November 2009 Insight Magazine

U N R I N S I G H T. C O M

INSIGHT [ The Universit y of Ne vada, Reno’s student MAGA ZINE]

addiction

: (a-dik-shen) a compulsive need for and use of a habit-forming substance (as heroin, nicotine or alcohol) characterized by tolerance and by well-defined physiological symptoms upon withdrawal.

NOVEMBER 2009 Volume 2 • Issue 3

“I walk down the street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I fall in.

I am lost…

I am helpless.

It is not my fault.

It takes forever to find my way out.”

-- THERE’S A HOLE IN MY SIDEWALK by Portia Nelson, 1993

PHOTO BY SEBASTIAN DIAZ 2

NOVEMBER 2009 / GET MORE INSIGHT AT WWW.UNRINSIGHT.COM

Contents NOVEMBER 2009

4 | LETTER FROM THE EDITOR 5 | BEHIND [INSIGHT] 6 | THE FACES OF ADDICTION Starbucks. Facebook. Smart phone. What do they have in common? They can all be addictions that some students wouldn’t peg as dangerous. Gary Rubenstein, coordinator of counseling services at University of Nevada Reno, discusses how these daily habits can turn addictive.

10 | ADDICTION IN Pop culture AND THE MEDIA Are we addicted to seeing drugs and alcohol on television?

It’s prevalent enough on daily TV to be strongly argued.

From Dr. House popping pills to contestants on The Real World, we live in a “pill” pop culture.

13 | narcotica [ANonymous] One person’s journey into the dark heart of drug and alcohol addiction.

18 | SO, YOU’RE ADDICTED TO twilight? [perspectives] Calling all fang-bangers and vamp-virgins alike, this perspective is shedding a little light and humor on your addiction.

22 | CALMING THE CRISIS The Crisis Call Center offers help to people 24 hours a day, seven days a week, who need someone to talk to, but what happens when you’ve been on both ends of the line? University of Nevada,Reno alumnus Cassondra Coleman talks about how she lived through addiction to help other people.

28 | child of AN ADDICT Most students have suffered a form of addiction – too many have watched others suffer addiction. Parents usually serve as a support system, but what about when they, too, are battling addiction?

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U N R I N S I G H T.C O M

LETTER {

FROM THE

} EDITOR

W

hile the Insight staff was compiling this issue, I couldn’t help but feel that this is the most important issue we have ever done. I know, I know; I said that last issue, too. But it’s part of self-fulfillment of all the time Insight puts into making each issue, that we learn something from it.

Writing about the topic of addiction is a tricky one, especially for a college magazine.

I learned some important life lessons while working with the writers on tackling their stories. Each issue, I tend to focus on one story that really stuck out to me. For November, I have three.

The first is our anonymous story called “Narcotica” on Page 18. I know the writer on a personal level and knew how therapeutic it was for that person to write about those life experiences. Check out UNRINSIGHT.com to hear an interview with the writer by our multimedia editor, Jessica Estepa.

The second story is “Calming the Crisis,” by Jessica Pacheco on Page 22.

Jessica interviewed Cassondra Coleman, a former alcoholic who was feeding a $50-a-day methamphetamine habit. She tried committing suicide twice. During the same time, Cassondra dealt with the loss of her mother and brother. Now Cassondra works at the Crisis Call Center helping others overcome their pains and struggles.

The third story is “Child of an Addict,” by Eric Thornley on Page 28. Eric wrote about his personal run-in with addiction, but from a different angle than “Narcotica.” Eric’s father had a heroin addiction when Eric was in high school.

Eric didn’t know at first; after his laptop would go missing for random time periods, he began to catch on.

November is a touching issue. Some people have already read and said they cried or felt overwhelmed by how personal and touching the stories are. And that makes me glad; addiction is not a blanket disease. To judge one who suffers from addiction shows pure ignorance. Keep an open mind.

Dana Kudelka Editor-in-Chief COVER PHOTO BY SEBASTIAN DIAZ. 4

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[The University of Nevada, Reno’s student magazine]

Editor-In-Chief DANA KUDELKA

editor@unrinsight.com

Print Managing Editor BRAD NELSON brad@unrinsight.com

Assistant Print Managing Editor KATIE GOODWIN katie@unrinsight.com

Online Managing Editor JESSICA PACHECO jessica@unrinsight.com

Design Editor GEOFF ROSEBOROUGH geoff@unrinsight.com

Multimedia Editor JESSICA ESTEPA

estepa@unrinsight.com

Head Photo Editor SEBASTIAN DIAZ

sebastian@unrinsight.com

Studio Photographer Intern

COURTNEY SPANGLER courntey@unrinsight.com

Webmaster DEREK JORDAN

webmaster@unrinsight.com

Copy Editor SAM DISALVO

sam@unrinsight.com

Advertising Coordinator BROOKE BARLOW brookeb@unr.edu

Contributors: Jon Fortenbury, Nicole da Roza, Michael Gjurich, Gregory Ross, Brandon Dimit, Sarah Henderson, Ashley Dodge, Eric Thornley, Sara Kam, Stephanie Horowitz

The opinions expressed in this publication and its associated Web site are not necessarily those of the University of Nevada, Reno or the student body.

www.unrinsight.com

sara KAM

Sara Kam is a freshman who is currently exploring journalism at the Reynolds School of Journalism. She is a contributing writer for Insight magazine and is also responsible for updating the magazine’s Twitter. Her future goals include working for a media venue that allows for journalistic experimentation and diverse experiences. She was born and raised in Kapolei, Hawaii and misses the surf, sun and sand. Sara is currently interested in snowboarding and will be traveling to Colorado to tackle the slopes.

stephanie HOROWITZ Stephanie Horowitz is a senior at the University of Nevada, Reno majoring in English and writing, with a minor in economics. After graduating in May, she hopes to move to New York to work in publishing and editing. She hopes to wear three-inch heels, skirt suits and carry an iPhone and Starbucks cup to work every morning. She currently works part-time for a private elementary school and is an intern at Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. Stephanie wrote “So, You’re Addicted to Twilight” on Page 18.

BEHIND [insight] derek JORDAN

Derek Jordan is the webmaster for Insight. He is currently studying computer science at the University of Nevada, Reno and hopes to one day design and run Web sites for a living. He is contemplating some combination of minors in math, Spanish and digital media. He spends his notso-copious amounts of free time skiing in the winter and going to Lake Tahoe in the summer. Derek is the Webcoding mastermind behind almost every that happens on UNRINSIGHT.com.

courtney SPANGLER Courtney Spangler is the head studio photographer intern at Insight. She has always taken a great interest in photography, even before she considered it a possible career. She has always been behind the camera, documenting family, friends, and, naturally, kittens.

She shoots both digital and analog and she prefers street portraiture and boyfriend/ kitten photography. If she isn’t studying ridiculously hard for her classes, then you can probably find her cradling her beloved Canon Digital Rebel XTi. Courtney shot “Child of an Addict” on Page 28.

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THE FACES OF

ADDICTION WORDS BY ASHLEY DODGE ILLUSTRATION BY GEOFF ROSEBOROUGH FOLLOW US ON TWITTER @UNR_Insight 7

F

or many students in college, drinking alcohol and drinking coffee may be considered two very different forms of drinking. One may be perceived as fun while the other may be looked upon as a necessity for waking up in the morning after staying up all night studying for a midterm exam.

So what’s the concern? What many students may not know is that both forms of drinking — alcohol and coffee — can be addictive.

“Have you ever been in love?, ” asks Garry Rubinstein, coordinator of substance abuse programs at the University of Nevada, Reno’s student counseling services, in his response to the question, “What is addiction?” The analogy, he says, gets students thinking.

Addiction is like love, Rubinstein says. For those who have “fallen in love,” we know what this feeling is like, but can we really, when asked, define it? What is love? You probably would not be too surprised with how many different answers there might be, but we could probably agree that love is a personal relationship.

Addiction, Rubinstein says, is an unhealthy relationship between the drug and the individual.

Thirty-three definitions of addiction exist, depending on whether it’s psychological, medical or biological, Rubinstein says.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) defines

addiction as a chronic, often relapsing disease that causes compulsive drug seeking and use despite harmful consequences to the individual who is addicted and to those around them.

One of Rubinstein’s personal definitions of addiction is “a continuing behavior that is recognized as a problem.” From his definition, addictions can range from the World Wide Web, pornography, caffeine and nicotine to shopping, anorexia and drugs and alcohol.

“Alcohol will always be the number one concern based upon several reasons,” says Rubinstein.

Thirty-four percent of the population in the United States does not drink, Rubinstein says. Although one in three Americans do not drink, it is the eight to 10 percent of drinkers who will become dependent on the drug. If a person within a family is or was an alcoholic, the risk of dependency increases to 50 percent. There is a high correlation between addiction and genetics. Similar to diseases such as diabetes, addiction can skip generations.

“Just because your parents never drank, ask again,” Rubinstein says. “You might just find out one of their parents had been an alcoholic.

There is no single factor that contributes to addiction.

Three factors, according to the NIDA, are: genetics, including ethnicity and gender; influences from friends and family; and the developmental stages from childhood to adulthood.

[UNRINSIGHT.COM] Want to hear more about addiction? Visit our Web site to hear multimedia producer Michael Gjurich sit down with Garry Rubenstein, University of Nevada, Reno substance abuse counselor, to talk about what addiction truly is.

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“At 11 years old I tried smoking with my friends. It made me feel cool when they were amazed that I wasn’t choking on it like they were. This set the pattern that led to drinking, smoking pot and the worst being meth, which lasted throughout my teenage years.”

-Donnie Bouteiller, member of a men’s support group, Celebrate Recovery

“At 11 years old I tried smoking with my friends,” says Don Bouteiller, 39, of Reno. “It made me feel cool when they were amazed that I wasn’t choking on it like they were. This set the pattern that led to drinking, smoking pot and the worst being meth, which lasted throughout my teenage years.”

Bouteiller has struggled with addiction throughout his life, battling addictions to marijuana, cigarettes and alcohol before turning to God.

“For me it was trying to fill an emptiness with a ‘functional savior’ that would only serve to dominate my life,” Bouteiller says. “Being high was the only way I could hide from the hate that I had toward myself. Eventually I reached a point of brokenness and cried out to God and asked him what I had to do. At that moment I knew exactly what I needed to do and who I needed to call.”

Bouteiller is an active member in his church community and attends a men’s support group called Celebrate Recovery.

“The worst addiction I see in society today is to meds,” Bouteiller says. “Every time I turn around, I hear of another kid with behavioral problems being put on drugs. I also think caffeine can be a problem to an individual and definitely is in our society. I don’t think that it is mentioned enough in our society as being a problem and is pushed way too much.”

Many UNR students can be seen going in and out of Starbucks Coffee on a daily basis, coffee in hand. However, what they may not be aware of is that caffeine (found in coffee, tea and energy drinks) is a potential risk for addiction.

“I love caffeine,” said Ashley Hennefer, 20, an English major.

“However, I think people need to remember that it is a drug.”

Caffeine is a bitter substance found naturally in plants that is also an addictive drug, according to the National Institute of Medicine. It is a nervous system stimulant and can leave a person with symptoms of withdrawal ranging from vomiting to a minor headache.

“It’s overrated,” said Erik Madsen, 21, an electrical engineering major. “I only drink things with caffeine when I’m going on a long car trip. I like the guarantee of knowing I will stay awake and alert.”

One misconception about addiction is that addicts will crave the substance, material or drug to which they are addicted. Not all addicts will have cravings.

“No one is doomed or destined to be an addict,” Rubenstein says.

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ADDICTION IN POP CULTURE

AND THE MEDIA

Writer Sam DiSalvo asked students at the University of Nevada, Reno what they thought about addiction being portrayed in the media.

WORDS BY SAM DISALVO PHOTO BY BRANDON DIMIT

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W

hen it comes to the public’s collective knowledge of any sort of addiction, television is a blatant component. It feeds us dramatic and devastating rehabilitation stories of sickeningly relatable and emotionally perplexed characters while simultaneously glamorizing the life of swanky lushes who indulge themselves in debauchery. It seems Hollywood picks and chooses which addictions warrant close attention, leaving many to wonder if being addicted is truly as sensational as the media suggests.

Research shows that alcohol is the most widely shown drink on prime time television from the news to sitcoms. Dramas feature alcohol most often, but do not display it in a serious light. It is most often used as a celebratory device, usually consumed by the upper class and attractive types. Drinking, even among adolescents, is sometimes depicted as not producing any substantial consequences, such as on The OC. (Josh Schwartz, creator and executive producer of The OC, revealed that 94.9 percent of alcoholic situations in the show produced no negative outcomes for the characters.)

Conversely, if alcohol is portrayed as the central theme of an episode or if there is frequent discussion concerning alcohol throughout the episode, it is often depicting the more negative aspects. Usually, if alcohol consumption is subtly embedded or insinuated as routine, the consumption will become more frequent and habitual, but never fully reveal consequences of adopting this habit, as portrayed in The OC example.

More serious drugs, such as heroin and methamphetamine, are more often televised as documentaries, rather than tackled by mainstream television. Reality shows, such as A&E’s Intervention, have become the audience’s own addiction due to the transition witnessed in a genuine drug addict’s life.

Students at the University of Nevada, Reno speculate this may have something to do with a particular sympathy felt among viewers toward the suffering addicts.

“Part of it is the pity effect,” says Anastasiya Morozova, a sophomore undeclared major. “People like watching it because so many emotions are intertwined. It’s a joyride, helter skelter of emotions.”

Because the struggle to recovery is often more difficult and complicated than that of more “television-friendly” drugs, the public is intrigued by the rehabilitation process. Intervention is also seen as a more authentic take on drugs because it involves certified rehabilitation experts working with the addict and their family to curb drug use. Although the attraction to the show may be because of the stiffening reality of the situations, many argue the fascination with self-destruction is the luring factor among audiences.

“Drug addiction is portrayed to be glamorous,” says Ryan Bugg, a sophomore English major. “People like to see other people destroy themselves. It’s interesting to watch.”

Other students argue the popularity of these shows is related to an inner feeling of understanding and relating. “(These shows) are easier to sell, easier to market, easier to attract more people because everyone feels to a certain extent,”

Morozova says.

MTV’s True Life premiered in 1998 with an episode about heroin addiction and has since covered several people’s personal stories concerning topics such as drug addiction, relationship situations and career struggles. The subjects of the episodes are followed by cameras documenting their lives every day. At the end of every episode, there’s an epilogue. Not all epilogues are positive, revealing a much more lifelike portrayal of addiction and its effects on the mind than popular television.

Hard drugs are not without the occasional glitz. Celebrity Rehab on VH1, though producing predominately successful outcomes, is still overshadowed by catfights between cast members and overt sexual references, hoping to engage the audience beyond the matter at hand. The actual rehabilitation center the show takes place in bares no resemblance to conventional recovery facilities. It is devoid of managers, nurses or therapists aside from Dr. Drew Pinsky of Loveline fame. The show inspired a spinoff, Sober House, in January, where the cameras follow celebrities from the “strict” lifestyle of a rehabilitation center to a substancefree home. Sober House focuses more on the counseling aspect of recovering from addiction, but also reveals the negative side of recovery: featuring several relapses among the cast members.

Many believe that viewers do not tune in to gain education or even sympathy of any sort, but to purely see celebrities fall off their pedestal.

“People just want to see the trashing of celebrities,” Morozova says. “I tend not to trust it.”

Celebrity drug addiction can have an adverse effect on people, as seeing a celebrity do or struggle with a certain drug generates interest in that particular drug. Even though the public sees the strife the celebrity has to endure through the addiction, rehabilitation and alternatively, relapse, overdose and death, people carry the opinion that this sort of hardship will not happen to them. This opinion is especially dangerous when applied to the drug use itself. Users often believe they will not become addicted, seeking even heavier doses to achieve the initial high experienced. It complicates the issue when the media is much more concerned with featuring the fallen celebrity, or one that has not successfully recovered. Because the privileged people in society are turning to excessive alcohol and illicit substances, people in general society believe they can do the same and, not only recover, but temporarily catapult themselves into the glorified lifestyle of a drug addict.

[UNRINSIGHT.COM]

For more insight on what University of Nevada, Reno students think about addiction in pop culture, check out Sam DiSalvo’s video on our Web site.

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narcotica one person’s journey into the dark heart of drug and alcohol addiction

WORDS AND SUBMITTED PHOTOS BY ANONYMOUS STUDIO PHOTO BY SEBASTIAN DIAZ

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I grew up in a very religious household with strict rules that controlled most aspects of my siblings and my life. Going out, attending school activities, watching television and even the music we listened to was scrutinized heavily by my parents. I remember having to entitle my newly-dubbed Guns N’ Roses album “Elton John” so I could leave it in my room and not have it confiscated by the God police. College seemed more like an escape than it was a place of higher learning.

H

igher learning is what it turned out to be. Left to my own devices, I placed scholastics a distant second to all things social. Parties, concerts and women—all were far more important to me than school. I first experimented with marijuana in these early days, followed quickly by my alliance with a hippy-esque group of folks that spoke often about their own restricted, controlled past. This brought around the use of LSD, an experience that I repeated over 100 times in the following years.

My attitude toward drugs had changed greatly—anything man-made was bad: Tylenol, pharmacological medicines, coke and heroin. Alcohol was also included in the “no” column because it created the dumb jocks and date-raping frat-boys that we all so detested.

Eventually my poor grades caught up with me and I was expelled from school. It was no big deal to me. I wanted to get out of school and start working—the real world was far more interesting than this strange college life. I quickly found a job and friends at that job. It was through these friends that at the age of 24 I found myself in my first bar. I loved it. We would drink pitchers of beer, play pool and drink shots. Time and time again I would meet a woman and bring her home or be brought home. I loved it.

As the hippy scene degenerated a new musical/dance opportunity opened up for me—the rave scene. It was cheaper than a concert, and you could dance all night long. It was one of these nights, on LSD, that I decided to try ecstasy. This brought an acceptance of man-made chemicals and a feeling of invincibility.

A few years screamed by and I found myself employed in the local nightclub. This venue was large and some big-name acts would come through—names like Emmylou Harris, George Thorogood, Ben Harper and NOFX. Being in a position that granted me many perks, I was able to use my position to gain others admittance, obtain free drinks at the bar and walk backstage at will and meet the talent of the night.

It seemed I could not pay a bill at many of the bars and restaurants I went to during this time. I had gotten so many people into shows, and so many others wanted to experience this (or continue doing it) that they compensated me by hooking me up at their places of work.

Cocaine found me there. There must have been several dealers operating in this building and sometimes they just gave it to us workers for favors. A year later, I was using multiple times a week. In two years, it grew to daily. I needed it to just finish my work. The amounts I drank skyrocketed. By my fifth year, I was a mess—forgetting things to be done both personal and professional, blacking out repeatedly and starting every morning by casually walking to the bathroom and vomiting.

I had a woman who loved me at that time, and she suggested we move. I wanted nothing more than to get away from the town that I once loved. We left and I stopped using the coke, even when it reared its head in the new town. The drinking, though, only continued. Comments made about how high my tolerance was or how long I could drink made me feel like a badass. My personal life suffered, though: I lost my girlfriend. I subsequently left town to find myself working at a ski resort in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

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During these years (the last five before now) I continued with my drinking, but things began to happen. I began to wake up in the middle of the night covered in sweat, shaking uncontrollably.

I would close my eyes and I would see disembodied mouths gnashing their teeth and babbling at me. My head would spin.

I would see double for hours at a time. The morning vomiting returned.

One night I woke up a sweaty mess, reeling in nausea. I was naked, and I stumbled out of my room and into the hallway bathroom. I felt so sick. I bent forward and threw up a violent, tearing vomit that caused me to gag and choke. I was hit with a huge surge of muscle below my stomach, causing me to puke and defecate all over the wall behind me. I lay on the floor, sobbing in shame, disgust and fear. I could hear myself saying “I don’t want to die” over and over again in my head. I asked God not to kill me. I said that I was sorry.

This pitiful existence continued for several years, always able to pull myself together for my job by having a few airline bottles of whiskey on awaking and several more stashed in my pockets or bag. One night stands were fine, but any relationship suffered.

I cannot blame any of them; I would not have liked seeing my partner reel in physical sickness day after day.

I took at trip back to my old seaside town once during this time. Within 20 minutes of being in town, I was drunk and had several bindles of blow in my pocket. By midnight I was in a shady motel with a prostitute and her gigantic, crack-smoking pimp. I did crack with them all night. I was threatened with physical violence by the pimp to supply more and more money, which I did. Finally, when they had retreated to the bathroom, I snuck out and ran. I awoke cold and dirty on the side of a road.

I dusted off and walked straight to the bar. About an hour later I was overcome with convulsions and was whisked to a hospital where I sat twitching with an IV in me for hours. I returned

home shamed and convinced to do something about it.

My friend dropped me off at a rehab center in Reno. I spent three days in the medical ward having my blood pressure monitored and Valium administered to calm my body. After I stabilized, I began to attend the meetings and exercises that make up a 28 day program. The center was located in an old mental ward. The baby-vomit blue painted walls peeled back with age, and one room locked away from us had old electric fixtures that were once used for electroshock therapy—not the nicest backdrop for recovery in my mind.

The others here were almost all court-ordered, because of repetitious use or child endangerment. The majority of them were speed addicts, and there were some drunks like me and a junkie. Most talked incessantly and constantly disrupted classes with juvenile fits or never-ending nonsensical babble. It was a chore to try and pay attention to hopefully learn something about myself.

Another thing I grew to hate were the Alcoholics Anonymous meetings that we had to attend three times a day. I did not like the spiritual attachments that came with AA, and constantly argued with the leaders about my distaste for their system.

Eventually, the weeks rolled by and I was released. I walked straight to the casinos downtown and got a shot and a beer.

Within a month of being home, my two cars broke down (both seized engines), I lost my job because of drinking and my dog was killed by a car. I was low. I would see my face in the mirror of the bathroom after vomiting and just think, “Who cares?” I sure didn’t. I had unemployment to pay my bills and buy my bottles. My diet consisted of fast food and TV dinners. My days consisted of waking, puking, drinking, watching TV and maybe eating. I was fat, my skin was waxy, and my personal hygiene was at an all time low. Friends stopped coming by. One’s reason was “because I can’t look at you.” I don’t blame them. I had a

1997

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At a wedding in Santa Barbara, Calif., 1997 disease. It was not my fault.

Then I was given a book by a stranger, entitled The Small Book, a play off of the AA “bible,” The Big Book. As I read this book I began to feel something quiver deep in my mind. This book attacked AA for not being useful for those who don’t want to align themselves with God. It came with a message of rationality. The book stated, quite bluntly, that there was no disease, but rather my own weakness of will and lack of true desire to change. By the time I was halfway done with the book I knew there was something changing very quickly in my attitude towards myself.

I realized that I did care; I did want to treat myself better.

And I did. Over the next weeks I began eating better. I stopped drinking and began to put my life back in order. Soon I was seeing the faces of happy friends and getting kissed again. That proved to me that I was valuable not just to myself, but to others.

I grew close to my family that I had ignored for a decade, just in time to watch my siblings marry and start families.

Tired of where I lived (being surrounded by many others who heavily drank), and tired of the customer service work I used to do; I transferred my credits from my old school to the University

of Nevada, Reno, and was accepted. I began to attend classes, did very well, and after a year I moved here. Now I am perched to finish what was started almost two decades ago, and I could not be more pleased.

The reason I wrote this was not to gain sympathy from anyone, nor is this to show that we can rise above adversity to succeed; rather it is to raise a yellow flag of caution for your eyes to see. I may be pleased with where I am at, but look at the cost of my addiction. I am almost 40 years old.

Questions of “Will I have a family?,” haunt me. I wonder if my moods are reflective of the damage I have done to my mind. I look at all of the time squandered over glass tabletops and on cushioned barstools. Were these good times spent at all? Those people I raged with are not my friends. Those band guys don’t remember me. What was so damn cool about it all? There were good times, but to trade the quality of your mind and 90 percent of your time for 10 percent satisfaction is not the best trade.

Watch yourself. Watch your friends. Don’t hesitate to say something if you think it needs to be heard. Don’t think you are a square if you don’t do what everyone else does. Ignore peer pressure; they will all fade away as time rolls by. Above all, don’t waste your time chasing a shallow, temporary high—the future

I look at all of the time squandered over glass tabletops and on cushioned barstools. Were these good times spent at all? Those people I raged with are not my friends. Those band guys don’t remember me. What was so damn cool about it all?

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is yours to make, don’t squander the wondrous opportunities you are given.

If you are not careful, you could wake up in a pool of blood, sweat and vomit and wonder, “What happened? Where did all the time go?”

[UNRINSIGHT.COM]

Listen to our writer as he describes his downfall through addiction and gives advice to those who are combating their own.

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So, You’re Addicted to Twilight?

WORDS BY STEPHANIE HOROWITZ PHOTO BY SARAH HENDERSON

Picture this: It’s Nov. 21, 2008 and Twilight, the first book in Stephanie Meyer’s four book series, has just opened in theaters where more than three million people will sit down and feed their inner vampire addict to 96 minutes of love, lust and fangs.

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rom the time of the book’s initial release to the debut of the film, the books have skyrocketed in popularity going from 5.5 million to 35.7 million copies in print. The visceral love affair between Bella and Edward has captivated millions and there seems to be something about fangs that has fans salivating for more.

For the typical Twilight addict, the relationship between Bella and Edward is all-consuming. It’s understandable, when the vampire of their dreams is a steamy, brooding bad boy with a tendency to always show up when he says he will and never ignores a text message. Meyer created the ideal relationship for young women—the idea of a protective, secure, and comforting relationship with a lusty sixteen-year old who happens to have Zac Efron-like abs.

Bella is a girl with brown hair and brown eyes, and nothing extraordinarily unique about her, yet millions of women are

has the supernatural element which I find very addicting.” The Twilight fan club was created last semester, and this semester its membership has increased from 15 to 35 members, meeting each week to discuss the books and to also raise money for books for children who cannot afford them.

Courtney Law, a senior journalism student, describes Meyer’s writing as almost “mind-fluff” literature. “It’s easy to read, and as a student reading countless books a week, it’s almost a relief to just fall into the story” she says.

Meyer does an extraordinary job at providing enough details for the reader that they have a basis for a story they can personalize themselves. The author has been critiqued on her writing skills, but in essence, the lack of subjunctive writing creates an easy story in which readers can escape and immerse themselves in the lives of the characters Meyer creates. One reader might find Edward more sensitive and sultry, while another might find him

Stephanie Meyer has created the ideal relationship for women in the 14-20 years old bracket. That is, the idea of a protective, secure and comforting relationship with a lusty 16-year-old, with abs like Zac Efron, promising you forever. able to easily identify and put themselves in her role. Bella is a character that in reality, no one would find exceptional, least of all a lusty glimmering super hero. Bella can be seen and made by the reader into a form of themselves and it doesn’t take much work to do so. She is somewhat socially awkward, new in town, clumsy (giving just another excuse for Edward to come to the rescue), and not outlandishly pretty, but for the first forty pages the only thing Edward can do to keep himself from sucking her dry is leave town. He leaves to save her life. What can be more romantic than that? Oh yeah—he comes back.

“It’s provocative because in real relationships there becomes such a comfort and familiarity that everything becomes just so predictable, but the idea of dating a vampire seems dangerous and exciting, and you want to know what’ll happen next,” says Marissa Huebner, a first year student at the University of Nevada, Reno medical school who has read all four books and has also recruited others to read them. Meyer has created the man of 30 million girls’ dreams, and all he really had to do was show up.

Not only is it the nature of the relationship between the two star-crossed lovers, but the literature itself is an easy addiction to feed. We all have lives to ignore, so when feeding our inner addict it’s best to do it with something that can be fast, affordable, and easy. The president of TwiNewLipseDawn, UNR’s Twilight book club, Brittanie Miller, says, “It’s easily relatable, but it also

more appealing as protective and moody, whichever is easier for them to relate, and the beauty of Twilight is that the books can be customized to the individual reader.

With New Moon, the next film installment in the Twilight series, due out this month, the sales of Meyer’s books keep rising as do the amount of Twilight memorabilia and vampire shows continue to make headlines in pop culture. Vampires have come a long way since Buffy was slaying them on the ‘90s hit television show, and if anything they are looking younger, hotter and edgier than ever before. So until Mr. Right stumbles on the big screen in human form, promising nothing but the best and broodiest bad-boy-gone-good mantra, I’m holding out for a vampire.

[UNRINSIGHT.COM]

What do University of Nevada, Reno students think when you say “vampire?” Check out Jessica Pacheco’s video on our Web site.

20 NOVEMBER 2009 / GET MORE INSIGHT AT WWW.UNRINSIGHT.COM

[UNRINSIGHT.COM] Check out the following content always available on our Web site: • Pack People: A weekly video about an interesting member of the Wolf Pack community • Seek and Find: Jon Fortenbury’s blog discussing religion, equipped with debates • The Sports Junkies: Listen to Adam and Loic talk everything sports. A preview of their show can be heard Mondays and their show can be heard Tuesdays at 4 p.m. on Wolf Pack Radio 1700 AM.

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Calming the Crisis

WORDS BY JESSICA PACHECO PHOTOS BY SEBASTIAN DIAZ

22 NOVEMBER 2009 / GET MORE INSIGHT AT WWW.UNRINSIGHT.COM

Cassondra Coleman still remembers the heavy chill of the dial tone. It was one of her first calls at the Crisis Call Center—a suicide call. To this day, Coleman doesn’t know if they were disconnected or if the young girl hung up. “She was so little,” Coleman, a 24-year-old University of Nevada, Reno alumnus, says. “I just could feel her detachment through the line…this overwhelming feeling of despair.”

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A

vital point in her training to be a volunteer at the Crisis Call Center coincides with this moment: You have to believe you did your best with the caller. Through 44 hours of training, Coleman learned copious amounts of knowledge regarding what it takes to handle a caller who doesn’t want to live anymore.

The Crisis Call Center of Northern Nevada is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Coleman, now an official staff member at the center, helps train new volunteers every day so that at any hour someone will answer the phone. On the desk beside her, 10 binders are filled thick with training papers on how to help those who call in. The packets include myriad crises including sexual abuse, suicide and alcohol. There is even a special section on how to deal with obscene callers looking for sex.

The Crisis Call Center offers more than just help to stressed individuals—they also take calls for Child Protective Services during after hours, offer special training for addictions and abuse and have a special suicide line.

“People have called in with pills in their hand—sometimes a gun to their head,” Coleman says. “I ask them to put the pills or weapon in another room while we’re talking.”

The way each volunteer answers the phone and handles each call is different. Coleman is confident that the training program is so well orchestrated that by the time they handle a call on their own, they can handle anything. Everything is confidential.

Callers and volunteers can even use an alias.

A sobering fact: Every 17 seconds someone tries to commit suicide. Another sobering fact is that in the three hours I spent

with Coleman at the center, the phone didn’t stop ringing.

“It takes all my willpower not to answer that phone,” Coleman says. “There isn’t a caller that I don’t relate to.”

That’s because Coleman has her own demons. On the underside of her wrists lie 17 faint scars, each of them etched by Coleman herself in darker times—times when she was on the other side of the line, calling out for her own kind of help.

THE GOOD KID

Coleman grew up in Newark, Calif. and describes herself as the teacher’s pet. Children in the schoolyard would offer her a drink or a cigarette and she dramatically refused them. She had bigger things to worry about.

“My mother told me very early in life that I would have some battles,” she says.

Marilyn Coleman, Cassondra’s mother, was a smart woman.

Coleman remembers that she gave the best hugs. Times were scary and Marilyn wanted her daughter to be in a safe environment, so she let her drink on Saturday nights at home. The way she saw it, if Cassondra was going to drink, it would be under her supervision.

Cassondra took it too far, though. At 13 she was already downing pints of vodka in her bedroom.

“I had no idea what I was doing to myself,” Coleman says. “I think the only thing my parents could do for me… was be there when I decided to crumble.”

Coleman did fall. As she got older, she drank more and it

24 NOVEMBER 2009 / GET MORE INSIGHT AT WWW.UNRINSIGHT.COM

wasn’t always at home. There was worry in her mother’s eyes, but Coleman said she ignored it.

One night, as Coleman bent over the toilet puking, her mother came to hold back her hair.

“You will receive the natural consequences for your decision making process,” she said gently.

By high school, Coleman had started smoking cigarettes.

Regarding marijuana, Coleman says that thankfully it did nothing for her.

DELUSION AND LOSS

College dramatically changed everything for Coleman.

“Alcoholism breeds and multiplies in college because it’s okay to drink,” she says.

On any given night Coleman admits she could drink an entire a six-pack of beer and two bottles of wine by herself. Drinking usually from Wednesday to Sunday, Coleman was out of control.

She would often split a bottle of vodka with friends and go roam downtown.

“There are more nights that I don’t remember than nights that I do remember,” she says.

Her friends had to take her phone away or she would call people and annoy them. Often, she was carried home passed out, slurring and sick. Coleman says she rationalized it because she still had good grades. She had a good job and went to classes.

“When I would go out to dinner, I‘d have a beer with dinner,” Coleman says. “One beer turned into five beers. But I thought it

was okay, I was just with my friends.”

She was heavily addicted, to the point where the entire day flowed around cigarette breaks and when she could finally drink that beer.

“I thought ‘when can I go take that cigarette break?’ or ‘When can I go get that bottle of Grey Goose?’,” Coleman says. “I needed it so badly. At one point, I admitted that I had a problem.

Things seemed to be in a constant blur for Coleman. School.

Work. Drink. Pass out. Every night was a party. Then something happened that changed Coleman’s life forever.

“I remember I was passed out, in bed, two days before sophomore year started,” Coleman says. “I remember I just wanted to sleep in that day—so I didn’t answer the first time my dad called.”

The second time, she answered and woke up immediately.

“He said that mom was being care-flighted to Washoe and he wanted me to meet her there,” she says. “She had a heart attack while doing the dishes.”

Coleman couldn’t drive because she was still drunk. She called her friend—he was also still drunk—but they made it somehow.

Soon, she was sitting in what she calls “the death room”—the “family waiting room.”

Doctors said that Marilyn suffered from undiagnosed Long QT Syndrome and that she had an extreme potassium deficiency.

Long QT Syndrome, if undiagnosed, can cause sudden death, just as it did with Marilyn.

“She was on a ventilator for five days and we pulled the plug,” Coleman says. “I knew she didn’t want to live that way.”

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The death of her mother crushed Coleman. She dropped out of school and took time to heal. But healing didn’t come easily— Coleman medicated herself with alcohol. She moved back to Gardnerville, Nev., where her parents lived, and helped her dad with the household. She eased bitterness with her brother, who didn’t want to pull the plug on his mother.

Six months later, Coleman moved back to Reno, determined to start anew. She started taking classes again, but was still drinking every night.

On July 12, 2004 Coleman began drinking alone after work.

Sitting on her couch, she remembers feeling an overwhelming desire to not live anymore. She felt completely worthless.

Surrounded by nothing but her dangerous thoughts and silence, she lit a couple candles and went straight to her work apron, where she pulled out an exacto knife.

“I remember I had almost finished a 750 by myself,” she says.

“And I got into this cycle of thinking that I lived for everyone else… So why was I living?”

Coleman took the exacto knife and began carving into her wrists. She doesn’t know when she stopped, but she laid her arms down and waited for death. She remembers that she was sitting in a puddle of her own blood.

“Something happened—I think it was my mother speaking to me,” she says. “But I got up and went up stairs and called for an ambulance.”

At the emergency room, doctors put 17 staples in her arm, blocking the blood flow. Coleman, so as to not risk another

attempted suicide, was strapped to a bed and evaluated by a psychologist.

“I remember I was embarrassed—they couldn’t even trust me with my own life,” she says. “Also, this extreme panic was washing over me. I was hyperventilating.”

Two years of counseling saved her life. She stopped drinking.

She stopped trying to kill herself.

“I was very proud of myself,” she says.

Coleman says her brother was a large part of her support system.

On July 21, 2006, Timothy Coleman, 19, was struck dead by lightning. Coleman says she still doesn’t know anyone who could warm up a room like her brother.

“I lost my being,” Coleman says. “I needed another escape.”

HALLUCINATION AND PARANOIA

In November 2006, Coleman got access to methamphetamine.

Once she got her hands on it, she didn’t stop. She did meth for an entire month.

“I wanted to try all things once,” she says.

Coleman went from 180 pounds to 140 pounds in two months. She easily grew addicted to the drug, which she describes a demon that ran her life. She was living off Slim Fasts and multi-vitamins.

“I could go three days straight without sleep, easily doing anything I wanted,” she says. “Finally at the end of that, I could choke down a Slim Fast.”

SEBASTIAN DIAZ

26 NOVEMBER 2009 / GET MORE INSIGHT AT WWW.UNRINSIGHT.COM

She started a $50-a-day habit. Coleman was also thin, something she has always aimed to be.

“You think you’re in control with meth, but it runs you,” Coleman says. “After my brother’s death, I lost my will to live.”

Coleman tried to quit meth, but she would hallucinate. The paranoia struck hard. She dreamed of injecting meth into her body.

In February 2007, Coleman tried to kill herself again. Six gin and tonics, two beers and a half bottle of wine later, Coleman drove home drunk.

“I remember the blood running down my fingers,” she says.

Coleman slipped downstairs, past her friends preoccupied with drinking and playing a board game, Coleman grabbed a butcher knife from the kitchen and went upstairs. Her bed was soaked in blood.

“The only thing that saved me was my addiction to cigarettes,” she says.

Hiding her cuts under a sweatshirt, she slipped out to smoke a cigarette. One of her friends, concerned about her, saw the blood running down her fingers and immediately called for an ambulance.

They had to force Coleman to get help. The emergency room let Coleman go home after two hours. This still astonishes Coleman, who says she still wanted to die when they released her.

“I was still drunk even,” Coleman says. “The hospital is supposed to save you.”

A CHANCE TO BREATHE

Coleman was back in counseling, but this time, she was much more determined to overcome her addiction. She pleaded to her dad for help, who stood by her side in beating her addiction.

“We went outside and smashed my pipe on the ground,” she says. “It was the end.”

Coleman found the volunteer position at the Crisis Call Center by chance. The position has changed her life—she finally has the chance to help those like her.

“I’ve been to hell...in my head I was in hell…and I made it,” she says softly. “And they can make it too.”

Coleman says she finally has a chance to breathe.

“I got my life back,” she says with a smile.

Now, after more than a year of volunteering at the center, Coleman is now the Crisis Lines Program Assistant. She trains new volunteers and helps them help others. She’s going back to the University of Nevada, Reno to get her masters in social work. She no longer drinks or does drugs. She says the Crisis Call Center is a large part of why she is still here today.

“When you are that down at the bottom of your pain, you need to call us and talk to someone,” she says.

To anyone who feels they have an addiction or are in desperate straits, Coleman nods knowingly and says to them: “You’re worth it. You’re worth getting better.”

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WORDS BY ERIC THORNLEY PHOTOS BY COURTNEY SPANGLER 28 NOVEMBER 2009 / GET MORE INSIGHT AT WWW.UNRINSIGHT.COM

child of an

ADDICT

It’s about 12:30 a.m., the usual bedtime perhaps for a freewheeling 10th grader like me. My stomach, used to hearty dinner meals cooked by my father who used to be a chef, is now digesting very little. Instead of a nice steak or a homemade bowl of spaghetti, my dinner was a somewhat bitter bowl of beef-flavored soup broth, made rather quickly with a salty block. This was not made by me, but by the same person who cooked countless dinners for his family.

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T

he meals are now rare, and I lay in my bed sideways in the dark, facing my window on the opposite wall.

The good times with my father are now a distant memory. The light that seeps through my window blinds might be physical, but for me, it is a rare glimpse of a figurative light that was more prominent in my childhood and early years as a teenager. Despite the empty feeling in my body, I slowly drift off to sleep and mentally prepare myself for the next day. The grim prospects of another day of high school and a return to the somewhat chaotic world that is my house are again on the horizon.

How did I end up in such a downtrodden mode of thought? It was not that long ago that I actually looked forward to school. My home was comfortable; everything that I needed was provided. However, I did not realize then that my world was slowly fading away. My father, who was once a hard worker in the whitecollar field of information technology, was now a heroin addict. I was a slave to the worst thing imaginable.

The thing was, though, I didn’t even know he was an addict. It would be a few more months, late in the summer, before I would know for sure what had happened, but I knew something had gone wrong since the start of ninth grade in 2004. It was around then that I realized that my father’s financial situation had taken a hit. Coming across numerous letters and bills regarding mortgage payments that were scattered around, a certain feeling of unease regarding our well being as a family came over me. I wasn’t sure what had happened though. I attributed it to several things—perhaps it was the faltering economy or my father taking a cut in his salary.

It seemed that, slowly, things were falling apart at the seams.

But for now, I was stuck in the dark, both in the metaphoric and literal sense. I had grown used to these somewhat lonely and empty nights of lying in my bed, pondering how bad it could possibly get. Perhaps in my foolish optimism, I thought things would recover somehow.

As cliché as it may sound, you don’t know how rock bottom feels until you have hit it. I hit such a bottom in 2006. I had come back home from school, ready to wind down another day. This particular day, however, was different. I immediately noticed that my laptop, which normally sat on my desk, was missing. This had not happened to me before and I promptly confronted my father about it — he was the only person in the house at the time. His answer was ambiguous at the best—he claimed that he was using it, and that he would give it back.

He gave it back, but the pattern repeated about every other week. The excuses changed each time. One particularly prolonged case involved the laptop being dropped on pavement while exiting the car. He “turned it into the shop” to be “repaired.”

For some reason, I assumed he was telling the truth, but of course, further inquiries revealed that he was using my property (which eventually included a television that my mom purchased for Christmas) and pawning it for money, money that he would claim to use for food but would actually use for drugs. The money he received and the mistreatment of my property, and my psyche, never really did go toward anything important. I was being used.

In the same year, the financial hell created by my father’s addiction finally took its toll. In the summer, the house foreclosed. I had grown up for most of my life in this house, since I was 7 or 8 years old.

Although I was pretty stoic about it, I realized that I was losing a part of my life, and, in the process, I lost some possessions that I never recovered. It was shortly after the revelation about the impending foreclosure that my sister finally told me the truth about my father’s addiction. He confessed around the same time as well. Although I knew something was off, the hard truth is a shock to anyone.

The year 2006 was not a pleasant year. The combination of my father’s addiction, which created undesirable conditions at my place of residence, and an unspectacular year of high school, turned me into more of an introvert then I already was.

I completely withdrew into my own little world. I tried ignoring the real world around me—sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. I heard things, and in my slight paranoia, and I could not decide whether they were true or not. Sometimes I would have trouble going to sleep, because my mind would suddenly become active in a bad way for no apparent reason, and at one point, I suffered a panic attack in the middle of the night.

Unpleasant? Indeed. So, what do I take from such experiences today?

Life is indeed precious—you have to make the most of it. I believe my father learned this as well: When he became clean, he immediately turned to religion. It is working for him and I am glad. I consider myself lucky, as not every drug addict will find a new purpose in life. You cannot, in any circumstance, waste away your life as my dad did and I think I made a similar mistake as well. I became too introverted and grew up too quickly because of it.

These experiences also taught me that because life is short, you simply cannot go on hating people forever. Mistakes happen, and this is what makes all of us human. As long as serious efforts are made to kick the habit of substance abuse, you cannot shun the afflicted. Love is a priceless thing in life, and, at the end of the day, it is what makes us all a little bit stronger.

“You don’t know how rock bottom feels until you have hit it. I hit such a bottom in 2006.”

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“The thing was, though, I didn’t even know he was an ”

addict.

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SEBASTIAN DIAZ

This publication is made possible by the Associated Students of the University of Nevada, Reno.

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