A Big, Beautiful Life

by Nova Recovery Center | Nov 27, 2018 | Stories Of Addiction Recovery

Some people are just born alcoholics and addicts, and Sherry firmly believes she is one of those people. Sherry Glasgow Parker was raised in a middle-class home with two loving parents, three younger sisters, and a stepbrother. Her mother never smoked or drank and if her father had a beer, it was rare. Her parents divorced when she was thirteen, but her substance use began well before then, around the age of 9 or 10.

She started with cigarettes and by the time she was twelve, she was smoking marijuana and drinking Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill. She dabbled with other drugs like acid, mescaline, and hashish throughout her teenage years, and quickly developed a habit.

“It wasn’t like I just did it on the weekends or in the evening, I was an addict and an alcoholic from the word ‘go,’” Sherry says.

Throughout her teen years, she continued using drugs, but it wasn’t until she was 17 that she faced legal consequences. After stealing a pair of socks from Sears while under the influence, Sherry was arrested and placed in a drug program in Houston, Texas.

She managed to escape three times before the judge gave her an ultimatum: complete the drug program or go to prison. She refused the drug program and served a three-year sentence in prison instead.

A Decade of Sobriety

At 21 years old, Sherry was finally sober and out of prison. Upon her release, she went to a recovery center and halfway house, where she was introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous. She adopted this sober, spiritual lifestyle and began a new life for herself. She got married, had two children, and stayed sober for a good long ten years. But her struggle with addiction wasn’t over just yet.

Sherry’s first marriage ended after just two and a half years and her second marriage was with an alcoholic. Ultimately, it ended in divorce, and her sobriety did too.

“I drank again after ten years because I was not doing any of the work. I was just dry,” she says. “I picked up where I left off at 17 and it got worse.”

After about six years of substance abuse, Sherry went back into the program and got sober for the second time in 1998. She stayed sober for several years, but again, the change didn’t last.

Before long, Sherry was dabbling with prescription drugs, which sent her spiraling into another round of substance abuse, filled with drunk driving, wrecked cars, and DWIs. She spent the next fourteen years trying to juggle her marriage, parenthood, and addiction. None of her friends or family members could put up with her behavior for very long, so she hopped from place to place, briefly living with anyone who was willing to try.

“I always had everything that I needed and wanted. I had people that would pick up the pieces for me,” she says. “Here I am, coming up on 58 years old, and I had never been self-supporting in my whole life.”

In January of 2017, Sherry’s son committed suicide. The devastating loss was just one more excuse for her to bury herself in drugs and alcohol, but she had burned all her bridges and had nowhere to go. Instead, Sherry decided to enroll in a 90-day program at Nova Recovery Center, where she would finally make a lasting change.

Real, Personal Transformation

Sherry had spent decades floating in and out of sobriety, living a “spiritual” life, but she never fully understood what that meant. She was scared and didn’t want to give up the alcohol and drugs.

“Even in my drinking, I knew that there was a God that was loving, but I had gotten back into thinking that someday, somehow, I would be able to control my drinking,” she says. “Instead of being a mean alcoholic and addict like I had been in my younger years, I had turned into a recluse and was walking on eggshells, so I could get what I needed to stay high or drunk.”

Many of her friends and acquaintances who had gotten sober earlier in life had given up hope that Sherry would ever find true sobriety and recovery. At Nova, however, things were different. Sherry experienced a type of love and support that she had never experienced before. Instead of forcing her to change, the staff at Nova met her where she was and helped her face the truth about herself and her addiction.

“I had plans to just do my 90 days, get out of there, and go back to drinking and smoking weed,” she says. “About two weeks later, something happened. I just started doing what I was asked to do and what was expected of me. I’ve pretty much been on fire for this program ever since.”

Sherry’s counselors and Recovery Specialists at Nova were an instrumental part of her recovery journey. They challenged her to deal with personal issues like pride, ego, and passive aggressiveness, while also working through her emotions regarding her son’s death so she could fully heal.

“I can never repay what Nova did for me. I’m back in good standing with family and friends and I’m getting better and better every day,” she says. “Today, my daughter and I celebrate my son Kody’s life. We know that he is right here with us, he’s not in pain anymore, and he loves us.”

As a House Manager at a women’s sober home, Sherry does her best to give back what she’s been given in recovery.

“There are a lot of young women I see acting the way I used to when I was in my twenties,” she says. “They’re in denial, expecting others to take care of them, or blaming people and things. I lovingly hold them accountable to what they need to be doing here in sober living, and try to share my experience, whether they get it or not.”

Sherry admits that she was a thief, a liar, and a fraud all her life, but today, she has what she calls a “big beautiful life.” She finally gets to be the person God intended her to be.

Whether you’ve been to treatment before or you’re trying to get sober for the first time, there’s hope for you. Call Nova Recovery Center today to speak with an admissions representative about our 90-day drug and alcohol rehab program.

The Journey to Self-Discovery

by Nova Recovery Center | Nov 8, 2018 | Stories Of Addiction Recovery

Hannah Miles never really felt comfortable in her own skin. She always felt the need to stay busy or do something, out of fear that she’d be alone with herself and her thoughts. Even at home, Hannah always felt different than everyone else, especially her family. She felt like an outcast but wasn’t quite sure why.

As a young child growing up in the Dallas area, Hannah’s parents divorced very early in her life. After a brief stint of spending every other week with each parent, she ended up living with her father permanently. Her first encounter with drugs was in middle school when she started smoking marijuana.

“Even then I noticed I was different,” she says. “My friends were socially smoking, but for me, it immediately turned into a 24/7 thing and I was the only one freaking out when we started running out.”

Throughout high school, Hannah lived in what she calls a “party phase,” heavily drinking, smoking marijuana, and doing all sorts of party drugs like ecstasy and molly.

After a difficult breakup, Hannah decided she needed a change, so she left Texas and moved to Oklahoma to live with her older sister. She had been depressed, couldn’t seem to get along with her family members, and she felt like everyone was just sick of her, so a fresh start appeared to be the best option. Unfortunately, things took a turn for the worse in Oklahoma.

“That’s when my drug addiction really spiraled out of control. I was introduced to meth there, took a lot of pills … it all just happened very rapidly,” Hannah says. “It was a really small town and going from Dallas to that was a huge change. Small towns like that are just infested with drugs.”

Years of Rehab Hopping

While she was living in Oklahoma, Hannah’s drug abuse quickly took over her life. She was arrested twice for drug-related incidents, put on probation, and forced to go to rehab. Despite the treatment she received, Hannah continued to struggle with her addiction, bouncing in and out of rehab centers and sober living homes. This cycle of treatment and relapse stretched on for weeks, months, and years.

After a few years of her descent further and further into addiction, Hannah finally reached her lowest point. For her, “rock bottom” wasn’t a physical state, rather, it was an emotional one.

“I relapsed for about one week and that’s when I started shooting heroin. I was doing it for the full week and was pretty much homeless. I didn’t want to live anymore, and I had hit an emotional bottom,” she says.

“Although there were things that had happened throughout my addiction that weren’t good, there was never a big traumatic event for me. I’m pretty good at minimizing things. I tend to just stuff everything down, but my emotions really got to me this time.”

Learning Not to Run

Hannah’s solution had always been to run away from her problems. She had never fully stopped to face them or to face herself. She relocated several times, made new friends, and even started over at a new school, thinking something was going to be different, but it never was.

“I always thought everyone else had a problem with what I was doing so I would just run, but it turns out I was the one with the problem all along,” she says.

After going to the same rehab center four different times, Hannah finally ended up at Nova Recovery Center, where things started changing. For the first time in her life, Hannah started to feel comfortable in her own skin. As she began to face her fears and insecurities, she uncovered pieces of who she was without the influence of drugs and alcohol.

“At first, I thought I was too young, and my stories weren’t as crazy as other peoples’. I always compared my situation to others’. But my RS really helped me by asking me why I felt like I had to go through all those things to get sober. Instead, at my age, I can be helping other young women who are in the same situation.”

Without her treatment experience at Nova, Hannah says she believes she would have already overdosed and died. To date, she’s been sober for one year and two months.

“I could never get over 90 days sober, so I definitely never thought getting a year was even possible,” she says. “Ever since I left Nova, the obsession to use has been lifted from me. Since then, I turned 21, got evicted from my Oxford house, and my girlfriend relapsed. Normally I would just be like, ‘Screw it’ and get high, but at the end of the day, I choose not to get high over it. It’s not even appealing to me anymore.”

Hannah continues to be a part of Nova’s alumni community by participating in monthly activities for women who have completed the rehab program.

“I could easily be sitting back in rehab if I don’t keep doing what I’m doing,” she says. “But it feels really good to be with those girls. That’s the high for me now.”

If you or someone you know needs help overcoming their drug or alcohol addiction, please call Nova Recovery Center today. Our admissions specialists are ready to take your call.