Hi! My name is Jacie, and this is my recovery story.
I learned how to survive long before I ever learned how to live. By the time I was ten years old, I knew how to turn on the gas, water, and electricity in my house — because no one else did. I grew up surrounded by domestic violence and chaos, and I learned early that you stay, no matter how bad it gets.
Everything changed when I gave birth to a stillborn son halfway through my pregnancy. That loss shattered me — but it also gave me the strength to leave my marriage. What it didn’t do was heal the pain. Instead, I spiraled deeper into addiction.
I started using meth, then needles, and eventually heroin. The first time I used heroin, I remember thinking, “This is how I’m going to die.” And I was okay with that.
My world shrank to one goal: getting high. I knew my kids weren’t safe with me, so I told their fathers to take them. I lived off change and walked miles just to buy a single pastry. During COVID, every dollar from unemployment went straight to drugs. Food, safety, and stability didn’t matter anymore — only using did.
For years, I somehow avoided real consequences. Until the day the task force kicked in my door.
I wasn’t dealing. I wasn’t doing illegal things. I was just using — constantly — with anyone who had drugs. But the traffic in and out of my place told a different story.
Getting arrested didn’t scare me.
It relieved me.
For the first time in years, I didn’t have to make a single decision. I detoxed from an eighth of heroin a day on the floor of a jail cell — no medication, no help, quarantined for 12 days. It was brutal, but it forced me to sit with myself long enough to finally see the wreckage.
I saw what my addiction had turned me into.
I saw the damage I’d caused.
And I made a decision: My best thinking got me here. I’m going to do everything they tell me to do.
After 32 days, I was unexpectedly released on a PR bond — clean for the first time in years — and I went straight to treatment.
I had been to treatment 12 times before, but this time was different. This time, I surrendered. I followed directions. I stopped trying to control the outcome.
I joined the Avenues Alumni Program and immediately found people who understood me — women who held me accountable and refused to let me disappear. I moved into sober living. I got a job. Then I built a career.
Ten months later, I joined the Avenues team as a tech. Not long after, I was promoted to Alumni Coordinator — a role that allows me to give back to the same community that saved my life. Ashley Duncan was the first person who truly saw my potential, and she became both my mentor and my friend.
Today, I’m living a life I never thought was possible. I have a home, a car, stability, purpose, and peace. I still do deep step work. I stay connected to my program and my people. And I use my past — every hard, painful piece of it — to help the next woman walking through the doors.
I truly believe this:
I’m grateful for my addiction. It taught me who I never want to be — and who I can be.
I chased my addiction with everything I had. Now I chase my recovery the same way.
If my story proves anything, it’s that no matter how deep the chaos goes, there is always a way back — and a life waiting on the other side.