CINCINNATI — A Cincinnati man in recovery from alcohol use disorder is walking across a graduation stage Thursday, and the diploma he thought he never earned has been waiting for him all along.
Shawn Hughes, 58, is a resident at Prospect House, a long-term men's spiritual recovery center in Price Hill. For decades, Hughes believed he had not graduated from Woodward High School after missing three days of summer school in 1987.
"I was absent from school those three days they gave me, so I assumed that I didn't graduate," Hughes said.
That assumption turned out to be wrong.
Hughes enrolled in Cincinnati Public Schools' ASPIRE program, which offers free day and evening classes for people looking to earn their GED. Three weeks in, the staff made a discovery that stopped him in his tracks.
"Three weeks into me taking the classes, they called me into the office and said, 'Sean, you already have your diploma.' I said, 'What?'" Hughes said. "This is surprising to me. I came here to get my GED."
His diploma had been sitting in the basement of the school.
Hughes will walk across the stage Thursday as part of the ASPIRE program's graduation ceremony, finally marking the milestone he thought had passed him by nearly 40 years ago.
"I was happy, actually surprised," Hughes said.
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Cincinnati Public Schools is working to spread the word about the program. ASPIRE sites are offered in partnership with community agencies throughout the city of Cincinnati.
According to the district's website, classes are free and available year-round during the day and evening. Online courses are also available.
"I said to myself, I'm going to start doing things for myself that I wouldn't do if I were still out there," Hughes said.
Hughes said the road to this moment was not easy. He has spent years battling alcohol use disorder.
"Prior to me having my children, I was an alcoholic, and I got in some trouble a few times through the court system, and the third time I got a DUI, and they decided to put me in a treatment program through Talbert House," Hughes said.
He stayed sober for eight years before falling back off.
"Spent 25 years doing the same thing. I called my sister, who's been in sobriety for 35 years, to help me," Hughes said. "I wasn't doing anything, but destroying myself and looking at death."
Recovery at Prospect House, where he's been for five months, has given him a new foundation. The center offers a treatment program, three-quarter housing and alumni housing, creating a community where men at different stages of sobriety can support one another.
"We take them in regardless of their resources or ability to pay, being willing, having that gift of desperation, having seen unsuccessful attempts, and being ready to commit to long-term abstinence-based treatment is really the key," Paul Quertermous, executive director of Prospect House, said. "We don't accept anyone on medication-assisted treatment. We are one model, abstinence-based, 12-step, and we work very hard to maintain that model, and to keep everybody on the same path."
For Hughes, returning to education was about more than a diploma. It was about understanding himself.
"I just always turned to that, even though when the alcohol went away, I still had that problem still there. So I just wanted to take time out for myself and learn me. I needed to know who I really was," Hughes said.
Quertermous said watching Hughes reach this point has been meaningful.
"They don't know if they're ever going to make it, and Shawn is at that point where he can see that he can build a life now, and that's a wonderful thing to see," Quertermous said.
Hughes is also one of the newest cooks at Prospect House. His next goal is to attend college to study robotics and continue growing a bond with children.
"If I die tomorrow, I can say I did something," Hughes said.
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