My life growing up was incredibly lonely, I felt as if I got no attention at all. My mother was a single mom raising 4 developmentally disabled adults 24/7. All of that pressure on her eventually led up to her completely abandoning me, causing me to grow up in institutions from ages 11-17. While growing up institutionalized, they had me on 13 different medications that I didn’t really need. For 6 years, my brain co-developed on drugs. When I became an adult, I realized that I couldn’t cope with my emotions without having any medications in me…
I would constantly run away and isolate, and lie/steal from the ones that loved me most. Eventually, my addiction would cause me to abandon my own children. Life dragged on for a while, making me more miserable day by day. I was homeless, addicted to drugs, and that was just the start. I ended up being raped and beaten nearly to death by a drug dealer, but I still wasn’t done. I then had a stroke followed by an overdose, and woke up on life support. The doctors told me that I had a hole in my heart, caused by my addiction. I couldn’t go on like this anymore…
I finally decided to get the help I needed, because I realized that if God wasn’t by my side I would have been dead a long time ago. I was tired of always being sick, tired of always chasing my high, and tired of being on the brink of death so very often. A friend of mine had been through the program at Grace Centers of Hope, and she seemed to be doing great. I needed to heal as well.
One of the biggest challenges I have faced so far during recovery was submission to the rules, and humility to humble myself. I had a sense of entitlement that was crippling, thankfully that has changed since coming here. I never liked authority, but I had to get this right. I had to let God take the wheel and be in control of my destiny. God has given me the tools needed to succeed in my recovery.
Some people get clean for their family, for their job, or for their friends, but I needed to get clean for ME! If I wasn’t clean I couldn’t be the friend, the shoulder to cry on, or the mom that I needed to be. Since coming to Grace Centers of Hope, I am starting to become all of those things once again. I am back to being a loving mom with a stable schedule of phone calls, video calls, and visits WHENEVER possible! My relationship with my kids’ father, my mother, and my father is being restored. Best of all, God has taken away all of the shame and guilt that I held onto for a long time, so I can finally heal myself correctly.