Amanda C. of the Plano House
Sober since December 17, 2017
“First and foremost, I am grateful that I am sober, ” Amanda shared. “I could never put together more than a few months of sobriety, and now I’m coming up on a year. That is truly a miracle. I have an amazing group of friends who genuinely care about me and how I’m doing. My parents are proud of me for the first time in years. I have the ability to help people these days without expecting anything in return. I have real goals for my life today.”
“I am free,” she says.
Amanda knew that she didn’t drink like other people. She was always the last one awake at parties looking for more, and found herself to be the only one still drinking the morning after the party. She found it very convenient to use the excuse that she was young and that the way she was partying was completely normal.
“When I became an IV drug user at 19-years-old, I realized that I couldn’t just use the excuse that I was young anymore,” Amanda says. “Drugs and Alcohol became the only thing I ever thought about. Nothing else in the world mattered except how I was going to get messed up that day.”
Amanda attempted suicide three times, had become homeless and had wasted away to a shocking 89 pounds. She was at the end of a year long relapse when she checked into Discovery Point Retreat on December 17, 2017 where she heard about the Simply Grace sober living houses.
“I knew that it was only a matter of time before I either succeed at killing myself or that the drugs would do it for me,” she said. “I had intended to intentionally overdose, but something told me to pick up the phone and call my dad. Less than a week later I was on a plane back to Texas, headed to treatment. I was emotionally and physically broken.”
Amanda found that with the provision of accountability and structure at the Plano house she had a basis to begin her recovery journey, although at first she resisted change. After nearly a year of hard work she looks back along her 12-step program with Simply Grace.
“As a result of working these steps, the obsession to drink or use has been lifted and every single day I am grateful for that, “ she shared. “Without Simply Grace and the women in the houses, I’m almost certain I would’ve given up.”
Amanda is now managing the Plano House and has rebuilt trust with her parents. Despite friends who have relapsed or that she has lost to the disease of addiction she is a few days away from picking up her one year chip from working a 12-Step program.
