Sicily Owings -I Work at a Methadone Clinic

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Photo by Lindsay Hahn, courtesy Sicily Owings

At the methadone clinic where she works, Sicily Owings hears from clients about the relationship between trauma and addiction in their lives. She also knows about it firsthand.

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In a child’s brain, they don’t know how to make sense, we don’t know how to make sense of certain things so it is imprinted in our brains as trauma.

Addiction is so based in trauma. Addiction is so -- like the goal of drug use, when you originally go into it, is literally it just makes you feel better. It makes you forget it. It makes you numb. And a lot of people who come from trauma backgrounds who have experienced horrendous things, really just have a lot of pain that they don't know what to do with.

And so we use drugs. We use drugs to cope. We use drugs to numb. We use drugs to escape.

If you’re coming from a trauma background, and you reach adolescence when the chemicals in your brain and your brain chemistry are kind of all over the place, your hormones all over the place, you're experiencing new things, and you just don't know how to deal with them -- it's kind of like a, a recipe for disaster.

When I was around three or four, my biological father went to prison. He was charged with the possession and sales of illegal firearms, and also the possession and sales of large quantities of cocaine. I think when he got caught he got caught with two kilos on him which is over 4 lbs. And pretty much spent my entire adolescence in prison in Canyon City, in here in Colorado.

So I think it was around '88,1988. I was born in 1985. I'm 33 now.

I remember knowing who we was, knowing what he did, not having a relationship with him because he went to prison when I was so young, and always saying to myself like, I'm never going to do that. Like his entire life was ruined. I'm never going to do hard drugs. Even when I started smoking marijuana and stuff, I’m like,Oh I'll never go there.

But eventually that happened. And I eventually started using cocaine, and eventually started using methamphetamines. And it was just kind of downhill from there.

I was using drugs, and I was using drugs pretty heavily in high school, and I remember coming home, and all of my stuff was in the driveway,and my mom just told me, she's like, “If this is the way that you're going to live, you can't live here.”

What was interesting about that is they kicked me out and so I left. And I ended up living with a friend in Littleton. That's when I ended up dropping out of high school. That’s when things really got worse because I didn't, I didn't really have any structure, I didn't really have any family. I was finally free. I can do whatever I want.

But I ended up getting pulled over. In essence, I was with a friend and we were parked, and a cop pulled up and I was in the car and they ran my name. And had basically told me that I had to go with them because my parents had called me in as a runaway.

And I was so confused. I'm like, They kicked me out! Why are they calling me in as a runaway?

But when they tried to get a hold of my parents, they had actually left town to go camping. And it's illegal if you call your child in as a runaway to leave the state. And so my parents temporarily lost custody of me, and I had to go to this like youth home for like 2 weeks. And I remember that as being super traumatic -- to go from like living at home and having this family to getting kicked out and then like being stuck in this home. It was -- it was really crazy.

Things took a while to change. I mean it did. I started using when I was 14 and I quit when I was around 21. I was almost married at the time that I quit. And I was with my ex-husband at the time, and him and I used together. And that's when I started using methamphetamines really heavily, was like 2002 2003, and used for about 3 years. And he ended up doing some jail time.

His dad was a pastor, and I, for whatever reason, just like really wanted to connect with his dad and his step mom. And so I remember calling them. And I went over to their house for dinner and I remember having soup. And feeling really safe there. And feeling that it was really different. And they had invited me to church and then when Josh got out of jail, I told him I was like, “I would really like to go to your dad's church. I want to check it out.”

And ended up going to church and felt like my entire life had changed. I just remember crying a lot and I just remember … I always want to cry at this part … I just remember feeling like very hopeful because I had spent so many years feeling so shameful, and feeling alone. And feeling like I could never get out of that.

You know like, I don't know how to get out of this. This is so much bigger than me. And I've burned all of my bridges. And I have no one.
But in that moment, like I finally felt like there was this glimmer of hope --that potentially I could do it.

I remember telling my ex-husband, "I want to quit. And I’m serious about it." And so we moved north pretty far north, to the suburbs, changed our phone number, and started, you know, pouring my life into going to church and decided I wanted to be a drug and alcohol counselor.

I knew how alone I felt. I knew how isolated I felt. I knew how shameful and ugly -- and all of these things that I felt and I was like I don't, I don't want people to feel that. I want them to know that like somebody sees them, and somebody cares about them, and somebody believes in them. That's all I wanted -- to like be with people in that struggle. Watch them get out of that.

I started working at a methadone clinic about a year-and-a-half ago. I love it. I love working in medication assisted treatment. I believe in it because I see it work.

Typically, recovery has focused on abstinence. And harm reduction kind of came on the scene when they realized that abstinence doesn't work for everybody.

The biggest thing with addiction is struggling with ambivalence that I know I want to feel better. I know I want something different but I don't know what I want. And the great thing about methadone is it really keeps you alive while you're struggling with ambivalence.

People are dying. People are dying waiting to get abstinent so they had to figure out another way.

I would rather have a child on methadone on medication helping them get clean then have a dead child.

And I know that there is stigma around medication-assisted treatment. I know that when you hear the word "methadone," it doesn't sound great, or it sounds scary, or it sounds like they're just replacing it with another drug -- or like, what whatever comes up for you when you hear the word "methadone" -- but I'm telling you that this medication saves lives every single day. Every single day.

And I just hope that we as a community, as a nation are willing to really put that stigma aside for the sake of saving lives.

My name is Sicily Owings and this is my story.

Karen McGinnis -What God Gave Me

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Photo courtesy Karen McGinnis

At age 37, after 20 years of battling the disease of addiction, Karen McGinnis found a reason to make a change and make it work: the birth of her son.

 "I’m a single, independent, fully self-supporting woman today. And it’s the most liberating thing I’ve ever experienced because there was a time in my life where I took advantage of the system. And I have overcome all of that."

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You know they say that the disease of addiction is greater than the love that a mother has for her child. I intellectually understood that, but I didn’t feel it until it was happening to me.

But at the age of 35, God said to me, “I have carried you through some storms. I’ve put angels around you to protect you all those nights that you were driving in a blackout and you were walking the streets homeless. You’ve had one DUI, you’ve had two DUI’s, you’ve had three DUI’s. You’ve lost great jobs, you’ve lost your soul, you’ve lost your family. You’ve -- you are going to kill yourself. Or you’ve going to end up in prison. So I’m about to do something for you. It’s going to be very tangible. And it’s going to give you a reason to want to live.”

So I had my first child when I was 36 years old. By the time Owen was a couple months old, DCF stepped in – the Department of Children and Families. I was an unfit mother. So he was removed from my care. And I was left with an opportunity to go into the drug courts and work on Karen so I could get my son back.

I was headed down that spiral for 20 years. I started drinking alcohol at the age of 14. The alcohol led to street drugs. The street drugs led to opioids and doctor shopping and -- I had for 10 years already been in and out of treatment centers, and halfway houses, and structured living, and jail and .. you know, so what was so different this time? Because I was still addicted to drugs and alcohol and I still loved my alcohol and drugs more than I loved this beautiful little child that God had blessed me with.

I kicked and screamed and finally went into treatment for a good solid 6 months of inpatient and a couple months of outpatient. And I did everything I could to get Owen back. I fixed the outside. I went and got a great job. I got insurance. I got a nice, fancy Camaro. And it looked real pretty on the outside because I wanted my son back.

And I got him back. But what I failed to do is, I failed to work on Karen. I failed to take a look at what was really going on. What is causing me to continually and insanely – knowing that there is going to be significant consequences, whether it’s loss of marriage, loss of child, loss of job, arrest – still continue to pick up that substance and start the cycle all over again?

I did not do a lick of work on Karen. I did not work a 12-step program. I didn’t reach out to my higher power. I didn’t build a network. I -- I just fixed everything real pretty on the outside, got my son back, went back to work, and before you know it, life started showing up. I started getting stressed out at work. I was stressed out being a single mother, a lot of resentment still towards Owen’s father, a lot of anger. Before I knew it, I found myself at the liquor store.

One is too many, a thousand is never enough. When I put that substance of whatever it is in my system, it sets off a chemical reaction within me and I start the obsession and the compulsion and I want more. Trying to fill that void, trying to find that high.

You know within a couple of days I was a no-call no-show at work. My parents ended up coming to my apartment and found me, naked on the couch with empty bottles of Crown Royal. And my father called DCF again. And Owen was removed from me.

So now we are at Owen is not quite even two years old yet and DCF has already removed him from my care twice. That wasn’t enough to stop me. How did this happen? I was so guilty and shameful, I was off on a mission to really kill myself for the next three months, drinking and overdosing and driving drunk and…

Finally, my parents stepped in and here in the state of Florida we have what’s called a Marchman Act. If you have a loved one that is using substances and you know that they are a threat to themselves or the community, you can take it down to the courthouse and get the law involved. And the law did get involved.

Judge Espinoza who is our drug court judge here in Tampa, he ordered me to go back into treatment. I knew that was my saving grace. That, hey you know what? My parents do still care about me. They care enough about me that they were willing to go down to the courthouse to save my life. They might not be talking to me right now, and I might think that they hate me but they love me. And they saved my life by doing that.

This works if you work it. Recovery is possible. There is hope.

I wanted to start from a fresh clean slate at 37 years old because Owen was the only thing I’ve ever done perfect in my life. And I refuse to let the disease of addiction take that from me too.

And I went back into treatment and I started following suggestions. You know we learn from behaviors over, over time on how to get what we want as addicts. And someone had told me, “Karen, if you could just use those skill sets in a positive way, you will be amazing.”

A large part of recovering is being surrounded by people who are like-minded; people that have gone through what you’ve gone through. Yes, we come from all very diverse backgrounds, and some of us are tall and short and fat and skinny. And some of us are Hispanic and Caucasian and African-American and Chinese but we all have one common thread: the disease of addiction. You know, I think it’s so important for us to come together and, and build those relationships with other people that know what we’re going through so we can feel like hey, you’re not alone, you’re not different, you’re not unique.

And that is one of the reasons that I work in the field that I work in. Because I can empathize with what you, ma’am, are going through, sitting on my couch in my admissions office. I know what you’re going through. I’ve been there 15 times, sitting on that couch with my mom and dad or my husband sitting over there so I understand what you, husband and mother and father are going through.

I do this because life is rich. And life is a gift. And we have to stay in the present. This is a wonderful life.

I’m a single, independent, fully self-supporting woman today. And it’s the most liberating thing I’ve ever experienced because there was a time in my life where I took advantage of the system. I took advantage of Medicaid. I took advantage of food stamps. I took advantage of my mother and father. I took advantage of men. I took advantage of people to get what Karen wanted. And I have overcome all of that.

Never did I ever think at 12 years old, that I was going to be 40 years old, a single mom, and have lived the life that I live. And I’m so grateful, so grateful I’ve gone through what I’ve gone through to find what I found.

And I believe that God will allow us to go through that, to get to a point in our lives to where we have no other choice but to cry out for Him to help us.

And, and, I’ve – I’ve made a mess of my life and I believe that there is something greater than myself that can restore me back to sanity and give me the life that You always intended me to have.

And that is something to be grateful for.

My name is Karen McGinnis and this is my story.