Max Bungard Memorial Scholarship

I was an atheist at the time, and like many atheists I pondered how a loving God could allow evil to run rampant in the world. How could a loving God allow my dad to abuse me? He couldn't possibly exist! I was running away from something no one could see, and at the same time I was constantly pursuing a high that could make me forget what I was running away from. I would take anything I could get my hands on--even if I didn't fully know what it was. When I was 19, I overdosed on my dad's tramadol. I had been battling a substance abuse since 17 years old, which was when I first tried cigarettes before moving on to smoking marijuana. I had clinically died for 6 minutes--no blood and oxygen to my brain. My dad performed CPR on me. The irony of this was that he was a functioning alcoholic that abused me my whole life. Well, what happened to me was nothing short of a miracle. Unlike most people, I did not suffer any immediate cognitive impairment or loss of motor function. Even at just 30 seconds of being clinically dead people have to be rehabilitated in order to regain control of their lives, such as learning how to walk and talk again. But God had other plans. Despite the overdose and my near death experience, I continued to struggle heavily with substance abuse for the next decade. My life spiraled into a chaotic whirlwind of substance abuse and bad choices. I hadn't realized it yet, but I was actually coping unhealthily with mental health issues due to childhood trauma, along with autism. I was erratic in my behavior and impulsive in my actions. Immaturely, I had shifted accountability of drug addiction to everyone else except me--especially my dad who was the bane of my existence. Instead of wanting to change, I wanted to continue living in my addiction and evade any sort of responsibility or discipline. It was much easier to just say that my trauma made me who I was and that there was nothing that could be done to change that. Even my family gave up on me; my parents called me a junkie and that this was who I would be for the rest of my life. But God can cange the unchangeable and as I said, He had had other plans. At the age of 29, I gave my life to Jesus and my entire life chaged. My dad had already passed away, but the Lord restored my relationship with my mother and sister--which I had almost completely destroyed due to my addiction. Jesus also freed me from depression and taught me how to love myself by showing me how He loved me first. And lastly, as my faith in Christ continues to grow I learned I had to accept that I am always going to be in recovery or recovering. In the past I was in denial of my addiction, but Jesus told me to take accountability and to lean on Him for continued sobriety and healing. I will be 34 years old this summer and God is always good. I want to use my psychology degree and pair it with a degree in ministry to help those struggling with trauma, grief and addiciton, and to have a faith-based approach doing it. God has a plan for me and I know that He wants me to help those in the shoes I have walked. I want them to know that Jesus can break any chain (Luke 4:18), Hallelujah!

I have been addicted to many things in life: books, Candy Crush, playing with my papa's white hair. Those things bring me back to a time when my life was complicated yet simple through a child's eyes. Nothing was right, nothing was wrong. However, my most recent addiction had profound and life-changing consequences. I battled drug addiction from September 2021 to July 2022, using any substance within reach. I am currently 1,382 days sober. Some studies suggest that opioid and narcotic addicts typically only live seven years from the start of their addiction. During that time, I stopped going to school, became a professional liar, and nearly died from overdoses and suicide attempts. I lost all ambition and any hope for a future. Getting sober was not something I thought I was capable of. Honestly, I did not get sober because I recognized I was destroying my life. I got sober because life was getting boring and I wanted to mix it back up. Getting sober was the new cool. I thank my brain daily for making sobriety sound appealing. I joined a sobriety group for teenagers and finally felt like I was part of something. I was surrounded by kids who understood me and adults who acted like kids. I found pride in myself and in what we were doing together. The second I walked into that building, I knew I was getting sober and I was doing it that day. In the nine months I was in that group, I never once admitted to myself that my drug use had been a problem. In February of 2023, I was staying with my aunt Nicole, who is an alcoholic. As a drug addict, I believed we were just alike. We got into the hot tub together. She was drunk and I had no idea. Nicole slipped under the 104 degree water and could not pull herself back up. She hit her head and would not wake up. I genuinely believed she was dead. When she came to, she insisted she was not drunk, called me crazy, then asked me if she was. I stood against the railing, covered in blood that was not my own, and made a silent promise to myself. That moment changed me in a way nothing else could. I witnessed addiction from the outside for the first time. I felt the helplessness of watching someone you love disappear into it. I felt the anger, the forgiveness, the all-consuming fear that freezes your entire body until there is nothing left but a shell. And in that moment, I finally understood what love actually meant. Love is unconditional, and it is the largest word there is. Sobriety has placed me in situations I never expected and forced me to rebuild my entire worldview. I accept change now. I accept the hard things and I overcome them. When difficulty returns, and it always does, I am stronger and more equipped to face it without turning to my vices. I welcome that growth because I now understand that the hardest experiences are often the most important ones. I am dedicated to helping others overcome addiction the way I was helped with mine. I know how impossible recovery can feel from the inside, and how many people genuinely believe they are beyond help. I am passionate about proving them wrong. I want them to see the light at the end of that tunnel and come out the other side as stronger people because of it.

My name is Alexander Wolff. I was raised in Scottsdale, Arizona, with an identical twin, an older sister, and a younger brother and sister. Recovering addict and alcoholic. My sobriety date is April 10, 2020. I suffer from addiction despite growing up in a good household in one of the wealthiest cities in the country, where all my necessities and most of my wants were met and my parents were willing to help me. This disease affects people from all backgrounds. My battle with addiction began in sixth grade, when I got suspended for drinking at school. I don't think one event started this addiction, but multiple tragedies and the escape drugs and booze afforded me made everything feel tolerable My physiological and mental addiction to feeling okay stems from this feeling I keep chasing. Alcoholism turned into opiate abuse, stealing tramadol from my family dog, who took four a day after a failed hip operation. By high school, my addiction was complete, yet I had to act clever, friendly, and motivated while feeling like I couldn't fit in. I preferred downers but used uppers for vigor. I regularly got into bad situations and didn't care what I was on as long as I felt high. Upon graduating high school, I was completely independent for the first time; I failed all my classes within a month of starting my freshman year. I had no more excuses to hide my addiction. I abandoned life and dropped out of college, requiring my parents to rescue me from the streets and offer me a choice: attend a program or leave them. I'm flying to St. George, Utah, for a "failure to launch" program. During this program, I continued using drugs, and one day I looked in the mirror and could not see myself; I was so skinny that I looked like I was on the verge of death. That moment is when I did the hardest thing and asked for help. I went on to a wilderness therapy program in Utah, and then a follow-up transitional living program in Tucson followed my sober living. At the end of my stay in sober living, I had been in treatment in some form for almost two years. I grew as a person in those two years; I worked on myself in therapy, went to 12-step meetings, got a sponsor, picked up chips, started volunteering, and began being of service to others. It had taken seven years of addiction and two in treatment until I was 21 in order for me to recognize myself. I found myself working in treatment a few weeks after I turned 21 at the program I attended in Tucson; this was the first time I truly felt like I was having a positive impact on people. I tried to go back to school, but it was hard, and I found myself failing. I made the move back to Scottsdale and gave it another chance while continuing to work in treatment. I am proud to say that I have graduated with my associate's degree, am pursuing my bachelor's degree, and plan to attend a master's counseling program after that. I struggled with being myself, trauma, and addiction, and without the guidance of a good therapist, I would have never seen the light at the end of the tunnle that others could see for me.

Many individuals today still believe marijuana is harmless for recreational use, but I implore you to take some time and listen to how my addiction to that same drug put me in a mental facility for 20 straight days. I was a young, fresh college student sitting in an on-campus dorm room with some of my dorm mates and a few new friends we had made. In the center of the room was this glass vase-looking contraption that I would be told was called a bong. Five minutes later, the fumes I inhaled from such a device led me to have uncontrollable giggles and a very relaxed demeanor. This was my first time experiencing what this plant was capable of, but it would also lead to some unfortunate events in the future. Although I was introduced to the drug in the first year of my studies, the concrete manifestation of my addiction didn’t come about until I was in my second year of college. I assume it had to do with the fact that being in an off-campus setting gave way to less supervision than I had the year before. I had also moved off-campus with the roommate who had the most access to cannabis. In hindsight, I believe part of the reason for these choices had to do with lessening the obstacles of using my drug of choice. With the freedom and desire to do so, I began smoking marijuana every day. It was my way of being social, and although unhealthy, it was my coping mechanism for the stressors of this world. But soon, it began to turn into a problem. I would smoke through the night and rush to finish assignments in the morning, sleeping only four hours at a time. I’d also skip entire meals because a smoke session with friends seemed more fun. That devolved into me going from one hundred and forty pounds to one hundred and twenty-seven pounds within three months. But the worst was yet to come. Near the end of my third month in sophomore year, I began having erratic mood swings. Paranoia was slowly creeping in on me, and I had started losing touch with reality. Luckily, my roommates were worried enough to call my parents. Within twenty-four hours of hearing the situation, my parents had driven to my college residence, brought me back to my hometown, and admitted me into a psychiatric facility. While inside, the combination of being unable to comprehend why I was there, mixed with my delusions, made me believe I had died and was transported to a place of eternal punishment. My parents, during visitation hours, and some wonderful nurses, occasionally convinced me that it was all in my head. I sometimes wince at the thought of my parents having to suffer watching me go through so much fear and mental anguish. But with time, care, and education, I healed from what was labeled a drug-induced psychotic break. Afterwards, I swore off cannabis and similar drugs for the foreseeable future. Miraculously, I made a full mental recovery and went on to finish my Bachelor’s Degree in Exercise Science drug-free! I am also honored to say that I have been accepted into a Master’s Program in Public Health, which I aspire to use one day to provide individuals with the health services they need and to promote a life without the need for recreational drugs to operate in this world. I hope my words urge you to support this dream, and I thank you for listening.

When people think about addiction, they often picture someone whose entire life has been defined by substance use. My story is different. While addiction became part of my journey, it is not the whole story, nor is it the story I want to leave behind. I began using marijuana in 2020 after graduating from high school during the COVID-19 pandemic. Like many people my age, I was navigating uncertainty, isolation, and a major life transition. At first, marijuana felt like an easy way to cope with emotions that I did not fully understand. What began as an occasional escape gradually became a habit. As I continued through college, I recognized that marijuana was no longer serving me, and I made the decision to stop. I remained sober for a significant period during my undergraduate years, proving to myself that I was capable of making healthier choices. However, after graduating from college, I found myself struggling with a new set of challenges. Entering adulthood brought financial pressures, career uncertainty, and the stress of figuring out who I wanted to become. Instead of facing those emotions in healthy ways, I relapsed and returned to using marijuana as a coping mechanism. The consequences of that decision were far greater than I ever imagined. Last year, my marijuana use contributed to an episode of psychosis that required psychiatric treatment and forced me to step away from my responsibilities for two weeks. It was one of the most difficult experiences of my life. I had to confront not only the impact of my choices but also the reality that the coping strategy I had depended on had become harmful. It was a painful wake-up call, but it also became the turning point that changed my life. Today, I am sober and committed to protecting my mental health. Recovery has taught me that healing is not about being perfect—it is about continuing to move forward, even after setbacks. I have learned healthier ways to manage stress, ask for support when I need it, and extend myself the same compassion that I would offer someone else. My experiences have also shaped my career aspirations. I am pursuing a master's degree in social work because I want to help individuals and families who are facing mental health and substance use challenges. I understand how easy it is to believe that one mistake defines your future. I also know that recovery is possible when people are met with empathy, support, and hope instead of judgment. If there is one message I hope others take away from my story, it is this: drug use does not define who you are. Our lowest moments do not have to determine the rest of our lives. I cannot change the choices I made, but I can choose how I move forward. By continuing my education and dedicating my career to serving others, I hope to show that resilience, growth, and purpose can emerge even from life's most difficult chapters.