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
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