From the outside, Joy Reybein seemed to have it all together. She had a job as a paralegal, was married and had raised her children. But deep down, she was struggling to keep it all from unraveling.
“It was a mess,” she says. “I started drinking heavily and suddenly decided I needed to move. I uprooted my kids, cashed out my 401(k), quit my job and moved to Carteret County. That’s when my journey with hard drugs began.”
A back injury led to an addiction to painkillers, and when Joy’s mother died, Joy began to numb her grief with heroin. Soon, Joy found herself selling drugs to make ends meet, even trafficking methamphetamine across state lines. Over the next several years, Joy found herself in and out of trouble with the law.
“My addiction had spun completely out of control,” she shares. “I was miserable, sick all the time, stealing money, lying to my dad. I was doing anything I could to make what I needed just to get through the day.”
Her battle with drugs and alcohol continued, and after one particular arrest, the judge released her into her father’s custody. 
“I had to leave my adult children, pack up everything I owned, and move into my dad’s house at 41 years old which was not an easy thing to do,” she acknowledges. “But I did it, and I tried to stay clean. I thought I could do it on my own.”
Her sobriety was short-lived, and Joy found herself in a federal detention center on drug charges. At her hearing, the judge had mercy on her and released her into a treatment center in Wilmington. However, her insurance lapsed the following day, and she returned to jail.
“I called my dad every day and said, ‘There has to be some place that will take me,’” she recalls. At one point, her father even offered to take out a loan and pay the $7,000 deductible for treatment. But Joy refused. “After a few days in jail and a clearer head because I was sober, I called my dad one day and said, ‘I cannot ask you to bear any more of my burdens.”
She was released into the custody of Healing Transitions on May 16, 2022, and, while she didn’t know it then, that was the beginning of her long-term recovery journey.
She called her dad and begged him to come pick her up.
“My dad said, ‘If you want to come home, you’re going to have to walk.’ Walking from Raleigh to Greenville was a little too far to trudge on foot. So, I just stuck it out.”
Her first week there, she met a staffer who encouraged her to trust the process.
“She had completed the program, she told me her whole story, and she reminded me that one day will turn into one week will turn into one month. And then she said, ‘If I can do it, you can do it,’” Joy shares, with emotion in her voice.
Today, Joy’s life looks different than she ever could have imagined.
“I tried to do it on my own, and it just didn’t work,” she confesses. “But I would suggest this program to anyone. I have a sense of inner peace, and I owe that to my recovery.”
As part of her recovery journey, she now works as a Staff Accountant at Healing Transitions.
As Joy reflects on her own recovery journey, she says she has one piece of advice for someone considering the program at Healing Transitions.
“Just hold on tight. I know it’s hard in the beginning. Do what they tell you, make a better life for yourself. We’re all worthy of this life. It’s going to get a little rough before it gets better, but eventually, it’s a better ride than anything I’ve ever been on.”