Healing Through Poetry and a Sense of Purpose

When Mark Fleury was in high school, he had an English teacher who saw his potential as a writer. She encouraged him to push himself, put him in Advanced Placement classes, and made him an editor on the student newspaper. It boosted his confidence and made the idea of attending college a real possibility, something he hadn’t really considered before.

In the Face of Loss, a Positive Pivot

Mark was accepted into the University of Minnesota in the late 1980s on a journalism scholarship, as a first-generation college student. However, he soon discovered that his true passion wasn't journalism, but poetry. He decided to drop out to work and pursue his writing. Over the next 30 years, he got married, started a family, and even got a book of poems published.

“Unfortunately, also during this time, we had a family secret,” Mark says. “My wife was struggling with an alcohol use disorder, from which she died. We had been together for over 25 years. Three months later the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown happened. Then the restaurant where I had just been promoted to manager closed.”

Those compounded experiences might be enough to make anyone lose direction. But 2020 marked the beginning of a transformation. One summer day, while walking the dog with his daughter, Mark decided to become an addictions counselor. He soon returned to the U of M as an undergraduate, earning a degree in family social science with a minor in creative writing. 

“My experience as an undergraduate was so positive that I only wanted to pursue my master’s in addictions counseling here,” he says. He was accepted into the CCAPS MPS in Addictions Counseling program in fall 2023.

Focused on the Future

“Losing my wife to alcohol broke my spirit, and pursuing a career to help people struggling with the same problem became a calling to free myself from that despair, a way to heal my soul,” Mark says. 

With the support of family, friends, classmates, and instructors like Dr. Tom Hegblom and Dr. Emily Jordan Jensen, Mark gradually began to reframe his motivation. Instead of being driven solely by tragedy, he now sees his role as counselor through a lens of creativity that can inspire his poetry. 

“Solution-focused therapy is particularly inspiring for me,” he says, “as its ideas, such as ‘the solution not having to be related to the problem,’ closely align with my creative approach to my art and life.” (Solution-focused therapy centers on building clear, realistic solutions or goals, rather than focusing on the problem.)

The Hero’s Journey

Mark just completed his first year of the Addictions Counseling degree and recently applied to CCAPS’s MPS in Integrated Behavioral Health program. He wants eventually to earn both his LADC (licensed alcohol and drug counselor) and his LPCC (licensed professional clinical counselor) licenses.

For the past three years, he has also worked as a supervised parenting monitor at Family Wise Services in Saint Paul. “It’s extremely rewarding work because I get a chance to help families to heal,” Mark says. “It’s also fieldwork that is excellent preparation for my future as an LADC and LPCC.” 

His goal is one day to open a private practice with an emphasis on solution-focused therapy, in combination with the skills he gained from the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Motivational Interviewing courses. 

Mark’s personal and professional story is still a work in progress, filled with highs and lows but always determination and growth. He understands that sometimes it takes a person, like an English teacher, or an event, like a deep loss, to help us find our voice.

Advice for New Students

“Trust the process. This program is designed to help you achieve your goals. Also, you are surrounded by a lot of caring people, both students and faculty, who want to help you reach those goals however they can.”