Recovery Spotlight: Stacey S

My name is Stacey. My sober date is November 24,2019. I have struggled on and off since 2006 with substance abuse. I have been in and out of jail and prison since 2013. I will not tell you today that in the beginning this was ever part of my plan. I had no desire to get sober or start a new life in recovery, I mean I thought I liked me using and that the only person that I ever hurt was myself. I thought I was happy with my life of running and having no one to answer to. It wasn’t until November 24, 2019 when I was arrested again that this all changed.

I guess I should start by saying that this is not where I was born or raised. I have lived my entire life in Hampshire County, WV. Everything I knew and loved was there. I was caught in Frederick in 2018 running drugs from Baltimore. I went on the run for 9 months and had no intention of turning myself in. It wasn’t until I laid for 6 days, sicker than I had ever been and was transported to Frederick that I started to understand the severity of the situation that I was in. I had a peer recovery specialist that came to speak to me and to say at least the seed was planted. I was given the opportunity to go to treatment for the first time at 37 years old.

I arrived at the Orenda Center of Wellness in January 2020 handcuffed and shackled. At this point I really didn’t believe that this was something I wanted to do. I figured that it was better than sitting in jail though. I really only wanted to do exactly what was asked of me and nothing more. So every day I went through the motions and when I got the phone I limited the conversations so that I could continue to stack my money up and do “big things” when I got home. Those conversations got real, real when my daughter cried to me and said, “please mom will you just stay and really try this time please.” I remember getting up the next morning after crying all night and I just felt so broken and defeated. It was routine for us to listen to spiritual music in the mornings, the song that played was a song that my oldest daughter had sent me two years before and said “mom listen to this song” only I didn’t because I had better things to do at the time, so I thought. As it played everything I had done just started playing through my mind and the uncontrollable tears started. I started praying and from that point on everything changed for me.

I worked harder than I had ever worked on anything in my life. I promised myself and my children that I wasn’t going to give up this time. I told myself if I were going to do this, I was going to give it my all; if I still failed I would at least know I gave it everything. In February I moved to a faith based sober living house for women in Mt. Airy. I worked two jobs. I went to bible study every week and for the first time in my life I was full heartedly working this program. I got a sponsor, and I worked the steps. I did therapy every week and realized that my addiction started way before I ever picked up that day in 2006. I started setting goals and the more I achieved the more I wanted. I was the house manager from June until October. In October I was ready for change and was offered a bed at Up & Out Sober Living.

I now live in Frederick at Korey Shorb’s Up & Out Sober Living’s women’s home. I say home because that’s what it is. We are a family here. This house has given me the opportunity to really live life in sobriety to the fullest. There is nothing that we don’t do together. We enjoy times spent at the house and we laugh more than ever. I have gone to more meetings in the last sixty days than I had in the entire year of my recovery. I work a real honest 12 step program and I understand today what it means when he says “We are only here by the grace of God.” I have never been so thankful in my life for such a great group of women, for the ability to “suit up and show up”, to be the mother to the 6 children that never lost faith, and most of all the relationship that I have with my Higher Power.