Consumer to Coordinator
TRAILBLAZING IN COLLEGIATE RECOVERY
I was fortunate that I had done the bulk of the work for that semester before I started drinking again. It was 2002, or ’03; I’d have to look it up. At any rate, they were hazy times. I was making my sixth attempt at college at Sul Ross University in Alpine, Texas where I had landed in another one of my famous geographic moves; this time I was escaping from Monterrey Nuevo Leon where things had gone south again and bridges were burned. Things were quickly coming to a head here as well. The wife was on the verge of taking off, I was persona-non-grata the last few weeks of the semester and I was so drunk during finals, I could not even tell you what classes they were for.
This was the latest of my adventures. I had attended six colleges and universities. I flat out failed out of two, withdrew from the others, and I managed to barely get 12 credits at Sul Ross. Either the drinking or these humiliating attempts at higher education were going to have to end. Like a good alcoholic, I decided at that time to give up on formal school. I attended paramedic classes a year later while working as an EMT.
The man who came out of treatment that summer is not the man I am today. There have been changes so vast, I would be hard-pressed to describe them in one essay. Suffice to say, I was earnest about
Coincidentally, a close friend of mine from rehab had invited me to be in his wedding. He was six hours away in Lubbock, Texas at Texas Tech. He was attending school through some sort of program for drug addicts, but I was unsure about what it was. On my first night there he took me for a tour of the Center for the Study of Addiction and Recovery. I was amazed. I could not get over the idea that someone would give a drug addict or an alcoholic in recovery actual money to go back to school. I couldn’t believe a Division I university would have any concern for such types. Why bother? Out of all the people you could choose to support at a university, why would you pick addicts and alcoholics? I had a ton of questions.
Over the course of my stay
The sum total of thousands of dollars wasted and several years of time squandered at previous colleges all came down to one firm verdict. I had a 1.7 GPA. Which was down five points from my wonderfully mediocre 2.2 GPA from high school. I had amassed a sum total of 43 credit hours, switched majors and minors twice. Academically, an autopsy of my life-long educational experiences read like a bad Hollywood tragedy on par with the likes of Jim
Despite the desire to attribute my admittance into Texas Tech as a testament to my intellectual brilliance, I now know why the CSAR admitted me. They were aware of something that would really take me years to understand. They knew that addicts and alcoholics in recovery are amazing people. They knew that when a guy like myself gets the opportunity and support that the CSAR offered, that we flourish. And this was no mere gesture of
The CSAR knew that someone like myself, when placed in the right environment would meet or exceed any academic standard he or anyone else may place on him. They knew that the community would lift me up, that I would contribute to that community, and that my success in the classroom would closely correlate to my success in recovery. Staying sober, giving back, having an active recovery, operating on spiritual and altruistic terms would all serve me well in recovery, and in my academics. It was a fusion of sorts. A place where people believing in you made you believe in others. When a classmate struggled in a class, we all pitched in. We did everything together. We redefined the college experience. College became a place of love, a place of healthy challenge, and a time to explore. The staff and professors held us to a standard of excellence and we held that standard- for ourselves, for them, and for one another. I made a 4.0 my first semester and graduated three years later with a 3.5. I was on merit-based full academic scholarship my entire senior year, and my junior year I was given several thousands of dollars for a recovery-based scholarship. Upon graduation, I got into the exact grad school program I wanted.
More important than all of that
And here we are. I chose the University of Vermont because it was the right place for me. It was the most expensive choice I could have made. It was a choice that likely appears illogical on the outside. Paying 120k dollars for a Master’s in Social Work is a financially ponderous decision. But if I did things based on their numerical value, I would have found life intolerable long ago. I was driven here because I saw a CRP that was in a specific phase of development. The CRP had been around long enough that I was fairly sure it wouldn’t disappear, and my discussion with Amy Boyd Austin told me that I would be working side by side with someone who was incredibly dedicated to the vision of CRPs. I knew, that I had an obligation to the CRC movement. If I didn’t take that risk, could I be sure someone who felt such responsibility to the CRC movement would take my place instead? Who, if not I, would be the one? Amy had done an incredible job. This was a truly challenging environment. We agreed the next phase for the CRC would need a
I made the gamble for two reasons. The first was that I knew my experiences at Texas Tech had value. I had learned how and why CRC’s operate, I learned about replication, and I learned about the social and psychological factors that make it a success. I learned what dedicated staff looked like, and I learned what value there was in providing addicts and alcoholics a toehold in higher education. I came to believe over my time at Tech that people in recovery are probably some of the most talented, insightful, humble, and effective people on the planet. Secondly, I chose to come to be the Coordinator at the CRP at UVM because the CSAR once gambled on my future success. I see
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