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“Please don’t
give up on us,” says MonDay resident
By Bob Robinson
DAYTON – “I’ve done everything,” the 30-year-old Bradford resident
said. “It was the heroin that brought me to my knees.” She was living
in Columbus at the time. “My friends were doing it… I started with
them. I got locked up for six months for possession.”
Stacey Snyder has an Assoc. of Applied Science and a Medical Assistant
degree. She was working in the medical field. Following her
incarceration she was clean for two and a half years. During this time
she had a baby girl; the baby had a mom and a dad who loved her and
both had good jobs.
Then she started again. “I was back on for two months. Heroin. I stole
a credit card from a friend of the family and was convicted (in Darke
County Common Pleas Judge Jonathan Hein’s courtroom) of Felony 5
Theft.” She said she didn’t put that much on the card… “I bought gas
and cigarettes… about $80.” It was an F5 because the theft was from an
elderly person.
“Why? I don’t know. Fear of success? Everybody always seemed to be
waiting for me to start using again… I don’t know. Life was going good…
it almost seemed like I was wondering what I could do to mess it up.”
She wasn’t sure if it was the loss of both her parents… “I’ve never
really learned to deal with the grief.” She knew the path was
detrimental to her body, her health, but didn’t care…
“There wasn’t a day I didn’t wake up hating my life and hoping the next
‘shot’ would be my last.”
Friday (March 7) was her daughter’s first birthday and she missed it.
She’s a resident in the MonDay Program in Dayton. “I’ve missed her. On
Friday? That’s going to be hard… it’s so hard. His (the father’s) mom
sends me pictures, writes letters… she’s starting to walk….”
The baby is with her dad. “He’s pretty mad at me,” Snyder said. “We
haven’t talked.” Later she said she’s tried to apologize. “I could have
taken prison, but I want to get better. I hope they will take that into
consideration… I’m hoping he’ll talk to me.”
Snyder has been in the locked treatment facility for two months;
residents are ordered there through judicial proceedings only. The
typical stay at MonDay is six months. According to the program, she has
four months to go in her treatment. “I left orientation a month ago,
hope to move into Phase 2 in the next couple of weeks.” The program has
three phases after orientation, prior to graduation. Each requires a
higher degree of accomplishment and responsibility in the requirements
of the program. Her counselor, Debra Kaduce, monitors and supports
Snyder every step of the way.
Snyder started with marijuana before moving to more potent drugs.
Thinking back she wondered about the time and money she had to put into
it, the effort involved in getting it and what happens when you don’t
have it. The story is similar regardless of the drug. When you don’t
have it (heroin), you get ‘sick.’
“I know this is a huge debt to society,” she said. “but please don’t
give up on us. We need a place to detox. A place we can go voluntarily…
I would have checked myself into a hospital if I could have.”
She acknowledged something was ‘missing’ after being clean for over two
years. She indicated she was starting to realize the cost of addiction
rather than just “trying to shut everything out… you don’t experience
things the same way.”
“Can I really stay clean? This program is really great. It gives you
tools. I was clean but never really happy about it… there seemed to be
no safe avenue toward healthier habits, such as exercise, working out,
gardening, being outside… school, education.” She knows she can’t
return to the medical field but wants to go back to school; get a
bachelor of science in microbiology.
She also knows she will be facing many challenges when she gets out.
She hopes the father’s parents will let her stay with them; they’d
indicated they would. If not she figured she would probably be
homeless. So how does she plan to deal with the challenges?
“One day at a time.”
This is the first
of a three part series on the MonDay program. Next week: What role does
MonDay play in efforts to deal with the drug epidemic?
Published courtesy of the Early Bird
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