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Even before she graduates from Syracuse University College of Law in the spring, Cody Nagle has already built a resume that includes working alongside presidential advisors in the White House. She is a wife and a mother of three, and has a job lined up for when she earns her J.D. in May.

Yet when the 36-year-old introduces herself, she doesn’t focus on any of these attributes. Instead, she frames herself as a woman in recovery.

“’I’ve had an active addiction, for alcohol and then other drugs since I was about 14,” Nagle said. “That later progressed into opiate addiction. I was using for about 8 years, intravenously.”

On Nov. 27, 2022, Nagle celebrated her 10th anniversary of sobriety. A decade earlier, as Nagle was using heroin in her car, a police officer pulled up next to her and arrested her, and the court gave her two options: to return to prison for her fourth possession charge or to complete a court-ordered recovery program.

“I don’t know what it was, but that was the bottom that finally did it for me. I was like ‘I can’t do this anymore,’” Nagle said. “I had a kid at home. I had my boyfriend … I literally had nothing left, and nothing to lose. So I tried.”

Nagle described every day of her recovery program as a battle, against both her urge to use and against a stigmatized society that barred her from employment due to her criminal record. Working clerical jobs that didn’t include a background check in the application process and attending regular Alcoholics Anonymous and other recovery meetings, Nagle began building on days that turned into months and eventually years of sobriety.

Nagle graduated from recovery court early, attended night classes and married her boyfriend, Erik Nagle. Nagle was doing everything “right,” she said. Yet, as soon as someone discovered her background, their perception of her became tainted. Nagle said she began to notice a warped metric of needing to be “sick enough” to deserve medical care and therapy, or for her suffering to be deemed valid.

“If you don’t appear to meet their (society) ‘requirements,’ they’re not going to give you the treatment or respect you need,” Nagle said. “But then if you do, if you’re ‘enough’ of an addict, then you’re gross.”

Despite this, Nagle continued in her career and found herself working as a secretary at a law firm in Norfolk, Virginia where she moved with her husband. In that role, Nagle felt stimulated and emboldened by the work she was doing, but still felt hesitant to push herself professionally because of stigma.

Nagle’s husband witnessed her discouragement and self-doubt after hearing constant “no’s.” He recalled the pervasive stigma, and how it made Nagle afraid to put herself out there.

“We still really stigmatize mental health and past transgressions … I don’t think that’s beneficial for us as a species,” Erik Nagle said. “The fact that we aren’t as forgiving, that’s really held her back to some degree, because she’s afraid of applying for things.”

Despite the fear and doubt, Nagle persevered and returned to school, earning her bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and working as a paralegal, where she began to notice that her lived experiences could be an attribute to help her legal career. She believed that she could be a force for good and bet on herself: She would choose to become a lawyer.

Courtesy of Cody Nagle

Nagle explained that law school applications required applicants to disclose their criminal background and denote if they have any history of addiction or mental illness. The bar admission process is heavily based on these applications, so “yes” answers can make or break whether an applicant attends law school at all.

“(Law schools) really think that’s tied to your character. Which we, in the recovery community, know that it’s truly not,” Nagle said. “Would you ever say ‘oh, you have diabetes, you have a poor character, sorry.’ Yet for some reason, this disease is still viewed as this moral failing.”

Nagle applied to the SU College of Law, specifically its online JDI program, to earn her law degree entirely online. She explained that the virtual program was new and thus may be more willing to accept someone with a background of substance use and transgressions.

She sent in a letter to the School of Law, letting them know she might have issues being admitted to a bar, and was worried that the school even wanted her to join. But still, Nagle succeeded in her endeavors and was accepted into SU’s JDI program.

Nagle began law school in 2019, and in the same year, her husband, who is on active duty in the Navy, deployed to Bahrain. Erik Nagle spent two years overseas while Cody went to school, raised three young children and took care of the hog farm they lived on.

Erik Nagle said it wasn’t surprising that his wife buckled down and handled it, though. That’s just the type of woman she is, and one of the reasons he fell in love with her, he said.

“She was basically a veterinarian, a mom, a farmer and a law school student,” Erik Nagle said. That was a full-time job from six o’clock in the morning until 10 o’clock at night.”

Erik is also in recovery, something that drew him to Cody when they first met. Instead of feeling self-conscious about his sobriety, or excluded from the party culture social scene, Erik said he and his wife can support each other, which has made their relationship even stronger.

Nagle’s best friend, Crissy Pittman, echoed similar sentiments as Erik Nagle, emphasizing her friend’s selflessness. Pittman explained that Cody doesn’t carry herself in a way that is arrogant, even with her intelligence and impressive achievements.

“She knows that she’s smart, but she doesn’t put herself above anyone else. She’s confident in what she knows but is quick to do the research if she’s unsure about something,” Pittman said. “Somehow, she still manages to make time to take care of herself (and) her family, and to drop everything to help a friend.”

Nagle took another important step this summer when she was accepted as a legal intern at the White House in the Executive Office of National Drug Control Policy.

“It was my first opportunity of being employed,” Nagle said. “They did a whole background check. They knew about all of my stuff, and were like, ‘we’re so excited to have you.’ They really wanted somebody who has lived experience and it was really cool for me because most places haven’t wanted that.”

The internship brought Nagle to the forefront of national drug policy and action, looking at the Biden administration’s goals to tackle the overdose and fentanyl crisis in the United States. Nagle also had the opportunity to work on policies that are a personal passion and goal — drug-assisted therapy access.

Through both her own recovery and watching others recover, Nagle has experienced the stigma surrounding drug-assisted therapy. She explained that there is a misconception that these treatment options are merely a transfer of substance and not something that the government should fund and make accessible.

But, Nagle challenges this, particularly for individuals who are reentering society after incarceration, because drug-assisted therapy can dramatically reduce recidivism and jumpstart a person’s recovery and rebuilding of their life.

“My experience was you get arrested usually for possession or some other drug-related crime, and you have to withdraw from heroin on the floor of a jail cell with no medical intervention,” Nagle said. “If we can get methadone or buprenorphine to people, that’s a proven way that we can keep people off drugs when they leave.”

Nagle intends to use her own life of recovery to serve people suffering from substance use with empathy and dignity.

“It’s more ammo for my arsenal, towards me, in my own motivation. People look at me now, you would never know,” Nagle said. “But I know and I remember and I am going to use that and all of the stigma and judgment to help someone else.”

Published on January 16, 2023 at 9:21 pm