Jamie's Story of Hope

When I asked Jamie to give me her testimony in a nutshell, she said simply; that before Jesus, her entire focus was on three things… meth, money, and men. Whatever she did, wherever she went, she was after one or the other or all three. Her addiction started at just 14 years old when she tried meth for the first time, and it would consume years of her life. She liked the hard life and loved money and the men that could get it for her. She soon figured out that she could make money using her body and that is exactly what she did.

In 2008, just a few weeks shy of her 19th birthday, she gave birth to a daughter. In 2010, she would marry a man named Gary and the next year, she would give birth to their son. It wasn’t long though before their marriage fell apart and they divorced. Her addiction at this point was deep and dark and things would begin to spiral downwards. Over the course of 10 years, she would be married and divorced five times. The enemy convinced her that she was the only person in the world that would keep trying and failing to find love the way she did and she carried a lot of lingering shame about her divorces.

In 2017, she would have a car accident that nearly killed her. She had $700 under one leg and her phone under the other and was headed to the dope man’s house. That is all she remembers until she woke up in the ICU. Doctors gave her a 3% chance of living. She had a hole in her brain, a hole in her right lung, a shattered back and broken ribs. She did not recognize her children. Had God not intervened, there would have been very little hope of her ever having a normal life again.

Around this time, she decided to give up meth but traded it for Adderall because it had a similar effect, but she could do it legally and no judge could fault her for it. She was working as a paramedic and told the doctor that she was having trouble staying awake to work her shifts, so the doctor prescribed 150 Adderall per month. She used all of that and would chase down even more to make it through the month. In 2018, she lost her kids and coped with it by going even wilder than she was before.

At some point, husband #4 would begin using heroin again. He was going to leave but she was convinced she could save him. She told him that he could leave, or he could go climb into the car and go to a Celebrate Recovery meeting with her to get help. She had been before, but she didn’t like it. The praise music was loud, and it annoyed her. She always sat in the back row, never raised her hands to worship, and just went through the motions. Fortunately, he agreed to go. That very night, God spoke to her and got her attention. She ran into to someone that recognized her. It was a man that she had responded to as a paramedic when he overdosed, and he remembered her. He encouraged her and told her that she could not leave without signing up for a 12-step class. She had no idea what she was getting into, but she went along with it. She came back to the Celebrate Recovery meetings for 4 weeks in a row before those classes started. One night she heard someone say that you couldn’t do recovery well without Jesus. She gave her life to Christ that night and began attending church as well. God is so good that he sent someone whose life that she had previously saved to save her.

She began 12-step classes while still abusing Adderall and she hated the classes, and she hated the leader of her class even more. She was convinced that she was talking about her and was out to get her. As it would turn out, she was not talking about Jamie but telling her own story. Their stories were so parallel that both of them were shocked by the similarities. The leader that she could not stand would later become her devoted sponsor. As she got deeper into the classes, God began to convict her, and she came out of denial about her Adderall abuse. She went home and dug out all of the stashes she had around her house and met the garbage man at the road with them the next morning so that she would know that it was gone. She would still occasionally find a stash she had forgotten and would flush it down the drain.

Once Jesus and the Holy Spirit got involved, there was no holding her back. She completed and graduated that 12-step class and went on to lead others. She worked closely with that sponsor and began sponsoring other women. She began to lead open-share small groups for chemically-dependent women every week at Celebrate Recovery. She began participating in and then co-leading the jail ministry of that CR to the women in 2 local county jails. She has brought other women to Christ and guided other lost women to sobriety as they worked Celebrate Recovery and the 12-steps. She works in the children’s ministry at church and anywhere else she is needed.

God has blessed her obedience. He has restored her relationships with family members that she though would never speak to her again – the aunt and grandmother that raised her and her brother and sister. He even restored her marriage to Gary, her first husband from all those years ago and the father of her son. She has gotten her children back. She has a great job. She has an army of church and recovery friends that have become her forever family. In 2 short years, God has completely turned her life around and I know that he is STILL not done with her yet.

When I asked her what would she say to the loved ones of someone that is struggling with addiction like she did, she told me this: “Never give up on them. I get that it is very hard to be there for someone that can not be there for themselves and doesn’t love themselves. My church family did that for me. They loved me until I could love myself again and they helped me when I didn’t have anyone. My family was done. A lot of loved ones are like I give up, I give up. And you may have to love from a distance, but they need to know that they have someone when they are ready to change. I felt like (some family members) were waiting on me to fail. And I’m sure it was because I just couldn’t get it right and I did keep failing. The anticipation of me failing was so discouraging though.”

We closed our conversation talking about how recovery is never over, how God is still working on her and in her and through her. She still has challenges in her life, but she has the foundation of Jesus Christ and an amazing accountability team to see her through. She can face whatever life may throw at her without resorting to drugs or sex or other unhealthy coping strategies. She knows that her healing will continue to unfold in God’s time and she can trust him with that process. As Christians, our hopes are no less for our loved ones currently wrestling with their addictions. May God continue to bless Jamie.

And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns. Phillipians 1:6

God loves you and has you in the palm of your hand!

To see the video reel version of Jamie's testimony on Instagram, go to https://www.instagram.com/reel/CiumxJysSqv/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Photos and testimonial were submitted by the subject and no effort has been made to corroborate any details. Story and photos are published with the permission of the subject as he/she has reported it.