Addict turns life around, now hooked on education
Calhoun Times - 9/30/08Susan Kirkland
Life has always been about goals for Tenn Harbin. Those goals have changed drastically for the 34-year-old father of two who is working toward buying a home and finishing college. But that wasn’t always the case.
"My goal was to have fun, find the next party. I thought I was tough enough to handle the consequences," he said about his young adult years.
He said he started drinking young, when he was 13, and later in his 20s, a friend introduced him to methamphetamines. He quickly became hooked on the drug and then began selling.
"I found out I could pay for mine by selling it, so that’s what I did," he said.
Then he got busted, and life took a turn he didn’t count on. At the age of 24, he faced a 10-year sentence for conspiracy to sell meth.
Harbin said he changed his focus while the judge was handing down his sentence. "While I was in court, my wife was giving birth to my daughter," he said. "That was when I hit rock bottom."
He served eight years and nine months of his sentence at the federal prison in Asheville, Ky., and didn’t waste a moment of his time incarcerated.
"I developed ambition. I took everything they offered," he said. By the time he was released, he had an associate degree in business management and two certificates in health, fitness, and nutrition. He kept a 3.9 grade point average.
"I’d get with some other guys who were serious, and we’d study," he recalled. He also took 500 hours of drug awareness courses which helped him speak to others about the dangers of drugs.
His parents, Terry and Linda Harbin of Adairsville, would visit every few months, and his wife visited a couple of times.
"She had to work and raise the baby. It was a struggle for her, but she made a decent life," he said of his wife, Mandee. "Most wives wouldn’t stick by you, so I was blessed."
He wouldn’t trade the experience, he said. "If (the sentence) had been a year or two, I’d have gone back to it."
While incarcerated, Harbin learned about Citizens Against Methamphetamines and Other Addictive Substances, a local grassroots organization that works to educate and help families dealing with the epidemic. He wrote a letter to the Calhoun Times expressing his gratitude that a group would take on the problem. He now works with CAM by speaking to different groups about his journey.
"I tell people to use their friends as a mirror. If they are getting in trouble and using drugs, there’s a 90 percent chance you will too," he said. He said while school, work, and raising a family occupies most of his time, he looks for people "who are doing something with their lives."
He said it’s still hard to talk to his daughter, Ashtyn, now 10, about his mistakes, but is glad he knows what to look for and what the pitfalls are so he can help her make better choices early on.
Harbin currently works at Mannington and drives to Georgia Tech weekly to finish OSHA training, but has no intentions of stopping there.
He owned and operated a local gym for a while, but with the birth of Isabella, or “Izzy” as he calls her, the demands became too much.
"In five years, I want to have my bachelor’s degree in business," he said, adding that he plans to attend Shorter College in the spring. "I fell in love with going to school."
And knowing he can do better now keeps him going. In the meantime, he hopes to encourage others to set positive goals.
He still writes the inmates he became friends with and talks to them. "It lets them know they can make a better life for themselves."