Replacing Addiction with Love
Meet Yvette Drew. In this recovery story our bloomer found herself addicted to crack cocaine while she was pregnant with her second son. Her path to healing began after his miraculous birth.
Experiencing Opioid Addiction While Pregnant
To God be the glory.
When I got pregnant with my lil Josiah I was heavily addicted to crack cocaine and had been for over 14 years. As long as I was awake or not in jail, I was getting high or standing on the street corner, prostituting to get high. When I got pregnant, my son was living in a condemned basement and I was running a crack house. I already had a one son who I couldn’t care for, and my mom has been raising him since he was 10 months old back in Kentucky. I could not stop smoking crack when I was pregnant with my baby. Every month, I said this would be the last month. Before I knew it, I was due to give my C-section.
I couldn’t stop smoking. My baby was not born addicted. He wasn’t even positive for drugs and alcohol which should have been impossible, considering I was getting high every single day. I was clean for four years because God gave me my son in the midst of the most unlikely, unsuccessful circumstances. He just turned 6, and he’s healthy and strong.Â
Rebuilding Life After Addiction Through Healing
If you told me that in less than a decade I would go from an atheist pregnant street walking prostitute who smoked crack in abandoned houses, ate out of garbage cans, and went in and out prison to a now present mother, with two honors degrees in Social Work, and a CASAC T—I would have laughed. If you told me I would get accepted into grad school, be the co-founder and leader of a faith-based 12 step recovery ministry—I would’ve said you were nuts. If you told me I’d be about to preach my first sermon as a minister, find the love of my life, and get married—I wouldn’t have believed you. But it happened 4 months ago when I became someone’s wife. We had a beautiful and elegant wedding. He knows everything about my past and loved me because of it, not in spite of. I just celebrated 6 years clean! I just started my advanced standing masters degree program, and my book is being published on my life story this week!
Rebuilding Give Recovery a Change
I attended NA meetings , rehab ,medication and therapy all at the same time, and those sources definitely calmed my mind and spirit. Yet, something was still missing. It wasn’t until I put Jesus into the equation that I got clean, stayed clean and began truly healed. Treatment treated me but He healed me!
If you give yourself recovery and Jesus a chance, the possibilities are endless! Maybe it's time we stop selling ourselves short. Click To Tweet#blacksobersocialworker
If anyone feels like they are facing an opioid use disorder and needs help, please call SAMHSA’s National Helpline, 1-800-662-HELP (4357), a confidential, free, 24-hour-a-day, 365-day-a-year, information service in English and Spanish.