“I had selfishly gotten my daughter back from my parents. Once my fiance and I started using the needle, we became the worst people I’ve ever known. We would rob and steal from anyone. I became short-tempered with my daughter and was always locking her in her room. She was out of sight, out of mind. I was a terrible, terrible mother. 

Heroin was next. I had never tried it, but it was cheaper with a whole different feeling.  We mixed heroin and meth and shot it up, staying awake for days. What that does to your brain is truly the devil. I know there is hell because I’ve been there. 

There were hallucinations. We thought people were trying to burn our house down. I stabbed a machete through the trailer door, then called the cops because I thought someone was breaking in — I was the one with the machete in my hand. They took my daughter to my boyfriend’s parents and us to the hospital. The hallucinations stopped and we were sent home. 

There was always the next time. My fiance was a six-time felon. One more felony and he was going away for 20 years. We were arrested, but I was so in love that I took all of the charges to save him. He went to a gas station, shot up, fell asleep, and the cops got him for possession. The day I took all of those charges, he went to jail anyway. 

After he was gone. I didn’t have a car or a way to get my drugs. My fiance’s mother lived down the street. She always left her keys in the ignition of her truck, so I would steal her truck in the middle of the night to get to the dopeman. I emptied my house of everything, including the big screen TV, trading it for dope.

When my daughter got a gift card or electronics for her birthday, I traded them for drugs. I didn’t feel wrong at the time because I needed it not to get dopesick. To get well, I needed to take her shit. My daughter was terrified of me. She didn’t know who she was dealing with when she saw me or when I was going to be her mom.

I thought she was a child who didn’t know anything, but she saw it all, including her mother passed out with needles in her arms.

The court gave custody of my daughter to her father, and I broke down over losing her. I shouldn’t have been that upset because I wasn’t a mother to her for 14 years. But they took the one thing I thought was mine. 

After I lost my daughter, I went at it harder than ever. I had nothing left and was trying to kill myself, but failing at killing myself just made me mad. I didn’t have money, so I took out an online loan and called the dope man. Taking out a loan to try to kill myself should have been my rock bottom.

I took a fist full of valium and a big shot. I came to about 12 hours later.  

After that suicide attempt, I called my dad and said I needed to go to the hospital. He didn’t ask questions, just picked me up. I still refused to say I was on drugs. I couldn’t admit that I was a needle junkie even though I had no veins left.  I covered all of my scars from collapsed veins with tattoos.

They sent me to the psych ward at the VA in New Orleans, then to a rehab in Las Vegas. They bought my plane ticket and sent an officer with me to make sure I made it there.

The rehab looked like a resort. I had my own room with a bathroom and for the first time in almost 20 years I started to feel like a person. I was having fun, laughing, and making friends. 

I was 60 days clean when I met the one person there from Las Vegas. We went to Walmart on our errand day and her daughter met us there with black tar heroin. I smoked it, then went to the VA for valium. I hadn’t used in two months and my tolerance was down. I injected the valium and overdosed. After years of trying to kill myself, I finally succeeded. The staff arrived just in time. They narcanned me six times. 

They wouldn’t let me stay at that rehab, but I was ready to change my life. I Googled sober living and found Oxford House in Louisiana. I was sickly and terrified. My teeth were broken and falling out. I hated seeing myself and was afraid to talk to people. But at Oxford house, no one looked at my teeth. They saw the good in me.

After a couple of months of being at Oxford House and not spending all of my disability checks on dope, I realized I had money. I started fixing my teeth and building my confidence. I got a job with Oxford House and took charge of my money and my life.  

I reunited with my family. My dad flew in my daughter when he thought I was ready. We were laying on the bed one night and she simply asked me, ‘why?’  She deserved an explanation and to know this wasn’t her fault, so I told her everything. She had 14 years of misery, she deserves better. She is 18 now.

I have relationships with my daughter and my family who now want me to stay with them when I go home. They haven’t seen this person since I was 16 and they are glad to have me back. 

I open new Oxford Houses and teach the model to current houses. If I had known about Oxford House before, maybe I would have turned my life around sooner. I didn’t know I had other options until I died. Now I teach other people what I didn’t know.”