"My addition started when I was 17 years old, mainly because I did not know how to deal with what was going on around me. Drinking became my outlet for everything from being raped at a young age to abusive relationships. I had my daughter, Jayda, at 19 and stopped drinking for a one-and-a-half-year period. Then I relapsed. Fast-forward to when I was working at two different bars, still drinking and driving. I was arrested several times, but did no jail time until three years later when I was sent to an intensive inpatient program. Then I went to a halfway house. At the halfway house I started applying to various schools and was accepted to a cosmetology school. I’m still sober attending school and starting a new job in the recovery community."