Once on meth, Allegra Koupal now graduating WSUV with honors

When Allegra Koupal crosses the stage to receive her college diploma Saturday, she will be completing an arduous journey that began with a single step in a Clark County Jail cell five years ago. That’s when she hit rock bottom.

The Battle Ground High School dropout was a methamphetamine addict living on the streets when she was arrested for stealing from a retail store to support her drug habit. She was estranged from her family.

For the first two months of her incarceration, she prayed to be guided and have her life restored, she said. She recalls the moment when she decided to turn her life around.

“I really felt the Lord talk to me deep in my heart and soul,” she said. “I was guided to work as hard, if not harder, to try something different and make a better life for myself. To take control of my life that I felt was out of control.”

She leaned on her faith as she sought direction for her future.

“Living on the streets — broken, hurt, hungry, cold, addicted and arrested — takes a lot of energy and survival,” she said. “I felt like I could put as much effort into staying sober and giving back to my community as I did trying to suppress my hurt and anger that I had festering inside of me.”

After she had that epiphany behind bars, longtime friend Jeffery Koupal wrote her encouraging letters and visited her in jail. They were married two years after her release.

“He saw in me what I didn’t see in myself yet,” Koupal said. “He told me that the most beautiful thing about me was my mind. He urged me to go to school. He led me to where I am today.”

While she was in jail, Koupal began studying for her GED. After her release, she passed her GED test and enrolled at Clark College, where she excelled in psychology and sociology classes. She met with Washington State University Vancouver admissions counselor Jackie McReynolds and talked about her passions — including helping people find resources to climb out of the holes they have dug in their lives. McReynolds suggested she consider pursuing a degree in Human Development.

By that time, Koupal was reunited with her family. She and her mother had been studying at Clark College together. Both enrolled in the Human Development program at WSU Vancouver.

At first, Koupal was guarded about sharing her past in her new academic life. Stigma and shame prevented her from talking about who she’d been when her life imploded. But she excelled in her classes, made the honor roll and stepped into leadership roles on campus. She served as president of both the Human Development Club and Kappa Omicron Nu, an honor society for students in human sciences. McReynolds was impressed by Koupal and invited her to be her teaching assistant.

Unraveling life

Before high school, Koupal said she had a “really broken household.” She had endured multiple traumatic childhood adversities including the death of her father, being sexually assaulted and being exposed to older cousins who were drug addicts.

“I wasn’t able to pay attention to grades because I was just surviving,” Koupal said.

But making the high school cheerleading squad gave her something positive in her life. She was on track to graduate and to attend WSU Pullman when a bad decision — which led to more bad decisions — started unraveling her life.

Three months shy of graduation, she smoked weed one morning and came to school high. She was suspended for 10 days.

“That’s when I said I wasn’t going back,” she said.

Then Koupal’s mother kicked her out of the house, so she moved in with her boyfriend, who smoked weed and drank. One of her friends invited her to try heroin. At first, Koupal refused because she’d seen what drugs had done to her family members.

But after a fight with her boyfriend, she was vulnerable and tried heroin. It made her sick. She decided to try it just one more time to experience the high. That sealed her fate. She was addicted.

After using heroin for about six months, Koupal checked herself into a 21-day treatment program to try to get clean, but it didn’t work. She believes three-week programs aren’t long enough for addicts to change their lives.

“You can’t really become self-sufficient or get to the root of addiction in 21 days,” she said.

After breaking up with her boyfriend, she got together with a meth addict and started using meth with him. Soon she was homeless and hungry. She shoplifted food to fill her belly and goods she could trade to feed her drug habit.

Fresh start

Koupal has been clean for five years. Each April 18, she and her husband celebrate her “clean” date — the day she stopped using drugs in 2011.

Now 26, Koupal is graduating with honors. As the recipient of the Chancellor’s Award for Student Achievement, she will sit on the stage rather than in the sea of fellow graduates in the auditorium. Both Koupal and her mother, Lori Roper, are graduating with bachelor’s degrees in Human Development.

They are not the only Cougs in the family who are enrolled at WSU Vancouver. They are joined by Koupal’s sister, Tiffanie Blankenship; her younger brother, Isaac Blankenship; her stepfather, Mark Roper; and her brother-in-law, Lael Wallway. The Koupals’ daughter, Arayah, 3, is enrolled in preschool in the Child Development Program on campus. Koupal’s extended family will be in full force cheering for her Saturday.

Roper said of her daughter’s accomplishments: “She’s just flourished.”

“I get goose bumps about it,” Koupal said of her transformation. “I feel so accomplished. I didn’t know you could love yourself so much or be so proud of yourself. Be such an overcomer.”

Koupal has completed a 360-hour internship at Open House Ministries, where she’s a case manager. The nonprofit, faith-based homeless shelter was the only organization that looked beyond her criminal record and drug addiction and offered her an internship.

“Open House Ministries has given me hope that I can use my degree and not be defined by what happened five years ago,” Koupal said.

One of her strengths is her ability to listen without judgment or opinion, said Renee Stevens, her supervisor at Open House Ministries.

“As I got to know Allegra and heard her backstory, I thought, ‘Aha! She’s been where a lot of these families have been’. She can say, ‘It sucks to be broken. I’ve been broken too.’ When you can say you’ve gone through the same thing, people trust you.”

Koupal has applied for a job at Open House Ministries working with families who are struggling and reaching for self-sufficiency. She’s also applied to more than 20 other jobs. Another career avenue she is passionate about pursuing is helping people who have been incarcerated re-enter the world.

Her advice to families with an addicted loved one: Attend Al-Anon meetings, and be loving and supportive instead of punitive and judgmental. For those struggling with addiction, Koupal suggests: Change who you associate with, find a 12-step program and get in touch with a higher power, “whatever that may look like for you.”

Koupal says she’s left her old life behind.

“I haven’t wanted to turn back yet because WSU has given me the opportunity to redefine myself. I never in my wildest dreams thought that I could accomplish what I have during my five years of sobriety,” she said. “Even more so, I never knew I could be so happy with myself, forgive and love myself.”