My name is Andrew Arthur Dawson and I’m a brother from the New York Theta Chapter of Phi Kappa Psi. I’m also a recovering alcoholic and drug addict who is living in a world today where too many people are suffering and even dying from addictions such as these. And many of them often begin for people during their college years and will go unnoticed especially for those active in fraternities; such as it did for me. I hope in sharing a portion of my own descent into addiction and ascent outward might somehow help provide a level of education to all fraternity brothers out there on just how deadly this disease can be.
My story begins at the end of August 1990, as I headed off to college to begin my freshman year at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). I had arrived a few days early for freshman orientation and while I was excited to finally be out a little more on my own, there was also some unsettling fear bouncing around within me due to my previous levels of alcohol consumption.
Seven months earlier on the night that Mike Tyson lost his first boxing match of his career, I had discovered alcohol for the first time in my life and felt its wonderful effects. In the months that followed up until my arrival at RIT, I chased those feelings it gave me and partied quite a bit. Everyone, including myself, just chalked this up to my celebrating the end of my high school days, and no one, not even me, knew that alcohol had already become my master. Having already versed more than once what it felt like to pass out, black out, and throw up profusely when I drank, I found myself in fear about my drinking getting out of control as I unpacked my stuff in my dorm room.
Whether it was fate or not, those first few months at college began with me living in temporary housing, which exposed me to more drinking and partying then anything I had ever experienced before. My initial dorm room was within the home of one of RIT’s biggest social fraternities. Everyone in my family was a member of one of them and all had talked about the partying, which took place in most of them. What I did next was what most alcoholics do all too often throughout most of their active addiction days. I promised myself I wouldn’t let my drinking get out of control, that I wouldn’t ever consume any type of recreational drugs, and that I would steer clear of ever attempting to join any one of the fraternities on campus, including that one I was living in the interim.
Within six months at RIT, I had already broken two of those promises. My drinking had progressed with more nights of partying and I had moved into sampling drugs such as marijuana and magic mushrooms. Because of this, my grades suffered by sliding away from the straight A’s my parents were accustomed to me getting. Since they were paying my tuition, they weren’t too happy and warned me to get my act together. For whatever crazy reason I gave myself back then, I thought the answer to getting myself back on track was to find a fraternity that I could join which might help keep my drinking and drug use in check. I’m sure you might be chuckling at the absurdity of that notion, but alcoholics aren’t generally known for their ability to make rational decisions.
As I began attending events that each of the fraternities on campus were holding for students interested in joining Greek organizations, none were alluring me due to their high amount of drunken debauchery I saw from its members at each of them. I was about to give up the search when someone I knew invited me to come check out a group that was in the process of trying to establish themselves as a recognized fraternity on campus. At it’s current “colony state” that it was referred to by its brothers, the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity seemed very different from the others. Alcohol wasn’t present at their social events for interested candidates. They spoke of striving for leadership and excellence. And they stressed the importance of getting good grades and maintaining responsibility. That was all I needed to see and hear to give them my desire to join. A week later I was given a bid to pledge and accepted it.
Over the next three months as I pledged, my life was under the scrutiny of each of these brothers. At times, I would endure from them what is commonly referred to today as hazing, which thankfully has long since been eradicated from my fraternity. The simple definition for it is when one is forced to perform a strenuous, humiliating, or dangerous task in order to obtain the rite of passage into an organization. Most people think of the movie Animal House with John Belushi when the word hazing comes up. In the case of those days when I pledged, being hazed really just meant the copious use of alcohol, which only further complicated my disease. At some point, I began to get in trouble with RIT police due to my drinking and the brothers of Phi Kappa Psi were forced to give me an ultimatum; remain sober for the rest of pledging or be black-balled. I chose sobriety because I looked up to and wanted what the brothers had, as many were straight A students and strong leaders on campus. I also continued to maintain the belief that my alcoholism could be kept in check if I became an established member of a well-respected fraternity such as them.
In May of 1990, I finished their pledging process and was inducted into the membership of the colony. Within another year, I became a founding father as my colony was inducted into the national organization of the fraternity where we then became known as the New York Theta chapter of Phi Kappa Psi. Sadly, within that same year and the ones to follow until my graduation, while the fraternity would grow healthier and stronger, I would grow more sick and weak from my disease of alcohol and drug addiction.
I tell people today when I speak about recovery from addiction, that there are signs others can see when someone is becoming or has already become an alcoholic or drug addict. In my case, the first was the fact that I had to get drunk every time I picked up alcohol. There was never a time I could have just one drink. As other fellow alcoholics might say, it was “two drinks and then oblivion”. The second sign in my case was the increase in frequency of drunken binges. When I first started drinking in college, I was what one might refer to as a “weekend warrior”, partying only on a Friday or Saturday night. As time went on, that changed and I began to go out on just about every night of the week where I proudly would sport my Greek letters at other fraternity parties on campus. Because I saw so many other members of these fraternities doing what I was doing, I maintained the belief it was ok. Eventually the only night I wasn’t consuming alcohol was on a Sunday, because on some level I had told myself I was leaving that day sober for God. Sadly, that didn’t remain true for very long either. Another sign of the progression of my alcoholism and drug addiction that came after this were the mood swings I began going through. Many of the drugs I was taking on top of the alcohol were contributing to this. Often I became angry and violent and would put my foot or fist through a door or a wall or I’d just resort to breaking things such as empty beer bottles when I partied with my brothers. And then there were the times I’d be on the exact opposite side of the spectrum where I was completely sad and dejected and my brothers would find me crying profusely about something trivial. Rarely was I ever able to stay in a happy mood when I consumed any alcohol or drug.
Unfortunately there were signs too that people weren’t seeing when my disease of alcoholism and drug addiction was beginning to take over completely. By my senior year, I was consuming any liquid left behind in discarded cups and bottles that were lying around parties that had ended for the evening. I was having longer and longer lapses of memory from my many binges. I had started stealing merchandise in local stores to enhance my “highs”. And all of this accumulated to the point where I got into serious trouble on campus in my senior year from some of my drunken behaviors and was placed on double academic probation as a result. I spent my remaining months before graduating from RIT as a “closet drinker” for the fear that if I got caught I knew I’d be kicked out of school. And yet, even with all that destruction which came from my alcohol and drugs consumption, it would take me another six months of descending into further addiction hell before I finally would face the truth that I was an alcoholic and drug addict and begin a life of sobriety from the both of them.
The sad truth was that my Phi Kappa Psi brothers probably couldn’t have saved me from this disease even if they had wanted to. I had to hit rock bottom before anyone could have helped me. The only thing that might have changed the length of my active addiction to alcohol and drugs was if there had been better education provided to my brothers and me about this disease during my active fraternity days. With the aid of Alcoholics Anonymous and God, I gained the education I needed and have now mustered 18 continuous years of sobriety from both alcohol and drugs. Much of my free time now is spent giving back to others who are still suffering from these addictions. By going to prisons, hospitals, detoxes, halfway houses, and other 12 Step based meetings; I share my experience, strength and hope about my life and recovery from addiction to try to help another who is still suffering from it.
It’s my hope to one day be able to go to other chapters in Phi Kappa Psi around the country, and maybe even other fraternities too, and speak of my own journey into the hells of addiction and the rise out of it. I believe that if I was given the chance to share my story to other fraternity brothers, that it might be the exact education that people like me needed in college to understand the severity of the disease. And it’s my belief as well, that hearing my story will create a much deeper connection since it’s coming from one of their own. Then maybe, just maybe, they may gain the knowledge needed to either help themselves sooner than later if they’re suffering from alcoholism or drug addiction, or someone else that they may know is.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson