ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, December 11, 1995 TAG: 9512110034
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KIMBERLY N. MARTIN STAFF WRITER
IT TOOK DAVID FITZGERALD 19 years to graduate from college. Now he has a bachelor's degree and a coveted Fulbright grant.
Every morning, David Fitzgerald falls to his knees and says his daily affirmation: I am an alcoholic; I am an addict.
He doesn't reserve those confessions for hushed morning voices. He tells almost anyone who will listen to his story of second chances.
"I am what I am," he quips in his best Popeye voice.
And for the record, that's a drug addict, a convicted felon, and more recently a J. William Fulbright scholar and a 1995 Roanoke College graduate.
Having a Roanoke College graduate awarded the prestigious Fulbright grant is a coup that the Salem liberal arts college makes maybe once a decade, said Teresa Thomas, director of media relations.
Annually, about 20 percent of the thousands of students who apply for the coveted Fulbright scholarship are accepted.
Fitzgerald's acceptance into the select group doesn't surprise people who know him.
In his 38 years, he's overcome adversity that most people will never know, said Carol Crower, an academic adviser at Virginia Western Community College, where Fitzgerald received his associate's degree.
Fitzgerald, an English major, will study at the University of Sydney, Australia, comparing Australian and American literature.
Receiving the Fulbright is a mind-boggling achievement for someone who until his 33rd birthday never clicked with school.
In high school, the Georgia native said, teachers lamented that he never performed up to his potential. When he graduated, it showed; his transcript read like the alphabet. His grades ran the gamut, from A's to F's.
His first try at college was worse. He started at Georgia Southern University 19 years ago. He paid for half his tuition, his father the other half. The result was a 0.12 grade point average.
The drugs had started early, he explains. Marijuana was his entry into a world of altered consciousness.
"All of my friends were using it. It was a cool thing to do. We figured the adults just didn't know what was hip," he said.
Fitzgerald's first felony charge for marijuana possession was at age 16. The road from there turned into a downward spiral, with the drugs getting harder and his lifestyle faster.
Tussionex, a mild narcotic similar to codeine, later became his drug of choice. He would hustle doctors for it. And if they refused, he would break into their offices to get his fix.
He spent most of his 20s in and out of Georgia and South Carolina jails on drug-related crimes. Both states since have pardoned him. His longest stint was for obtaining drugs by fraud.
A drug counselor in a small South Carolina town snapped his losing streak. The counselor convinced Fitzgerald that he couldn't lick his addiction alone.
Family in Pulaski recommended Roanoke's Hegira House. So Fitzgerald packed his bags. But changing his life wasn't easy.
"I figured I'd do what they told me to do, get out and then every once in a while, I'd go buy a beer and call a doctor [for tussionex]. They saw through that and terminated me," he said.
When they kicked him out, "the first thing that came to my mind wasn't how I was going to get back to Pulaski or Georgia or what I was going to eat. The first thing that came to my mind was 'let me call a doctor so I don't have to think about it.' That scared me."
He begged his way back into the house and completed the program. It took him 22 months.
Addiction "is not like cancer. You can get [cancer] cured, and you can forget about it. I can never forget that I'm an alcoholic and an addict," he said. "I have a full life - recovery is not my life. It's just a big part of it."
Completing that program was the first thing he had ever finished. From there, he said, he had a success to build on.
He and his wife, Cecelia, graduated summa cum laude from Virginia Western in 1993. This May, he was 16th in his graduating class at Roanoke College. He got financial aid and worked two jobs to pay for his education.
He met Cecelia through mutual friends in 1991, and they were married a year later.
Cecelia's story has the same Cinderella quality to it as Fitzgerald's. She also came to Roanoke to recover. Alcohol was her vice. Bethany Hall had the cure.
She'll graduate this month from Virginia Tech summa cum laude. However, she's reluctant to compare her triumph to her husband's.
"I didn't reach the types of bottoms David reached. David's story, you could make a TV movie about it," she said.
For now, she worries about what she'll do with her finance degree in Australia. The possibilities excite and frighten her.
She calls their impending move - they have sold most of their belongings and will leave the United States in January - a leap of faith.
"God or whatever it is out there is the one who's given us these gifts," she said.
Her husband also credits their success to a higher power, but he doesn't consider himself a religious person.
"I'm more of a spiritual person," he said. He explains the difference this way: "A religious person is someone who is afraid to go to hell. A spiritual person is someone who's already been there."
He's unsure what the future will hold when he returns next year. He said he would like to write.
He's been drawn to creative writing since the fifth grade. He got an award for a short story he penned in prison. In fact, everything he has done since he started Virginia Western has been geared toward his attending Hollins College's creative writing program. But he wasn't accepted.
He didn't get the Fulbright grant initially, either. This spring, he was put on an alternate list. But a few months after the Hollins rejection, a letter from the Fulbright board came.
"Everything that's happened in my life has been a miracle."
LENGTH: Long : 111 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: DON PETERSEN/Staff. David Fitzgerald will study at theby CNBUniversity of Sydney, Australia, comparing Australian and American
literature. color.