I was a blessed child, had two wonderful parents, the youngest of 5 children from a blended family, and lived in a country setting in Lebanon PA, an area where the Amish live among middle class America. I was a cheerleader in high school and attended church, knowing Jesus as my personal Savior. But the outside world became more important to me than family, friends, God. At 19, I was an alcoholic and drug addict. I would hide alcohol in my bedroom. I also used any drug I could get my hands on, marijuana, ecstasy, cocaine.  My mom is an RN and my dad works in healthcare.  They have worked with addicts, but they didn't recognize it in their own daughter. I took advantage of their naivety and I lied and stole from my family, and I didn't care who I hurt.  All I wanted was to use and drink.  I would do anything I had to do to get the next high. I was verbally abusive to my family, I disappeared the week before my sister's wedding (I was to be one of her bride's maids) and nearly ruined everything for her.  My sister had to find someone to stand in my place.  When I came home from my high, I was furious that I wasn't going to be in the wedding and created a scene.  My parents had finally taken all they could and gave me the ultimatum...all I had to do was behave myself and I could continue to live in their home, not even work or go to school, or I would have to leave...they gave me 7 days to make up my mind, but I left right then and there.  I was 22 and I allowed a 49 year old man to enslave me and get me hooked on crack and heroin. He was a monster, a dealer, a smooth talker.  He made me drive him around for hours dealing his drugs and he beat me for any little reason he could think of, but I stayed so that I could get the drugs.  I lost touch with my family completely.   Eventually the monster took me to  North Philadelphia, the area of the nation's highest crime rates. He beat me, and sold me, telling me that he had provided everything for me when we were in Lebanon and now was my time to pay up. The brutality I faced daily at the hands of this monster made me hate him with all my being. He sexually abused me, raped me, and humiliated me. He would strip search me, insisting that I was hiding drugs in my body cavities.  If he found out that I had called my mother, he would beat me and lock me in a closet, and then throw my phone up on a roof.  I was his property and his source of income.  The money I made I used to buy drugs and also buy an hour or two of time to sleep in a crack house.  The monster stole all my money and used it on drugs and I knew I couldn't take it anymore.  I decided to run away and I ran from him. He chased me through the subway.  He was beating me and I took off my boots and beat him about the head with them.  I was then left without shoes.   He got into a fight with some drug dealers and was pistol whipped. I kept running and I was finally free of him. I was FREE. I was left there in the middle of winter in just the clothes on my back, no coat, no money, no shoes, nothing. Nothing but my addiction.   I went from crack house to crack house, homeless shelter to the streets, begging for food, begging for a place to sleep, if only for 3 hours.  I was dying a slow death physically and emotionally. I was hungry and cold, and nearly died.  I would pray for Jesus to save me.  I remember being in a crack house with an older woman who was smoking crack and she looked at me and said, "What are you doing here?  You don't belong here."  I said to her, "Why, do you think I don't belong here because of the color of my skin?  None of us belongs here, no one should have to go through this torture, not one of us."  She cried and told me that I was an angel, one of God's angels and that God was watching over me to keep me safe.  There were kind people, people who were addicts and dealers, would cared about me.  One in particular would give me marijuana trying to keep me off the crack and the heroin....he was shot to death, and the pain of that day still haunts me.  Another very nice young man took me to an apartment to try to help me.  He left me there to sleep and was going to come back to take me to his birthday party.  My lack of trust told me that he wasn't coming back and so I went onto the streets to try to make some money.  I was picked up by a young man who had just gotten out of jail.  I didn't know him, but everyone else on the streets did. They knew what he was capable of, but I didn't.  One of the drug dealers feared for my life and offered him money to let me go. But he grabbed me around my throat and dragged me down the street, declaring, she is mine tonight.  As I looked down at his shirt, I saw lots of blood dripping from his shirt and from a huge survival knife he was hiding. I was terrified that I was going to die.   He took me to an abandoned house and raped me.  I didn't physically die, but my soul died.

There was a period when I was held hostage, saw people being shot, killed, beaten; I was arrested twice.   But I didn't care, I just wanted to get high to escape the pain.  I had no idea that my mother was at home holding onto the only piece of clothing I had left behind, a purple dress I wore when I was 8 years old, and she was crying herself to sleep every night, or that my father had developed high blood pressure and diabetes from constant worry.  I didn't know that my father came to North Philadelphia walking the streets on Friday and Sat nights looking for me, going from bar to bar showing my picture, or that my mom and older sister were driving through the most dangerous part of the city asking people if they had seen me.  I met a man one day who asked me what I was doing on the streets, and that I didn't belong out there, that I should call my family.  He was kind to me, and I didn't know that he would spend the next 6 months looking for me on the streets. His name is John.

I would get messages every now and again that my family was looking for me and I would borrow a dealer's phone and call my mom to tell her I was alive.   She would cry and cry and beg me to come home, but I couldn't.  I wanted to, but I just couldn't.  I was in too much pain and I was an addict.   My mom would continue to try to track me down through the dealers' cell phones, but I was never to be found by her or by them. My parents came to North Philadelphia to the police station to post pictures of me, and talked to the police who knew exactly who I was. However, they never found me. My mom even called the city detective who told her to contact the morgues because young white prostitutes were being beheaded in the city. The crack meant more to me. I had hocked every piece of jewelry she owned, stole everything that meant something to her, and yet she still loved me and looked for me. John, the man who was looking for me found me and took me in off the streets. I thought he wanted my services, and he gave me money, but said that he did not want sex but he wanted to save me. He fed me and gave me shelter, and was kind to me. He played a very important role in my recovery.

My mom had gone to a prayer meeting with my oldest sister one night in March of 2006 and she spent 3 hours praying for me, asking God to just keep me alive. I believe that God intervened because at 5:45am that next morning, I called my mom and left a message on her cell phone that I wanted to come home.  Later that day I text messaged her...I just could not bring myself to talk to her, it was too painful. But she did call me and later that week my parents picked me up at John's home and after a lot of begging and pleading to get me into detox/rehab, I entered on March 17, 2006. I knew this was my final chance. If I did not leave this life, I would certainly die. It was the hardest thing I have ever done. It was minute by minute for me. I knew that only 2% of people in rehab make it. I cried, I screamed, I pleaded, I prayed, and I knew that it would only be God who could save me from this hell I created. I missed my family, I missed John, the man who took me in off the streets, I was so lonely and so alone and so desperate. My mom sent me letters every day, and I was permitted one 10-minute phone call a week. I lived for those 10 minutes. I did not realize that my oldest sister had adopted a baby from Russia, and that my middle sister now had a baby girl. I was an aunt and I missed out on all of this. It made me cry all that much more. I was an outcast, I did not belong. My mother continued to lift me up in prayer, and she sent me a Bible and verses, and just told me over and over how much she loved me. John wrote to me every day, two or three times a day and told me that I would make it and that he would be there for me. I worked the program, followed the 12 steps, I did what was asked of me in the rehab, and I did everything I could to keep my mind off drugs, off pain, off my ordeal from the streets. I participated in yoga, I prayed, I wrote, I hid, I cleaned, I did whatever I could do to keep busy. Two of the boys in rehab knew me because they had sold me drugs.
One of the steps in rehab is to get up and "tell your story.” People would just talk, laugh, and not pay attention to anyone when they were trying to tell their story, mostly because the "teller" was sentenced to rehab in lieu of going to jail. I was in rehab to stay alive, and every minute was a minute that I had spent on earth. When I got up to tell my story, the room quieted, and no one said a word. I knew that no one imagined that this little girl, the girl who looked like your next-door neighbor, from Lebanon PA had gone through a living hell, a torture that most people only read about. It was sobering even for the counselors. I was asked to tell my story twice, and I did. Those two young boys who had sold me drugs came to me and were so ashamed of having sold to me, and begged me never to use again.
Every Sunday for one hour, I was permitted to see my parents. They brought me new clothing for my emaciated body, and a carton of cigarettes, even though they were so against my smoking. They brought me a teddy bear, and pretty things. I would cry the entire time from the pain of my ordeal, from the pain of trying to stay clean and sober, and from the pain of losing myself in my addiction. I cried because I could see the lines in my parents' faces that I had caused, the gray hair my father now had, and knew the pain I had put them through. I saw the look in my mother's eyes, the look of concern and worry that she would lose me again.   Every minute of every day was torture for me. I watched people leave the program; they would come and go, and yet I stayed, I had to or I knew I would die in the streets. I was so determined to be one of the 2% this time. And I did make it. I made it because my family loved me enough to use tough love, to make me hit rock bottom, to not tolerate my abuse, to recognize that I was destroying them. I thank them every day for doing what was the RIGHT thing to do, for throwing me out and making me face the truth about myself. Everyone in rehab would cry when they saw that I had two parents who loved me, who still loved me in spite of myself and always came to see me. The counselors praised my parents for what they did, and for loving me enough to let me go. I made it because I knew that only God can love me enough to forgive me of my sins, and that when I ask to be forgiven, it is over, it is done, and I am forgiven. I made it because John loved me for me. John loved me for my faults, and he saw the real Jamie. I learned to love myself again when I finally decided never to pick up and use again.

I spent a couple of weeks in a halfway house, but I just could not take it there and I had to get out. I did not want to pick up and use, I just needed to get away from there. Once again, John was there for me. I went to stay with him for a few days, and then stayed with my family a few days and then with him for a few. But I stayed clean and sober.

I know that in rehab you are told not to get involved in any relationship for at least a year. However, my heart belonged to John and I knew I loved him. I went home to my family again and eventually married John. We have a 2-year-old son and I am so blessed. My son is my heart. He gives me a reason to live, to feel joy, to know that each day is precious. I look at him and I cannot imagine how my own mother felt when she lost me. God has been so good to me. I cannot imagine my life without my family, my husband and my son. I have reunited with my sisters and brother. I have a niece and two nephews. God gave me what I needed, not what I wanted, but what I needed. He kept me alive, and He gave me the love of my life and my beautiful boy. I have never had the desire to use and it is the farthest thing from my mind.

My goal is to share my story with other young women and girls in hopes of saving even one life.