Prescription pills don’t come cheap on the black market. In three months, Tim Rabolt burned through $10,000.
His addiction to prescription pills and illicit drugs dominated his life – until last year when he made the choice to stop.
Rabolt, now a freshman in the GW School of Business, is a student in recovery. He is not alone.
Breton Novelli, a senior, started drinking when he was 13 years old. Since high school, he has tried opiates, heroin, cocaine, crack-cocaine and methamphetamine.
Both are among a group of about 18 students in recovery who have approached Assistant Dean of Students Tara Pereira about their battles with addiction, looking for support.
“It’s a population that I started being increasingly concerned about, because they’re coming here in recovery, and it’s like going from the frying pan to the fire,” Pereira said.
Thursday evening, for the first time, Pereira, who oversees the University’s behavioral and substance abuse prevention offices, will gather recovering students, with the hopes of developing a type of support network that has never existed at GW.
Pereira plans to use their feedback to begin regular on-campus meetings for addicts and to form a recovering student organization. She is also working with Housing Programs to designate clusters of rooms in residence halls for recovering addicts – a more stringent extension of GW’s existing sober living agreements.
A normal day
When he switched to a new high school in 2007, Rabolt joined the wrestling, baseball and football teams to make friends. When he still felt excluded, he gravitated toward a group of older kids who drank and smoked.
He found himself using marijuana regularly.
“I felt like I needed to have something in me to go out and dance, or go to a sports event or to have fun,” Rabolt said, adding that he believes he was born with an addictive personality.
Rabolt began buying prescription drugs – mostly performance enhancers like Adderall – during his junior year of high school, using money he earned as a busboy at a restaurant near his Delaware home.
“People think, because they’re prescribed by a doctor, that they’re totally okay,” he said. “[Adderall abuse has] become a pandemic, because it just seems like it’s totally okay to do.”
Rabolt would lay out lines of crushed OxyContin – a prescription opiate meant to relieve severe pain – on his desk before bed so that it would be ready when he woke up in the morning.
“I needed the first fix just to feel normal,” he said.
The windows of his car were tinted, shielding him as he'd do another line in the high school parking lot. After daydreaming during his first class, he’d make excuses to get back to his car before study hall so he could do another line. After that, he’d sneak into a corner of the library or head back to his car to get his next fix. Then came lunch – another line. The afternoon was the same, until 2:30 p.m. when school got out, at which point Tim would go home and smoke with friends or use by himself.
He hid the habit from his family.
“Addicts are the most manipulative, sneaky people,” Rabolt said.
Novelli, too, justified the pills and looked for ways to fund his habit. He learned how to forge prescriptions using images online, obtaining large doses of OxyContin with refills. The pills sold for $80 each, funding his addiction.
“Junkies” and “dirty doctors” fueled his habits, as Rabolt burned through his busboy paychecks and savings bonds, even selling his electronics and season tickets to the Phillies on the Internet.
Rabolt turned to dealing marijuana after he lost his job at a bar for smoking weed during a shift. Running out of money, Rabolt got desperate. He described the floor plans of his friends’ homes and their schedules to criminals he knew – setting them up to be robbed. He got a cut from the loot.
“Somehow I never got arrested, never failed a drug test, no one ever caught me. I never got in trouble, nothing ever happened. There were no consequences externally. But inside, I wanted to die, because I was so miserable going through that same process every day,” he said. “I knew I was gonna either die doing [pills] or die by trying to get more.”
Novelli, who had been arrested several times, once for public intoxication, became addicted to heroin.
“It was amazing. It was the best rush. It was like sex, but I wasn’t moving,” he said.
Both spiraled deeper into addiction, Novelli during college and Rabolt in high school.
Novelli remembered giving a homeless man $5, “just to see what he could get” When the man came back with crack, the pair smoked it in a stairwell of JBKO residence hall.
It was just one year ago when Rabolt sat at a Superbowl party, high, with girls on his lap, surrounded by other stoned people.
“I felt like I was the only one in the room. I never felt more alone,” he said.
Novelli took a break from GW during his sophomore year, and after a violent roommate conflict last year, he left during winter break of what should have been his senior year. He went into rehab in Texas.
In recovery
Rabolt believes that divine intervention made him realize he needed to quit pills, but being in a college atmosphere presents temptation after having quit during high school, he said.
Novelli, who faced his addiction during college, said GW offers limited resources to students recovering from addiction.
“It’s kind of impossible for students in recovery here to come together,” Novelli said.
He and Rabolt are enthusiastic about starting on-campus meetings and a student organization, something Pereira said she hopes will begin this semester.
“Students will come to campus with learning disabilities, for example, and know that they’re going to seek out [Disability Support Services],” Pereira said. “I want students [in recovery] to come here and know as they’re walking in the door at [Colonial Inauguration], there are services here to help you.”
Rabolt goes to meetings for recovering addicts five times each week, mostly in Dupont Circle, Georgetown and Columbia Heights. Novelli goes about twice per week.
The age range of other Foggy Bottom meeting participants isn’t easily relatable to students, Novelli said. Putting a student-aged meeting in place is a priority for Novelli before he graduates in May.
“It’s hard going to meetings on Foggy Bottom with professionals, who are complaining about things like divorces and child custody and careers that they’ve lost when you can’t really relate to that when you’re a college student, and you’re complaining about your parents and financial aid and your studies,” Novelli said. “It’s a totally different world.”
Novelli has been clean for more than a year, and Robalt has for about 10 months.
“I feel like an old man sometimes,” Novelli said of his decade-long battle with substance abuse.
Now Novelli is looking for a job in communications. Rabolt wakes up by 7 a.m. every day to work out. He goes to all of his classes and wants to join student groups.
“Addicts tend to have a lot of potential. It takes a lot of devotion to get high every day. If they can harness that, which I’m just starting to learn how to do, they can do great things,” Rabolt said. “When you lose absolutely everything, you gain this ability to do absolutely anything.”
Kudos to both of these students for overcoming their addictions!
Hopefully the University will take a rehabilitative versus punitive approach to students in this situation. They seem to quickly resort to a judicial approach in cases of student drug use, which may not always be in the best interests of the students.
This makes me really happy. I am so proud of both of these kids. As someone who has a friend who abusing prescription drugs, it gives me hope that this could be a place that can help him/her feel safe and potentially help them through the addiction so that they can reach a better place. What a good idea. Would love to see more news articles about this as the group forms so that I can help out in any way possible.
Keep up the great work guys! I know you can do it!
These accounts are very raw and even a bit terrifying at times. I’m glad to know that these students are in recovery, and I congratulate each of them for their progress.
However, $10,000 in 3 months for a prescription drug habit begs the question: what else was he doing to make that kind of money? Who was enabling him? And how do they live with themselves?
What is one to do when they see a friend who is addicted to a substance like this? I think the University should also provide links to resources for friends of addicts, so that we can help them recover.
Just to clarify- the group that we are starting is a place for students in recovery and those affected by recovery and addiction, the first meeting is this Thursday February 9 at 7 pm in the John Quincy Adams house. We look forward to everyone’s continued support!
Kudos for you guys coming out as addicts in recovery in order to help others. Many times, because AA is an anonymous fellowship, not many hear or know about it. During my struggles of addiction, I never consciously thought about a recovery 12 step group. It’s great that 12 step groups hold to strict anonymity to insure people’s protection and possible shame. I personally am out as someone in recovery and I have no issue with it. I had 8 years in December of continuous sobriety. I have been very lucky that I made it. When I was in rehab, they told us maybe 2 out of 40 make it. I took that serious and did everything I could to be part of the 2 and not the 38. Some addiction is genetic, some situational and some the environment they grew up and their interactions.
GW is taking a huge step by starting a group of recovery as GW. Honestly, the sober agreements mean nothing. I think it’s nice so you can be held accountable in theory, if their is an issue that arises. In my opinion, Marijuana use is as prevalent as alcohol use on campus. Drinking is a common thread that almost all universities are plagued by, but Pot use seems to be somewhat special on our campus.
In closing, thank you GW for giving the students the access to resources that will inevitably help students deal with their addiction. Most Universities simply think that this should be the responsibility of the Counseling Center. It is really nice to know that we are addressing this issue with multiple resources to meet the diverse needs of our student body.
Thank you,
Rich Dweck
Last item to address is how “The Hatchet” has an advertisement for boost liquid drink with the slogan, “Party More, Hangover Less.” This so happens to be on the sidebar of this article.. Just an interesting fact…
Rich,
I’d love to explain to you about the ad process here if you’re curious about that ad. E-mail is eic@gwhatchet.com – Lauren
I’d assume that the Hatchet is a part of an ad network of some sort (probably the College Media Network) which sells out the ad space. What I’ve gotten on this article is mostly retargeted ads, but I’d assume you got a contextual ad. The advertiser bid on alcohol-related keywords and they showed up next to this ad.
Bfarrell2008@yahoo.com
Parent of a recovering addict:
Congratulations to Tara and Breton and Tim for your bravery and honesty. Addiction is a sleeping Giant in our society that we’ve all ignored for too long. I’m proud of you three for coming forward with this story. It’s so easy to ignore a major illness, no different than a physical illness per Psychiatrists, because it is just misunderstood. Addiction is genetically inherited just like most of the major illnesses that are physical illnesses (cancer, heart, diabetes etc), yet we ignore it as an illness and just blame the addicts. Finding resources for addiction is much more difficult for the addict and hopefully the support from GWU will help more students come forward to find their way to recovery like Breton and Tim. I’m proud of you for taking this huge step in telling your private stories to help others to find their way to recovery. Good work and my best to all of you.
poorly written, but very inspired by their recovery
Congrats to GW for your openness to such an important topic. The daily struggles of addiction is so much more than just not using drugs and drinking, and to be a full time college student must definately add to the struggle. I hope you continue to help your students with their day to day issues with addiction. I just happen to be Tim R biggest fan and support from his home town and I’m so very proud of him. I myself know about the struggles of addiction because I’ve been clean myself for over 20yrs; “one day at a time”. God Bless you all!!!
Congrats to these students. And shame on their parents. Unless they’re dead, they have no excuse for allowing their kids to get in this deep. As someone else mentioned, I don’t see how a kid gets access to tens of thousands of dollars without an adult giving it to them. I wish the reporter had asked about the parents, but that subject isn’t covered in this article.
Kudos to Tara and Breton and Tim for being so open and honest about such a core shaking issue that needs more exposure. I’m happy to know that GW is trying to improve services and that efforts are beginning for meetings to be held here for students. This is an initiative I would love to be a part of…and I think other students would be more than happy to help as well. It will take a lot of support to have a strong program started here but it’s doable between volunteers and even with the help of students who are studying substance abuse like myself.