Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.

Graduates dedicate themselves to personal, professional recovery

Date: 6/9/2009

By Katelyn Gendron

Reminder Assistant Editor



WESTFIELD -- Those enrolled in Westfield State College's (WSC) Addiction Counselor Education (ACE) program are part of a special breed of human service agents.

Approximately 60 percent of those enrolled in ACE are in recovery themselves, according to ACE Director Linda Mullis, 23 of whom will graduate from the program on June 10, ready to aid others in their daily struggle for sobriety.

"You don't usually see people coming into the [ACE] field without [personal] experience [with substance abuse]," Mullis said. "It really takes that special person that is interested in substance abuse that has been touched by it [in order to be a counselor]. They need insight into addiction ... they have to be very caring and able to listen to someone else and guide them [through to sobriety]."

Nafeeza Lexington of Hadley and Jeffrey Earls of Amherst, 2009 ACE graduates, are two such people, Mullis said.

"They're like a lot of students in the program who are in recovery and want to come into the field to give back for [the help] they've received," she explained.

Lexington and Earls are also recipients of the Michael Calvin Hamblin Scholarship, for those enrolled in ACE who demonstrate an exceptional commitment to the field of addiction counseling. The scholarship was established by the Hamblin Family in honor of Michael C. Hamblin, whose ambition was to become an addiction counselor before losing his battle with acute myeloid leukemia at the age of 23 in 2006.

"They both overcame something that most people can't," Judy Hamblin, co-founder of the scholarship and Michael's mother, said of Lexington and Earls. "They've found an inner strength [to remain sober] and through their agony will help people have more productive lives and that's all we can hope for."

Lexington and Earls said they would not have been able to complete the ACE program without the generosity of the Hamblin Family.

"Because of the scholarship I'm going be able to help people who have a problem with substance abuse and maybe one of those people that I help will help someone else and that way Michael's legacy will live on forever," Earls said.

Lexington noted that the program has allowed her to understand proper treatment for those who've experienced trauma and are battling addiction.

"[Throughout my previous work in human services], I wasn't able to work on [a patient's] trauma and their substance abuse at the same time," she explained. "It honed my abilities in human services and family therapy."

Lexington, Earls and the 21 other 2009 graduates of WSC's ACE program will go on to obtain state certification later this year.

For more information on the Michael Calvin Hamblin Scholarship or to donate, visit www.myspace.com/mchscholarship.