Drug Addiction Stories & Info

I remember the first time I met Amber.  She was going through withdrawals and not even aware of where she was.  The police had called me in to see what I could do as I was known at the jail to be able to help in these situations.

Amber had been brought to the jail immediately after losing her two day old son to the foster care system; he was born with an addiction to cocaine thanks to his mother’s constant use of it during pregnancy.  When Amber realized what had happened, she told me she wanted to kill herself.

We got her into a drug addiction rehab.  We worked with her and monitored her suicidal inclinations around the clock.  When we did let her out of our sight for any given reason, it was with her being in a protected, padded room.

That was six years ago.  Today, Amber is one of the greatest pleasures I have in going to work every day as a substance abuse counselor.  She helps those going through withdrawal by letting them know her story.  She does not downplay her responsibility in her drug use or how it affected her son.  She is painfully honest in her story.  She tells how losing her son was the turning point in her life and helped her get off drugs.  She has been clean for six years now.

Her son?  Well, that wonderful little boy just started first grade and is the apple of his mother’s eye.  I think he saved his mother just as we helped her save her relationship with him by testifying that she was and is truly a recovered drug addict.  She has never been in trouble again and the light in her eyes comes from her pride in that young boy.  He is her high in life and I am privileged to be a witness to it.  I am a counselor because of people like Amber.  She makes my job the greatest one in the world.

Hi, my name is Amber and Donna is my substance abuse counselor.  I tell her often that she saved my life six years ago but she tells me it was someone else who did; someone very special.  You see, I had been on drugs since I was thirteen and at twenty gave birth to a beautiful baby boy.  He was hooked on cocaine, though, and that was totally my fault.  They put him in neonatal intensive care and then told me he would be going to a foster home.  I would be going to jail.

I remember I flipped out.  I screamed and fought them from the hospital to the detention center.  After finding out my son and I were high on cocaine, a search of my purse found a bag.  I was arrested.  I kept screaming while in a holding cell and eventually a guard came in with this woman in her mid-thirties or so.  There was something about this woman and for the first time since my arrest, I quieted down and really listened to someone.

Donna asked me some hard soul-searching questions that night.  She told me she was not a lawyer and not a guard but a substance abuse counselor and whatever I said to her would be confidential.  I remember I looked her in the eye that night and told her I just wanted to kill myself because I had lost the one person I had ever loved.  I fell in love with my son the moment I first held him and looked into his eyes.

Donna made arrangements with the judge to get me into a withdrawal treatment program and helped me recover from drugs.  I was put on probation for five years.  I have been off probation about eight months now.  Donna helped me see how I could fight the urge for drugs and encouraged me to volunteer to help others when community service was made part of my probation.  Because of her and my family and friends, I was able to get my son back.  It has been six years now and I thank God and Donna and the drug rehab center I went to every day that I can hold my son in my arms and put him to bed every night.