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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 22, 2001)
Recovering a life ■ What one woman thought was just a college phase turned out to be a lifetime battle against alcoholism By Beata Mostafavi Oregon Daily Emerald For Kimberly Nelson, parties were a part of college life. And she was just one student, among many, who saw alcohol as not much more than a remedy for boredom, just something to help her relax and socialize. She spent many nights drinking until she passed out, sometimes experiencing blackouts, and many of her friends seemed to be doing the same thing. But when she woke up in a hospi tal emergency room years later, she also awoke to the reality that her drinking threatened her life. She said that although many peo ple come out of the college “phase” of heavy drinking, others, such as herself, discovered they had a dis ease called alcoholism. “I knew what I was doing wasn’t okay, but then everyone else was do ing it,” she said. “A lot of people come out of that phast, but I didn’t. And when you cross over that line, you can’t come back over.” Now a residential counselor at the Eugene drug and rehabilitation center, Serenity Lane, she has spent much of her life sharing her story and educating people about alco hol’s potential to turn into some one’s worse enemy. Nelson recognizes many college students are in the same place she was, and they don’t realize their drinking habits could ruin their lives. But being a student whose weekend extravaganzas went too far, the recovering 39-year-old hopes to help others before it’s too late. And she’s also counting down the days to Dec. 2, 2001, her 12th sobri ety birthday. “The thing about this disease is that it progresses even when you don’t drink,” she said. “You have to take it day by day.” Nelson had her first drink at age 14, and although she kept herself busy in high school with the rally team, string ensemble, Young Life and the varsity tennis team, alcohol and marijuana still managed to take a small part in her teenage life. “In high school, I was in the exper imental phase,” she said. “But I was still in control.” In the beginning Nelson attended Oregon State University in 1979 and moved into the residence halls with a friend from high school. At that time, drugs and alcohol still seemed harmless. “It was so classic when we moved in,” she said. “Our moms helped us decorate, and then the second they left, we pulled out our Southern Comfort and jar of pot. ” The following summer, Nelson moved in with a few of her sorority sisters into a cabin in Lake Tahoe, Calif. Her drinking accelerated, and she was also introduced to cocaine. “That’s when it really started to af fect my life,” she said. “I was just having a lot of hangovers, not being responsible and not keeping jobs.” Nelson spent her junior year abroad in Germany, where she real ized something was wrong. Her blackouts became more frequent, and she started to notice signs of al coholism. “I took some risks that were pretty stupid and life threatening,” she said. “I was also depressed off and on, and I’d isolate, drink in my room and not answer the door sometimes. I knew I had a problem, but I just was not willing to give it up.” Nelson moved back to Eugene af ter graduation to work at her father’s law firm, and her family also started to notice her drinking problem. Af ter a year and a half, Nelson moved to Portland for work and also began to Laura Smit Emerald Kimberly Nelson is back on track, now that she’s been sober for more than 11 years, and is happy she gets to see her two sons, including 3-year-old Jaeger, grow up. see a psychologist and started using anti-depressants, but her drinking ' combated the medicine’s effects. Blind to reality “I just wasn’t honest about how much I was drinking,” she said. “De nial is pretty amazing.” But after Nelson blacked out at her sister’s graduation party, her friends and family knew she needed more help. Her mother and friend set up an evaluation appointment at New Day, a drug and alcohol rehabilita tion center in Portland, and the counselors recommended she check in as a patient. “I stayed sober for three and a half years,” she said, “but out of fear and not wanting to disappoint my par ents.” After treatment at New Day, Nel son moved to San Diego, where she worked for about a year and a half. But after a bad break-up and losing her job, she had a relapse and started drinking again. She moved to Alexandria, Va., in 1989 and lived with her cousin, who was also in recovery, in hopes of get ting better. But shortly afterward, Nelson took an overdose of drugs mixed with vodka and ended up in the emergency room. Though Nel son considered suicide in the past, her near-death experience was in fact accidental. “I had some really intense guardian angels working overtime,” she said. Taking responsibility Nelson’s parents brought her back to Eugene, where she checked into Serenity Lane. She had her last drink on Dec. 2,1989. “I suddenly realized that I couldn’t get better for anyone but myself,” she said. “And this time, I wasn’t going to do it for my family or my friends.... I was going to do it for Kim. ’ ’ Nelson began working for the Uni versity part time and interned at Serenity Lane in the early 1990s. She got married, and soon after, she had two children: Jaeger, 3, and 6-year-old Wyatt, who has appeared with her in several Serenity Lane television ad vertisements and posters that read, “Another Serenity Lane Miracle.” Her co-worker, Jerry Schmidt, marketing director at Serenity Lane, said Nelson does her job wonderful ly because of her positive attitude and appearance. “The kids identify with her,” he said. “People have such a stereotypi cal view of what drunks look like.... They think of bums on the street.” Nelson also spends some of her spare time presenting information to elementary schools on request. “She’s just a star,” Schmidt said. “She’s willing to do anything if it will help just one person.” Although she had a history of al coholism in her family, she said even those who don’t have genetic factors are susceptible to alcoholism, espe cially during their college years. “We can mess with our chemistry enough to get us into the mode of be ing physically dependent on [alco hol] ... where we have to have it in order to function,” she said. Everyone’s at risk Among teenagers who binge drink, defined as consuming 5 or more drinks in a row, 39 percent say they drink alone, 58 percent drink when they’re upset, 30 percent drink when they are bored, and 37 percent drink to feel high, according to the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence. Dr. Scott Pengelly said younger people tend to dismiss the idea that they could have an alcohol problem. “They think ‘It’s not gonna get me,”’ he said. “They think it’s a prob lem older people have because they can’t handle alcohol. They say ‘I won’t have that problem. I’ll know when to quit.’” As a college student, Nelson had thought of drinking as a distraction, not something that would cause her pain in the future. But after seeing al cohol’s potential for destruction and having lived sober for 11 years, she wants students to know that there is hope in leading a different lifestyle. “This disease’s goal is to alienate me from my loved ones and rob me of my self-esteem, and it almost did,” she said. “But there is an alter native, and I’m grateful to be living a life of recovery.” University awaits impact of less-than-expected OUS budget ■ Funding cuts could mean tuition hikes, salary cuts and decreased enrollment By Mandy Toomey Oregon Daily Emerald University faculty and staff re main hopeful in light of Gov. John Kitzhaber’s 2001-2003 budget pro posal for higher education. As the biennium proposal, which is $94.3 million less than that requested by the Oregon Uni versity System, makes its way through the legislative process, fac ulty and staff at the University are anxiously waiting to see what im pact the budget could have on their departments. “No one is talking about how, if passed, the budget will work its way down through the state to the institution,” said Jim O’Fallon, as sociate dean for academic affairs. Some professors pointed out that there are areas that are more suscep tible to cuts in funding than others. “No one can talk in specific terms because no one wants to say where the vulnerabilities are,” said James Earl, University Senate president. Professors have pointed out that Kitzhaber has previously support ed higher education, and they view this proposal not as an act against Oregon universities but as a reac tion to the state of the economy. “It is not a sign that he does not care about education but a decision made by someone with his back against the wall,” said Mark John son, professor of philosophy and former department head. Last year the state university sys tem enacted a new funding model that tied higher education funding more closely with enrollment num bers. Under this new system, the school with the highest enrollment received a higher proportion of available funding. “The model should work in our favor if we can maintain enroll ment,” Gage said. “No one would want to go back to the old way of doing it.” Johnson said most faculty mem bers were optimistic last year be cause the state funding system for higher education changed. “For the first time, the Universi ty had greater control over tu ition,” he said. Now facing a possible drop in funding, Johnson said that mood has changed. “It’s really disheartening to all the faculty to contemplate addi tional cuts just at the point when we could go ahead in a positive way and repair damage from the last decade,” he said. Now that funding is closely tied to enrollment, faculty members are nervous that increased tuition will have a negative effect on the number of new students. Kitzhaber’s propos al sets a tuition increase of 8 percent, although the OUS requested an in crease of only 5 percent to 8 percent. “The worry is that the Universi ty will respond by increasing tu ition, which could potentially have the effect of decreasing en rollment,” said Gage. Faculty salaries are another im portant factor that could be affect ed by the budget plan. Earl said he believes salaries will be the first place cuts will be made. “The salary plan is very vulnera ble and the faculty is freaked out about it,” Earl said. Most departments recognize the importance of salaries in order to maintain competitive academic programs and realize that faculty members can be lured away by of fers from other schools. “We need to hire and maintain the best faculty in order to remain on the scene,” Gage said. “Competi tive salaries are needed to retain quality faculty.” ■JjOIJ The Break I EMU Ground Floor I 346-3711 sponsored by the party fund <s-t. TKe t^reck friday | jan 26th 17pm-2am .1 . free food > free movies 7pm: footloose > 9:30pm: ferris bueler's day off costume contest > win prizes dress in your 80s finest and play pool for 1 /2 price
