UpDate - Vol. 12, No. 20, Page 3
February 18, 1993
One step at a time; Recovery from substance abuse a long, hard road

     The problems of everyday life don't stop at the familiar brick walls
surrounding the University.
     Each day, hundreds of employees- who work in classrooms, offices,
laboratories, residence halls and kitchens-arrive on campus carrying the
scars and worries resulting from difficult circumstances in their personal
lives.
     How each staff member is able to handle these emotional concerns
depends on the individual and the intensity of the problem.
     For some, alcohol, drugs or a combination of the two may seem, at the
time, to be the quickest and most logical route of escape.
     Eventually, addicts hit rock bottom. How they got there and how they
turned their lives around are the themes that dominate the following
real-life stories.
     In confidential interviews, University employees-whose names and job
titles have been changed-agreed to share a very difficult and intimate
part of their lives and reveal the steps they took to enter ongoing
recovery programs. They expressed hope that other faculty, professionals
and salaried staff members, who find the circumstances familiar, will seek
the assistance that is available on and off the campus.
     As one employee said, "People should keep in mind that drug and
alcohol are equal opportunity addictions. They do not discriminate by race,
color, age, educational level or job title. No one plans to be an alcoholic
or an addict. It can happen to anybody at anytime."

                                     * * *

Margaret
     "The people are pretty and nice when they first walk into the bar. But
     by the time they leave, they look cruddy and nasty and are drunk.
     They're shouting and fighting and arguing with each other, and they
     look sloppy."

     "I would stay out every night until the bars closed and get in around
two in the morning, then try to get up at six and go to work. I would do
cocaine to help me stay awake during the day. It wasn't so much the rush or
the pleasure, but that I needed it to get through work. Then I'd go home
and do the same thing all over again. That was five days a week. On
weekends I would just crash."
     That's how Margaret, a 28-year-old staff assistant, described her
former life as an alcohol and drug addict. She kept it up until her nerves
were shot, her health was deteriorating, and she was more than $10,000 in
debt.
     One morning, she woke up and looked in the mirror. What she saw scared
her into taking some very serious steps.
     "I started to look bad," Margaret recalled, "like a street person. I
was a physical wreck, mentally low, with no self-worth. I knew I was by
myself, that I was alone. Nobody knew how bad it was, how bad it hurt, to
be lonely and to know you had no place to go and no one to talk to who
could possibly understand."
     A casual conversation with a fellow employee who was enrolled in a
stop-smoking Wellness group at the University led Margaret to Cecily Sawyer
Harmon. To Margaret's surprise, she found it very easy to talk to the
counselor. Their private meetings were the beginning of her personal
recovery process.
     Margaret readily admitted she was unable to handle her problem without
serious, intensive help. A few months after her first counseling session,
on a fall Saturday, Margaret admitted herself into a New Jersey facility
specializing in helping people solve their drug and/or alcohol addictions.
     On Monday morning, she called the University, told her boss she would
be out for a month and explained the problem. One of the fond memories of
her recovery program, she said, was the genuine support she received from
her immediate supervisor and co-workers and from personnel in the Office of
Labor Relations.
     A University administrator assured her to relax and concentrate on
getting better. Margaret felt comfortable knowing she would have a job when
she returned. She later discovered from other patients that this
understanding attitude on the part of her employer was not universal. In
fact, several fellow patients lost their positions while they were
undergoing treatment.
     Margaret said she and her counselors-most of whom had been drug and
alcohol addicts themselves- kept in contact with University staff
throughout her 30-day treatment. She was allowed to make calls on the pay
phone and was even informed about what was happening in her department
while she was gone.
     Looking back, Margaret said the hardest thing was making the initial
appointment to see Harmon. She was prepared to be greeted by "a shrink, a
quack," someone who would be judgmental and not understand.
     "It was totally opposite of what I thought," said Margaret. "It was
not a stiff mental interrogation. She took into account my personal
situation, being young, living alone. She gave me good suggestions for
dealing with my problems."
     Later, when Margaret decided she needed the on-site treatment, she was
already prepared because of the preliminary sessions she had been involved
in on campus.
     "I remember the ride to Jersey, with my mother, so vividly," she said.
"The group therapy there is very intensive. They break you down and try to
find out why you're feeling the way you feel. For a month, I cried every
day. They spare no mercy to find out what's inside of you and help you
discover it for yourself, why you feel the way you feel.
     "I think it was Carl Sandburg who said something like: 'Life is like
an onion, and each layer you pull off reveals more about yourself.' At the
center, they tried to find out why you hurt and why you do the things you
do, not for themselves, but for us."
     Margaret now attends one group therapy session and several Alcoholics
Anonymous (AA) meetings each week. She said she's changed her "people,
places and things." These are necessary adjustments, in order to get rid of
distractions from the former life that might cause her to turn back from
the road she's decided to pursue.
     Her former boyfriend is gone, but she's dating another person who also
is in recovery. They understand each other, she said. They know where they
each have been-and where they're trying to go, one day at a time.
     "If I hadn't sought help," she said, "I would be without a job. I
doubt if I'd have my apartment. I'd probably be in jail and, physically,
I'd have cirrhosis of the liver."
     She talks about her consecutive days of clean living-one year and 14
days at the time of the interview-as a rebirth. She, like other persons in
rehab, considers the day after she had her last drink as a new and a more
meaningful birthday, the start of a new and better life.
     Recovery is a full-time, lifetime job, she said. She's not kidding
herself about how tough it can get, especially when she's lonely. The
strain and vigilance will go on for the rest of her life.
     Now, when Margaret is out for the evening with friends, nursing a
non-alcoholic drink, she looks out over the crowd, seeing people she
doesn't personally know, but who take up the slack in the scene she's left
behind.
     "The people are pretty and nice when they first walk into the bar. But
by the time they leave, they look cruddy and nasty and are drunk. They're
shouting and fighting and arguing with each other, and they look sloppy. In
the beginning, I felt better when I drank alcohol-more accepted, more
talkative, funnier. I danced better. But you're only funny for a while.
Then you're sloppy. I don't want to look that way. And I sit there and say
to myself: 'This is the way you must have looked.' But it's not me anymore.
It's basically taking pride in yourself.
     "But you can't get clean by yourself," Margaret added. "You have to be
totally honest about the way things are and you can't be that honest with
yourself. You need help. You also have to hit the bottom first. Then you've
got to want to climb out. It doesn't matter how old you are. Everybody has
a certain breaking point."

                                     * * *

Randy
     "I can remember sitting in my room, crying and asking the Lord to take
      the taste for alcohol and drugs out of my mouth."

     Randy has been a custodian at the University for 10 years. The
40-year-old Maryland resident can still recall when he started drinking
wine, at age 14. It was easy, he said, to move up the ladder of addiction,
to try marijuana, then heroin and, finally, cocaine.
     These drugs became his steady companions for nearly 25 years.
Sometimes, he would stop using for short periods of time. But, Randy always
seemed to end up going back. It was hard to "just say no."
     He had a few stints in detox centers in Philadelphia and Delaware,
plus two outpatient sessions at local clinics. They helped him for a short
time but weren't totally successful.
     In November 1989, with the assistance of counseling programs at the
University, Randy entered a 32-day, in-patient rehabilitation program in
southern Delaware. He said he's been clean ever since he walked through the
center's door, and that was more than three years and three months ago.
     To Randy, recovery meant the difference between life and death. He
speaks very quietly, seriously, about a fellow patient who had graduated
from the rehab program with him and later was found dead in his
apartment-from smoking crack.
     "To me, he had everything to live for," said Randy. "My friend was on
the way back. He owned a business, too. His death really affected me.
     "Today, it's different with me. My girlfriend helps me out. That's
important, too. But then, just not getting into all the lies and deception
is a relief. I used to get my paycheck and try to think up anything I could
to give an excuse to get out of the house and spend it on booze and drugs."
     During the week, Randy would put away two pints of liquor. He said he
knew he had to limit his use of hard drugs to weekends, because he needed
to keep his job to support his habit. His friends often told him he got out
of hand when he was drunk or strung out.
     "I got pretty violent when I was using drugs or alcohol," he admitted.
"One time, when I was having an argument, I stuck a gun in a guy's mouth.
The next day, I didn't even remember that I did it. It really scared me. I
realized I could have killed the man and woke up in jail and not known what
I was there for.
     "The next day, I got in touch with the right people on campus and I
went into rehab and it worked for me."
     Randy said the counselors told him and the other patients that very
few of them would be able to stay off drugs after they left the program.
Randy remembered telling his roommate that he would not be back and that he
was going to be one of the program's success stories.
     Today, he's paid off his debts, has some money in the bank, a new car
and a steady girlfriend-good things in life that he once considered out of
reach.
     A group session at the University and a few Alcoholics Anonymous
meetings each week help him stay on the wagon, he said.
     "It makes me feel great. I never thought I would ever get the trust of
my family-my mom, my grandfather, my girlfriend and my stepson. Now, I'm a
role model and it feels great. But you have to admit it to yourself, that
you need it, and that you want to do something about it. I lived for a long
time in a state of denial.
     "Unless you get to rock bottom, with no place else to go... I was
almost there, with no place else to go. I can remember sitting in my room,
crying and asking the Lord to take the taste for alcohol and drugs out of
my mouth. I thought He'd answer me. He didn't do it right away, but
eventually He came and helped me.
     "If it wasn't for a lot of people at the University who stood by and
helped me, I would be dead now. I didn't want to disappoint them or myself.
I have some good friends here and they stayed by me."
     Randy's stepson is 15, almost the same impressionable age that the
University custodian was when he took his first drink. The older man has
seen the look of fear and sadness in the boy's eyes when Randy was on a
tear.
     "He's seen me. He doesn't want to go through what I went through. It's
a dangerous life, and life is something you want to cherish, not throw
away. Even food tastes different when you're sober. When you're drunk, you
don't care what you eat.
     "Now, when I go out and see somebody who's high or drunk, I can't
believe I was that way. I like the way I feel now. When I see friends from
those days, I stress the point, right off, that I don't get high or drunk.
They leave pretty fast. They don't want to be around you if you're not
going to get high with them."

                                     * * *

Ellie
     "Don't be afraid. There's a sign in AA that says: 'The only sin in
     being an alcoholic is doing nothing about it. "

     Ellie is a binger. That's how she identifies herself, matter-of-factly
and in a soft spoken voice. Now 50, she started drinking socially-but that
was half a lifetime ago-when she was 25.
     During her 15 years working at the University, she's made three visits
to rehabilitation centers. Her latest trip, to a facility in New Jersey,
was a year and a half ago. It lasted 28 days.
     Ellie's relationship with alcohol can be described as playing Russian
roulette with a bottle. She said she never knows if that one certain drink
will be the one that will incapacitate her. When that happens, as it has
every three or four years, she's unable to function for up to 10 days. She
closes herself off from the world, her family, her job. She won't go out,
just sits and drinks until she gets it out of her system.
     Ellie is able to go for years without a problem, she said, and then,
without warning, the booze can hit her hard, real hard.
     Her best defense, she said, is simply "to not drink at all."
     Ellie has been married for 25 years and has two children, ages 23 and
14. They know alcoholism is a disease. But it's still tough on everyone
involved.
     "They are supportive," she said. "They don't condemn me for what
happens."
     On more than one occasion, she's admitted herself to an alcoholic
rehabilitation program.
     "Going to rehab is hard," she said. "It's especially rough being away
from the family. But it's like any other place, being with strangers, you
don't stay strangers very long. You end up making friends, some very
lasting friendships, in fact."
     Ellie pointed out that of the 52 patients at the rehabilitation
center, only five were strictly alcoholics. Everyone else had dual
addictions. In a way, being dependent on alcohol alone, she added, was a
plus in that atmosphere.
     While a lot of the patients were in rehabilitation to better
themselves, primarily to keep their jobs and families, said Ellie, others
were sent by the court for treatment. Then there were those who went
through the program "voluntarily," at the urging of a lawyer, so, as they
told Ellie, being there would look good on their record when they went up
before the judge for sentencing.
     "Everybody is there for different reason," said Ellie, "whether it's
for yourself or your job, from a court order or to avoid the law. I guess
it's kind of like the difference between someone working because they have
to work and someone working because they want to work."
     Like most who reflect on the decision to break away from an addiction,
Ellie described that first call as the hardest step. To pick up the phone
to make contact with an unfamiliar person in authority is terrifying to
some addicts. But, she quickly advised, "Don't be afraid. There's a sign in
AA that says: 'The only sin in being an alcoholic is doing nothing about
it.'
     "It takes only one contact with Cecily's office. It's easily reached.
There's no shame or degradation. Talking to her is human being to human
being. It's not judgmental. She also gives you whatever amount of time it
takes to explain what's happening with you, where you're coming from. We've
built a very good relationship."
     The trust and friendship that have developed during her one-on-one
conversations with Harmon and the campus support group sessions have played
a major role in keeping Ellie away from the bottle.
     "It's bad enough to deceive yourself," she said, "but it would be like
killing a friendship to deceive the people who believe in you and who have
been there for you. When you lie to friends who are really trying to help
you, that's when it really does bother you."

                                     * * *

Dennis
     "I was ruining myself physically and financially. It must have been
     difficult for my mother to sit there and see her child dying in front
     of her eyes."

     "I'll be sober four years straight this June," said Dennis. "When you
first stop drinking, a lot of people will know the amount of time-down to
the number of years, months, days, even hours and seconds-that they've been
sober."
     That's how important staying in recovery is, said Dennis, a
39-year-old staff worker with eight years at the University.
     When Dennis graduated from high school he picked up the bottle instead
of books. He had planned to go to college but, looking back on it now, he
realizes that choosing alcohol in his late teens has affected his entire
life. He sometimes wonders where he would be if he had followed his
original plans and gone on to school.
     At first it was beer, he said. Later, he easily made the smooth but
dangerous transition to hard liquor. The night before he entered himself
into a suburban Maryland, rehabilitation center, he polished off six 16-oz.
beers and a pint of Southern Comfort.
     He remembers drinking that much because he couldn't get to sleep. When
he woke up the next morning, he was still drunk and couldn't do his job.
His supervisor was understanding, helped him get a session with Cecily
Sawyer Harmon in Labor Relations and, the next day, he began a one-month
rehabilitation session which gave him a heavy dose of reality.
     Dealing with the real world, said Dennis, is something most alcoholics
can't handle. He described himself as a physical, emotional and financial
wreck when he reached rock bottom. But good alcoholics are very smart
persons, he explained. They fine tune the skills needed to hide their
addiction from their friends and co-workers, while, at the same time,
trying to hide the awful reality from themselves.
     "But, when you're at the end of the line, you can't take it anymore,"
said Dennis. "You don't give a damn what people think and whether they know
or not. I cried in front of my supervisor, in front of Cecily. It was the
first time I cried in front of somebody else instead of crying by myself."
     Looking at yourself, your past problems and trying to remember why
you're an alcoholic is a heavy dose of reality, he said.
     "It's very hard to admit you have a disease, because you're so afraid.
In 1955, the American Medical Association recognized that alcoholism is a
disease. Before that, some places would put people like me away in mental
hospitals. There is no cure for alcoholism, but there is treatment."
     When he came back to work after four weeks in rehab, Dennis was
annoyed by the joking and insensitivity of some of his fellow workers. They
just didn't understand the disease and how serious and traumatic the
experience can be for an alcoholic, he said.
     "If I had come back from the hospital, because I had cancer, and said
I was in recovery, would you joke or tease me?" he asked. "But the same
people that jerked me around when I came back have become very good
friends. That's because they have seen that I am serious. They had seen
others take advantage of rehab programs, fall off the wagon and go back on
the bottle after a month."
     An auto accident when he smashed his head against the windshield and
barroom knife fights when he was slashed several times are only memories
for Dennis now.
     "It was so bad," he said, "that even the guys I was out drinking with
every night were telling me to stop."
     Saloons and parties where alcohol is a main ingredient are no longer
stopping points during his travels.
     But no matter how stable his life is at the moment, he still is
haunted with regret for the 20 years of his life that have disappeared.
     "That time is lost," he said. "Today, I'm trying to make up for those
lost years. You dig a hole for yourself and it's great to be able to start
over. But there still is scar tissue there from what has happened."
     Dennis isn't hesitant to shower praise on his supervisors, co-workers
and the staff in labor relations. The University, he said, gave him the
opportunity to go into recovery. While he was there, personnel called his
parents and even delivered his paychecks to his home.
     "I want the University to know how much I'm indebted," Dennis said.
"People don't know how good they have it here. They say there are a lot of
companies that offer programs like this. Some also say we'll help you get
sober, but not all of them will guarantee there will be a job for you when
you get back."
     "My parents were good with me," he said. "They didn't drink and when I
grew up, and I was supposed to leave the nest and make a life for myself, I
was ruining myself physically and financially. It must have been difficult
for my mother to sit there and see her child dying in front of her eyes."

                                     * * *

Jeffrey
     "Today, there's probably more tolerance and understanding of a person
     with a drug addiction than for someone suffering from the disease of
     alcoholism."

     Alcohol dulls your reflexes and keeps you from performing at peak
proficiency, said Jeffrey. Although the 45-year-old faculty member said he
never drank on the job, his friends and colleagues noticed he was having
problems when they spent time with him in the evenings and on weekends.
Even his wife talked to him about his growing problem.
     A beer drinker, he never hit the hard stuff. No drugs either, he said.
But downing 10 beers in one sitting a few nights a week was becoming a
habit.
     "When I felt it was getting too much," Jeffrey said, "I would cut back
to three or four a night, twice a week. But then, little by little, you'd
start having one more and you didn't even notice it. Soon, you were right
back where you started. A lot of people try to control it by themselves
that way. But, by adding one or two at a time, it just creeps back up
there.
     "It's a very devious disease. A lot of people don't understand that
fact, that it's a disease."
     Jeffrey can still recall his initial reaction when friends mentioned
their concern over his drinking. "I thought: 'Thanks, but it's none of your
business as long as I can get my work done.' It was a self-defense
mechanism. Denial is what they call it. That lasted for two years. "
     Eventually, a long-time friend who also was a chairperson, spoke to
him and suggested he get some help. Jeffrey at first thought of doing it on
his own, but then decided to make an appointment with Harmon. That was more
than two years ago. Together, they decided he should attend an intensive,
out-patient support program three nights a week.
     The hectic schedule lasts several months. A major objective of the
meetings was to help him discover why he increased his social drinking to a
problem level.
     The sessions involved a lot of counseling, therapy and education,
Jeffrey said. There were sessions on handling stress, dealing with
medication, information about how alcohol affects the body. The group
members and counselors also helped him explore the guilt that caused the
pressure and stress that led to him to become an alcoholic.
     Eventually, the number of evening sessions was reduced to one a week.
When he completed that program, Jeffrey shifted his attention to AA, where
he continues to attend meetings two or three times a week.
     In the out-patient program and in AA, he met people from all walks of
life and of all ages. Unfortunately, Jeffrey said, the general public still
pictures alcoholics as bums or hobos, unfortunates who sleep in gutters and
rummage through trashcans looking for remnants of booze left in discarded
bottles. That's not the case. Doctors and research professors experiencing
high pressure are as susceptible as bored housewives and curious teenagers.
     There is also the fact that heredity plays a major role in alcoholism.
Children or descendants of alcoholics have no idea when and if that one
drink may be the trigger that sets off the start of a person's introduction
to the disease.
     Getting professional assistance is the key.
     "There is help here," said Jeffrey. "Cecily is very good, very
supportive and very understanding. She will help you as much as she can.
The main thing is that you feel better, are much more conscious of your
health. Food even tastes better. Also, you find you're more productive."
     Jeffrey said the important thing about help provided through the
University is that it's confidential. That is critical, he said, since it
would be very difficult for some campus employees if their problems were
made public. This is primarily because of the stigma that remains attached
to alcoholism. The resulting comments and pressure from co-workers would
probably make some rehabilitating alcoholics want to leave their jobs or
cause others to go back to the bottle.
     "Today," said Jeffrey, "there's probably more tolerance and
understanding of a person with a drug addiction than for someone suffering
from the disease of alcoholism. A lot of people still just say: 'That guy
can't hold his liquor' or 'He doesn't have enough will power to stop.' They
don't understand the extent or seriousness of the disease."
                                        -Ed Okonowicz