Melissa was raised by her grandparents. She was the only one of her siblings they raised and had a lot of freedom growing up.
She started using marijuana at 14 and drinking at 15. She graduated high school early and was a CNA while she started classes at a community college. However, she dropped out after her first semester and moved back to her hometown.
Melissa lived with a roommate, who offered her meth one night. She took it and said she woke up a full-blown addict. She now feels a great deal of remorse for missing her grandfathers’ illness and passing, along with her nephews.
Confronted by friends and family about stealing pills and missing events, Melissa felt alone and misunderstood, especially when in an abusive, unhealthy relationship. Then she found out she was pregnant.
Melissa quit using until about eight months after her daughter was born. Her partner went to jail for a period, after which they went through a 30-day treatment. They soon relapsed however, and Melissa left him.
Living in homeless shelters, using marijuana and meth heavily, she became involved with Department of Human Services (DHS) and with law enforcement. Her daughter was placed with her aunt and uncle while Melissa was put on probation for drug charges. She cycled through three treatment centers before being given the opportunity to attend long-term inpatient treatment.
“Life has been a complete one-eighty”
Melissa spent 11 months there, eventually reuniting with her daughter. Now in her late twenties, she lives in an apartment and, having been sober for two years, takes accountability for her actions as well as pride in her accomplishments.
“Actually, next month, on the twentieth, is two years that I've been sober. Well, it's actually the twenty-first. I don't know...So life has been a complete one-eighty: I've got my license back, I've got a car, I'm fully self-sufficient… I still go to NA meetings; it's not as often as I'd like to, but, I mean, it's every couple of weeks I go. And I had DHS knock on my door over somebody smell[ing] marijuana in my hallway, in my apartment. And they came in and I opened the door, I let them in, they assessed the situation, made me drop for them and they were like, ‘This house, this household is cool, yeah, there's no more resources needed here.’ So that was really cool to, like: ‘Come on in, do you know what I mean, there's nothing going on here. You want to come see my apartment, come see my apartment.' So that was not, like, anything that I want to go through, but it was nice just knowing, you can't take my kid. ‘Cause I haven't done anything wrong.”
“We just talk a lot more about the things we're feeling”
Another important element of recovery for Melissa is spirituality.
“I do the whole meditation thing; it's, like, to be here now. I have it on my arm. So, it's just learning to be in the present, and instead of worrying about everything I've done wrong, worried about everything that could go wrong… I go to community health -- they've got, like, meditation classes there, and I go to the Zen Center and do meditations there…I go to Reiki classes, so it's just like learning to just be more here and be here now, and, like, I've got a couple different -- I don't like the witchcraft part of it, I like the more universal side of it -- so I've got crystals at home. I've got crystals in my purse, I’m not gonna lie, my daughter plays with crystals. We meditate, we hold on, we feel them, we just talk a lot more about the things we're feeling, rather than the things we believe in.”
What gives Melissa hope for her future is knowing what she has overcome. Melissa’s support system largely stems from her boss as well as a few friends who have re-entered her life. Her relationship with her family is more complicated, but she is working to earn back trust and help from her grandma and her siblings, who don’t have experience with drug use.
Feeling largely on her own in recovery and in a new place, Melissa’s optimism comes from her daughter and the confidence she has in herself to be able to overcome everything.
“If I could get out of that lifestyle like in the way that I did, there's nothing that I can't do. It's really about manifesting your reality, your intentions, and knowing what you want. Out of the next week, out of the next day, five years is just too much, too far out for me to think honestly. So I don't know if I want to stay in this town. I don't know if I want to stay in this county. I thought about going to another city. It's just, I've got to learn to be okay with me, first.”