Experience offers valuable insight

Two new employees with the Lawrence County Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition (LCSAP) are passionate about helping others overcome issues they’ve seen and experienced.
As Drug Endangered Children Program Coordinator, Nicole Miller works with all local agencies that come in contact with children who have been in drug environments. The goal is to establish standard policies for those agencies and identify each child’s unmet needs.

Most of us know families affected by Substance Use Disorder and see the damage done to children in those situations. Nicole is working to make a difference for them.
“So many aspects of Substance Use Disorder have affected important people in my life,” she said. “It affects all people in a family, not just the person suffering with it. I have watched them struggle and their children hurt, first-hand.
“It’s not fair that children are born into unhealthy, toxic lifestyles. They don’t ask for that and they can’t control it. They can’t even express it. It is our job to be able to provide them a better life and help toward a better future. If one of these kids is falling behind or struggling, we should reach out and help so we change the trajectory of their life going forward.”

Ginger Wells is a Tennessee Lifeline Coordinator housed at LCSAP’s local office, serving Lawrence, Wayne, Perry and Lewis Counties. Her goal is to get people into recovery programs and make sure support groups are in place to help them succeed afterward. She is the perfect spokesman for recovery and all it can mean in a person’s life. You might remember a recent column I wrote about our Drug Recovery Court and its first graduates. Ginger was one of them.

“I know where I’ve been and where I’m going,” she said.  “I’ve watched a lot of people change and I want to help as many as I possibly can.”
I was part of the team that interviewed potential Recovery Court participants, and Ginger impressed us. With tears streaming down her face, she told us she’d turned down parole for the chance to be in the program. She knew returning to her old way of life would keep her in the cycle of Substance Use Disorder and jail. I didn’t recognize her when she came in for the job interview with LCSAP officials, and I couldn’t be more proud.

Ginger, 46, was born in Columbia and in her mother’s custody until she left the six-month-old alone to wait for a babysitter that never came. Custody was given to her father and great-aunt. Her father was murdered when she was six; her great-aunt moved to a nursing home when she was a teenager.
Older cousins encouraged her to drink, smoke pot, and use cocaine at 13. “I always ran with an older crowd,” she said. “I didn’t have friends my age at school.”
She continued those habits but managed to stay in accelerated classes and excel as a 100- and 200-yard sprinter on Riverdale High School’s track team. Despite mentoring from her track coach and his wife, she dropped out of high school after she tore a hamstring in her senior year, November, 1993.
She moved in with her mother, who she had tried to live with several times over the years.  Ginger started selling drugs to support herself; got caught and spent 1995 to 1998 in the Columbia jail.

Out of jail, some parts of her life were working: she started a successful cleaning business and got married. But in the space of a few months in 2006, both she and her husband were jailed for selling drugs. A pattern emerged that saw her in and out of jail several times over the next few years.

2018 was a turning point. In May, her husband was killed in a suspected drug deal. Her grandmother died in November, but instead of being allowed to attend the funeral, she was transferred from Columbia to the Lawrence County jail. On December 18, she turned down parole for a chance to enter the Recovery Court program.
“I had been clean for five years. I was raised in church, and had always read the Bible. I asked God to make me His vessel, that whatever He did, to use me for His glory.” She knew many others needed help, and had even written a business plan for a nonprofit recovery/transitional housing center in a prison entrepreneurship program.
Recovery Court participants must appear in court once a week, pass random and numerous drug tests, and actively pursue recovery. Ginger requested a transfer to a Nashville program, Mending Hearts, in order to separate herself from the influence of family and former friends. As she worked to get her own thinking right, she helped many others start their own recovery.

July 15 was Ginger’s first day at work. She is proud of her first brand-new car, and has “a great place to live and great co-workers.” She has already earned certification as a Recovery Specialist and Peer Support Specialist and serves as the weekend mentor for local Recovery Court participants. She attends a weekly Discipleship meeting led by Rev. Angy Trimmer, founder of Columbia’s FreshSTART Recovery Church, where she finds support and permission to “vent.”
She knows the importance of support on this particular journey. People with Substance Use Disorders often don’t ask for help or ask questions, she said. Many have trust issues stemming from childhood abuse, so depending on others for help is hard. Without divulging details, she reveals that her experiences have given her an especially compassionate heart for others.

“I believe that 85 to 90 percent of men and women in jail were sexually violated as children,” she said. “It is hard to trust when the people who are supposed to take care of you do not.”