SEMO STUDENT RECALLS LIFE OF DRUNKENNESS

These are more than just lines on an alcohol-awareness poster. To Mike K., they are all too true.

The 26-year-old Southeast Missouri State University student is a recovering alcoholic who works as a counselor-trainee at the Gibson Recovery Center in Cape Girardeau.

He is scheduled to speak about "College Men in Recovery" at a noon program today in the University Center as part of Southeast's observance of National Collegiate Alcohol Awareness Week.

He has been in recovery for nearly four years now. But prior to that, he drank his way through college, flunking out of class after class. He remembers being moody and insecure. At times he would turn violent and get into fights.

"At the age of 14, I had my first drink," recalled Mike. He drank for the next eight years, his life increasingly mired in alcoholism.

Mike graduated from a St. Louis area high school in 1984. He attended Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville in the 1984-1985 academic year, where his drinking problem led to him flunking most of his classes.

"I had quit going to classes. I was drinking a fifth a day. I had already developed a bleeding ulcer," he recalled.

"I had become consumed and obsessed with alcohol," said Mike, who was spending much of his time drinking beer and whiskey.

After flunking out of school, Mike got a job. But he was still drinking heavily.

He joined the Marine Corps Reserve, but he soon began drinking again and even experimenting with cocaine and other drugs.

He ended up working as a roofer in St. Louis for about a year, but he continued to drink heavily. In May 1987, he was arrested for driving while intoxicated, his second such offense.

Mike said his father told him to quit drinking or move out of the house.

Mike attempted to commit suicide by swallowing sleeping pills and drinking whiskey. "All that happened was I slept 13 hours," he recalled.

In that same year, he was treated for a bleeding ulcer.

In fall 1987, Mike decided to enroll at Southeast. Mike said he thought getting away from his friends and his family would help resolve his problems.

But he ended up drinking heavily that semester.

In spring 1988, Mike moved off campus and pledged a fraternity. He remembers attending keg parties and drinking until he would black out. Mike said alcohol was his "liquid courage."

"I had no sense of reality anymore," he remembered.

For most of the fall 1988 semester, it was the same old story. "That was another semester filled with hard-core drinking," he said.

In late November 1988, he reached bottom, with friends and family no longer wanting to have anything to do with him.

"I was at a point where there was no one around me that I could blame for my problems anymore," recalled Mike.

On Nov. 20, 1988, he joined a 12-step recovery program whose participants were meeting on the Southeast campus. "I turned it around," he said.