Wellspring was instrumental in my recovery, and I was not aware of Wellspring until it was offered to me. I graduated from the Wellspring program in November of 2024 and was in the program for four months. I was in recovery before, so I had a good idea of the basics, I just needed somebody to hold my hand again to kinda stand me back up and this was the place for me to do that. It worked out well because I was pregnant at the time. I was looking into different places, but the wait lists were so long it was ridiculous so unfortunately, before I was pregnant, I couldn’t get in anywhere.
I was actively using and was arrested on drug charges and came to Wellspring from jail in July of 2023 and was about six months pregnant. I had my son in August and he came quite early. I was really trying hard to get clean on my own. I went to a methadone clinic, but I had no recovery support. Just medication alone didn’t do it for me. I needed a lot more, I needed more structure, so really it was a blessing in disguise for me to get arrested. I wish though that I had known about Wellspring before I got arrested. I didn’t so the places I called I did not say I was pregnant because I was scared something might happen, like I didn’t know if they would call DHHS or intervene in some way. I was using before that, my situation had been like I had a DHHS report, because I was using. I had other kiddos in my custody so to smooth that all out I let my older son live with his dad, but we had the DHHS thing and I had that in the back of my mind. I did not want to bring any attention to my pregnancy. When I was arrested it kinda blew that out of the water, but it allowed me to learn about this program and allowed me to fast track to get in here, which saved my life, it saved Griffin’s life.
I had a really positive experience at Wellspring and graduated in four months. The staff helped me navigate everything from the NICU stay to DHHS. The staff was really like a team of pit bulls with DHHS, they were so great. I had a DHHS worker that made me kinda nervous, he intimidated me, and I was just really scared. But Jamie and Alisha were both really great, Jamie was my counselor while I was here. They helped me walk through all of that and I really think if I hadn’t been here, and they hadn’t been on my side, and I didn’t have their support, things probably would have been a little different for me because my DHHS worker was not familiar with cases like ours He was not typically the one to do those so he said something like, “Well we are probably going to leave your case open, just in case you relapse” and Alisha was like “Oh no, that is not allowed and that’s not going to happen and I’m gonna make sure we stand up for you.” And they did, thank God. She sort of educated him and got his supervisor involved and they closed my case in 30 days. Thank God they knew what needed to be done because I didn’t know my rights and I didn’t really advocate for myself because I didn’t know. So I am so glad I had them to advocate for me.
I graduated in November and went to the McCauley program from here. Jamie helped me set that up. One of the things that is really great about Wellspring’s program is they are really helpful for the transition and the next steps in the plan. I could have gone back home, I’m not from this area, but I really didn’t want to do that so Jamie was really helpful in in finding a place that was gonna work for me, fit my needs, and somewhere I could take my son. It takes a few months to get into the McCauley House, but with the interview process she helped me with that.
I was there for a few months and they offered me an apartment so I moved out and I’m in my own place. I am really excited. I’m still part of their program, I just live on my own now. I am going to school in May to become a substance use counselor and want to get established with school first and not take on too much. The biggest reason I think I relapsed and how I got back into this situation was I did not balance my life quite right. I took on too much too fast. I was sort of all or nothing, and I really needed to learn balance. So I am trying to do things a little bit slower this time and that is why I stay connected here at Wellspring. It is good for me. I do an Al-Anon group here and it helps me interact with everyone. The thing that I think we don’t realize is we are addicts, yes, but a lot of us grow up in families with people with alcohol and drug problems as well and we do not think about how their addictions affect us as well as our own addictions. We know what wreckage we have left in our past, but we really do not think too much about how those formative years were filled with people who were using. For me, once I started to think about that it really opened up my mind to why I do a lot of things I do outside of drug and alcohol abuse, just the way I interact with people. It has allowed me to go deeper into recovery.