HUGO — This March, the world will get to see Hugo resident Carolyn Wiger as she lives her dream come true—joining the cast of the reality game show “Survivor.” But at home in Washington County, she is another kind of superstar—the kind that helps people recover from addiction.
As a teenager and young adult, Wiger struggled with addiction. Often, addiction starts as a result of a rough childhood or past trauma—Wiger noted that this was far from true in her case. Her family was always loving and supportive but, nevertheless, things started going downhill as early as middle school. She recalled experimenting with drugs and beginning to fail classes, to the point that a teacher took her aside to warn her that her life might be going down the wrong path.
Things escalated when she left home for college. She was hoping for a fresh start, but ended up transferring schools again and again, only to find the same thing would happen everywhere she went.
“I would start drinking, start using cocaine, I was a disaster,” she said. “Each new school I would tell myself, this is the new you. You’re not going to do anything stupid. But there’s that saying: everywhere you go, there you are. I had the same problems everywhere I went because I never looked at myself.”
The partying led to occasional arrests and a DUI, and her family became increasingly concerned. Wiger remembers her father—former Minnesota Sen. Chuck Wiger—visiting her at school and imploring her to seek treatment.
The idea of never drinking or using drugs again was difficult for Wiger to swallow at first.
“I’d hear people say they were one year sober and thinking in my head, hell no, that’ll never be me,” Wiger said. “The thing that helped was just to take it a day at a time. I would put a mark on my calendar. At first it felt like a chore, and then it became my life.”
Once she was in recovery, Wiger found herself on a journey of self-discovery, learning who she was at the core, and what she truly liked. This year, Wiger is 14 years sober. And her success in turning her life around has, in turn, helped many others in their recovery journey.
“There’s this joke that everybody who goes to treatment wants to become a drug counselor afterward,” Wiger said.
Through her own recovery journey, she found a new passion for helping others, and went back to school to earn a drug counseling license through Century College. For five years she worked in a residential treatment setting, but in 2015 felt drawn to a job opening for a drug counselor with Washington County. She recalled seeing county staff come into the treatment center, and said she always looked up to them and hoped to become one of them someday.
It was another level, where Wiger was able to put her skills and experiences to work in new ways. She started a poster campaign called “Faces of Recovery,” each poster highlighting a different person who had recovered from addiction and celebrating their success. The campaign is a more positive alternative to the scare-‘em-straight public awareness posters that show the grim physical effects of long-term drug use, for example.
Even in her job at the county, Wiger noticed that a lot of people don’t seem to know how to talk about addiction and recovery. The subject is often taboo in social settings, but part of Wiger’s goal is to change the conversation around addiction and erase the stigma.
“It’s hard not have this jaded opinion when here they are again, talking about wanting to use again,” Wiger said. “Deep down, nobody wants to be addicted or keep going to jail. It physically is going to change your brain; that’s what addiction is. The things people who are addicted do can be appalling, scary, frighting, but it’s a disease. I don’t know any other disease that would have this type of judgment or opinions.”
Part of Wiger’s job includes working with patients at the county jail. She coordinates an opiate use disorder program that allows the drug Suboxone to be administered to people suffering from withdrawal. Without this treatment, people who have gone through withdrawal run the risk of fatal overdose if they resume opiate use after they are released from jail.
“We’re helping them not die,” Wiger said. “That’s the main goal, and that’s enough. With addiction, there’s no time for judgment. People are dying.”
It is extremely difficult to break the cycle of addiction, but Wiger wants to give people every chance to come out of it, even if they aren’t in a place where they can accept that kind of help yet.
“I’m not going to stop doing my job because people might use again,” she said. “I set everything up for them to go to treatment. They might not show up, but they might. I’m not going to stop doing my job because somebody may or may not want it. This could help, and that’s enough for me.”
Wiger has lived in Hugo since 2020, where she has made meaningful connections in the community and looks forward to raising her 9-year-old son with her fiancé, who is also in recovery.
Wiger’s friends have arranged a season premiere viewing party of “Survivor” at the Blue Heron Grill at 6:45 p.m. March 1. Whatever this season holds, Wiger has done her best to bring her whole, complex self to the small screen.
“It took me a long time to be in a good place with me, so it’s like take it or leave it,” she said. “I truly went out there on a mission to share my story. I thought, if I get on this damn show, I don’t even care. I am going to be my damn self because I feel like the world needs to see more of that.”
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