Running Free After Running Away from Fentanyl!

“I spent 16 years in addiction. And I couldn't get out of it. I had tried many times, and, I couldn't figure a way out. And so I stayed in the mess. It was just an ongoing vicious cycle.” Jessica Garvin says she just wanted to be loved, especially from her mother. “My mom, she was in addiction and in and out of incarceration my whole life. I didn't understand why my mom couldn't get out of her mess to be present in my life.”

Starting in her teens, Jessica numbed her feelings of rejection and abandonment with drugs and alcohol. She says, “I knew what I was doing was wrong, and I knew it was hurting me and my family, but I couldn't see a way out. Started with the pills and then that transitioned to heroin and then that went into fentanyl.  I was using intravenously towards the last half of my addiction which again you know, knowing the way that my mom was, I had swore I would never do right, I would never do drugs, I would never leave my child. I would never use i.v. But that quickly became a part of my life and my addiction. I couldn't look at myself in the mirror. It was not a pretty life at all. I mean, there was I feel like there was even times that I was like, changing and getting refreshed in the gas station bathroom because I had nowhere to go.
At times, she says death by overdose seemed like an easy way out. “I was okay if that happened, because I felt like it would be better for everybody else. Because I had done so much damage. And, I was so full of guilt and shame. I was helpless, hopeless. And when you're that low, I think that you were just at a point you don't care anymore.”

In her late 20s she was arrested for pawning stolen goods. During her jail intake she got startling news, blood tests revealed Jessica was pregnant. She was released on bail, scared and on her own. Jessica recalls, “Knowing that I was pregnant, I needed to get help. I needed to get clean. But again, I just didn't know how to do that. You don't want to go into I'm pregnant and I'm using. Because you're so full of shame that how can you ask somebody or tell somebody what you're doing? So you okay? Maybe tomorrow.”

While pregnant Jessica missed a court date so right after giving birth, she was sent back to jail. “My son was in the NICU for seven weeks, and I never got to hold him. Look at him, touch him. Anything.” Jessica says. “Again that just make me feel worthless. How can I be this boy’s mom when I did all this damage to him before he was even born. I sat there in that cell and just felt so much shame and guilt. I, I don't know what I was thinking. I couldn't tell you. Except that I knew that I had messed up. And but I didn't know how to fix it.”

She was released from jail after 58 days while her son went through detox in the NICU. Her dad pleaded with her to get Christian counseling and treatment. Jessica remembers, “I didn't think I was even worthy to have a different life. I had already done so much damage and heartache, that I didn't see a life outside of what I was living.

She agreed to go to teen challenge, a year- long Christian recovery program. From the first day, Jessica says she felt the love of God. She says, “These people just love me right where I was. And so that was my first experience with the love of Christ. I was on my knees crying and praying to God, and it was about something that I had not shared with anybody yet. And my mentor at the time, she came over and laid her hands on me and started praying, and it was about exactly what I was going through and crying out to the Lord about. Even though I didn't know him. I didn't have a relationship with him. He was able just to give me that glimpse of, like, I'm here and I hear you. And that's when things started to change for me. He heard me, that He sees me, that He's right there with me. I just wanted to give my life to the lord and really just see what he had for me.

Jessica accepted Jesus into her heart. She was set free from the grip drugs held over her for so long as she put her life in Jesus’ hands. “He loved me through it all.” She says, “And now I can look back today and see the many times that his hand was over my life. You know. And so, but when you're in that life, you can't see that, today. Even on my worst day. I never think about going back to alcohol or drugs, ever. When I look at my life today and the rewards I has given me, I know that I'm forgiven. And I know His hand is upon me, and that he loves me regardless. He says that he forgets all of those sins, That he has them from the East to the West. And I know that that is true for me today because of everything that he has restored in my life.”

Jessica has regained custody of her son Tristan and today she has a beautiful life. Restored and forgiven, she’s helping other women find new life in Jesus. “My greatest joy is that I get to teach my son about Jesus.” she says, “And that he sees, answered prayers in our life every day. The Lord has just blessed me with abundance with my family restoration. I mean, all of the things that are happening in my life. I know it's only because of Jesus. my past does not define me. And that if anything, he's using it to bring others to him. So I can be that light. I can be that hope for other people that are still lost and broken.”