Elyse
Faith and a family restored, thanks to you!
Court-ordered to Cherry Street by Lucas County Family Drug Court to help her maintain her newfound sobriety—and with her three children in foster care—Elyse arrived at our Sparrow’s Nest in early 2009 kicking and screaming.
“I was a brat when I came,” admits Elyse, who began drinking at age 15 and quickly moved on to abusing drugs. “I felt my problems were everyone else’s fault. I didn’t talk to anyone at the Nest for weeks. I broke curfew. I just assumed that nobody cared.”
But then Cherry Street case manager Molly Klima learned more about Elyse after attending a meeting of her Drug Court treatment team. About the abuse she and her children had suffered at the hands of the children’s father. About Elyse’s older son, who has bipolar disorder, ADHD, and post-traumatic-stress disorder. About her younger son, who also has PTSD, as well as autism. About the misery and guilt Elyse felt, knowing what her substance abuse had done to all three of her kids.
“Afterward Molly said, ‘I’m so sorry; I didn’t know about all that. I’ll be praying for you and your family, and if you want to talk to somebody, you know where I’m at.’ I kind of stepped back and thought, maybe she does care,” Elyse recalls. Slowly, she began opening up, and, for the first time in her life, learned how to trust people. She also renewed her faith in God.
“When Molly put Bible Study on my itinerary, I said, ‘I’m not doing this,’” she says, smiling at the memory. So Molly put meetings with Cherry Street chaplain Tracy Brown on Elyse’s itinerary instead. That led to a renewal of her faith last December.
“I think God knew that I needed it to happen the way it did: like, Whoosh, everything’s serene and peaceful; God’s got my back.”
When Elyse was finally ready to leave Cherry Street in February 2010, she was offered two apartments. She got down on her knees and told the Lord she’d take the one He wanted her to, reflecting a change in attitude that would have been impossible for her to imagine when she entered the Nest kicking and screaming a year earlier. Today, she’s been alcohol-and drug-free for 18 months, and living independently for six. This summer, she and her children were reunited.
"When I think about the stuff that I’ve done and the things I was using, I should be dead,” Elyse stresses. “Instead, life is good.”
