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A Beacon of Hope A recovering addict shares her story and how she made a local women’s recovery center home. By Arianna Sergio Content Warning: This story discusses substance abuse that may be triggering to some. Please read with caution.
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he very first time Emily Jamison used any type of drug was when she smoked marijuana at 12 years old. She didn’t know anything about it, other than the fact that you were supposed to smoke it. So, after school, her and her best friend at the time did just that. They didn’t have any rolling papers, but that wasn’t an issue. They rolled it in regular notebook paper and lit up. From that moment forward, Emily was consistently using some sort of drug. The drug that she was addicted to varied throughout the years. She started off smoking marijuana, then popping opioids, and then injecting meth. She was drawn to opioids and meth for an array of reasons — one of the main reasons being accessibility. She would consume whatever drugs the people around her were doing. Emily switched from opioids to meth because she got “scared off.” The issue Emily ran into with opioids was that if she was in front of anyone, they could tell she was high and having “a lot of problems.” The main issue was Emily nodding out. This means that she would be sedated enough to the point that she would lose consciousness. She would go from feeling alert but sleepy, to falling into such a deep sleep that she couldn’t be forced to wake up. With meth, that wasn’t as much of a problem—at first. “I didn’t really discriminate [with drugs], honestly. With opioids, I managed to scrape by, even though it was barely, but when it came to meth, once I started it went downhill fast,” Emily says. Emily explained that there were times
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when she was heavily using drugs, and other times where she started to improve and wean herself off of them. Though eventually her habits would catch up to her and repeat themselves — leading her to relapse. It was a vicious cycle she fought time after time to stop.
The Lighthouse women’s recovery home is a residential program ran by Urban Light’s Community Development Program Avery Sallee, Ball Bearings
Emily’s drug abuse led to her being arrested multiple times. The first time she was arrested was in 2012 for driving under the influence because she had her son with her. Although nobody was hurt, he was still in the car, which is what made that charge a felony. Emily was then arrested in 2016 because she
overdosed and her children were home, another felony charge. She had several misdemeanors in between each of these arrests. After that, she was arrested for possession charges, in 2019. At the time of the possession charge, Emily had been homeless for two and a half years. She carried whatever she could in her backpack. There were times when she lost her items, for whatever reason, and there were times when they were stolen, and she was left with nothing. The Delaware County Jail conducted a brief evaluation of Emily after her possession charge. Because she was homeless, she wasn’t a good candidate for house arrest or pretrial probation unless she went into a long-term facility. That is when Emily was court ordered to apply to The Lighthouse. It took her roughly a month to get accepted. The Lighthouse is a faith-based recovery women’s home through Urban Light’s Community Development Program. It’s a residential program that’s committed to promoting long-term and sustainable recovery. They accomplish this by their 3-phase program that is created around a 12-step program. Phase I focuses on primary recovery and lasts 90-120 days. Phase II focuses on maintenance and lasts 1-6 months. Finally, Phase III focuses on transition and lasts up to 90 days. The 12-step program works to flourish healthy boundaries with their residents and others. “At the time, I was just doing whatever I could do to get out [of jail],” Emily says. After being accepted into the program,
