Levi: Hi, My name is Levi and I am 17 years old. My mother battled with drug addiction throughout my childhood. She was a school teacher and my parents were divorced. That was a hard patch for me because going to school and playing sports and seeing my friends’ parents together and happy always made me wonder why this had to happen to me. On top of my parents being divorced, my mom had a complete hysterectomy and became addicted to the pain pills the doctor prescribed to her. She started doing harder drugs and shortly after that my mom lost her job. I remember coming home and there was a sign in our front yard that said the house is up for foreclosure, and then it just felt like everything in my life was falling apart.
At that time, I was in fifth grade and the feeling of judgement and the thought of what was going to happen next was always a question. My brother and I moved in with my grandparents and my mom went to a rehab and we did everything we could to get her the best help possible.
Drug addiction was new in our family and we had no idea what was going to happen. All we knew was to just pray, pray, pray my mom would get better and start going to AA meetings.
She would stay clean for a couple of years then relapse. It was the worst feeling when we all would get our hopes up and think it was over, but when we heard the news or got the call that mom had been arrested, our hearts just dropped to the floor.
I can remember my friends’ parents would tell their kids not to hang out with me because my mom was a druggy or that I wouldn’t do any good in life because of the mistakes she made. What people said about me and all the negative things that were going on during that time affected me so badly that I started to fail at school. I was not involved in anything like I normally was. I honestly did not know what to do with my life at that point, so I started to do a lot of praying and asking God what to do with my life.
Because I only wanted the best for my mom, I never once gave up on her no matter her situation or how long it was since I saw her. So, I turned my life situation to God and I got over the judgement. I completely blocked out the negative things going on in my life and started working towards success. I got my grades back up and I started joining clubs and I started to progress as I started seeing my mom progress.
After seeing my mom in and out of four different rehabs, she finally joined a women’s recovery home and that is where we found hope. Every time I got to go visit my mom and see everyone there, it gave me a peaceful feeling.
A few times after I visited my mom, I got a thought in my mind out of nowhere about starting a thing called “Making a Difference From my Story to Yours.” The purpose of this was for me to tell my personal story to other teens and adults about addiction and give advice to other teens that are going through the same situation and to let them know they aren’t alone.
I started a Facebook page and the amount of people that engaged in this was incredible. People started reaching out to me wanting to do radio and podcasts and after that, one good thing happened after another. I got the opportunity to speak at our local middle school about drug addiction during red ribbon week and after that our town’s newspaper reached out to me and we were put into the headline of the newspaper.
After working my part time job, I would make encouraging posts on Facebook, Instagram, and our website and a couple of weeks later WAAY-31 News called me wanting to do a news interview. It is such a blessing being able to do all of this.
Now in 2021 I am still pushing forward to help others and getting my story out there. We now give people the opportunity to share their own story on our page and we help provide free counseling to teens and help teens and adults find rehabs and encourage others to the best help possible.
