Robin Tobin

Abstract

Robin Tobin is the daughter of a Sicilian immigrant and a police officer, was born in 1954 and raised in the Brighton neighborhood of Boston. She was a model child until the age of twelve when she discovered alcohol and secretly began drinking. While attending a Catholic High School in Newton, Robin explored her sexuality and experimented with opium. She would eventually come out to a sympathetic aunt while hiding her identity from her parents. After high school, she tried a few desk jobs that she found dull and eventually began working in a woman’s bar in Boston called Somewhere, which would be renamed Somewhere Else when rebuilt after a fire. She loved the community, began working as a bouncer, and eventually went to Fran’s Place in Lynn. A series of anxiety attacks in 1986 led her to question drug and alcohol use and would lead to her sobriety. She would work as a jail officer in the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department and a substance abuse counselor at CAB Health and Recovery Center. Robin has been the Director of Housing Operations for Centerboard since 2001 and works to address homelessness, sobriety, health, and nurturing families.