Sarah Clingan habitually showed up to school drunk or stoned. She was caught with a fifth of vodka once, and she even sold fake acid to one of her peers, all before the 7th grade.
Clingan, a reformed drug addict and recent Cal State Long Beach graduate, has before been homeless, addicted to methamphetamines and heroin and even spent two years in prison.
But that all seems a distant memory now as she looks to further her award-winning research and highly successful education.
Clingan, now 30, grew up in Los Alamitos with her parents, two brothers and sister. Her closest sibling in age was 10 years older than her, which she says made her feel like an only child.
“All the attention was on me,” Clingan said. “Which was great if I did something good, but not if I got into trouble.”
Trouble was something Clingan often found her way into.
She began smoking marijuana and drinking when she was just 12 years old. Commonly dubbed “the gateway drug,” marijuana led Clingan down a dangerous path.
A habitual truant of school, Clingan was sent to a continuation school, which she said was a joke.
“It was two hours a day and four days a week,” Clingan said. “They were very little on education.”
Her school district then sent her to a boarding school, which was also ineffective in disciplining Clingan.
She ran away from home at 17 years old and started smoking methamphetamines. She always had a home to go to but preferred to stay on the streets. She knew her parents would send her to a boarding school again if she returned home.
One night, Clingan was arrested and sentenced to juvenile hall for assaulting two police officers while in a drunken blackout.
She was released from juvenile hall after seven months but didn’t stay out for long. Just a few months later, Clingan was caught with methamphetamines and taken back to juvenile hall.
When she was 18, things went even further south as Clingan began using heroin.
“I used heroin to offset my insanity,” Clingan said. “Heroin is what really took me down. I was very much homeless on heroin. I slept by homeless shelters, dumpsters; I even slept at the mission in Santa Ana.”
At 20, Clingan was charged with possession of heroin and sentenced to three years in prison, which was later reduced to two years. She even spent a 40-day stint in “the hole,” where inmates are confined for violating the rules in prison.
“There was just a book, a Bible maybe, very little stimulation and no distractions,” she said.
It was these 40 days, however, that genuinely sparked her desire to change, Clingan said.
“Whatever you’re doing, you’re trying to be the best,” Clingan said. “I tried to be the best convict. I had proved that I was tough. I didn’t need to prove anything else. It’s that moment that you realize, ‘If I don’t make a difference now, I never will.’ [I was] inadvertently committing suicide.”
After finishing her drug rehabilitation program, Clingan received a harsh dose of reality: as difficult as it is to find a job with no formal education, it is even harder for an uneducated felon.
“I put in 50 applications, maybe heard back from two of them,” Clingan said. “On the few interviews I had, they laughed at me when I told them I was a felon.”
Clingan eventually lucked out. A friend from her rehabilitation program offered her a construction job off the books, though it paid just five dollars an hour. She also started going to school to become a drug and alcohol counselor.
When she was 26, she received her counseling certification and moved on to Cypress College, where she started her career in psychology.
“I realized I always wanted to be a psychologist ever since I was a little kid,” Clingan said.
Despite having no substantial education since the seventh grade and battling dyslexia, Clingan earned a 4.0 grade point average in her three years at Cypress College.
She was recognized as Cypress College’s Outstanding Graduate in 2010 and moved on to Cal State Long Beach to further her career, because it was close to home. Remarkably, Clingan maintained her perfect GPA through her undergraduate career.
“Graduating with a 4.0, I think that’s pretty good compared to some others who were in my situation,” Clingan said.
In May, Clingan won top honors in the 26th annual Cal State University Student Research Competition, which recognizes outstanding research done by undergraduate and graduate students.
She earned first place in the undergraduate division for her research on “Sex Trading for Drugs in Long Beach, California.” She later went on to win the same award at the state level.
Clingan surveyed thousands of drug addicts and others who came to the university’s Center for Behavioral Research services and found that one in five drug users in the city has traded sex for drugs.
As she awaits the start of her masters program this fall, Clingan is working as a drug and alcohol counselor for the outpatient program at Twin Town Treatment in Long Beach.
“I’m noticing an explosion of heroin addicts 18-25 [years old]. People are shooting up,” she said.
She said she believes heroin is not only becoming more accessible, it’s becoming more acceptable.
“Back when I was on the streets, some of the hardest people I knew would have ostracized me for doing heroin,” Clingan said. “Now, it’s everywhere.”
Clingan said she believes her openness is something that helps her reach the young kids in the outpatient program.
“There are two reasons I’m so open about my past,” Clingan said. “One, I want to encourage others to want to change. And two, I want to decrease the stigma around people like me. I think it’s important for them to see that people can change and that there are a lot of others like me.”
Ultimately, Clingan wants to impact those struggling with drug abuse in two ways: directly through her counseling and indirectly through her research.
“[A support system] is the most important thing,” Clingan said. “Most people get clean and don’t have some of the simple things like a place to stay and a little help [financially].”
Clingan’s parents helped fund her education once she got clean.
“If it weren’t for
my parents I wouldn’t be where I am today, getting my masters,” she said.
Clingan currently lives in Los Alamitos with her wife, Rose, and their 8-year-old daughter, Allison.
“She was also in recovery when we met so we have that connection,” Clingan said about Rose. “Probably 99 percent of who I associate with are in recovery.”
Clingan will continue her education this fall as she pursues her masters in psychology. After that, she plans to go for her doctorate and then try to have some of her research funded.
“I want my research to get at the population I was a part of,” Clingan said. “I want my research to be valuable. I want a better system and better treatment options 10 years from now.”