Mike Grant is a recovery success story. Mike grew up with some anger issues as a result of things that happened in his home. He started drinking at 13 years old and thought it would help him for many years. Instead, drinking at such a young age stunted his emotional development. He lacked the emotional skill set he needed to make good decisions in his life.

Early in his recovery he started running as a way to manage emotions and stress and running led him to sustained recovery. Mike started a local running club for people in recovery and they organize runs and do races together. Working with people in active addiction allows Mike to connect with the rawness of what addiction really is. There’s no romanticizing it from the side of recovery because he knows what it’s really like.

Mike published a book called (Re)Making A Sandwich: An Addiction Case Study, a creative nonfiction memoir that follows him for six years as he goes through treatment to fulfill the requirements of an intensive diversion program for habitual drunk drivers. (see book here)

Part of Mike’s story was being a habitual DUI offender. After being placed on county probation due to multiple DUI offenses, Mike finally realized that the consequences of his drinking could negatively affect his son. He got tired of backtracking his life with law issues, financial issues, and everything else he couldn’t juggle or keep straight because of his relationship with alcohol. Knowing that he needed mandated treatment for himself, Mike did a three-year diversion program that changed his life and he has been sober ever since. The diversion program was more of a life management program to him than a non-drinking program because he learned how to live life in a lot of ways.

Mike Grant is now a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and a Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselor. He currently works as an addiction therapist for Kaiser Permanente and as an adjunct professor in the Alcohol and Drug Counseling Program at Portland Community College.is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and a Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselor. Mike currently works as an addiction therapist for Kaiser Permanente and as an adjunct professor in the Alcohol and Drug Counseling Program at Portland Community College.