Recovery The Invisible Barrier
[Music]
what if i told you that for the next 30
days someone’s going to follow you
around
and keep a record of everything you do
wrong like every time you eat a few
grapes in the grocery store while you’re
waiting in line
or maybe you lie about being sick when
you’re
really not sick to get to work
or you skip sunday dinner at your
in-laws and you lie that your children
are not feeling well
or you tell a little white lie to your
spouse or maybe
you even lie to a police officer to get
out of a ticket we’ve all done something
like that right
then what if i told you that it could
follow you in a national database
for the rest of your life that it could
haunt you every time you go for a loan
to apply for school to rent an apartment
to buy a house
to acquire resources for you and your
children
or to even try to get property or
medical insurance but most of all
just to get a job what if every bad
decision
hung over your head for the rest of your
life
i ask you these things because this is
what i’ve experienced
every single day for the last 14 years
let me tell you about the person you see
before you today
today i am the founder of a non-profit
extended care for women
for struggling with substance use
disorder i’m an intensive outpatient
program director
at mountain view recovery here in
asheville north carolina
i’m an internationally certified alcohol
and drug counselor
operating in two different states and
i’m the lead on the oral history
sweeping the nation
for people struggling with substance use
disorder but most importantly
what people do not see when they think
about addiction is that i’m human
just like you with a family who loves me
with friends and colleagues that look up
to me
today i am the mother of three highly
successful children today i’m successful
today i’m determined and every day to be
the change
today i am hope today i am the miracle
known as recovery today
i am freedom from active addiction
december 23rd
23rd 20 2006 is the day that would
forever change my life
never would it be the same
that is the day that i became a justice
involved individual
possession with intent distribute
manufacture dispense or sell
just two years into my sentence i would
receive yet another felony
and that would leave me only lost from
um
connection the opposite of addiction you
see is connection
so another drug-related felony left me
yet another charge
but let me tell you how i got there at
the age of five months
i became blind in one eye
from a tragic accident and just three
months later i would be even more
disconnected from normalcy
as my mother lied dead on the operating
table at the age of 29.
imagine for me if you would for just a
minute your entire lifeline
everything that had ever agreed every
person who had ever greeted you
the person who had greeted you every
morning your only caretaker
was gone in the blink of an eye
my father an enlisted navy man would
spend the rest of his career trying to
find someone anyone to take care of this
little girl
with a multitude of injuries and medical
needs
by kindergarten it was clear i would
never know what it was like to see out
of two eyes
the teasing and torment would follow me
for many years to come
as my father answered the call to serve
time and time again
i was left with a woman he thought he
could trust i want to be severely beaten
abandoned and even left it outside in a
blistering cold
starving with my other with my older
brother begging for food
with cigarette burns on our body if we
dare shed one tear
i was blessed to have some family
members who fought very hard to free me
from this
trauma and eventually they succeeded
but the damage was done
this is where my addiction began not
with drugs and alcohol
but with the need for validation i
yearned to be wanted i yearned to be
needed i yearned to be accepted at any
and all cost
whatever it took to hear the words i
love you
just to believe for a moment as someone
anyone cared
as i lost more and more of myself and
attempted suicide over and over turning
to drugs and alcohol was just another
part of my journey
i was trying to hide the pain trying to
gain control
jails mental institutions and my
acceptance of death had become my only
destination
for me the chains of my addiction would
be broken in 2012.
when i found myself staring back at my
children’s eyes
tears streaming down their face
i felt my very heart shatter against the
bulletproof glass
ten months of being unable to touch them
ten months of being unable to hold them
10 months and i still could not stop
their little hearts from aching for
their mother
that is the moment that brought me to my
knees
and at that moment i promised myself my
children would never look at me through
glass again
freedom come from some someone so much
greater
so much wiser and so much more powerful
as i stood in front of a judge for the
fourth and final time
my opportunity would come in the form of
restoration
and shackles and waste chains ashamed
embarrassed and afraid of who and what i
had become
as the district attorney pled his case
for every injustice i had made to an
unforgiving system
the judge looked at me with redemption
and grace and he said this state will do
this woman no good
let her go home let her get her life
together let her go back to work
and that’s just what i did and so i was
sober
and i was and i thought i was free but
the better i got and
so more sober i became and the longer i
stayed sober
i still had no access to the big four
food
housing education and employability all
because of a drug charge
i was a new person living a new life
with what i thought was endless
possibilities
from the drastic changes i had made how
was i supposed to contribute to a
society who had shut me out of its most
basic privileges
i will never forget being met at the
door 34 years
34 days of employment as a supervisor
give us
your keys give us your badge hr won’t
touch you
we just got your criminal record back it
didn’t matter how honest i was
or just two years ago when i applied for
a home and i was denied because my
background was
less than favorable for what you see is
they don’t they didn’t see the person
standing in front of you today
they only saw what i looked like on
paper and that was all that mattered
i had no value how do we become
productive members of society
and provide for our children when we
have no access to the resources that
change
our lives what makes the distance what
makes the
difference in the ability to allow for
the access to the big four
food housing education and employability
do you understand that our current
system determines how successful we are
by whether or not we reoffend not by
whether or not we’re success
our success is not measured by our
perseverance our accomplishments
or our victories but only our failures
the same system strips us from anything
that even
can be conceived as success we are no
longer allowed access to the big four
food housing education and employability
our current system spends billions of
dollars a year
educating prisoners as a form of
rehabilitation
yet when they return to society they
cannot get jobs doing the things they
were rehabilitated and trained to do
they are fed false hope of a brighter
future with your tax dollars
our system allows men and women to get
degrees
teaches them a trade even them allows
them to fight our national forest fires
while in prison these prisoners
in california risk their lives every day
for a community to save
save a community that they could not be
a part of once released from prison
instead they were told no because their
criminal records
why were they good enough to fight the
fires during incarceration
but not allowed to fight them and when
not allowed to protect the same
community they served
their lives with as we become productive
members of society
we are told no again and again and again
application after application after
application in 14 years two months and
24 days the only thing the system has
ever given back to me is the right to
vote for the success of this country
they have never given me true freedom
i’m still enslaved to background checks
still denied housing still unable to
participate in food and program
food and education programs available to
others
sex offenders murderers and rapists are
still allowed access to two
of the big four that i am not
though i was given grace and mercy and
god made a way i am only one
that made it out despite the obstacles
what about the other mothers the other
women the other daughters
the other men when will they get their
chance for success
when will the paper trail and the guilt
and shame stop following them
i am forever caught in a system that
will not forgive me
will not allow me to make an amends to
society after all wasn’t the reason
that’s the reason i was sentenced in the
first place to pay my debt to society
yet my interest is compounded daily and
my debt will never be paid in full
governmental amnesty is the answer
governmental amnesty is a concept that i
only thought i was creating for people
like me
but in georgia bill senate 288
they have allowed the certain certain
access for expungement for miss some
misdemeanors and drug non-related
felonies also known as the second chance
law in georgia and the second chance act
here in north carolina
but it’s just not enough
it’s just not enough it’s an amazing
start
remember even this does not help me
because i have multiple convictions
in 2018 an isap
journal of labor policy found workers
with a criminal background check with
criminal backgrounds
appear to be no worse and possibly even
better
than workers without such background
bills like this also need to restrict
access to criminal records where
eligibility to the big four are
concerned food housing
education and employability
it is vital that we continue to reform
the criminal justice system
for successful reintegration restoration
and our only genuine goal is not a
lifetime of setbacks
setbacks and punishments i
am what over 25 million in recovery
today can contribute to your community
if given the chance but the solution can
be found in you
inside each of you is a voice will your
voice be heard with
compassion and humanity their voice is
powerful enough to change the reality
for people
so many just like me governmental
amnesty creates a system that no longer
continues to
punish people for a lifetime of setbacks
and bad choices and it does not shut
them out from the very existence they
need to be successful
it will limit accessibility of criminal
records
that empower individuals to turn from
criminal activity
and be catapulted into redemption
restoration
and success it is you and your voice
that can turn this concept into a
movement sweeping the nation
will you raise your voice by advocating
by supporting by speaking up for
individuals
like us today i am determined to be the
change
today and every day i am hope today
i am the miracle known as recovery today
i have earned governmental amnesty
today will you be the beacon of hope
and inspire a miracle another’s recovery
will you become the difference
that inspires today will you be
the change