“I found hope.”

Sandy had been working to help Megan access medical and mental health services in the community, but after they had gotten to know each other, Megan opened up to Sandy that she had been – and still was – struggling to break free from addiction. “She could have closed my case because I hadn’t been honest with her,” Megan said, “But she stuck with me. She showed me how to move forward.”

Megan’s story is, unfortunately, a familiar one. Due to a medical problem and pain, she had been prescribed opioids; and then she continued down an unexpected path to addiction. In her case, a person she trusted tried to assist her after she ran out of her prescription, by introducing her to heroin.

It would then be an excruciating six years before she would finally be able to get clean.

She describes being numb, and not realizing that heroin was ruining her health during those years. She is a young woman who will never, she acknowledges, get back to where she once was, in terms of health and wellness. “I am young, but physically I feel so old because of what I put my body through,” she says.

Remembering her days of addiction, she recalls that she was selfish, and though she was careful that her children never saw her using drugs, she knows they were affected. She was unable to be out and about; unable to be active with them. Interaction with law enforcement and CPS became regular occurrences and she did lose custody of her kids for a period of time. She uses the words “hopeless,” “helpless,” and “worthless” to describe how she felt during those years. She did not see herself ever beating addiction, and she could not envision a future for herself. They were times that nothing mattered to her more than the drug.

She and her children were struggling just to hold it all together, on the day that her fiancé, Daniel, overdosed and she had to act quickly to save his life. “From the outside looking in that day,” she says, “I felt like someday soon that was going to be me.” That day marked the beginning of her road to recovery.

Daniel became a client with our Behavioral Health Clinic, got clean, began to receive treatment for his mental health condition, and jump-started his life. Megan got clean, and sees her own self-care and mental health as an ongoing responsibility today – with the Villa’s help. “My children need me. But they need me whole, not broken up into pieces,” Megan says. And Daniel adds, “They really take care of you here.”

Megan’s two older children receive mental health services, therapy, and medication management assistance from Villa behavioral health clinic staff. “Kim and Meredith are absolutely amazing,” says Megan. “They don’t just provide help with meds; they are truly physically there for my kids, available to listen to them, always. They always have good advice. It works for us, and they’ve helped my kids to really be their best.”
And now Megan and Daniel have a beautiful son together, who Daniel says, “changed my life. It motivated me to get a place, get a job, get a car … it’s wonderful to be a Dad.”

Megan sums up their success today. “My kids are my rock and my strength, and they keep me going. I dedicate my life to my kids, and anyone else who needs someone to care for them, be there for them, listen to them. My life today has changed for the better in so many different ways. The Villa has been exactly what we all needed – me, my fiancé, my kids – it made all the difference.

“I used to live for the drug; now I live for my kids. And all I have to do is keep moving forward. That’s what the Villa helps me do.”