Where does a story even really begin? Where do you start a story about a person who took forever to love themselves? I guess I’ll start initially, but keep in mind that this is not where my life began. I was born in Knoxville in 1983, which makes me 38 years old. Both parents had the disease of addiction; my mother was way worse than my father, but they both loved me the best an addict could. I spent most of my younger years being fought over between two addicts and their issues and spent time in foster care due to their addiction. My mother came to my kindergarten graduation drunk and passed out. My father set our house on fire to kill himself. I was around nine years old when my father passed away; that’s when I learned what a true drug addict was, and that’s the 1st time my life would shift to the unknown. Every person loved my father he came in contact with, so when he passed away, many people became broken, especially my mother. So that day, I became the parent, and I didn’t know it then, but I’d spend the rest of my life raising her and her addiction. I had to be the strong one because everyone around me was broken. If only I had known that that decision at the age of 9 would change my life forever. Of course, my mother came to the funeral intoxicated and caused a big scene. Truth be told, she spent the following years intoxicated, causing a big scene. My father’s parents and his family loved me until he died, and then because they hated my mother now, they had no use for me. The day after the funeral, they kicked my mother and me out of my father’s house, and from that day forward, I raised my mother the best I knew how. I spent many days in hotels partying with my mother. I didn’t mind. I loved to swim, and she would bounce checks and buy me things. I did start to mind when I was around 12 and had to drive us home because she almost ran us off a bridge. Still, to this day, my fear is of dying running off a bridge even though I know how to swim. Luckily a woman that lived in our apartment complex took me under her wing, and she was my mother figure for years to come. Even after all I put her through, I’m still blessed to have her be a part of my life.I spent my teenage years doing what I wanted when I wanted to, would have friends over and drink, but I didn’t do drugs or drink that much, honestly. I spent years building up so much hate for addicts and would continue building that hate for years to come. I started selling drugs when I was 16, so I could buy my first car because the money I was making working just wasn’t enough. And the disability checks from my father’s passing were only enough to pay the bills and get my mother’s next score. I had dropped out of school my senior year because I had missed so much school due to my first broken heart. Then I turned 18 and moved to Athens and never wanted to look back. I kept a job through all this and sold drugs here and there, stayed at the club partying most weekends, but still managed not to become addicted to anything other than my money. My mother lost her apartment a few months after I left, so the strong one, the one who fixes everyone’s problems but their own, let her move in. I came home from work a few days later, and everything I had worked for was gone. My mother had stolen it and sold it for drugs.
I spent years going back and forth with her going from place to place, losing everything time and time again. The threats to my life were from trying to save her from drug dealers. The hospital stays were from drug use. My hate for drug addicts grew beyond reason. I hated drug addicts. They were not human, nor were they worth anything in my eyes. I’m not even sure if recovery was an option back then. I never heard of recovery or NA or any way to get out of drug addiction. I met my then-partner in 2007. I didn’t know when I fell in love that she was an addict too. When I found out, I couldn’t deal with that. I hated addicts, and I had already spent my entire life up to that point dealing with one, and I didn’t want that anymore, so I gave the ultimatum that it had to be me or the drugs she chose me, but it wasn’t that simple. I understand that now but I didn’t then. We spent the first year battling her addiction, her and my mother stealing from me. But she had finally beat her addiction, but I didn’t know then that I was starting an addiction of my own because we needed money, so we began selling drugs full time, and that’s when I became addicted to illegal money. We spent a few years selling drugs, and I still hated addicts and did not understand how someone could steal from their children to get high or how they couldn’t love their children because they were getting high. The hate in my heart for people continued to grow, not only for the addict but for the human race. Don’t get me wrong. I had a heart. I’d cry if something happened to an animal and give a homeless person a few dollars, but my attitude and downright anger towards anyone who approached me was just inhumane. God works in some funny ways. He has a way of showing you things and making you humble.
At the age of 32, I went to a pain clinic not only because I was hurt due to some health issues but because I knew I could make money from selling the pills. That would be another day that turned my life around; I didn’t realize it then. My relationship was stressed because my mother lived with us. Of course, I had to be captain to save everyone, so the weight of everyone’s world was on my shoulders, and then I snorted my first major pill. I had never been in so much love with anything or anyone in my life. I didn’t have to feel anything, and it was the greatest feeling ever not to feel. I spent the first year managing it. I worked and sold drugs to be able to buy more of the drugs that I actually liked. I started lying because I could never admit that I was the absolute definition of the one thing I hated the most. When I lied that tore my relationship apart even more I started maxing out credit cards not paying house payments not paying bills really not doing anything other than trying to make some money to get more my partner then gave me the ultimatum that I had given her when we had first started and that’s when I learned the lesson that no matter what an addict does not mean that they don’t love you it just means that something’s controlling them and they physically just cannot choose you over that drug I lost everything that year I lost my family, my cars, my animals, my home I became homeless a friend sold me a car for $500 and I lived in it for a little while with my mother and then I got someone to help her get into an apartment and I started stealing from her I started stealing her disability check not paying her rent and I thought it was all okay because this is what was done to me and finally I made it to where I was completely homeless finally found somewhere for my mother to stay that was safe but I lived outside in a tent I did stay with a friend for a few months but that didn’t last long and then I lived under a bridge with rats in the freezing cold I was selling a lot of drugs at the time also so I had finally saved enough to get a hotel room and I stayed there for about a month and I talked my ex into coming to get me and started staying across the street from her in an abandoned house a little after that she let me stay with her for about a week and I had hit the bottom of rock bottoms.
I was so tired and broken we got into a fight, and I left walking and made a horrible choice and stole a car. I didn’t know then, but that would be the best choice I had made in my entire life up to that point. I went to jail that day and spent months there trying to figure a way out. I prayed, begged God thought of anything possible tried to get released to drug court, but they wouldn’t accept me and said I was a flight risk. I finally got out on probation, and they took me downtown and set me out right in the middle of my old stomping grounds. I didn’t make it 10 minutes before I found something and went right back down the rabbit hole. I went back to jail on a VOP a couple of months later and was in there for some more months until I got to go to rehab. I completed that barely and decided I would move towns go to a halfway house, and start over. It took me a month before I started using another drug to replace my favorite drug. That lasted about a week, then I started using my doctor, and it didn’t take long before I was right back to where I started.
I turned myself in on another VOP a few weeks after that, thinking I would go to jail, serve 30 days and get back out on stage, but I was the wrong state wouldn’t accept me back, and I sat for months waiting on probation to come to interview me and accept me. Finally, I got accepted to CAPP and drug court. Two of the hardest probations there are. I thought, of course, my luck, I’ll never make it. I got into Crossover Transitional house. I had no family, no money, and no job. Luckily, I had gotten an id the last time I was out. I had never ridden a bus; I had no clue what I was doing. I would have to wake up at 5 am to get on a bus, take it to the end of Cherry Street and walk to the other end to go to probation. I would get done there taking a drug screen and doing a class and then community service just in enough time to get on another bus to make it to drug court to take another drug screen to get done there in just enough time to catch the bus to make it to work. I’d work 8 hours and leave in just enough time to catch the last bus to make it home by midnight to go to sleep, only to wake up and do it again. I don’t think I’ve ever prayed as much as I had prayed in those first six months, and it was always the same prayers lord, please just let me make it one more step. That’s all I need is one more step.
I would get done there taking a drug screen and doing a class and then community service just in enough time to get on another bus to make it to drug court to take another drug screen to get done there in just enough time to catch the bus to make it to work. I’d work 8 hours and leave in just enough time to catch the last bus to make it home by midnight to go to sleep, only to wake up and do it again. I don’t think I’ve ever prayed as much as I had prayed in those first six months, and it was always the same prayers lord, please just let me make it one more step. That’s all I need is one more step.
I fought to turn around and ran with tears in my eyes. My body hurt, and my mind could only think that I’d never make it all these rules and things I had to complete and court dates and drug screening, and it was all in the middle of my old stomping grounds I had to walk past it and ride past it every day of my life. But if I know anything about myself, I always have to do things the hard way, and RECOVERY was no different. A couple of months into the process, I was tired. I never smiled, and I wasn’t happy about any of the things I had to do, but if I wanted to go back to selling drugs and making money, I had to complete these things to be left alone. Well, the halfway house owners make me call out of work and come to a house meeting where they tell me that if I don’t lose my attitude and fix my face, I’m going to be discharged. I was so angry like you could make me do all these things, but you could not control my feelings about the situation. Or fix the face I was born with. I started faking it enough to pass, and they made me a house manager at around six months clean. I’m pretty sure it was only because I was the best option, but honestly, I think they saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself now; we have reached the moment my life began.
My attitude at this point was better than before but nowhere near where it needed to be. I knew I had lives in my hands, and I took that very seriously. I started leading by example. I still wasn’t the best with my approach, and I could be harsh from time to time, but I grew, and I became better. Finally, after six months, I had a day where I didn’t have to do anything. I was able to work more and save money. I got a car, and I had phased up in drug court. Life was getting a little better, and before I knew it, I was a year clean. I had slightly forgotten that I just wanted this all to be over with so I could go back to doing me. I graduated from drug court and CAPP to follow a month later. I accomplished all of it. Every prayer had been answered; I didn’t have to follow their rules anymore. I was still running the halfway house at this point and I thought I was doing everything so right I’d accomplished what was asked of me I was giving back what was given to me I was working hard saving money and I thought I was doing all the right things until one day my case manager from drug court called me and said Stephanie you cannot keep posting all this inappropriate things on Facebook and still be a house manager and I was like Gloria it’s funny I don’t mean anything by it and she was like you are in a leadership role and you cannot do this so I called my now sponsor Jessica Stanley and I was so upset I was like they want me to change who I am I don’t understand like I’m a better person I’m doing everything recovery related why do I have to change who I am as a person when I’m not doing anything wrong and she totally understood where I was at she had been there herself before and she said do one thing Stephanie stop cussing and posting stuff like that on Facebook just for a little while. Give it a try, and it took me a little time to completely stop doing it, but it had died down a lot, and before I knew it, everything coming out of my mouth was something positive. Literally, the things that came out of my mouth off the top of my head would amaze me, like who is saying this stuff???
I was not posting negative or nasty things on Facebook or social media, and it positively impacted my thoughts, actions, and reactions. My positivity grew, and my love for Recovery developed my passion for helping people grew. I celebrated two years clean I was asked to do the 2021 overdose awareness day event. My love for Recovery continued to grow. I took the course to be a certified peer support specialist, and I got my certificate last week. I still run a halfway house, and I sit on the committee for the Overdose Awareness Day 2022. People call me when they need help. I work at a Knoxville Recovery center, where I get to teach classes and help people recover every day, and then a few days ago, I was asked to share my story with you all. To say I’ve been blessed, it’s just simply not enough. Did I struggle and fight? Absolutely! Were there days that I didn’t think I would make it? Absolutely! But, I am standing here showing each and every person I come in contact with that Recovery is possible and not just Recovery from drugs but Recovery from life on life’s terms. I am living proof that anything is possible when people want to put a title on you and label you unworthy or undeserving. That they don’t have the last word, God does!
Hello, my name is Stephanie, and I am an individual in Recovery. I’m also a felon, a certified by the state of Tennessee, a peer recovery specialist, a behavioral health technician, a member that works with drug court, a halfway house manager, and a human that made some mistakes. But. by the grace of God and A LOT of hard work, and a great support system I’m able to RECOVER OUT LOUD, so others don’t have to suffer in silence. Recovery is possible and you are more than WORTH it please reach out if you need help….
Stephanie Maddox
CPRS, BHT
Do you have a recovery story that you’d like to share? Email Ashlee Crouse at acrouse@metrodrug.org.