The Beginning I started drinking at 18, which is kind of a “late bloomer” for a drinker. I had been smoking pot and dropping acid before that, but when I started drinking I drank heavily. I’d drink as much as I could until I would black out because that was the cool thing to do.…
When I was growing up, I guess you would say that I was kind of a square, so I always followed my brothers and their friends so I could try and fit in with them. I would see them having fun drinking and doing drugs, so I tried it too. I didn’t really like the…
When I was young, I grew up with a family that was very loving. We moved around a lot because of my mom’s job, which meant that I would start getting along with the kids at my elementary school before having to move and try to fit in with kids from a new school that…
When I was 16 years old, I got drunk for the very first time. I thought it was normal because I was drinking with my friends on the weekend, and that’s what high school kids did. So I continued to party and drink, then two years later I tried cocaine for the first time and…
I was 34 years old when I entered the doors of Healing Transitions. I was broken and desperate for a dramatic and much-needed change in my life. My childhood dreams of becoming a nurse like my mother and grandmother had vanished due to my addiction. I was incapable of being a mother to my two…
I grew up in New York before moving to North Carolina when I was in my early teens. Not too long after moving here, I had my first experience with drugs and alcohol. I was probably about 14 or 15 years old at the time. It wasn’t really something that I had the desire to…
A lot of my drinking was based on my childhood. My real parents were divorced when I was an infant. My mom remarried and I was abused physically and mentally. When I turned six, my mom was just going to give me up for foster care and get rid of me, so my aunt and…
For the last five months before I made it to Healing Transitions, I disconnected from my family and my first child, Brody. At the time he was four years old. I was couch surfing and in a very abusive relationship for part of those five months, finally ending up sleeping under bridges or in my…
My name is Dorothy Matteson Pierce and I am silver chip number 84! I came to The Healing Place, now Healing Transitions, at the age of 25 and was completely broken emotionally. I grew up in Raleigh and had a wonderful life up through high school. Because I played select soccer for CASL and for…
I came through the doors of Healing Transitions on January 9, 2012. I was a 33-year-old high school dropout, and I had spent the better part of my adult life incarcerated as a direct result of my addiction. I started out smoking pot and drinking in high school and then eventually graduated to harder drugs.…