Even though it may not seem like it at the time, sometimes hitting rock bottom can lead to positivity.
Music Industry Management junior Turron Kashat recently underwent a negative experience that served as a wake up call and his motivation to turn his life around.
Kashat came to Ferris with the intentions typical of a college freshman—to make friends, do well in school, get involved and, of course, party.
However, Kashat put too much emphasis on the drinking aspect of his college life, which led to some unfortunate circumstances.
“I was dealing with some stuff back home and it kind of stressed the issue of why I wasn’t opening up to people,” Kashat said. “So, I turned towards drinking to give me the courage to open up to people, even thought it wasn’t displaying who I actually was.”
Kashat joined a fraternity to build a family at Ferris that would be there for him, but it didn’t go as planned.
“All of a sudden everything happened so quickly and I started getting into trouble with drinking,” Kashat said.
“I was doing well in school, I just wasn’t doing well socially. It ended up getting so bad and I was drinking so much that I was misrepresenting my fraternity. I got suspended from my fraternity for a semester.”
The suspension made Kashat feel as if he really didn’t have anyone, which pushed him over the edge and caused his alcohol dependency and depression to grow.
“I just felt rejected from the school, rejected from my fraternity, and rejected from my program,” Kashat said. “I didn’t want to go back home because of my parents, so I didn’t really have anything. I just felt like, ‘What’s my purpose to do anything?’”
The lack of purpose that Kashat felt motivated him to stay here this past summer, get a job and try to get back on good terms with the University as well as make friends in his program.
Music Industry Management and Public Relations sophomore Chloe Tooson is one of the people who reached out to Kashat during his rough patch and is still there for him today.
“Everyone would know him from [drinking], and it was really sad when we’d try to tell him that he had an issue,” Tooson said. “He’s really fun to be around, especially if you have the time to know him and not just know his name from partying. He’s a really good guy and I know he has a lot in his heart.”
Recently, Kashat stood up on front of Ferris’ entire Music Industry Management Association (MIMA) and asked everyone in the room how many people knew him from seeing him drunk at parties. Kashat was shocked that about 80 percent of the 250 people in the room raised their hands, and that he could only name about six or seven of those people.
Kashat’s first step to turning his life around was publicly apologizing to MIMA and telling the group he was changing his ways and would appreciate it if they reached out to him and helped him.
“As far as what he’s doing right now,” Music Industry Management senior Brian Cross said, “I give him props. That kind of commitment to a solution isn’t easy.”
Cross believes that with time and hard work, Kashat will be able to open up to people and create healthy, accepting friendships while sober.
“I have as much faith in him as he has faith in himself,” Cross said. “If he’s willing to put in the time, I think he can do it.”