Brian Fischer is easy to spot in any room – a big guy with a beard and glasses, lots of tattoos, usually with a huge smile playing across his face.
Though cultural attitudes are changing, there can still be a stigma against people with tattoos. For Brian, it wasn’t just a lifestyle but a vocation. He apprenticed as a tattoo artist in 2002, worked his way up in the craft and opened his own studio in Anderson 13 years ago. It was and continues to be a successful business.
But he found the life was contributing to his substance use disorder. Brian had struggled with alcohol for more than 20 years. His family had encouraged him to get sober, and he made several attempts at treatment. But the tattoo shop was always bringing in money, and the easy access to liquor was tempting.
After a fourth stint at a treatment center, Brian has been sober now for some time. He made the difficult decision to retire from tattooing, keeping his studio but turning over the day-to-day business operation to employees. He wanted to remove himself from the environment where his substance abuse was being enabled, which was a good thing. But it also led to a lack of purpose, struggling with depression and needing a direction in life.
At the suggestion of his sponsor, Aspire Peer Specialist Mark Ake, Brian applied for and was hired as a Residential Recovery Technician at Mockingbird Hill Recovery Center last fall. It’s been a life-changing event for the positive.
“It has been the best decision I’ve ever made in my life,” Brian says. “Not only has it given me purpose, but it’s giving me a new passion to help others in a place where I struggled so much.
“Since I started in September, my life has changed dramatically. My fiancé and I have since closed on our new home, and my life has completely done a 180. I couldn’t be more grateful for the opportunity that Aspire has given me and the new lease on life I have received.”
Brian has three children ranging in age from 6 to 21, and also has a 22-year-old stepson. Justin Furstenfeld, the lead singer for his favorite band, Blue October, has long been an inspiration with his transparency about his own addiction and depression journey. In his spare time, Brian still loves to create art, and is also passionate about the outdoors, boxing and mixed martial arts sports.
Having arrived at a place where he is accepting of his failures and his faults – and striving to build something positive out of them – Brian is mapping out the rest of his career in the recovery community. In March, he will begin studies at Indiana Wesleyan University to obtain a Life Coach certification. After that, he plans to complete a bachelor’s degree in addiction counseling.
“I hope to retire with Aspire and change as many lives as I can in the process,” Brian says. “One of the things I am working on is giving myself credit when I’m doing good, and right now I am more proud of myself than I’ve been in my entire life!”
