Williams, she said, “was a role model, helping minimize the shame and trauma of that.” A Life of AddictionĬynthia Williams was born on Aug. “They’re not proud of the things they did to get the drug, what they did on the drug.” “We teach the importance of meaningful self-disclosure … to overcome own shame about telling their own story,” Lask said. Her experience is the very resource Mayor Bill de Blasio’s office hopes to tap with its new Certified Recovery Peer Advocate (CRPA) training program, preparing graduates of substance-use recovery programs for careers in those same programs.ĭuring her internships at Hunter, Williams’ transparency about her past benefited the patients she worked with, said Michelle Lask, a clinical coordinator of fieldwork placements at the college. “So I want to be a part of that and give that back somehow.”
“The detox, the rehabs, the counseling, the groups, the motivation and the hope - that’s what got me here,” she said. After cycling in and out of detox facilities for half a decade, she committed to a 28-day program at Methodist Hospital in Park Slope. Williams gave up crack for good on May 10, 1992. Withdrawal has not just psychological, but physical symptoms such as nausea and abdominal pain, which make it even more difficult for addicts to quit. Opiates are depressants and have a longer high. Crack is a stimulant, giving the smoker an intense but short euphoria. The city that once waged a war on crack, locking addicts behind bars in response to fears about a spike in violent crimes, is now treating opioid dependency as a public health issue, dispensing anti-overdose drugs over the counter and cracking down on dealers.Ĭrack and heroin are chemically and physiologically different, too. Opiates - a class of drugs that not only includes illicit substances like heroin, but prescription painkillers like Percocet and Vicodin - were projected as of November to claim the record-setting number of 1,000 lives in New York City in 2016.
A survivor of the crack epidemic that gripped urban communities of color in the 1980s, she will launch her career amid an opioid epidemic consuming the white suburbs. She is now one exam away from becoming a Certified Substance Abuse Counselor (CSAC). It took Williams 12 years to finish her undergraduate degree in sociology, while she was working as a medical secretary at Long Island College Hospital. ‘You don’t find too many people at 74 alive with HIV, having gone through, and graduating from a masters program,” she said. One student hugged her so tightly she almost keeled over. Williams felt everything but her age when Hunter College President Jennifer Raab recounted her life story at the school’s commencement ceremony last month, a tale of addiction, homelessness, recovery and success that drew cheers from the audience.Īdmiring classmates later called Williams a “vision of hope,” she said.
“I’m the oldest person in Narcotics Anonymous.” “I am the oldest person everywhere I go, doggone it,” said the Fort Greene resident. Cynthia Williams graduated from Hunter College in January at age 74 as the oldest member of her class and the oldest student in her master’s program in rehabilitation counseling.