab attempts, employment, homelessness and more rehab attempts. He was twice declared clinically dead from overdoses.

While he was working at the New York Times he was going home at lunch, shooting up and coming back to work. They sent him to what he calls his final rehab where he met a counselor who urged him to get back to gymnastics.

“I kept trying to get clean because I didn’t want to give up on myself. I think that was ingrained in me because of sports,” Putignano says. “I started doing handstands and pushups and completely changed what I was doing. Within 90 days, the determination came back.”

Putignano Googled contortionists and found a group of acrobats in New York and discovered that he could use his talents to earn a living. He was still rediscovering his skills when he performed in Broadway Bares and ended up relapsing a few more times.

“Getting back into shape was harder than I expected,” he says. “I had to relearn everything.”

He eventually landed a spot dancing, riding unicycle and dancing on stilts in Twyla Tharp’s “The Times They Are a Changin” which ran on Broadway for two years. The show was cancelled and he relapsed during the last week but realized he didn’t like being high anymore.

He jumped right back into performing at the Metropolitan Opera House and met the creative director of Cirque Du Soleil’s “KA” and “Totem,” Robert Lepage, who asked him to embody the character of Crystal Man which Putignano portrayed for three years starting in 2009 on the “Totem” tour.

Crystal Man represented spiritual evolution and change and Putignano refers to those three years with Cirque as “my beautiful hell.”

“There I was, surrounded by the best athletes in the world and I didn’t even audition for the job,” he says. “I worked harder at my craft and got stronger because I felt I had to prove that I belonged in an athletic acrobatic career.”

During his time on Broadway in the Tharp show, Putignano began putting his journey down on paper and during the “Totem” tour with Cirque, he wrote the entire time.

“We did 10 shows a week and I could be found on the days off writing in a coffee shop, while the other athletes were off sightseeing,” he says.

The resulting book, “Acrobaddict,” offers a look at the similar qualities that are possessed by athletes and addicts. Putignano hopes his journey can offer hope to others with an addiction.

According to the 2012 D.C. Youth Risk Behavior Study, LGBT youth in D.C. are more likely than their heterosexual peers to report illegal drug use including meth (23.7 vs. 2.6 percent) and heroin (18.1 vs. 2.7 percent).

In the D.C. metro area, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring recently pointed to studies that indicate fatal heroin overdoses in the general population of Northern Virginia increased 164 percent from 2011 to 2013.

Putignano is currently in another type of recovery. He’s recovering from surgeries to repair a torn rotator cuff in both shoulders and looming on the horizon are surgeries to repair a torn stomach muscle and damage to his ankle.

Because of his addiction issues, the rehabbing process is being done without painkillers. Along with his physical therapy and weightlifting, he is using nerve blockers, Tylenol, acupuncture and Neurontin to keep the pain under control.

The story of Putignano’s surgeries without painkillers will be told in an upcoming video by Dr. Sanjay Gupta on CNN. At this time it’s unclear whether Putignano’s career as an acrobat and contortionist is over.

For now, he’s writing a nonfiction book about the devil, taking classes toward becoming a physician’s assistant and doing some modeling work.

At 37, he has been clean for seven years.

“Athletics make me happy and movement gives me joy,” Putignano says. “I can’t wait to ride a bike again.”