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I had wanted to be a psychologist for a long time. I remember thinking to myself, as I walked to class in October of 2006, that I'm actually doing it. I'm actually working towards my dream. I was in graduate school. I had just been assigned my first client. I was doing very well in classes. Why, I was on top of the world. Well, except for one thing.
I was an addict.
It was a short while later that I hit bottom. I had been arrested and was facing serious charges. I was kicked out of graduate school. I had lost my job. I had lost my apartment. I lost some friends, too. I did, however, find out who my real friends were.
The day after my arrest, I made the half-an-hour drive to school, bleary-eyed and on no sleep. I remember walking into the psych building and one of my peers asking if I was okay. I can't remember what I said, but I walked into the office of one of my professors and sat down.
About half-an-hour later, after sobbing and recounting the details of my arrest and my problem, my professor pulled a book off the shelf and handed it to me. It was Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning". Frankl was a psychiatrist who spent time in Hitler's concentration camps, and the book was about his experiences as well as his theory of logotherapy: meaning therapy.
The essential premise of the book is that life is suffering, and that our task is to make meaning out of that suffering. There's a great quote from Neitscze that reads "He who has a why to live for can bear with any how". That stuck with me.
After a while, I began to realize that psychology was never my "why". It was only a means to an end. I wanted to be a psychologist because I wanted to help people. When I understood that, I started to look around for other ways that I could help people.
Through chance, I came to find out that I could go to law school with a record. That was a little over a year ago, now. Well, I decided on law. I thought that there would be a lot of good that I could do as a lawyer, and so I studied for and took the LSATs and put my applications in a few weeks ago.
Well, what I wanted to share with you all is that I got a letter yesterday. I've been accepted into law school. Even despite my problems, despite my felony conviction, I was accepted. I feel very happy, and very humbled. I'm grateful for this opportunity that I've worked for and have been given.
I wanted to share it with you all because it would not of been possible without my brothers and sisters in recovery. Were it not for the program and for my Group of Drunks, there's not a doubt in my mind where I'd be right now.
So thank you. Thank you all. Thank you for your patience when I was impulsive. Your understanding when I was judgemental. Your love when I was spiteful. Your knowledge when I was ignorant. Your faith when I was hopeless.
I know it's not over, and I know that I'm still and will always be an addict. With your help, and the help of my HP, I know I can keep it simple, and that I can be happy today.
:pals: I hope everyone else is doing well.
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