The addiction recovery process is difficult enough without the challenges of finding work with a record of past conviction. Treatment centers and programs for individuals with substance use disorders now give someone in recovery the chance to reclaim their life.
Addiction recovery is “a process of change through which individuals improve their health and wellness, live a self-directed life, and strive to reach their full potential,” according to the NAADAC’s webpage.
Lyle Yates-Bourasa, a Texas Tech theater arts major, and Conroe native, shares his story with addiction. Yates-Bourasa recounts his first experience with drug use during his time as a middle and high school student.
“Typically when you’re a new student the first thing you do is to find friends…my first friend just so happened to have a way to get drugs,” Yates-Bourasa said. “I wanted to fit in, and he had the women and the drugs.”
Lyle Yates-Bourasa
Photo Courtesy Lyle Yates-Bourasa
Throughout Yates-Bourasa’s formative years his drug use would continue and increase during his time as a college student after experiencing a difficult breakup with his then girlfriend.
“I chose to consume a mass amount of drugs on the daily, not only weed, not only alcohol, but pills, stimulants such as cocaine; and that was a daily thing for me,” said Yates-Bourasa. “That eventually led to me having to drop out of college and going back home.”
The decision to return home as he explained, would be the worst decision he made. When he returned home, he reconnected with friends from his past that introduced him to synthetic marijuana and methamphetamine.
“I became homeless, and it got so bad that I was living out of my car, of course, I lost my car, and I used the money to get drugs,” Yates-Bourasa said.
Yates-Bourasa had separated himself from friends and family and hit “rock bottom” while living in a community in Conroe where drug use was highly prevalent.
“I just prayed I would get in trouble because I knew that was the only way I would stop,” Yates-Bourasa said.
Eventually he did get into trouble and was arrested. During his time in jail, he experienced painful withdrawals. He stated he was afraid to go to sleep because he did not think he would wake up.
“I just got lonely, and depressed, and just tired of living that life, and I wanted more, so I chose to go on probation,” Yates-Bourasa said. “I kept getting in trouble and on my third time, I wasn’t going to go to prison but instead they gave me an ultimatum.”
He was given the choice between a 2–5 year prison sentence or nine month treatment at the Lubbock County CRTC. Adamant, Yates-Bourasa agreed to undergo treatment for substance abuse at this facility in Lubbock from December 2017 – August 2018.
“At this time I had some sort of clarification, I was like wow this is everything that I’ve been wanting and I guess I’ll just see how it goes,” Yates-Bourasa said. “I just kept to myself and some people from Tech came and introduced a scholarship to me, finally, and I was like ‘oh wow here we go’ and here I am in a classroom.”
He received a scholarship from the Center for Collegiate Recovery Communities at Texas Tech University that gives students in-state tuition. Since his first semester at Texas Tech in spring 2019, Yates-Bourasa increased his grade point average from a 1.2 to 3.5.
George Comiskey, associate director of external relations at the Center for Collegiate Recovery Communities at Texas Tech University, says the center has been active since 1986.
“Our center started back in the mid ’80s, like ’86, ’87,” Comiskey said. “Dr. Carl Andersen was a professor in human development family studies, he started a class on family dynamics of addiction and that class just took off.”
This course would amass 40-100 students and lead to the creation of a minor that would license students to become a chemical dependency counselor.
“By ’88, ’89, the human development family studies had a minor in addiction studies with everything from prevention to treatment, to relationships, to family, families in crisis, just all different kinds of courses,” Comiskey said.
Through the efforts of founder Carl Andersen, this program would begin offering scholarships to students that have struggled with substance use and hold previous criminal conviction, the chance to obtain an education at Texas Tech. Students wishing to receive this scholarship must have nine months of recovery within their first semester.
“Because this [scholarship] is a second chance, and many of these folks may have disastrous prior experiences with school, it kind of waves the university requirements for a student,” Comiskey said. “If they do have a rough past academically, it will give them a probationary period of a semester or two to get their feet on the ground here at tech.”
The scholarship and community of other individuals in recovery provides students with limited or no schooling experience the resources and emotional support necessary to succeed in their studies.
“We have a program called POWER, Providing the Outside World with Empowerment and Resources and they reach out to folks that are in extreme extenuating circumstances who wouldn’t see themselves as coming back to school,” Comiskey said. “We provide an opportunity for that and sometimes we have to really navigate and help them work through the challenges of their prior situations and the trauma they are working through to come back and be a student and part of our community.”
This program serves 90-130 students a semester at the undergraduate and graduate level of education. Undergraduate student recipients of this scholarship are monitored by staff. However, all students attend meetings, a seminar, and are taken on trips to have healthy fun.
“We have a 17-thousand square foot building, three levels, a basement, first floor, and a second floor where the basement is all dedicated to our students,” Comiskey said.
The basement of the building also serves as a place of retreat for students in recovery to feel safe. It houses faculty offices, a TV room, game room, study areas, a printing center and group meetings available to the public.
“They [students] don’t have to sit in a space where somebody might smell like they’ve been smoking weed or they might y’a know smell like they’ve got alcohol on them,” Comiskey said. “They can come into this place and this is a safe space for them to get what they need as far as their recovery and…its quiet and they can study and take care of their needs there.”
The Center for Collegiate Recovery Communities at Texas Tech University has now become a model for the creation of collegiate recovery programs at other universities.
“What the athletes get in athletic support, as far as they have their own nutrition center and they have their facilities that take care of them, they have staff that is there, we try to do the same thing for people in recovery,” Comiskey said. “It is an environment that is recovery friendly.”
Comiskey stated that when students struggle with a class and need extra help, the recovery center will connect them with other students who have already taken the class.
“We know resources on campus that they can reach out to and we all encourage them to reach out to their professors and they’re teaching assistants, and go to supplemental instruction and do those kinds of things,” Comiskey said. “But there’s just so many things that we really want to try to put them in touch with so that they’re successful, not only in their recovery, and in school, but in life.”
For more information on the Center for Collegiate Recovery Communities at Texas Tech University visit: https://www.depts.ttu.edu/hs/csa/#0
If you or anyone you know is struggling with substance use you may contact the SAMHSA National Helpline: 1-800-662-HELP (4357).
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