First Person

Starting Over

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By James Waite

After my first column, "Hung Over Again," appeared on this site, I was deluged with responses from folks throughout the academic world. Most told me -- quite directly, in fact -- that I had a problem and that I needed to seek help, sooner rather than later (true).

Others remarked that I exhibited all of the classic elements of denial -- well-written denial, perhaps, but denial nonetheless (also true).

While I knew they were right, what really struck me was the volume and diversity of the responses; I was certainly not the only academic wrestling with a drinking problem, nor had I ever been.

That realization got me thinking: If I already had a propensity to drink too much, were there things about the academic environment that exacerbated the problem? And if so, what could I do to change -- or eliminate -- those things in order to regain balance in my life?

That was both a frightening and a liberating line of thought. I had to confront my behavior and alter it by changing routines and habits with which I had grown quite comfortable. At that point, I was desperate enough to try anything to feel more in control of my career and my life again.

So I quit my job.

That's right. I left a tenure-track position at a good college in a wonderful location for my research and professional activities to expose myself to the tender mercies of the job market once again. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I had to make the move.

I wrote that first column on the day of my first-year review, which involved other faculty members and administrators evaluating my performance as a new member of the college community. It went OK. Not great, not horrible, just a bland testament to my spectacular mediocrity in both the classroom and my research.

To me, though, I might as well have been fired. I didn't get into this line of work to be mediocre in the classroom, or to churn out a nondescript article when prodded every few years. I didn't intend to become the waste of space that I seemed on course to becoming.

I'd come out of graduate school with my idealism and desire actually intact, but I lost those things somehow in my first year after supposedly "succeeding." Why?

Most of the reason, I think, stemmed from my own lack of self-discipline and motivation. But a key part of that could actually be found at the neighborhood bar. I met there almost daily with a group of senior faculty members, all of whom had been at the college for decades. Over copious amounts of beer, they would commiserate about a host of things that had "gone wrong" in recent years -- a decline in student quality, decreasing budgets, an administration that favored certain academic divisions (business) over others (everyone else). It was quite the list.

The senior professors at these colloquia liked me -- I could keep up with their drinking pace, which was no easy feat. I could tell jokes about administrators with the best of them, and I think it made them feel good that a younger faculty member took the time to listen to them hold forth on the generally sorry state of academe today.

But these get-togethers weren't doing me any favors. There was the obvious connection between time spent at the bar and the lack of time spent doing anything productive.

But there was also the "creep," as I came to call it. The culture of bonhomie and collegiality was enjoyable on the surface; underneath, it was defeatist and cynical. These folks had tenure. I didn't. And they all had quit publishing a long time ago -- about the same time they had started mailing it in with their teaching as well.

I was doing the same thing, but getting a much earlier start on it.

Now, I'm not blaming my excessive drinking on a group of tenured "enablers" at the pub. But there was no denying that my readiness to drink, and drink a lot, was flourishing in that climate.

I looked at other aspects of my "climate" as well, wondering if I was drinking heavily to avoid confronting other issues in my life. At that point, I felt pretty ridiculous, like I was prepping for an appearance on Dr. Phil. Self-help lingo -- "avoidance issues," "denial" -- how had those become part of my mental vocabulary?

Underneath the psychobabble, however, was an unpleasant reality. I didn't like my job, and I hadn't since I set foot on the campus. There was a profound and pervasive negative mood at the college, strikingly poor morale, budget cuts across the board, and a lack of any real sense of community or collegiality. In short, all the things I thought I would get in my preferred small-college environment were simply not there.

But shouldn't I suck it up and try to fix things? What about all the friends I had who would kill for a tenure-track position -- even this one? Such questions, spawned by my post-grad-school "survivor's guilt," were persistent, but I had to move beyond them, I decided.

I couldn't control everything about my surroundings, but I could control my decision to remain within them. So I quit, figuring that I could make a fresh start somewhere else with the lessons I'd learned the past year.

I got lucky. I was a finalist for several positions and accepted a tenure-track position at a small, liberal-arts college across the country. What better way to make a new start? I love my new job: The campus mood is positive, my colleagues are a joy, the finances are in good shape, the administration is well liked and competent. It's academic nirvana.

I've thrown myself into my work. I've taken computer classes to employ technology in my classroom, I've redone my syllabi to make the course more fun to teach, and I've begun an ambitious research program. I am now obnoxiously efficient.

Before we cue the happy music and roll the credits on this inspirational feel-good story of the year, though, let's also acknowledge the rest of my reality. I still drink, even though I know I probably shouldn't.

I've cut way down, and I don't feel out of control like I did before. But who's to say that I won't down the road? I'm locked in a slow dance with alcohol. Right now, I'm leading, but that's not a guarantee for the next dance.

I'm a little older and I'm a little wiser from the past year -- wise enough to know I still have work to do and dangers ahead. Environment was a part, but not the whole, of my problem. Changing places worked well for me, but I have to make it keep working. I can't up and move every few years because I feel like my drinking is out of control.

I was lucky to succeed on the market twice, and I have little taste for a third try. This, then, is my reality, constantly walking "the edge," maintaining a delicate balance of awareness and control. Maybe soon I'll step off that edge, in one direction or the other. At least I now know which direction I want to go.