The Failure That Helped Rebuild My Life
Up to the point of my senior year of college, in the 8 years since my mom died, I had basically been a straight A student. I never had any worries about failing any classes. I never even really had any worries about getting below a B. I have mentioned this before but my first addiction was to studying. The combination of the validation that it gave me and the ability to turn my brain off from everything else was what I kept going back for. I would spend hours a day at the library, starting in 10th grade.
This focus on school continued in the early stages of my addiction. I would smoke weed before I went to the library everyday. I would also make it a point to get home for the start of the sports games to start drinking and gambling. My life in school somehow remained manageable through this.
It wasn't until my coke addiction started to truly overtake my life that studying all of the sudden became an afterthought. I went from consistently studying all of my class material daily to going to the library two days before an exam to cram it all. This was all while using coke as fuel to keep me awake from the lack of sleep. For most of my classes, this kind of worked and I was able to maintain about a C average. It was worse than what I was used to but at least I was passing.
One of my classes though, ME 368, or as we called it measurements, required much more than just a few days of studying prior to an exam. We had weekly lab assignments that we had to stay on top of. Instead of showing up to lab weekly, I cheated and got the answers from classmates. I basically never showed up. In order to complete the labs though, you needed to use the physical equipment that the school provided in person. I didn't think anyone would notice that I was completing them without having access to any of this equipment.
It was about half way through the semester and I was sitting with a 65% in the class. You needed a 67% in this particular class to pass. This was by far the lowest grade that I had ever had in any class. This grade was including the grades that I got from cheating on the labs. At this point, I was highly concerned that I wouldn't pass this class even with the grades from my labs, and as a result, not be able to graduate at the end of the semester. I decided to reach out to my professor in hopes to get extra help and make a game-plan for how I could bring my grade up.
As soon as I got to my professor's office, he told me that the grade that was showing up in my student portal was not the actual grade that I had. The portal did not take into account that in order to get a grade on the labs, you actually needed to show up. "Uh oh", I thought to myself. After calculations, we concluded that the actual grade that I had in the course was a 35%. This grade included grading every lab that I didn't show up to as a 0%. This was very far off from the 67% that I needed to pass.
After a little bit on panic, my professor and teaching assistant were kind enough to allow me to make up these labs. We set up a time outside of class that I could come into the lab and use the equipment to complete them. My professor and teaching assistant were offering their free time to help me.
The first appointment we had to complete the first lab, I didn't show up. I blamed it on the teaching assistant for being unclear in the date and time that he set. The reality though was that I wasn't prepared for the material and wanted to stay home and continue to do cocaine. For some reason, he was very graceful and let it slide. The next appointment we had, I showed up, but I sat there for 2 hours and did not even attempt to do any of the work. I didn't know the first thing about the lab that I was supposed to complete. I was not prepare at all for it.
The next day I sent my professor an email trying to figure out if it was even worth it for me to make the labs up. I did all the calculations for my grades and asked him that if I completed these labs and got specific grades then I would be able to pass. I was more worried about passing the class than I was about learning the material and doing what I needed to do to pass. He responded to the email by saying he wanted to talk to me in his office the next day.
When I showed up, he immediately told me that he caught me cheating on an online quiz one month prior and that he would no longer allow me to make up the labs and as a result I would fail the class. It was very interesting to me that I was blatantly cheating on all of the labs and yet he caught me cheating on something completely different. Regardless of how I got caught, I was indeed cheating on multiple facets of this class and I deserved to fail.
At the time though, I was shocked. I didn't think this could happen to me. I was a straight A student and here my worst nightmare was coming true. I failed a class months before I was supposed to graduate. I pleaded with him. I cried in his office. I told him that he didn't understand what I was going through. He didn't budge.
I went home that day and used it as an excuse to use as much cocaine as I possibly could. This was a dangerous time for me and I didn't care. I used "at" my professor. I used "at" all of the bad things that had ever happened to me. I was deep in victim mentality at this point.
I also set out on vengeance to get back at this professor. I wanted him fired. I thought he had it out for me. I thought he was sabotaging my college degree. I thought he had no right to fail me. Over the next week, I reached out to my academic advisor, the dean of engineering, the dean of students all pleading to allow me to pass the course. I had an entire script written out about how I was wronged. None of them budged either. Finally, I accepted that I had failed. I still thought that I was being wronged, but I now realized that there was nothing I could do about it.
I felt like a victim to the school system. In reality, I was a victim to myself. I was a victim to my drug addiction. I was a victim to my poor choices. I was a victim to my lack of care for anything in the world.
This was nobody's fault but my own.
At the time, I thought this was the end of the world. I didn't think anything worse could happen to me. I had a job lined up as a project manager at a different general contracting firm than where I worked the summer before. I was extremely excited for this new opportunity. When I found out that I failed, I was hoping to reason with my boss that I would go back to school for one semester, finish off my degree and then start working there. He told me that would not be possible and he revoked the job offer. I was devastated.
As time went on, I realized just how big of a blessing this whole ordeal was. Originally, I was planning to go to treatment at the beginning of May and leave at the beginning of June so that I could start this job. After one month of treatment, I was planning to move back to the city where my Xanax addiction took off. Because I no longer had the job, I was able to stay in treatment for longer. Rather than 1 month, I stayed for 3 months. These 3 months were much needed. It took me about a month for my head to clear up and finally get into the work. I then spent the next two months working my ass off, learning new things about myself, building relationships with fellow clients and growing as a person. If I would have left after one month, I wouldn't have been able to do any of this. I'm not sure what would have happened, but relapse would have been likely.
Not only that, but since I only had one course to take to get my engineering degree the next semester, I had time to take introduction to psychology courses. These courses helped me realize that this was exactly what I wanted to do with my life. I will now be starting my Masters of Psychology in September 2026 rather than continuing on the engineering path that I was on.
I was able to take it slow and really build a foundation for my recovery. I was able to officially make the pivot to psychology.
What I thought was the end of my life was really just the beginning of a new journey. Failing that class saved my life.
