Shaka Dixon
There are aspirations at Pierce College that lie beneath the surface. Amid a student body, where eyes are predominately focused on four-year universities, the students in Pierce’s Addiction Studies Program carry on as ghosts.
David Rodriguez was brought to Pierce by a pain that has stalked him for seven years. “My daughter passed in 1999, from a drunk driver. She was in the vehicle.
If I can help one person’s child, save their child, it would be all worthwhile. That’s the bottom line,” said Rodriguez, a student in Pierce’s Addiction Studies Program.
At 18, Erin-Jane Simpson longs to share the insights gathered from her own arduous journey toward sobriety.
“I go to meetings, but it just isn’t enough. I want to go out into the world. I want to help people,” said Simpson, a student in Pierce’s Addiction Studies Program.
The program operates within the California Association for Alcohol/Drug Educators.
The California Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs has sanctioned the California Association for Alcohol/Drug Educators, along with nine other organizations, to certify chemical dependency counselors.
Most employers require their counselors to have certification recognized by the California Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs.
“We need to stop calling it a field, and start calling it a profession,” said Pierce Addiction Studies Director/Founder James L. Crossen.
The Addiction Studies Program originated at the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence of the San Fernando Valley, and later moved to Mission College. In 2001, it made traveled to Pierce.
Pierce is now the Los Angeles Community College District’s sole provider of vocational training in chemical dependency counseling.
“If you think about it addiction, it’s really trauma,” said Crossen.
“Those who don’t feel the pain keep on using. Those who notice it stop,” said Simpson.
Trauma is bond that connects many of the programs students. It is a bond that allows students to engage in unabashed discussions, where students often chronicle their own dealings with addiction.
Counselors make sure that their subjects understand that they have a life-long disease, and the price for forgetting is relapse, according to Crossen.
“You can never get rid of it,” said Debra Marquez, a student in Pierce’s Addition Studies Program.
“The beauty of it is that you don’t have to deal with it in a macho macho, heavyweight, Joe Frazier way,” said Crossen.
Most students expressed a desire to work with teenagers. “This should be taught in high school. Do you want people to learn about this before they get their head messed up, or after,” said Rodriguez.
“I want to help teenagers. A lot of mothers and fathers don’t care. So then, there kids return to addiction,” said Marquez
In this program, students attend for more than grades or scribbles on official letterhead.
With lives no longer held in suspension, students want to give shelter to those who normally don’t get called in from the rain. It’s a torrent of despair and loss. Something many know all to well.