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Recovery in the News
Recovering From Rock Bottom
Heather Bowser
Daily News Record
April 4, 2008
City Man, Former Alcoholic Named Citizen Of The Year
HARRISONBURG - Earl Clarke had just about everything a guy could want.
A retired first sergeant, the Army guy owned a house and had four beautiful children and a loving wife. He was healthy, happy and had a government pension.
But then, he nearly lost everything, even his life.
Clarke, now a 73-year-old Harrisonburg resident, is a recovering alcoholic. After his retirement, he spent years "manning up" by tipping back the bottle. His health slipped, he distanced himself from his family.
At "rock bottom," Clarke weighed 108 pounds and his family threatened to leave him.
"I was a rack of bones, ready for the graveyard," he said.
Nevertheless, he said, his children managed to pick him up and walk him through the recovery process. The turnaround, he said, was remarkable.
Since then, Clarke says, he has worked in several capacities to educate others about addiction. And folks are noticing.
Earlier this year, the Virginia Association of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counselors named Clarke the Citizen of the Year. The annual award goes to a "person who has made significant contribution to the field of addiction," according to the group's Web site.
"Earl was courageous to admit he had a problem, but more courageous in his willingness to talk about addiction with everyone he meets," said Jennifer Johnson, a Mount Sidney resident and president of the association. "People need to see the faces of people in recovery. Earl is one of those faces."
Once Upon A Time
Before the troubles, there were sports.
Born in Norfolk, Clarke grew up in the Chesapeake area. In school, he was a star quarterback as well as a catcher on the baseball team.
"I was a pretty good guy," he said. "Football was what I lived for, though."
After graduating from George Washington Carver High School in 1956, Clarke attended Norfolk State University for a year. But when he couldn't make the football team, he dropped out.
Soon afterward, in 1958, Clarke was drafted by the Army, where he later enlisted and spent the next 25 years working with radio and various communications positions. With his "top secret" security clearance, Clarke toured the world working for "the higher-ups."
After his first tour, his high school friend, Agnes Wilkins, started to write him letters.
"That girl wrote me every day, for 18 months," Clarke said. "She wasn't even my girlfriend."
Finally taking the hint, Clarke rectified the situation in 1961, when the two married in Chesapeake. Together, they have four children, three of whom live in the Harrisonburg area.
Addiction
The trouble, though, started in 1981 when he retired from the Army to his Chesapeake home, Clarke said.
"I didn't have anything to do," he said. "The only way I knew how to ‘man up' was to drink."
Clarke would leave home on a drinking binge on Friday and sometimes didn't come back until Sunday.
"I didn't care if he was ever coming home again when it got so bad," his wife said. "I didn't like him very much, but I loved him because he was my husband and the father of my children."
Two of their children, who were then living in Harrisonburg, had had enough. They rented a U-Haul truck and arrived in Chesapeake one Friday afternoon to collect their mother and youngest sister, Erica.
"My son [Keith] told me, ‘We're here to get mom. We're leaving in the morning. You can come with us, or you can stay here and die,'" Clarke recalled.
Reluctantly, Clarke agreed and the next day the family moved to the Friendly City.
Recovery
Soon after the move and pleading from his family, Clarke entered the Life Recovery program at Rockingham Memorial Hospital. Finally, after four months of the daily outpatient treatment, something clicked.
"One morning, I got up and shaved," he said. "For the first time, my hands weren't shaking and I didn't cut myself. I realized then there was hope for me."
Soon afterward, at the request of a friend, the Clarkes began attending the Harrisonburg Church of the Nazarene on Port Republic Road to get his "spiritual recovery."
He became the congregation's rides coordinator and later the coordinator for the food pantry. He volunteered at the Gemeinschaft Home, a Harrisonburg halfway house for nonviolent offenders, and joined the Winner's Circle, a group of ex-offenders who talk to area schoolchildren about addiction.
"It's our way of giving back to the community," he said.
Last year, his giving back hit a national audience.
In February 2007, the Clarkes were interviewed and filmed for a documentary about drug addiction, which aired on the Hallmark Channel in December.
"I'm still recovering," Clarke said. "I'll be a recovering alcoholic until I die."