Ann E. - No Discrimination

“I did things I said I’d never do. I broke promises I thought I would always keep.” With misty eyes Ann E. recounted how a girl born in Columbus into a loving family ended up spiraling down into a world of darkness and depression, a slave to drugs and alcohol.

“My dad was murdered when I was seven. Prior to that, my sister and I lived a pretty normal life. We weren’t abused in the sense most people imagine. Although we were traumatized by his death life went on and my mother worked very hard to support us. We moved to Canton, Ohio to be near her friends, and it was there that I began to experiment like most kids do with alcohol. I liked alcohol and then tried pot as well. I don’t know which came first, the drugs or the friends, but it was what we did…pot and alcohol.”

Ann graduated from High School, and entered Capital University in Columbus. During college, Ann was diagnosed with depression. A counselor suggested her drinking might play a role in the depression. “No way was I interested in hearing that. I asked for an antidepressant. I thought alcohol improved my mood” she said. Ann says she graduated, without flying colors, and during college had met a young man from Portsmouth. His family helped her find a teaching job here in the area and the couple married.

We looked like the perfect, fun loving young professional couple. We both had good jobs, a nice home, but Ann says she was preoccupied with “partying.” My husband said it was time I grew up. That just made me resentful and I began to drink and smoke marijuana on the sly.

When Ann got pregnant, she was ecstatic thinking pregnancy would be the end of her “wild youth.”

“I left the hospital with a prescription for pain pills. It was my personal ticket to hell. Most people take the pills and get on with life, but I loved them, and the next thing I knew, I was ordering medicine on the internet and even resorting to the street to buy pills if I was desperate,” Ann said. In spite of her use, Ann functioned fairly well but she began getting to school late or taking more than the normal number of sick days. At the end of the year, her contract wasn’t renewed. She lied to her husband and friends stating cutbacks as the reason for her lack of employment. Not having a job to check her use, Ann was able to use all day, every day if she liked.

$40,000 in debt, Ann finally broke down and told her husband the truth. And then she says it didn’t get better. It got worse. “I began to use cocaine and diet pills to get off the baby weight. Life was a blur, moving faster and faster. I overdosed and ended up in a mental hospital, and then my husband left with my daughter. Normal people would straighten up; they’d realize their life was out of control. I, on the other hand saw this as my opportunity to use drugs and alcohol as I wanted. The day I left the mental hospital, I smoked crack for the first time” Ann said.

It was during this time that Ann says she did things she said she would never do. She left a string of broken promises in her wake. And yet, she says she couldn’t see the craziness even when she felt desperate and said she wanted to quit. With her only motivation, her daughter out of the picture, Ann lived on a treadmill of use, remorse and guilt and use again to dull her pain. In and out of jail for petty crimes, she tried living in Findlay with her mother, sure that would be the answer. The cycle of promises and regrets lasted a year. It was during an incarceration that Ann finally prayed for the first time, asking God for help. Immediately afterwards she felt a sense of peace and serenity. After her release, she asked the judge to send her to Stepping Stone House, a place she had heard of.

The rest as they say is history. Ann white knuckled her way through the detoxification from the pills. She was still drinking and smoking pot thinking her problems were related to prescription drugs. At Stepping Stone House Ann found out she was her problem, and it was then that she truly began to recover. After her residential treatment, Ann enrolled in out patient intensive treatment and relapse prevention. She lived in a transitional house with other recovering women and immersed herself in the world of recovery. Working at HopeWorks, Ann began to feel a sense of purpose again. She was living life, not dreaming about life in a drug induced haze.

When asked what she’s learned, Ann is quick to answer. “I’ve learned addiction doesn’t discriminate. I had it all, family, an education, a good husband, a beautiful daughter, a comfortable home and good friends. Little by little I lost every single one of those things. I may not have been on the street, but my soul was gone. I had become what other people think an addict is. Yet few people ever suspected until the very end.”

Today, Ann looks you in the eye when she talks about her pain. “I wish I hadn’t hurt so many people. I hate what I inflicted on others. If I could take all of that back she says wistfully, but squares her shoulders and says that’s how it is, that’s my story, my life and now I know things I could have never learned in college.”

Ann works with young addicted girls as a counselor in a residential setting. She is planning to get her Master’s in Educational Counseling in Kentucky. She is co-parenting her daughter with her now ex-husband whom she describes as incredibly gracious. The two of them enjoy a friendly relationship, attending the opening night school conferences together. Both are committed to their daughter’s well being.

Ann shares her love of music and talents at a local church and with the girls in treatment. She’s teaching them to play the hand bells and is directing them in choral music.

Active in the recovery community, Ann loves to share her experience, strength and new hope with other women.

It’s apparent Ann takes none of her miraculous recovery for granted, her new life has given her treasured gifts, especially the opportunity to be the mother she had so hoped she would be. As she smiles broadly she looks confidently into the future. “Today I follow through on my ideas, where they used to be dreams, now they’re realities.”