It is never too late: How Lisa Begaye overcame the struggles of addiction and graduated from Fort Lewis College with high honors

WINDOW ROCK – On Aug. 21, 2012, on a brisk morning in Shiprock, Lisa Begaye woke up on a park bench. She had no shoes, no money, and no desire to live the life of a person with an addiction anymore.
Begaye is ‘Áshįįhí, born for Kinłichíi’nii. Her cheii is Kinłichíi’nii, and her nálí is Bit’ahnii.

Barefooted, Begaye got hold of herself and started to walk toward her family’s home a few miles away. She had lived the life of a person with an addiction and an alcoholic steadily since she graduated from Shiprock High School eight years earlier in 2004.

At that time, Begaye had two children, both sons. During her pregnancy with both boys, she stayed sober for a year.

In October 2008, one of her sons played outside while his grandfather, Ray, Begaye’s father, watched him. But the grandfather left Begaye’s son alone for less than a minute, and in that short time, the boy was hit and run over by a truck that was backing up to get back onto the main road. The young boy died from his injuries.

Begaye often would find creative ways to get her next fix of alcohol and drugs through friends or panhandling.

In her early twenties, Begaye began dating a man who would abuse her physically for the next six years, as she lived with him on and off for six years.

“I just got lost in my addiction,” Begaye said. “It got really bad. Addiction comes with many things, like being homeless, and I was just drinking anything I could get my hands on. It really took a toll on my health, accidents, overdoses, incarcerations, rehabs … it was hard, it was almost hopeless.”

In high school, Begaye had been an all-star athlete, winning two state titles with her golf team, of which she was an avid participant. At 16, she experimented with alcohol for the first time. However, she did not understand the lasting effects that alcohol would have on her mental and physical health, along with the relationship it had with her family.

Alcoholism runs in Begaye’s family. When she would spend nights at her friends’ houses, she would see their parents or siblings drinking or her family drinking, and that motivated her to begin experimenting.

“It was everywhere,” said Begaye. “I was subjected to a lot of what was happening in the household and outside of school in hangout areas. It just seemed like everyone was doing it at the time … drinking is not discriminatory.”

Toward the end of Begaye’s high school career, her personality and her attitude toward alcohol and drugs began to change. She experimented with heroin, meth, and other drugs regularly with friends who were the wrong sort of crowd, including dropouts and other suspicious people.

After Begaye fell into the life of a person with an addiction, she constantly found herself incarcerated, hospitalized, or cast aside somewhere with no memory of the night before. She would walk everywhere, and for a time, she was homeless.

Begaye’s father, Ray, said he kept trying to help his daughter. He would spend lots of money trying to find some treatment for Lisa. Together, they would visit medicine men and facilities that claimed they would help Begaye cast out her addiction, but to no avail.

“The resources I tried to get her diminished,” Ray said. “It was next to impossible to get help from programs that say they were going to help.”

When Begaye arrived on the doorstep of her family’s house in Shiprock that August morning of 2012, she waited for someone to come home. After a while, her mother, Helen Curley, pulled into the driveway with Begaye’s young son, Ambrose, and responded to her daughter with a harsh tone in her voice.

Curley began to yell at her to get away as Begaye pleaded with her mother to take her in. She told her mother that she was ready to give up her addictions and wanted to start her life over.

“People do change, and change is possible,” Begaye said.

The journey of self-healing and recovering from her addictions was a long process. Reluctantly, Begaye’s mother took her in and let her spend the night as a trial to see if she really wanted to get sober. After Begaye got through the night, she began getting her life back together.

Some relatives kept Begaye at a distance, holding tight to their purses and other valuables in fear that she would steal some money and go off on another binge. Additionally, during the low times of her addiction, many relatives filed restraining orders against her.

Begaye’s mother and father took care of her son, Ambrose, and held custody of him during the time of her addiction. Begaye recalls that her son remembered when his mother would act out or express other behaviors because of her addictions. He still remembers that now, many years later.

As Begaye embarked on her sobriety, she went to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings often. She cleaned herself up and started to fix her life, piece by piece. The fear of Begaye still held lasting effects on her family for years as she clung to her sobriety.

Eventually, family members began to let go of their reluctance. They started to leave their valuables in noticeable places, and they chose to trust Begaye and not be afraid of her stealing their belongings and taking off at night.

After she had a few years of sobriety under her belt, Begaye opened herself up to the possibility of attending college. She had always wanted to attend college but was held back because of her addiction.
In 2015, Begaye gave birth to her third child, a daughter named Alaura.

She applied to Fort Lewis College but got rejected. So, she pivoted and applied to San Juan College in Farmington, New Mexico. In 2018, she began taking her first classes, which consisted of required prerequisites. She had hoped to major in business administration and public health.

During her two years at San Juan College, she worked constantly at the Highway 64 Café restaurant in Kirtland, New Mexico, and she applied for scholarships.

Eventually, Begaye graduated from San Juan College and used her good academic standing to apply to Fort Lewis College, where she was accepted. During the next two years, she would commute to Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, every morning while ensuring her children got to school.

When Begaye would come home later in the evening, she would do her homework, help her children with their homework, and do regular household chores. She began to follow a routine.

Begaye also worked hard and studied relentlessly, earning a 4.0 GPA at Fort Lewis. This GPA constitutes receiving an A in every class she took at Fort Lewis, and she graduated with high honors in December 2023.

At Fort Lewis, Begaye majored in business administration and public health, with a concentration in tourism and hospitality management. She also graduated as a member of the John F. Reed Honors Program. In addition, she was included on the FLC Dean’s list from when she arrived at the college in 2021 to when she graduated in 2023.

Begaye proudly recalled that her nálí, Ambrose Begaye, graduated from Fort Lewis Indian Boarding School in the early 1900s.

Today, Begaye is seeking work in the food industry, where she can gain more experience. She wishes to, one day soon, own and operate her own restaurant.

In addition, Begaye wants to open a local golf driving range because the Navajo Nation has no golf courses. She enjoys spending time with her family and participating in golf tournaments.

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