My life in renewed recovery

There are key areas of life I believe are important for people in recovery to pay attention to so they can have a full life moving forward. First, having support is critical. How this support looks varies and each individual can decide what it looks like. Support can come through mutual aid groups, twelve step programs, religious organizations, or, a group of like minded people who have common goals in life to support healthy living. It is truly an individual thing but critical. My walk in recovery has used many of the ways I just listed.  I always say....it's what works for you.  Another area I believe important to focus on is mental health. You have read throughout my story my struggles with depression, anxiety, bereavement, and PTSD.  All of these have needed attention along the way.  I am fortunate to have had access to counseling, physicians, psychologists and psychiatrists over many years to help me in many ways.  Whether it has been counseling, medication to treat any of the disorders, or learning coping skills...all of it has been helpful. There are many other areas that are important to pay attention to, but those are the ones that stand out in this moment in time.  Areas, such as physical health, career/jobs, family, communication, and others are important to also pay attention to along the way. 

Yesterday I left off with my decision to return to drugs and alcohol, and, fortunate for me, a path back to a life in recovery.  From the time I returned to use after ten plus years without, to March 25th, 2007, when I made the decision to discontinue use, was about six months all together.  When I say I am fortunate, it is the truth.  I am fortunate to be alive, to not have went to jail, to not have killed myself or someone else, to really, come out of the time period a mess for sure, but alive and able to get back to living life in recovery. My good friend Sarah and I, who is also now in long term recovery have some stories to tell for sure. Along the way I made the decision to use drugs and alcohol with my son.  Just as I typed that I looked at a picture on my desk of him and I at a Tom Petty concert not so long ago.  He is now in long term recovery himself and will celebrate seven years soon. The decision to use with my son, while it does have it positive aspects in some ways, was a horrible decision.  All three of us, who have crazy stories we laugh about now, are all three fortunate to be alive, very fortunate.

I knew what I needed to do to get back to a life in recovery.  At the end of the six month run I had created more of a financial mess than was already in prior to returning to use. I reengaged almost immediately with my counselor, started going to twelve step meetings, and I started looking for work.  One of my first jobs was a temporary job with the state as a bug catcher! I needed a job, needed income, and it was actually a pretty cool gig. Once I put down the drugs and alcohol and got a week or so under my belt not using and drinking again wasn't to hard.  I had several years of recovery in the not so recent past so doing again wasn't to bad once I was past the withdrawal stage.

Stephanie and I had reengaged when I returned to use and were back together now.  Once the drugs and alcohol were gone my feelings of anxiety and insecurity returned and while I really wanted for us to work out, it would turn out that we would need to end it for good.  We ended moving back in together to give it one last go. It was short lived. And for me, it was a test of my new walk in recovery.  Would knowing that ending it again, and knowing this chapter of my life was over, cause me to go off the deep end?  It didn't.  It was hard for sure, but, I was seeing a counselor, had good friends around to support me, and I was able to let the relationship go for good. 

It was in this time period that I decided maybe it was time to put my education to use in the counseling arena. I had went to school for over two years to be a substance use disorder counselor and was doing well in my recovery. I think I had just under a year when I went to work as a counselor trainee. I loved the work right way. Being able to help people change their lives for the good was fulfilling. With this decision came the need to continue my education. My boss at the time encouraged me to not just finish the associates degree, no, he said I should get a bachelors degree. That scared the shit out of me.

I was 40 years old at this time. With his prodding I enrolled at CWU for classes. I transferred all of my previous credits and started my first set of classes in Winter of '09. I will never forget it. I am pretty sure I was more scared than excited at the time. The thought of me, a 40 year old man, walking on a college campus surrounded by people half my age......yeah, scary really.  It turned out to be an amazing decision. I had to pick a major and settled on Family Studies. The course work seemed very interesting and it proved to be just that given my family history and desire to learn. 

So, for the next few years I was working as a counselor, going to school full time, living life in recovery again, and navigating the dating scene a bit. I was also in counseling regularly, had started taking care of my physical health by exercising, and while I do like crap food, also started paying attention to what I put in my body. I believe in balance in this area. I will never forget a moment in time that changed the course of my career path. My advisor for my major, Duane Dowd, asked me one day "have you ever thought about a Master's program?"  I am pretty sure I laughed. At this time, the only reason I was in school, was to get that piece of paper, the bachelors degree.  Getting the bachelors was needed for the field of counseling I was in, substance use disorders, if I wanted to get into a supervisor type role.  Not required, but the field was moving toward that more and more. Thus, him asking about a masters degree, for me, wasn't really something I was thinking about at all.  

This was in 2010'ish when he brought up this idea.  He said Family Studies had started a Master's Program, AND, he said, I could apply for teaching assistantship.  It's almost like he knew what he was doing....A teaching assistantship I asked?  He said yeah, if accepted you can try your hand at teaching and it will offset the cost of getting a Master's degree. Now he had my attention.  Along the way in life, I had people say I would be good at teaching.  Now, here was this guy saying I might be able to give it a try.

At the time I was working for Pam Stoneburg at Cascade Recovery Resource Center.  I had been there for a while and overall things were going good, with one rub.  She was getting close to retiring and thinking about closing up shop. The timing just seemed to line up. I decided to apply for the Master's program, and, the teaching assistantship opportunity.  It all worked out as it was supposed to in that space and time.

I began a Master's program in the summer of 2011 and walked into a classroom as a teaching assistant for the first time in winter of 2012.  The rest, as they say, is history. I have been teaching at CWU ever since that time. 

Tomorrow I will write more about how doing research changed my views and knowledge on a life in recovery and how it helped shift my own walk as a person in recovery in positive ways. I will also write about Katrina and my decision to turn what was to that point, a decade long friendship, into a courtship and now, having been married going on 9 years.  I will talk about my sons struggles and his now life in recovery and his and my relationship transformation as father and son.   

Below is a picture of my graduation day after earning a masters degree