Cold sweats, insomnia, restless legs/body, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea were just some of the withdrawal symptoms I faced in detox. It was 65 degrees in the facility and I felt like I was constantly on the verge of hyperthermia, even with the three or four layers of clothing I had on. Getting out of bed was grueling, not to mention having to share a room with a few other women going through a similar experience was very uncomfortable. The experience is burned into my brain for a lifetime but in the midst of agony and emotional turmoil, looking back now, I know God was with me. I met a girl in there that motivated me to stay and complete the detox. We bonded over similar interests in music and we were from the same area so we had lots to talk about. She was significantly younger than me but what she had gone through in her lifetime was so much tragedy and heartbreak.  I told her my plans to remain clean and sober once I got out.  Unfortunately she told me she was not planning on staying clean. After the week of detox we told one another we would find each other on facebook. I completed the detox but I did not stay for the 30 day rehab and went home to stay with my mother.  Sadly, I recently found out through facebook that the girl i met in detox passed away most likely due to a drug overdose. 

It was a rough few weeks after detoxing. They put me on a fast Suboxone taper in detox so when I got out I was in pretty rough shape. I made the decision that I was not going to be stuck on Suboxone an (opioid agonist) so I refused to be prescribed it. Cut to 3 weeks later and developed a rash from post acute withdrawals. I was so broken down mentally and physically I caved and asked my boyfriend at the time to give me some of his Suboxone. I had moved most of my stuff back into my mother’s before detox so we weren’t living together anymore. I decided to drive an hour just to pick up the Suboxone. Ultimately, slowly reeling me back into the cycle of addiction. This time was going to be different though, much different.  You see, God had a different plan for my sobriety. 

At that time I was on the fence with whether or not to completely break it off with my then current boyfriend. We had been together for nearly 5 years. I would say the majority of it was just a drug fueled love affair. He was a drug dealer and he was my drug dealer. Although, I wanted to get away from him and live with my mother and move on with my life. My addiction wanted me to go back to him and have him get me drugs. In this case my addiction won. I went to stay with him for a weekend which then turned into a month. My mother texting me throughout most likely worried sick. Inside I wanted to break away but I also wanted to get high. 

During that month I had joined the 2020 Tiktok craze. With that I had started following people in recovery but also some Christian content creators. A lot of people went live on the app which was nice since I was alone a lot. Even though I was staying with my then boyfriend he had a strange habit of sitting in the bathroom playing games on his phone and gambling. One night I was listening to a tiktok live with a preacher and he had his followers repeat a prayer for salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ. I repeated the prayer and then he started praying for healing over his followers.  I wanted whatever it was that he had. I didn’t realize it at the time but what he had was the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  So every night I would get high and watch for the Christian tiktoker to go live so I could repeat that prayer. The one night I prayed with all my strength for the Lord Jesus to come into my heart and make me a new creation. 

I believe it may have been a week maybe two that I was repeating the prayer for salvation. I was kind of getting a little impatient that nothing was happening and I was expecting God to move some way somehow. I was still staying with my then boyfriend/drug dealer and desiring to get high. Until the night that everything changed. My divine intervention. 

It was a night like all the rest crushing up the oxycodone I begged my boyfriend to give me because he saw them as dollar signs and never wanted to give them up too easily. As I began to snort a line of one, a voice told me “you’re going to go to hell if you do this”. I thought to myself ugh! stop thinking that way and snorted the line of powder. Going in for another line the voice got louder “YOUR GOING TO GO TO HELL IF YOU DO THIS”. I thought okay whatever and snorted the second line and BAM!!!! For about a minute maybe less, I experienced what I believe was some kind of spiritual death. I felt an extreme crushing weight of sorrow and agony fall upon me. I felt the high of the fentanyl laced oxy, what I typically would have loved to feel but I could not enjoy it because of the intense spiritual experience I had. Right then I knew that the God of the Bible was without a shadow of a doubt very real. This was my turning point, Jesus pulling me out of the darkness and into His glorious light. The wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:23). I believe that God was showing me my sin nature and what it deserved. He was also showing me the grace in which we are saved through trusting and believing in what His son Jesus did for us on the cross through his death, burial and resurrection. For by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. (Hebrews 10:14)

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. (Jeremiah 29:13)

From that day on I was a new creation, I was not the same, I no longer had the desire to get high. In fact my desire to know God and grow a relationship with him was now all I wanted. Since then I have grown in my faith by reading the bible and staying in prayer. I am far from perfect but that is why Jesus came and he lived a perfect life because I nor anyone could ever be perfect.