Law school graduate David Gharkhany shares his story of addiction treatment with Stout Street Foundation

From a life of opioid addiction and crime to a law school graduate, David Gharkhany is now living a life of recovery.

"I just remember one day waking up and realizing that I was an addict, and I needed the drug to function," Gharkhany told CBS News Colorado.

Opioids to heroin use led to a life of crime that he wasn't sure he would ever find his way out of

"From then my life really spiraled out of control," Gharkhany said.

He was a student on the Auraria campus when he was arrested, sent to jail and given a chance at probation.

At the same, he was reeling from the loss of his mother and a close family friend.

"I think I lasted one month and ended up going right back to my addiction, went on the run," he said.

When Gharkhany was caught, he was expecting a prison sentence but was given the option to spend two years in an intense residential treatment with the Stout Street Foundation.

"Stout Street has a reputation that they maintain. It's a really tough program," Gharkhany said.

Janella Morganflash is the program director.

"They have kind of wore out all their options. They have burned every bridge imaginable," Morganflash said about the residents coming in.

Morganflash says Gharkhany exceled during his time in the program.

"He trusted in the process, and watching him grow has just been — its humbling," Morganflash said.

Gharkhany fought to go back to school at Metro State, graduating with honors from the campus he was once banned from to deciding it was time to tip the scales of justice in his favor.

"I was going to be lawyer, right there and then, I knew I was going to do whatever it took to do it," he said.

After Gharkhany's second try at the law school admissions test, he passed and was accepted into eight different law schools from around the country.

In 2020, as the world was thrust into a pandemic, he started his first year at Rutgers.