Chains of Addiction Broken After Years of Stuggle

“When I was getting high I didn't have to feel,” Jamie said as she recalled her life of substance abuse. “I didn't have to think about me losing my kid. I didn't have to think about the things that I was doing to myself, the things that I was doing to my family. The only focus I had was my next high.”

Years of broken relationships would lead Jamie Blevins down a path of self-destruction. Starting as a young girl, she sought ways to be noticed in a chaotic home with an alcoholic stepfather. 

“I remember, you know, not really believing or feeling that I was loved,” Jamie said.

Jamie was often left with her grandparents. Sadly, her step-grandfather took advantage of her need for love.

“He would do things to me,” Jamie remembered with tears streaming down her face. “And really, at the time I felt like my grandpa was the only one that cared about me, and that's really sickening but that's how I felt at the time. So, I didn't tell anybody.”

She thought she found true love in her teens with her boyfriend Greg. After dating for over four years he died of a drug overdose leaving her alone with a broken heart.

“Him being completely gone, I felt everything, every bit of feeling unloved all my life, feeling hopeless,” Jamie said.

Jamie ended up in a relationship with another boy soon after who exposed her to pain pills. Using them to cope with the loss of Greg, she became addicted.

“I did not grieve, I did not heal, and I was just trying to fill a void,” Jamie said.

Her dependence on pills would quickly spiral into a crack cocaine addiction. She got pregnant at 19 and had a son. Still, she continued to use. 

“It didn’t change my mindset whatsoever,” Jamie said. “I did not know how to love my child. Honestly I didn't, because if I did I would have never done any of those things.”

Jamie’s son was only 3 months old when Child Protective Services took him from her. She would spend the next several years in addiction, moving from man to man to get money for drugs and keep a roof over her head.

“I would lie, steal, cheat, seek out older men to get what I needed,” Jamie said about her actions at the time. “That’s what kept me from not being sick and withdrawing. I didn't have any pride and I went really far to stay high and to stay numb and to avoid all responsibilities at all costs.”

At 28, Jamie was arrested for a probation violation. In jail, awaiting her trial, she came off her high and began to take a hard look at her life.

“I'm feeling it now,” Jamie said about having to come clean in prison. “I’m hurting and I'm broken and I'm ready to surrender, whatever that looks like.”

That’s when she felt the need to go to the jail’s library and check out a Bible. As she read, she got a glimpse of a life with God.

“I had seen other people in jail before, like, you know, reading the Bible and stuff,” Jamie said. “But now I know that it was Holy Spirit drawing my heart. And I began to read that Bible and I had no idea what it was saying at the time. And I just kept hearing, ‘Keep reading, keep reading.’ He began to give me joy and peace and was comforting me through those times.”

She was sentenced to a program that focused on healing and recovery for a year. After getting out she continued to read the Bible and managed to stay clean for four years, but lingering doubts eventually overcame her and she relapsed on pain meds and then heroin.

“I was just not fully committed to step inside the church and grow with other women in Christ, because I always felt like I couldn't relate with them. I'm way worse than they are,” Jamie said thinking back on her mindset during the period leading up to her relapse. “I didn't understand how much Christ really loved me. I went to rehab. And that was when I accepted Jesus Christ as not only my Savior, but as my Lord, and he was my strength. I was pretty sick coming off of heroin, and He was with me the whole entire time. I didn't just read about grace and mercy, I experienced the grace and mercy of God in that rehab.”

Jamie has maintained her sobriety, joined a supportive church community and even reconnected with her son. She married a Christian man and they’re raising a family. Jamie says it was receiving the love of God that finally healed the wounds she’d lived with for so long.

“God has completely transformed me,” Jamie exclaimed with a smile. “I'm a good mom and I love myself today, so I can love my children. In Jesus Christ I have found acceptance. I know that I know that I know that I'm loved. I can fall short and I can have imperfections, I can make mistakes and not beat myself up because I know that I'm loved and I know that Jesus Christ has grace for me. I am loved, we’re all loved.”