In a good place: Jay Davidson overcame alcoholism to help others with dependency problems at The Healing Place
Photo by Ron Bath |
Becoming a Christian didn't make Jay Davidson quit drinking. It took another 14 years for that to happen -- right on through his days of teaching Bible classes.
"I was a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," he confessed.
When he did stop, it was for a reason all too familiar to alcohol and drug-dependent men and women. His boss -- in his case, his U.S. Army commander -- told him to get some help or he was history.
Today, he occupies a lofty perch as president and CEO of Louisville's The Healing Place. And his strongest drink these days, said his wife, Shirley Ann Davidson, is "maybe Diet Coke -- with lemon."
The Healing Place is a network of social services that strives to put other addicted Jay Davidsons back on their feet.
A question begs to be asked of Healing Place board member Dr. John Hubbard: Did the board give pause when it considered offering its top job to a man who once had his own battles with alcohol?
"Actually, it was just the contrary," Hubbard said. Davidson could relate. "Everybody at The Healing Place in a leadership position has had his (dependency) problems."
As leader, Davidson, 64, oversees an organization with a budget that has grown from around $100,000 when he was hired in 1991 to its current $2.4 million.
The Healing Place offers men's and women's shelters, has annual fund-raisers such as the Patriot Game, a spirited basketball game between area police officers and firefighters, and serves as a model for "Recovery Kentucky" programs across the state and beyond.
Fashion-wise, Davidson is presentable, but certainly not GQ caliber. His smile is ready but not overly lubricated. His demeanor is easy-going instead of puffed up.
Not bad for a kid from Denver whose father bailed out on the family when Davidson was 7. The year was 1949, and Davidson said he suddenly felt responsible for not only himself but his 4-year-old sister, Kay.
At 13, he was introduced to what he much later learned was his "genetic disposition" for booze: He drank his first beer, and, unlike most newcomers to alcohol, he took to it with the first swallow. "I liked it. I liked it so much I had two or three more."
He started smoking, too.
Lest you think young Davidson was a loser from the get-go, well, he actually possessed the right motivational stuff all along.
Prodded by his mother, Mary Davidson, he put up a 3.5 average in high school. Became a standout in Junior ROTC. Went to college. Got married. Got divorced. Joined the Army and shined in Officer Cadet School. Was involved in a ministry group. Got married again. Shipped to Vietnam. Earned bachelor's and master's degrees.
All while taking care of his drinking needs.
In 1965, with the Vietnam war mushrooming, he joined the Army, thinking he'd be stationed in West Germany. Didn't happen. He did well in Officer Cadet School and was sent to South Vietnam. The Army became his career, from Texas to California to Georgia.
Shirley Davidson, who married her husband in 1974, said he wasn't the stereotypical belligerent boozer. In fact, the former registered nurse from Radcliff, Ky., claimed, "I never saw him drunk. He would (just) sit at home and have his beer."
Eventually, however, she noticed her husband's health starting to deteriorate.
Davidson said his Army commander was most responsible for his break from alcohol. Davidson's superior noticed his growing addiction and a shortfall in his performance. He gave up alcohol for good on Feb. 9, 1983, and joined Alcoholics Anonymous. Three months after that, he quit smoking, cold turkey. Give most of that credit, Davidson, said, to a partially collapsed lung.
He retired in 1986 as a lieutenant colonel. Davidson earned a second master's degree, this one in social work, from the University of Louisville in 1991. He wanted to provide counseling "from a Christian perspective" and wound up as executive director at the JCMS Outreach Program, an arm of The Healing Place.
At first, he didn't reveal that he used to have a problem with alcohol. In fact, he said, working with alcoholics was "the last thing" he wanted to do.
For the first two months he was in charge of The Healing Place, Davidson lived in its shelter to find out how it worked -- or not. "He was a true military man who kept marching," his wife said.
That's where he realized "we had the cart before the horse." Instead of just sheltering the homeless, he saw that their addictions needed to be addressed from the outset.
Since then, Davidson has worked within the organization as executive director of The Healing Place's Morgan Shelter, which is next door to his offices, and from 2000 to 2004 did double duty as chief clinical officer of the JCMS Outreach Program.
Today, Davidson walks past the red door and into the U of L shrine and souvenir collection he calls his office. It's festooned with stuffed Cardinal birds, ball caps, posters and the like, provided in large part by his staff.
The bright red walls show off dozens of certificates and awards -- and his three college degrees. The last one is his master's sheepskin from U of L, and it's a particularly special achievement.
Davidson's face stretches into a big, broad smile as he announces without shame a reason why it's so special to him. "It's the first degree I got when I was sober!"
Besides attending University of Louisville sports events, Davidson deflects the pressures of his job by getting outdoors. He and his wife have a houseboat on Rough River and belong to a Louisville-area RV club. So does one of Davidson's best friends, Donald Ryan. Ryan, a retired U.S. Air Force brigadier general and, like Davidson, a veteran of Vietnam, said Davidson has "seen the highs and lows of men, and he's had to deal with that."
Davidson said Christian worship service was forbidden in his two-year "logistics adviser" civilian job in Saudi Arabia in the late 1980s.
So he and other Christians working there held covert meetings and sneaked in photocopied chapters of the Bible. "It was unbelievable, the power of the ministry," he remembers. The fellowship "convinced me I needed to get back to the people business."
Jay Powell Davidson
Job: President and CEO, The Healing Place
Family: Wife, Shirley Ann (Hargan) Davidson; children, Cindy Bomar, 46, Sarah Moore, 40, Matthew Davidson, 38, and Jeffrey Davidson, 37
Hometown: Denver
Birthdate: Sept. 12, 1942
Residence: Elizabethtown, Ky.
Education: Bachelor's degree in general studies, University of Nebraska at Omaha, 1970; master's degree in logistics management, Florida Institute of Technology, 1977; master's degree in social work, University of Louisville, 1991