Addiction recovery is more than a career for Chris Pushor — it’s a way of life
Posted by PCC Foundation
Addiction counseling student Chris Pushor shares how scholarship support encouraged him to think differently about his future:
The most transformational part of college wasn’t taking my first class. It was looking around the room and recognizing other students from my past life.
Not from high school. Not from work. From living in active addiction.
Today, we’re sitting in the same Alcohol and Drug Counselor program at PCC, learning how to help other people find recovery. We aren’t who we used to be.
If you told me years ago that I’d be earning straight A’s in college, I’d have laughed. As a queer teenager trying to figure out who I was, high school stopped feeling like a place where I belonged. I dropped out and addiction took my life in a different direction, leading to homelessness and incarceration. In prison I fought to get clean, earned my GED, and set my sights on PCC to build a new career.
Now, here I am, sober, and making a better life for myself.
I’m pursuing a career in the recovery field because I want to use my lived experience with addiction to help others. I also manage two shelters at Open Door Housingworks, serving people experiencing homelessness. And, I don’t plan to stop there. After graduation, I want to pursue a bachelor’s degree in human services.
When I received my scholarship, I felt worthy for the first time in my life. I found myself looking up the people behind it and wondering, Why would someone invest in a person they’ve never met? That question stayed with me. It made me think differently about my future and about the kind of person I want to become.
You really want to know why I chose this career? I don’t want the hardest years of my life to be the thing that defines me. I want them to be the reason someone else finds hope.
Chris Pushor is a first-generation college student pursuing an Associate of Applied Science degree on the path to becoming a qualified mental health associate and certified alcohol and drug counselor. He received the Norma Jean and Henry Germond Endowed Scholarship and support from Oregon Promise, a state program that helps cover tuition. Chris plans to transfer to Portland State University to earn his bachelor’s degree.