“Life experience!” This is a phrase that has become all important in our field. People with genuine life experience are sought to relate to and serve those suffering from substance use disorder.

Most of my life I have been on one side or the other of substance use, with myself personally, dealing with my family, or working with people who have made poor decisions that have ruined, or began to ruin their lives.

I am a veteran of the USMC-R and was deployed to Saudi Arabia in the early 1990s.I am retired from the Illinois Dept. of Corrections, after 28 years, most of which I was a paramedic that worked as a Correctional Medical Technician (this provided me with invaluable familiarity with medications and medication types(as well as “street” drugs) that gave me a foundation of understanding of what happens in the brain and body when substances are introduced.

The last eight years of my IDOC career, I was a Correctional Counselor and this is where I received my training and certification to become a substance misuse/abuse counselor. During this time I worked with short time offenders preparing them to reenter society and again this experience greatly helped solidify my understanding of the human condition when substances are involved.

I am Christian and my relationship with Jesus is the most important aspect of my life. I am the husband of the most wonderful woman on this planet, and the father of two amazing young men. In all honesty I am a “Ninja Level Nerd,” I love sci fi, &fantasy, and video games. I love to read and consider myself to be something of a “Shade Tree” historian of American Military History. I play guitar and consider myself to be something of a second hand bluesman.

And I truly want to see people in sustained, successful recovery!