MOUNT VERNON — For 25 years, 45-year-old Tony Serio was an addict.
Today, he’s successful, involved with his family, and has been in recovery for eight years.
Born in Buffalo, Serio moved with his family to Las Vegas. Drugs were prominent there and with the people he called friends. He started using at age 12.
Serio came to Knox County in 1994.
“My best friend [in Las Vegas] was originally from here,” he explained. “He moved back here, and then called me and told me he needed help. I was 15, and I jumped on a bus and moved here.”
In 2016, Serio was arrested for burglary and aggravated drug possession. That was the catalyst for change.
“I was in the county jail awaiting trial on a case I was fighting, and I had to watch my son be brought into the county jail that I was sitting in,” he said. “It was then that I realized I needed to be better and do better.”
“Whoever reads this, just keep pushing. If you’re in active addiction and you read this, you can do it.”
tony serio
Serio entered a 90-day inpatient rehab program in Portsmouth. Rehab staff told him one thing that struck home: You only have to change one thing, and that’s everything.
“Which made sense because I tried to get clean before that. I changed some things but kept doing some of the same, which in turn led me back to all the other stuff,” he said.
After completing rehab, Serio was on community control for three years.
“Until I got a job, I walked to probation five days a week,” he said. “I had people call my name walking down the street, and I just put my blinders on and kept moving to what I was doing.”
Those friends were users; Serio knew he had to be careful.
Strategies and support systems
Serio was 37 years old the last time he used drugs. His inspiration to stay clean is seeing his daughters and grandchildren grow up to be successful.
His 15-year-old daughter is the youngest of three children. Serio also has two stepdaughters.
“I got it wrong with the first two of mine, but they’re really supportive of me. I don’t know if they hold any kind of resentment that I got it right with their sister and not with them, but they’re definitely supportive and want to see me succeed for her,” Serio said.
Seeing what he has now as “sober me” compared to what he had in life before rehab challenges Serio.
“I’ve not really encountered the desire to go back to that life,” he said. “They say relapse is a part of recovery, which I disagree with. I feel like that’s given us as addicts an excuse to go out and use again.”
He did, however, struggle five years ago when his brother was murdered.
“I found myself questioning a lot of things,” Serio said. “I thought about going back to the lake for a brief second until I remembered what I have now and what my brother would really want me to do. That was the only thing that I really thought of as a setback.”
Serio credits his lack of struggles to a strong support system and a partner who pushes him.
“She’s been my rock through it all, actually. Since I got out [of prison] in 2008 in Las Vegas, she’s really been on my hip,” he said.
Serio’s father also lives in Knox County.
“Not a day goes by, he won’t tell me how proud he is of me,” Serio said.
Motivational advice
Serio said he doesn’t really have a motivational speech he gives to those wanting to stop using drugs.
“It’s more will power and determination and a drive to succeed,” he said. “It sounds cliche, but it’s don’t be another statistic. Because in the eyes of everybody else out there, you’ll never change.”
Serio said it is not so much that he wants to prove others wrong as that he wants to prove to himself that he can change.
“I haven’t really been much for outside noise. I set a bar for myself each day. Challenging yourself, I think, is more rewarding than trying to prove to somebody else that they were wrong about you,” he said.
“Addicts are people as well. Don’t coddle them, don’t enable them. Just know that they do have feelings.”
Tony Serio
Serio said you can give someone the tools to learn to have an inner focus, but it won’t work unless they have the drive to find it within themselves.
What worked for Serio was tough love.
“I needed the tough love knowing that I was on the verge of losing everything, and then I realized that the life I was living, it wasn’t worth losing the people I have,” he said.
The community’s role in addiction support
Serio said the community plays a role in supporting addicts on their road to recovery.
“For somebody in active addiction, they really have to feel like the community is behind them and not against them,” he said. “For the longest time I didn’t think I would ever change and never thought it was possible. But it is possible.”
He said the negativity addicts face is demeaning and hurtful.
“It’ll bring them down even further. My best advice is let them know you know they can change,” he said. “Some of them may not, but that might be what some of them need to hear because a lot of people in active addiction don’t have anybody in their life at all, so they already feel like an outcast.”
However, he does not advocate coddling those in addiction.
“That’s the last thing they need is because that’s more enabling than anything. But contrary to what people say, us as addicts get looked at a lot differently when we go in somewhere looking for a way out or looking for assistance,” he said.
“I feel like we are put lower, like not a priority so to speak. Then again, us as addicts need to be involved. We need to give back any way we can.”
For Serio, that means co-facilitating the men’s Get on Track class at TouchPointe.
“I’ve been on probation for five years, and I still go in every week to talk to them. They played a big part in my recovery,” he said.
He has also spoken at town hall meetings and crisis intervention training for law enforcement.
A different philosophy about addiction
Serio does not attend AA and NA meetings because when he was in rehab and attended mandatory meetings, participants just talked about how they were going to get high again.
“I didn’t find it beneficial, so for the first little while I buried myself in my job,” he said.
He has worked at Mauser Packaging Solutions for eight years and has been a supervisor for six.
Serio also disagrees with the statement that addicts don’t choose to be addicts.
“Before I got involved with it, I saw all of the guys on the street corners of Las Vegas selling drugs, doing drugs, and making money. I wanted that life: the fast money, the girls. Whatever came with it, that’s what I wanted,” he said.
“I actually almost got kicked out of rehab for arguing that point, because I did choose. Even though I knew what it was doing to people, I still chose to pick up that drug and do it myself.”
Serio said some people with an addiction need to feel or know that somebody cares, not that the community has washed their hands of them.
However, he noted that in the community’s defense, most addicts already burned all their bridges.
“It’s hard to let somebody know you care when they’ve already burned everything. But all it takes is one person believing in you, and you can turn it around,” he said.
“It only takes that one person, and it may not work for everybody. There are people who will never get out of the life. It’s a sad truth, and it sucks.”
