Profile of an advocate

How did a young man from a low income neighborhood with a single parent subsidizing on welfare become one of the country's best respected legal authorities on substance use disorders (SUDs)? A man whose mother worked hard to support her two sons who grew up in the shadow of the unattainable Syracuse University, who ended up going to Onondaga Community College where he excelled and then to graduate from Syracuse University College of Law and then to go to Albany to work in the legislature, and ultimately, in state and federal government in the service of SUD regulation?