Twenty years ago today, I would be turning myself in to the Nevada County Wayne Brown Correctional Facility for the last time. It was not the last time I would be incarcerated. After my 60 day sentence for a violation of probation (of which I served my customary two-thirds time of 40 days), I still had to report to another county jail for a 90 day sentence on the charge that got me violated in Nevada County. Fortunately, due to jail over-crowding in Calaveras County, that sentence was reduced to just eight days. All those days and every other day I served in jail was a direct result of my use of drugs and alcohol. I didn’t get in trouble every time I used, but every time I got in trouble, drugs and alcohol were involved.
On this day, 20 years ago, I did not drink, and I did not use any drugs. It was not my intention. I planned on having this one last day of “getting high” before reporting to jail. However, it didn’t work out that way. I did plan to get sober from the next day forward – I had about nine months of sobriety (or clean-time, depending on which 12-step program one is aligned with) that ended in December of 2003 – and it worked. But for whatever reason, I felt I had regained the ability to “control” my drug and alcohol use. I was wrong and found – quickly – that control was not within my grasp. I needed to be separated from that “life," and, while I did not look forward to being locked up, I knew it was an opportunity.
But, in retrospect, it was. It was because, unlike the first time when I was living in a “therapeutic environment” (i.e., a recovery home) for the first six months, I had to really want it. I did, but only because I felt I had no other choice. All my grand plans had failed me. I learned from those nine months that I could do things. The problem was that I was not back at ground zero – I was less than that. It was hard to stay the course, not throw up my arms and say, “fuck this!” I almost did, a couple of times. I managed through the holidays, pissed off most of the time, and by January, with nowhere left to turn, I returned to school. I didn’t really know where it would lead me, but it was something. With a lot of help from a counselor at American River College in Sacramento, I was able to put together a plan that would have me transferring to California State University, Sacramento after just one more semester.
I didn’t have enough college credits from just my three recent semesters at ARC, but over many years dating back to the early 80s, my forays into higher education did leave me with a variety of college credits – many were with lousy grades, but they counted. Many did not, but, combined with that one last semester at ARC, I had enough to transfer. However, while a path was before me, I still had to decide where it would lead. There were several options, but among the classes I took during that first nine months was an English writing honors class. That I even qualified, based on an assessment test I had to take, surprised the hell out of me – English was not my best subject – far from it. But, with some encouragement – and goading – I took it. It was amazing and the professor, recognizing some talent (I guess) and some deficiencies in mechanics, nurtured both. I aced the class and rediscovered a love for writing that I once resented.
My counselor suggested an English major, which I rejected. His second suggestion, however, immediately resonated with me. Journalism was also an early love. I remember with a great deal of fondness my days as a paperboy, reading my papers as I was folding them, preparing them for delivery. Journalism it was. The spring 2005 semester at ARC was a resounding success and the that fall would see my return to a four-year university after a 20-year hiatus (I dropped out of San Diego State University in 1985 with a 0.7 GPA). More importantly, at some point in the beginning of 2005, I lost the desire to say, “fuck this!” I found that continuing sobriety was, once again, working for me. And, one day, quite unexpectedly, I realized that it had been some days since I was angry about anything.
Since then, I have only been away from an academic institution for just one semester. I completed my BA in the winter of 2007 and took the spring 2008 semester off, working as a print journalist for a local newspaper. In the fall of 2008, I returned to Sac State to enter their MA program in communication studies, earning a Master of Arts degree there. I then moved to Baton Rouge to enter the communication studies PhD program at Louisiana State University. Throughout my graduate career at both Sac State and LSU, I also taught undergraduates. While I did manage to advance to PhD candidacy at LSU, I finished there as “ABD” (all but dissertation), falling short of the PhD and coming away with another master’s degree. While that does represent a failure, it was not a decision I made lightly – and it is one I can live with.
Today, I am entering my tenth-year teaching at CSUS. I will be retiring from the job that holds the record for the longest I ever been in the same job, with the same employer and in the same career. That light that was so dim 20 years ago has been a beacon for many years now. But it is not the same as it was at five years, at 10 years or even at 15 years. I have read accounts of others who have traveled this path – often those who were already celebrities, those whose fame has enabled them to gain the access to sell their stories with greater ease. Too often, in what is, comparably, early sobriety, they simply don’t know what they don’t know. I know I didn’t. And, sadly, too often, they fall. Matthew Perry spoke glowingly about how profound his new-found sobriety was, he knew so much. Now he is dead. He didn’t know what he didn’t know.
Here's a little secret. I still don’t know - a lot. Those who have been doing this for 25 years, for 30 years, for 35 years and more – they know more. I still listen to what they have to say. It could just save my life.
