Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
My name is James Mahowald, and I am a young person in long-term recovery, and for me this
means for me that I have not put any drugs or alcohol in my body in the last 3 years.
Recovery for me has opened so many doors in my life, it allowed me to rebuild relationships
with my family. Gave me the opportunity to go back to school again, it gave me the opportunity
to have human relationships in general.
[music]
For me growing up life was like, I guess I describe it as sort of a typical American
family, I had an alcoholic father, and a workaholic mother. I was primarily raised by my grandfather.
So I grew up around the culture of drinking and drug use, and so I had my first drink
of alcohol when I was in 8th grade, and I smoked pot for the first time also when I
was in 8th grade. My whole life I had sort of felt like I was you know on this plane
here and everyone else was on this plane up here and I didn't feel right. When I put drugs
and alcohol in my body, all of a sudden I was on the same plane as everybody else and
I felt normal and I could interact with people and I wasn't such a loner anymore. And thats
what drugs and alcohol did to me. But eventually it got out of hand, and what really got out
of hand for was my drinking and eventually I started using *** on a daily basis. I
just broke down and I couldn't live like I was living anymore. So I called my mom and
I told her that I needed help and she got me in contact with a counselor that I had
from a previous treatment. Things got really hard for a long time. I was doing whatever
I could to just not get high and not get drunk that day.
But then eventually I started meeting people, young people, old people, who weren't just
not using anymore they living a meaningful life of recovery of long-term recovery in
which they were showing up in life. Seeing that this recovery world that I thought was
so small that I could barely get into at first is - is huge - I had a building full of 70
other people who were young people in long-term recovery going to school, trying to do the
same things that I was trying to do. If it wasn't for the collegiate recovery program
at the school that I went to I do not think that I would've been able to make it through
college. The support from staff and students who are like minded and have similar goals
not only academically but in life in general and when it comes to things like being in
recovery. I wouldn't have made it, I wouldn't have been able to go back to school without
a collegiate recovery program. Now I am sitting here 3 years later and I am applying to grad
schools to get my P.H.D. Recovery for me is also about giving back and that for me means
helping other coming into recovery because it's what was given to me when I got into
recovery. My vision for young people in recovery is for them to have equal access to resources
like schools and colleges where they can feel safe and not have to worry about the temptations
that are constantly thrown at us in our society today. You can't sit down and watch a baseball
game or football game without seeing liquor commercials you know. So having safe places
whether that means having rec centers and stuff like that, but just having a society
where it is okay to be a person in recovery is sort of my vision.