A Message Of Hope

For two years, Guideposts has told stories from the front lines of the addiction crisis. Here’s the most important thing we’ve learned

- Jim Hinch

Why couldn’t dana smith stay sober? It was 1998. Dana was a 34year-old methamphetamine and prescription pain medication addict. She’d been a nurse in Statesboro, Georgia until she was fired for stealing medication from the hospital where she worked. She was divorced with two children, ages 12 and 13.

Getting fired was a wake-up call. Dana checked herself into a residential treatment center near Statesboro called John’s Place, part of a state-funded network of drug treatment and mental health-care facilities in eastern Georgia. She emerged sober and determined to stay that way.

“My kids were the only good thing in my life, and I was trying hard to be a good mom to them,” she says.

Dana kicked out the boyfriend who’d introduced her to drugs (“he was smoking crack in the bathroom”), got a job at Pizza Hut and attended outpatient support group meetings.

Five months after leaving John’s Place, Dana began spending time with a man she met at a support group meeting. The two began using drugs together, including intravenous heroin. Dana lost her job, ran out of grocery money and stopped paying her power bill.

For a while, she and the kids were homeless. Eventually, the kids went to live with her ex-husband’s mother while Dana detoxed again.

A cycle began: sobriety, regaining custody, relapse, homelessness, kids landing at a relative’s house.

Finally, Dana stopped trying to stay sober. The kids ended up with her ex-husband. Dana drifted to Florida, where she engaged in sex work to buy heroin.

Dana Smith loved her children. She hated being an addict. “It was horrible,” she says. “It ate me up inside.”

So why couldn’t she stay sober?