Rory Crook says he would not change anything in his life, but he struggles with the fact “that everyone had to put up with me,” especially his mother.

Crook, 29, graduating from the School of Kinesiology in a few days, says he has two lives. Today he is recovered. And before, he was a troubled South Lyon teen lost in the labyrinths of drug and alcohol addiction, waking up in hospitals, parks, streets and jails from California to Michigan, not knowing where he spent the night for days at a time.

“My mother was crushed,” says Crook, who also spent time in prison. “She was basically watching her son killing himself.”

During the addiction period “you want to think of yourself as 10 feet tall and bullet proof,” he says. “Your brain cannot differentiate the truth from what is not real.” In 2003 he “was brought back to Michigan in handcuffs” and then “had time to reflect and take responsibility for myself. There is no escape from this, you can run but you can’t hide.”

Sober for almost seven years, in 2006 Crook went to Washtenaw Community College, and two years later transferred to the School of Kinesiology. A very active student, for six weeks he taught children in Durgapur, India, about exercise, flexibility and balance. Later, through a fellowship, he worked in a hospital setting in Hangzhou, China, gathering and managing infant activity and heart rate data.

Crook believes that his history is a stigma — “the conviction is for life” — but is plenty aware of his second chance and he wants “to give back.” He was accepted as a master’s degree student at the School of Public Health and hopes to “help raise the profile of people who make mistakes, and help people when they get out of prison.”