August 20, 2010

Resilience

Written by: Cristy Willer, Managing Director for Grants & Planning

Freddy was one of the worst street drunks in Dillingham. He wasn’t violent, but he was sloppy, and loud, and annoying, and so very public. Mostly he was annoying because people genuinely liked him, and seeing him behave like that made them uncomfortable and guilty, because there was nothing they could do to help their friend. They felt sorry for him, which is not a good way to feel about a grown man.

Then Freddy got sober. It took a lot of years and a lot of work – and at least seven different treatment episodes – but perseverance, and (according to Freddy) the power of prayer, and a lot of help from his friends finally allowed him to resume a life he hadn’t experienced for decades. He fell in love and married and had two beautiful children (we called him “Father Abraham” because he was well into his forties before all this happened). Then he went to school—a tough haul for a grown man—and worked hard and became a certified substance abuse counselor, helping hundreds of people to overcome their own addictions. As a professional, he almost didn’t have to say anything to his clients, because most of the people coming to him for help remembered what a public, pitiful mess he’d been, and now they saw in front of them a healthy, smiling, married, father of two—a proud Yup’ik man—and that gave many of them the hope they needed to struggle on.

After many years of doing this difficult and essential work, he was awarded the prized “Counselor of the Year” award at the statewide Annual School on Addictions. Hundreds of fellow professionals in a large Sheraton Hotel ballroom stood and applauded this humble man who had won back his life and given it to others. Yup’ik men don’t cry much, but Freddy did, and so did most of the rest of us who had gathered to honor him.

This is a story of Yup’ik resilience as I remember experiencing it in Dillingham, Alaska, in the 1990’s.