Street roots., July 15, 2016, Page 6, Image 6

Vendors
P ag e 6
MikeDusek
Robots
by Rachel D
BY LEONORA KO
S T A FF W R IT E R
They will patrol the land
Doling out well-deserved justice.
ike Dusek remembers clearly the
date his sobriety began.
M
One will emerge as the most righteous
And He will rule in goodness and love.
His rulings are infallible,
beautiful in form,
But over time some become envious.
There is an explosion in the sky.
Every living being is gone.
To maintain perfection,
A utopia of non-existence.
Answers to puzzles on page 15
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“I’m coming up on five months
on (July) 20, so I’m almost at my half-year
mark. Then I’ll have only 18 months to go
before I can become an alcohol and drug
counselor.”
He points to initials on his T-shirt and
describes the first step toward his goal:
“CVC stands for Community Volunteer
Corps. You volunteer for 80 hours, and it
helps you get your foot in the door.”
That door is Central
City Concern, a
nonprofit that alleviates
poverty and by
homelessness
B
1 K Ì
addressing housing,
health and job issues
together.
The organization
provides a
structured path to
recovery. For Mike,
that means
volunteering for three
months on a Central
City Concern crew at
places like the food bank
and the Lions Sight &
Hearing Foundation5.
His next step is to work for six
months in the Clean & Safe program. The
Portland Downtown Business Improvement
District contracts with Central City
Concern to clean a 213-block downtown
area and bus mall.
Once Mike finishes his job experience
stints and is sober for two years, he is
eligible to become a drug and alcohol
counselor at the nonprofit
S tre e t R oots • July 15-21,2016
role model.
“My sponsor, he’s kind of an asshole,”
Mike said with a laugh. “He’s not scared to
hurt your feelings. But I need that, and I
love that about him, you know? He’s going
to tell you what you need to hear, not what
you want to hear.”
Mike has sold Street Roots off and on
throughout the years.
“Originally when I first started with
Street Roots, I had really low self-esteem.
Being homeless and not having a place to
go shower really drops your self-esteem. So
it helped gain back some of my personality
and self-worth.”
Now Mike is upbeat, friendly and
naturally helpful. Before this interview, he
was helping another vendor, sharing his
experience on how to increase newspaper
sales.
Most importantly, Mike is doing the hard
work of recovery with gratitude and humor.
“In the Big Book of Alcoholics
I Anonymous, it says that sobriety is not to
| be a glum lo t I didn’t get sober to be
I miserable.
“I was in gangs when I was younger. I
sold and used drugs and drank most of my
life. So there’s a lot of experience there
that I can share with people and let
|
them know that they’re not
different than everybody
, else. A lot of us have
i taken that road.
“And then I can
show them how
Mike has had other jobs. A native
Portlander, Mike says he has lived all over
the country, from running a landscape
business in Idaho to restoring cars in Ohio.
He recently returned to Oregon, ready to
make a change: “Just got tired of getting
successful at something and then getting
loaded again, screwing it up and ending up
back out there. It’s been a cycle - and I
want to end the cycle.”
This time, he is staying sober with
Central City Concern supportive housing,
which comes with a counselor and case
manager. Through the Central City
Concern community, he is learning to have
healthy relationships, and to assert himself
instead of holding onto resentments. He
also attends Alcohol Anonymous and
Narcotics Anonymous
meetings and has a
dSf 'A ' ' * \
longtime sponsor
who is an important
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Holistic • Seif-Empowerment
Physical & Emotional Well-Being
Curiosity • Engagement »Choice
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"Nothing happens until
something moves. "
Intentergy
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