Personal Narrative: The Choices That Changed My Life

My greatest success is fighting my addiction. I suffered from addiction for fifteen years. I experienced several occurrences in rehab within two years. By the time, I turned twenty I endured two overdoses. First, I was sober for five years. Then, I relapsed after my twenty-fifth birthday. Finally, I have maintained my sobriety for two years. Meanwhile, I have no urges to consume drugs or alcohol. I struggled to overcome my addiction. My goal is to become a substance abuse counselor. One obstacle I faced in my sobriety occurred when working at a festival. DelFest is a music festival it comes to town once a year. Each person I waited on was drinking, doing drugs, or both. The booth I ended up working in, produced greasy fried food, hand-dipped

Currently, I am a counselor in training at East Carolina University within the Department of Addictions and Rehabilitation Studies. Upon graduation, I will be pursuing licensure as a Clinical Addiction Specialist and a Professional Counselor. I am working at the Navigate Counseling Clinic, under the supervision of Qunesha Hinton, who also serves as my ECU doctoral student supervisor. My faculty supervisor is Shari Sias, Associate Professor, Substance Abuse and Clinical Counseling Program Director at East Carolina University (office number: 252-744-6304; email: siass@ecu.edu) and facility supervisor is Dr. Leigh Atherton at Navigate Counseling Clinic (office number: 252-744-6300; email: athertonw@ecu.edu) .

My life after prison was even harder. I stayed clean of all drugs, and since alcohol was never a problem for me, I would drink and drink often. I continued a relationship with a drug-dealer that was extremely toxic and abusive. However, it would only take one visit to the hospital to trigger my relapse. I was prescribed Percocet which gave me the euphoric high of heroin. It caused me to search for stronger painkillers in higher doses. Morphine kept me calm, able to deal with any problem and solve it, but really destroying the person I really was. I believe God stepped in to show me enough is enough after surviving a car accident that should have killed me due to overdosing behind the wheel. This was my wake-up call. I immediately put myself into a program here in Reading, and my ex was arrested for selling drugs and is serving 5-10 years still till this day. I cut everyone and anything that had to do with using, and focused on getting my life back in order. If I continued, it was certain jail or death. I chose life for the first time ever.

Just over a year ago I was homeless, pregnant, and sleeping in a tent on the grassy median next to the beach in Waikiki. Twelve years of hard drinking, two years of shooting meth, a failed marriage, abusive relationships, and losing custody of my oldest child brought me to this self-centered existence. I was battling depression and struggling to stay clean and sober. I did not see a future for me and feared I would lose my youngest child to CPS. I couldn’t let that happen. I had to get help. I reached out and on December 2, 2013 I entered the Salvation Army Family Treatment Services (SAFTS), a residential drug treatment facility in Kaimuki. My journey to recovery had begun.

My current career objective is to work in the field of addictions and I hope to work directly with individuals seeking substance abuse treatment. Although it has recently been announced that addiction is a brain disorder rather than a behavioral issue, there is still argument that drug use is a choice and not a disease. I want to contribute to the substance abuse population because I feel the stigma that surrounds recovering addicts does not accurately portray the strength and positivity that comes from the recovery process. I want to be a part of empowering these individuals to put the pieces of their life back together.

In today’s society, we are faced with many issues and problem. How we learn to deal and cope with these issues plays a major role in a person life. Ricky is a 37 year old male from Gainville, Ga. I have been working with Ricky to help him deal with his Substance Abuse for about a month now hears at Sunrise. When he was 18 years old, he moved to New York with his uncle to find a job and to go to school to better himself. Sometimes life can throw a curveball at you by the time he was 28 years old, he was hooked on cocaine and had been arrested numerous of time for possession of a controlled substance and assault. His last arrested came a year ago where he plead guilty to possession of a controlled substance and DWI. After, that he moved to

said he plans to follow through with treatment recommendations and stop smoking marijuana, because he wants to earn take home privileges and he is going to be really busy at his work. Counselor explained the take home request form and the requirements to move to Phase 1 of the tx program. Pt. commented that he would like to attend the AMS clinic once a week by this summer. Pt. said he does not have a problem asking his supportive people and AMS staff to help him with identifying negative habits and behaviors that he may not always recognize. Also in this session, Pt. learned the stages of change and processed assignment “My Action Plan for Sobriety.” Pt. and writer discussed the ways in which sobriety and relapse are processes, and the ways in which relapse is a decision process. Pt. examined the different types of relapse warning signs he experienced, and he reviewed the components of a full recovery program, including those components that are challenging for him. Pt. processed the progression of his addiction and previous negative lifestyle and how his mother treated so bad when growing up. Pt. reported that he is in the action stage because he has decided to quit and he would like to continue a drug free life.

I fully believe that with completion of your program I will have the opportunity to spend years touching both the lives of people suffering with addiction and those of their families. This is the work I want to spend my life doing and I sincerely hope to be given that opportunity with Betty Ford Graduate School of Addiction Studies.

The road to recovery was not an easy road back. I still do the same elementary things today that I had to do to achieve recovery. I realized that honesty and open-mindedness was a must. I had to surrender all—I wanted real success.”

As a child, I was surrounded by drug and alcohol addiction. In fact, I didn’t realize this was even abnormal until I was nearly a teenager and saw that not all of my friends’ parents used illegal drugs on a regular basis or threw wild parties every weekend. It was unfortunate, but it was my reality. Being surrounded by addiction made me do everything that I could to stay away from drugs and other illegal substances. I saw the toll it had taken on my friends and family and wanted no part of it. I wondered for years if there was even anything that I could do to help the ones I loved as they battled their demons. Over a year ago, my younger brother was placed in the drug court program. I began to ask about the process, his meetings, I wanted to hear anything he would share. My wife was in a counseling program and began to talk about addiction counseling and it peaked my interest. I made an appointment to talk to the enrollment coordinator for the program and the wheels began to spin in my head. I began to feel like there might actually be a way for me to reach out to a population that I knew needed help and that I felt close to. It was then that I began to think that I might have a calling to be an addictions counselor and help people who battled the same demons as many of my friends and family.

Sometimes it is hard to live up to the person who you want to be like or even try to be different in your own way. I have always heard the phrase "You can be just like Julie," but maybe I never wanted to be. These t-shirts that I have chosen, will express who I am, will tell you how I became me, how my life has changed for the better, and how I made the decisions I chose that got me here. These t-shirts will tell you about my last years of high school, why I decided to attend where I did, winning and placing at state and national competitions for SkillsUSA (that is a partnership of students, teachers, and industry working together to ensure America has a skilled workplace), all the way up to my decision for attending two different colleges within a year. I have faced some struggles but I always pushed through because of the decisions I made for myself.

The everyday struggle of having no sight or hearing in it of itself is a challenging experience. To gain success in anything she had to work 100 times harder than any other pupil, to create stories she had to endure the tedious process of rewriting thoughts countless times prior to putting a single word on paper due to the fear of plagiarism. Everything that was thrown at Helen she learned how to fight through it; in my opinion, I believe that all these experiences conditioned her into stronger and an undoubtably driven woman. Nevertheless her strength and phenomenal work ethic did not come easy to Helen, it took years upon years to bypass her anger. Personally I don’t think Helen ever stopped evolving into a better friend and person. If I had to define her most apparent change in her life, I would choose her transition from being uneducated to having the ability to communicate her thoughts and feelings.

Let me tell you about what has impacted my life to make me the person I am today.I think the thing that has impacted my life the most is my sisters.I have two sisters who are younger than me.At first I didn’t like having sisters.At first meaning I still don’t.When I was three my first sister was born.I didn’t like her that much,and I still don’t.I hit her in the head with a hammer when she was a baby and she always acts like I hate her.Everytime i’m mad at her she hold it over my head that I hit her in the head with a hammer and put nails in her hand.I was three it wasn’t like I mean’t to kill her.

I never knew that one action or decision could change you life for ever but on Friday, May 28th 2016 I experienced first hand by jumping into a shallow pool and tore my PCL.

No one could ever understand what someone else goes through in life. Being used and abused almost every day drags people down and tears them apart, making them feel worthless and no needed. Everyday waking up to arguing and fighting wondering when it will stop, just hoping and praying days will get better. Mom and dad were never together, my siblings and I had to fend for ourselves. Many days I woke up crying, wishing things were better for me and my siblings. I was super young when this all started. In 2006 At age 6 it was Ashleigh my twin, my mom and myself, then one day my mom met this guy named Chris, Chris and my mom dated for a good bit, then they got married. Chris taught my sister and I to play softball, we then tried out and he became