Success Stories

“I Wanted One More Fix”

By Angela

After almost 25 years of drug use and partying, of broken relationships and run-ins with the law, I was finally done with it all and ready to turn my life around.

That is, after one more fix.

It was 2016, and I was on probation for a drug charge. After I relapsed, my probation officer basically gave me two choices — jail or detox. I chose detox, and decided to do it at DLC. But first, I wanted to get high one more time.

I was going about 70 miles an hour, in the rain, on my way to get some cocaine when I flipped my car and smashed into a pole, wrapping my car around it. I had a skull fracture, a traumatic brain injury, and my arm was totally disfigured.

However, I’m convinced that God was looking out for me, because if I had gotten that one more fix, I may have never turned back.

After healing from the accident, I went to DLC to begin treatment. And that’s when I learned that trauma from my past ran much deeper than I ever realized. There was a lot to unravel . . . .

Difficult childhood

My childhood had been dysfunctional. My father, a Vietnam veteran, suffered from PTSD. He treated me like a princess, but he was terribly abusive to my brother. And my brother took it out on me, verbally and physically.

I tried drugs for the first time at age 12, and I liked the way it made me feel. As a teen, I ran away from home a lot, doing whatever I wanted to do—and I pretty much kept up that lifestyle for the next two and a half decades. Along the way, I had two children, and I ruined some relationships.

When I was 32, a man broke into my house in the middle of the night and assaulted me. I reported it to the police and he was charged, but he was out of jail a month later. That really messed me up.  I went to a doctor and was prescribed Xanax and OxyContin, a powerful opioid. Even though they were prescription drugs, they made me really check out of life.

I went to DLC for help in 2015, but I kept relapsing. I wanted to stop, but I couldn’t do it on my own. I wasn’t yet willing to separate myself from the environments and the people that fueled my drug habit. And I hadn’t yet dealt with my trauma.

That brings me to 2016 and the car accident that almost killed me . . . but also woke me up and made me realize God had a plan for me.

How DLC helped me

At DLC, my trauma therapy sessions went deep. It was extremely uncomfortable for me to open up about my past, but in time, by taking baby steps, I could tell it was working. I started to feel different.

Even my attitude started to change. I used to be cocky and arrogant. Now, I still have confidence, but it’s tempered with compassion and understanding.

I’ve now been sober for three years, and much of that is because I stayed in a sober living house. That situation not only motivated me to stay sober, but kept me away from people and places in my past that were my downfall. It was a safe and structured environment, where I learned vital life skills for dealing with challenges and temptations.

Being with other people in recovery was important in my own recovery. And now that I feel like I’m whole again, I’m giving back. I work at a treatment facility as a behavioral health technician, and I’m pursuing a degree in social work to become a clinician.

I’m a new person, thanks to DLC. They taught me how to live and how to love — to love others and myself. They taught me how to walk through pain, to know that there’s another side.

If it weren’t for DLC, I’d probably be dead. Because of them, I’m very much alive—and grateful.