I didn’t wake up one day and choose this life.
As a teenager, I went through something that changed me. Something I didn’t have the tools to process, the words to explain, or the support to heal from. So I coped the only way I knew how. I numbed it.
What started as a way to survive slowly became a life I didn’t recognise.
Drugs weren’t just an escape anymore, they were control, chaos, and destruction all at once. And before I knew it, I wasn’t just battling my own pain, I was caught in a system that sees your worst moments and labels you by them. Charges. Mugshots. Headlines. That became my identity to the outside world.
But that wasn’t my whole story.
Rock bottom didn’t come quietly. It came in a prison cell.
And there’s something about sitting in a cell, stripped of everything, that forces you to face yourself. No distractions. No numbing. Just you and the truth you’ve been running from.
That’s where it hit me.
If I didn’t change, this would be my life. This would be my ending.
So I made a choice.
Not an easy one. Not a perfect one. But a real one.
I chose to fight for myself.
I went to rehab. I faced the pain I’d been running from for years. I took accountability for my choices, without letting them define me. I started rebuilding, piece by piece, day by day.
And somewhere along the way, I realised something powerful.
My story didn’t end in that cell.
Now, I stand on the other side of it, not as the person I was, but as someone who understands. Someone who has lived it. Someone who refuses to let others feel as alone as I once did.
Today, I work as a prisoner advocate and a mental health advocate. I speak for the people who feel unheard. I support families who are carrying silent battles. I remind those inside, and those affected on the outside, that this is not where their story has to end.
Because your past drug use does not define you.
Your charges do not define you.
Your worst mistakes do not define you.
What defines you, is what you choose to do next.
There is always a way back.
There is always hope.
And if I can turn my life around, so can you.