Hadley Ott's Drug-Free Crohn's Took Him From Patient to Published Author and Campus Speaker
“Your story is your story and no one can tell it better than you.”
Hadley Ott · Drug-Free Crohn’s
Hadley Ott was twelve when doctors diagnosed him with Crohn’s disease and told him he would be sick for life. More than a decade later, after quitting his medication cold turkey and healing through nutrition, fitness, and faith, he sat down and wrote the book he wished his family had been handed at the start. Drug-Free Crohn’s is now taking him to campuses like Notre Dame and Ole Miss, onto about 15 podcasts, and in front of the young people it was written for.
A Decade of Being Told He Was Sick for Life
Hadley grew up in Clarksville, Tennessee, went to UT Martin, and earned a master’s at Troy University with the goal of doing economic policy work in Washington, D.C. Underneath the resume was a health story that shaped everything. He was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease at twelve and spent more than ten years cycling through conventional treatments, from feeding tubes and steroids to biologic drugs and a major surgery during college.
The hardest part was not the treatment. It was the label.
“I was labeled from the get go as being sick for life by my doctors. And I felt trapped and felt stuck in this big conventional medical system and felt quite literally tethered to the doctors, the hospitals and big pharma.”
— Hadley Ott, Author of Drug-Free Crohn’s
In the spring of 2024, Hadley quit his doctors and his medication cold turkey and went all in on functional medicine and alternative healing, guided by independent blood testing, tailored supplements, and the changes to nutrition, fitness, and faith he had been researching on his own since 2023. A few months later, interning in D.C., he had been drug free, doctor free, and symptom free for the same stretch of time, and he could not believe how good he felt.
The Private Promise
That is when the book arrived, not as a business plan but as a calling. Hadley says he “woke up one day with this really strong call in my heart to write this book to try to help other people,” especially the young men and women who get diagnosed in high school or college and are told, as he was, that they are sick for life.
He made the commitment on January 1, 2025, and told almost no one. As he explains in the first line of his first chapter, men are not supposed to be self-revealers, so he kept the whole project quiet.
“This was just kind of a promise between myself and God that I was going to somehow get this done.”
— Hadley Ott, Author of Drug-Free Crohn’s
With no clue how to proceed, he simply started, scribbling chapter ideas on a notepad and writing every single day. He structured the book around three pillars, nutrition, fitness, and faith, opening with his own story and the medical history of Crohn’s, then turning it into a practical, easy-to-read guide for the reader who feels stuck the way he once did.
Why He Chose Scribe Media
Hadley first heard about Scribe Media before he ever decided to write a book, when he caught an interview with Scribe co-founder Tucker Max in May of 2024 and filed the company away in his mind. A year later, with his manuscript coming together, he was, in his words, naive about how publishing actually worked. He Googled famous authors and tried to reach their publishers before realizing that a first-time, unknown author usually has to self-publish. He compared a few companies, and Scribe kept coming back to mind.
“I’m glad I went with [Scribe]. It’s been a good, good working relationship.”
— Hadley Ott, Author of Drug-Free Crohn’s
After signing, Scribe sent him a copy of Tucker Max’s The Scribe Method. Reading it after he had already drafted his own book, Hadley was struck by how much of it matched what he had figured out on his own. One line in the first chapter stuck with him, the idea that people write books because they had a big problem, solved it, and now want to help others with the same problem. That was his story exactly.
Getting the Book Into the Right Hands
Roughly four to five million Americans live with IBS or IBD, and Hadley’s challenge was finding the ones who needed his book. His answer was relentless, low-budget hustle. He printed promotional cards and handed them out for months, cold approaching almost everyone he met and pitching the book as a guide to nutrition, fitness, and faith.
“The number of times I would hand a card, somebody would read it and say, oh, my brother has Crohn’s. My sister-in-law has Crohn’s. Like that’s how you start to make those connections.”
— Hadley Ott, Author of Drug-Free Crohn’s
The speaking came the same way. A friend from D.C. opened a door at Notre Dame, and Hadley used that name to pitch a hundred more schools, which turned into a talk at Ole Miss and several more lined up for the fall. He has been on about 15 podcasts, done local TV in Nashville, and spoken at clubs, cold approaching businesses and student groups the whole way. His lesson on outreach is blunt and useful: people send three emails, hear nothing, and quit, when the real ratio is closer to a hundred reaches for one yes.
What He Tells Other Aspiring Authors
Hadley is early in his author journey, and he is honest that the biggest opportunities are still ahead of him. But he is clear about what the book has already done. Once he overcame Crohn’s, he says, professional and personal opportunities opened up, and writing and publishing the book gave him even more confidence to take on more.
“Don’t ever think you can’t do it. Of course you can do it.”
— Hadley Ott, Author of Drug-Free Crohn’s
His advice is to make the commitment, give yourself a deadline so the project does not drift forever, and remember that readers will not memorize every chapter, they will take away one big idea, so keep that idea in front of you. His only regret, he says, is not doing it sooner. For anyone young with a health challenge and a story worth telling, that is the whole point of Drug-Free Crohn’s: you do not have to stay stuck, and no one can tell your story better than you.
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