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Recovery in the News
Aaron's House: Building a Legacy of Recovery and Hope
Bob Curley
Join Together
October 27, 2006
Usually, stories like Aaron Meyer's have a sadly predictable arc: A young man or woman, growing up with a normal childhood, gets hopelessly involved with alcohol or other drugs and dies of an overdose, suicide, or in a drug-related accident. Their parents, seeking solace in their grief, launch a campaign to bring attention to the cautionary tale and prevent others from suffering a similar tragedy.
Aaron's story, however, is different. Aaron had the good upbringing, the early involvement in drugs, the unhappy ending. But unlike many others, he found treatment and sobriety, and he died not in the despair of addiction, but trying to help a troubled friend get his own life back on track.
In the wake of Aaron's tragic death in 2005, his parents did launch a campaign, but with a goal that Aaron spoke of before shortly he died: establishing sober houses for college students with alcohol and other drug problems.
Aaron got deeply involved with marijuana use at age 16, and within six months his parents, Cathy and Tom, had spirited him off to a boarding school for troubled youth. During the next two years, he experienced the typical ups and downs of addiction recovery and relapse, but was clean and sober as he reached his 18th birthday on May 6, 2005.
A few days later, Aaron left home to help out a friend, a former drug dealer who needed a ride to a job interview. On the way to picking up his friend, Aaron lost control of his truck and crashed.
In the wake of their son's death, the Meyers recalled Aaron's plans to establish a recovery house and decided that doing so would be a fitting tribute to his memory. They established the Aaron J. Meyer Foundation with the goal of opening Aaron's House, a sober residence for college-age students in the Meyers' home town of Madison, Wis.
Now, Aaron's House is poised to become a reality: the foundation has raised about $35,000, located a suitable property near a trio of Madison colleges, and is hoping to close on the property in January 2007.
If all goes according to plan, the facility will begin accepting its first residents in August 2007. Foundation spokesperson Stacy Ozannne tells Join Together that applications are now being accepted from male students who are in an aftercare program, have jobs, and are attending a Madison college or vocational school. The four residents of Aaron's House will pay rent and be supported by a residential counselor and other mentors.
Building on Aaron's dream, Tom Meyer consulted with the operators of Hero House in Atlanta, another sober house for college students. Long-term plans for the foundation include providing personal-growth opportunities for Aaron's House residents as well as replicating the model elsewhere in the U.S., including establishing sober houses for women.
Aaron's story has one final, inspiring twist: As Tom explains, when Aaron came home from boarding school, he "saw me through different eyes, the eyes of sobriety." Aaron recognized, for the first time, his father's own problems with alcohol, and urged him to go to an A.A. meeting. "He gave me feedback you normally wouldn't get from a child, from a son," Tom said.
"I had to make a lot of changes in my life," he added. Tom was attending an A.A. meeting the morning that Aaron died; despite his son's tragic death, Tom is celebrating 22 months of sobriety in October.
Most importantly, his own recovery allowed Tom, during the last few months of Aaron's life, to, in his own words, "be a Dad to him the way a parent is supposed to be."
"The foundation is our continuing bond with Aaron," he said.