Roane County Stories

Sara 

When I entered high school in 1997 my life’s greatest ambition was to be an attorney. I was on my way to achieving this when I graduated from Emory University in 2004. I felt as though I was walking on air when I walked through the stately doors of the University of Memphis’ School of Law in 2010.

Three years later I found myself in the courtroom—sitting behind the defense attorney’s table, seemingly just as I had planned. All my dreams had become nightmares though. I was not the attorney advocating for the criminal. I was the criminal. In just a few years, the life I had built crumbled to the ground. Piece by piece, my addiction to opiates overtook every other priority I had. I traded money, jobs, cars, homes, my marriage, custody of my daughter and ultimately my freedom in the pursuit of opiates.

That was the beginning of a life I couldn’t have fathomed. It was not quick or easy to pick up the pieces of my fractured world. The challenges, however, were worth the work. Today I have custody of my daughter, a beautiful marriage, a home, a car, a job – all that I gave away has been restored to me through recovery. Asking for help, being willing to act and being open to the process has given me the life I didn’t know I needed. Opiates took nearly all from me, but I’ve found more than I could have dreamed in recovery.