About The Founder

To understand who I am today, I have to tell you where I came from.

 

Like many people in recovery, my story didn’t begin with my first use—it began long before that, with a deep and overwhelming sense of worthlessness and hopelessness. I didn’t like who I was. I didn’t believe I was worthy of love.

 

Food became my first way of coping. It was how I tried to deal with what I believed was the real problem: me. By fourth grade, I weighed more than twice as much as many of my classmates. I hated school. I had few friends. But more than anything, I hated myself.

 

At 12 years old, I found my first substance. It felt like the answer—the thing I had been searching for to finally make me feel okay. By 13, I was using harder drugs. By 14, I was using intravenously. What started as “I’ll do this, but never that” quickly turned into crossing every line I once swore I never would. There was nothing I wouldn’t do to escape how I felt. Numbness became everything.

 

By 16, my entire life revolved around drugs—finding them, using them, and doing whatever it took to get more. Every choice I made reinforced what I already believed about myself: that I was worthless and beyond hope.

 

At 17, I met the first man who told me he loved me. He was 24. It didn’t seem strange that he said it the first day we met—I wanted to believe it. And I did. I believed him when he isolated me from my friends and family. I believed him when he verbally abused me. I even believed him when the abuse turned physical. He held guns to my head. He cheated on me repeatedly. Still, I stayed—for seven years.

 

The abuse eventually ended, but my self-destruction did not. Drugs remained the only constant in my life. I began facing legal consequences for the ways I supported my addiction—primarily theft. From the age of 14 to 24, I was in and out of jail.

 

No matter how painful my life became, I believed I deserved it. The insanity of addiction told me it was okay to lose my freedom, okay to be abused, okay to live without hope. I truly believed the only thing I deserved was to die. And I worked toward that end, one bag at a time.

 

At 24, while serving six months in jail treatment, I heard a message that would change everything. A woman shared her story—and it sounded just like mine. But she had something I didn’t: six years of freedom from all mind- and mood-altering substances. I was skeptical, but something shifted. A seed was planted. For the first time, I felt a small sense of hope.

 

I wish I could say that was the end of my struggle—but it wasn’t.

 

I went through nine treatment programs. I lived in nearly every halfway house in Des Moines. I was committed, institutionalized, and still, nothing seemed to work. Jail, prison, and even the threat of death didn’t stop me.

 

In 2013, I was released from prison after serving 18 months. I went to a halfway house, attended meetings, completed the program—and within a month, I was back in a hotel room with a needle in my arm.

 

They say when the pain becomes great enough, the addict will change. My pain tolerance was incredibly high.

 

I entered another abusive relationship—different person, same pattern. This time, I told myself I would get clean and save both of us. Despite the violence and even a no-contact order, I believed we could build a happy life together.

 

That’s not what happened.

 

The last time I saw him, he chased me to my car with a knife. I truly believe that if I hadn’t locked the door in time, I would not be here today. Instead, he slashed my tires.

 

But something was different this time.

 

Because of sponsorship and working the 12 steps in Narcotics Anonymous, I was able to walk away from that situation without using. That had never happened before.

 

That was the turning point.

 

Because of Narcotics Anonymous, I am not the same person I was when I arrived. On July 9, 2015, I found freedom. I have been clean ever since.

 

My life today is nothing short of a miracle. By all rights, I should not be alive—but I am. And today, I don’t just survive—I live with purpose, with hope, and with a belief that I am worthy of the life I’ve been given.

​

I am a mother, a wife, a hairstylist, a business owner, but most importantly i am on a mission to help people find this gift i have been given hope.