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A professor’s story about alcoholic past

By Megan Hirt

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Paul Sneed spends Thursday afternoons in his office on the first floor of Wescoe Hall. Students pop in and out, and each time, Sneed, an assistant professor of Portuguese language and Brazilian literature and culture, greets them in energetic, fluid Portuguese.

His students often respond timidly in broken phrases, tentative snips of this and that. Sneed always responds with warmth and patience.

Patience has a different meaning for Sneed than it does for many people. After nearly 22 years of sobriety, Sneed has learned that, to stay vigilant against alcoholism, he must focus on and trust only the moment he is in.

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Photo by Ryan McGeeney

Paul Sneed, Assistant Professor of Portuguese, began drinking at the age of 13 and quit at 18, leaving home in the intervening years and living in the woods near his parents' home in Viginia. After a series of arrests at the age of 18 and 28 days of detox treatment, Sneed completed a GED and egan attending college. After he completed his Ph.D. at the University of Oklahoma, Sneed spent five years in Brazil, where he founded a Two Brothers, a non-profit organization that promotes education and community service.

“You really just can’t count on anything,” Sneed said. “So I try to never count on being sober.”

Sneed, who had his first drink at age 13 and his last at 18, admits the living-in-the-moment approach can be a daunting way to look at life, especially for a young person struggling to be sober who faces years of temptation ahead.

“But it doesn’t have to be such a bummer,” Sneed said. “It helps me stay in the present. I want to be aware of what’s happening right now. It helps me be spontaneous.”

Sneed grew up in Arlington, Va., a suburb of Washington, D.C. He remembers being drawn to alcohol because it helped him relax, stop feeling empty and connect with others.

At age 16, Sneed ran away from home and lived in the woods near a railroad in Burke, Va. At 18, he was arrested for a series of crimes, including felony offenses, and was facing jail time. Before his trial, however, he was remanded to the youth wing of the Alcohol Treatment Unit of Arlington Hospital.

“At the time, it was hard for me to imagine my life without drinking or drugs,” Sneed said of his first days in treatment. “It’s really a miracle that someone as down-and-out as me was able to get sober.”

Sneed never served time in jail. Instead, he spent 28 days in treatment. He remembers being prescribed Antabuse, a drug that interferes with the body’s ability to metabolize alcohol, in order to keep him from drinking. And he remembers the eclectic group of people on the unit with him — people from all walks of life who, if alcoholism discriminated, would likely never be found in a room together.

“I was afraid of dying, but I just didn’t like living,” Sneed said of his mindset at the beginning of treatment. “I may have been depressed, but I didn’t know because I was drinking and doing drugs all the time.”

After leaving treatment, Sneed earned his GED and soon after began taking classes at Northern Virginia Community College. It was there that he discovered his passion for music, philosophy, foreign languages and learning itself.

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"At the time, it was hard for me to imagine my life without drinking or drugs. It's really a miracle that someone as down-and-out as me was able to get sober."

— Paul Sneed, professor in Portuguese language and Brazilian literature and culture.

“It turns out I was a pretty good student,” Sneed said.

Sneed said he considers himself to have an addictive personality, so despite his strong resolve to remain sober after leaving treatment in early 1986, he has since struggled with other addictions, such as cigarettes, coffee and co-dependence in relationships.

“When you get sober at 18, you find other ways to mess up,” Sneed said. “But I knew if I ever started drinking again, I’d want to drink all the time.”

Through it all, Sneed continued to focus on academics. He earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia and earned both his master’s degree and his Ph.D. in Portuguese from the University of Wisconsin. He spent five years in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where he founded a nonprofit organization known as the Two Brothers Foundation, which promotes education, community service and international exchange in Rocinha, a shantytown south of Rio de Janeiro that has been torn by gang violence.

Sneed is in his second year teaching at the University of Kansas, and previously taught at the University of Oklahoma and San Diego State University. He and his wife, Jeyla, welcomed their first child, a son named Cael, in July.

Sneed said people who struggle with alcoholism are not bad people, but rather just people stuck in a bad cycle. Sneed remains involved in local alcoholism support groups, and said he learned during his own college years that alcohol isn’t necessary to have a social life in college and to feel like a part of the college community.

“Drinking can never give you a deep-down happiness,” Sneed said. “Whether it’s through a church or a social justice organization, in a town like Lawrence, there should be a lot of other things you can get involved in. You don’t have to go through college unthinking.”

— — Edited by Kelsey Hayes

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