The Wahkiakum County Eagle - Established as The Skamokawa Eagle in 1891

"There is nothing glorified about my story," Mike Sovel said. "It's all misery."

On Friday, Sovel, a former drug addict, had a message for students at Wahkiakum High School affected by drug use, whether it was their own or by someone they loved. He held little back.

Silently, all across the bleachers, hands rose when he asked if the students had family or loved ones who were involved in an active addiction. Later, one teacher admitted to being shaken by the number of hands that went up.

"That's a lot. That makes me cry," Sovel said. "Drug addiction is a sad thing especially with your parents. It's a selfish disease. It causes us to lie and manipulate others. Never once did I wake up in the morning and put a needle in my arm and think, I really hope I disappoint my children today."

Sovel grew up in an abusive home, an unwilling participant in what he described as "every kind of abuse imaginable."

Outside the home, at the age of 13, he made friends with a group of older boys. Like any young man, he wanted to fit in and fitting in with that group meant smoking marijuana.

"When I got high, something clicked," Sovel said. "I knew I was in a world of hurt, meaning, I found something that made me feel human and made me not think about my past or what I was going through that day."

The new found friends and supply of weed disappeared when the boys discovered he was jewish. They beat him up and eventually his family was forced to move. He was so desperate for a high, the next time he found marijuana, he shoved it all in his mouth, hoping for some of the relief he had found from the unwavering emotional pain.

"I was 13," Sovel said. "I didn't know what I was doing."

It wasn't much later that he discovered methamphetamine.

"That's when I knew something was different," Sovel said. "With the weed I didn't feel as much; with the meth I didn't feel anything. No emotion, nothing. I didn't care about what was going on at home, I didn't care about the abuse. I didn't care about any of it."

Seventh grade was a heck of a year. He made friends, tried weed, got beat up, started methamphetamine and got kicked out of school for selling dope. Somewhere in the middle of that a man stood before him and his classmates and told the story about his drug addiction.

"I thought I was better than him," Sovel said. "I ended up being a junkie. I ended up being just like that guy."

When his drug addiction took over, he dropped out of school. That was just two years later, in ninth grade. He eventually got his GED when he was 26, but he's fuzzy on how that happened, since he was high at the time. Then, somehow, he ended up working as a phlebotomist for the American Red Cross.

"I'm not going to drag you through my 25 years of active drug addiction," he said, "because all it is is a bunch of empty promises that I made to my children, my mom and my family and a bunch of lies and manipulations and a bunch of failures."

Sovel was married with two children in his early 30s. While working as a phlebotomist, he decided to try injecting the methamphetamine.

"It was a horrible idea," Sovel said. "My addiction got so sick, I wasn't just addicted to the drugs, I was addicted to the needle. I injected tylenol for a headache. I injected ice water. I drew my own blood. My addiction took control of my whole soul. I ended up losing my job."

That was the first time he went to treatment, and he had to go 11 more times before it would take hold.

"I told the counselor that I was going to continue to smoke weed and drink," Sovel said. "Hard drugs were my problem. My counselor told me if I smoke weed that I would be back to the needle in no time. Sure enough, he was right. I was shooting dope the day I got out."

Sovel got emotional while he shared some of the lowest points of his addiction.

"I remember my little girls knocking on my bedroom door," Sovel said. "I told them repeatedly that I would be out in a minute. Before I knew it, it was three in the morning and it hit me that they had been knocking since seven because they were hungry. I opened the door and my daughters were huddled together on the hardwood floor. They had fallen asleep hungry because of my selfishness, my self-centeredness, my drug addiction."

Sovel gave up meth right then, but replaced it with heroin, thinking somehow it was better.

"It's all bad," Sovel said. "To me, weed is in the same category as heroin. A drug is a drug is a drug. I don't care if it's legal. I don't care if you can buy it at Safeway."

With heroin came a new experience, overdosing. It started happening a lot.

"I'm telling you my deep crappy secrets because I want you to understand how deep a drug issue can get," Sovel said. "I want you to understand what moral boundaries you will cross if you go down this road. You will cross them, I guarantee it."

One time he decided to shoot heroin while driving with his seven year old daughter in the car. They got in an accident. She was fine, but he spent some time in the hospital.

Another time he and his girlfriend decided that buying drugs was more important than paying bills.

"We couldn't afford toilet paper," Sovel said. "My kids were using socks to wipe themselves. It was horrible and disgusting and I put them through that."

The little family ended up in a shelter, sleeping on cots until his ex-wife tried to get custody of the girls and Sovel attempted suicide. He healed, but they could no longer stay in the shelter.

Finally the very real fear of losing his children pushed him a step forward.

"I was going to stop using over the weekend in order to pass a urine test to keep my kids," he said. "I couldn't do it. I was going to lose my children and I couldn't do it. My soul was crushed."

Sovel volunteered for treatment.

"Why are you here?" the counselor asked him. "What makes this time different?"

Sovel has that last question tattooed on his chest as a reminder. What makes this time different?

"That man changed my life," Sovel said. "I stayed in treatment longer and he counseled me for days and days and days."

"I couldn't get a job with all my tattoos," Sovel said. "He told me I could be a counselor."

Treatment ended and Sovel went back to school to be a drug counselor. He has two more classes and he talks to groups whenever he can. He's already doing some counseling, in the very office he received his own.

"It isn't fair that we choose drugs over our children," he said, "but it's what happens. It's a sickness in our head. It's a disease. I was told if I chased my recovery half as much as I chased my drugs I would be successful. We can change our lives but it takes a lot of work and a lot of love."

"My daughters are not number one in my life," Sovel said. "My recovery is number one in my life. Me not using dope today is number one in my life because if I get high today, my kids will never come first. Never."

One can hear in his voice how very much he wants his daughters to come first, how he hopes for that day.

The students heard it too. It was a quiet bunch that walked out of the gym that afternoon. A few stopped with tears in their eyes. Between them an offering. A hug, an understanding, a shared knowledge.