By Tiffany Tucker
PRS, Discharge Coordinator
Ohio Community Health Recovery Centers
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“The day I chose recovery, I chose life, and I’ve been choosing it every day since.”
A Childhood That Stole My Voice
My story isn’t an easy one to tell, but it’s a story I’m proud of today because it’s proof that recovery is possible. I didn’t grow up dreaming of the life I eventually fell into. My story began long before addiction in a childhood filled with trauma that no child should ever have to experience. Mental, physical, and sexual abuse took away my sense of safety, trust, and worth. I learned to survive by shutting down, by hiding my pain, and eventually by numbing it.
Drugs became the only way I knew how to quiet the memories and silence the chaos. Opiates, methamphetamine, pills, whatever helped me escape, I took it. I thought I was surviving, but I was really disappearing.
Losing Everything
Addiction stripped away everything I cared about. I became homeless and completely alone. I lost custody and all rights to my only son, the one person I loved more than anything. I lost my son’s father to an overdose. I lost my best friend the same way. I also endured domestic violence situations that left me feeling unsafe and trapped, compounding the fear and isolation I was already experiencing.
The grief, guilt, and fear were unbearable. I remember lying awake night after night, terrified for my life, knowing I was one bad day away from dying myself. I was facing prison, and honestly, a part of me didn’t even care anymore. I was exhausted. Trapped between two choices: die or get sober. There was no middle ground.
The Moment Everything Changed
For the first time in my life, I asked for help. I went to treatment in Cincinnati, not knowing what the future would look like, only knowing I couldn’t live like that anymore.
Rehab became my reset button. For the first time, I began learning who I really was beneath the pain and chaos. After treatment, I moved into a sober living program for women who had survived sex trafficking and drug abuse. I stayed there for six months, rebuilding my life one small step at a time.
That was where I found stability, support, and most importantly, hope. I eventually got my own apartment, something that once felt impossible.
My sobriety date is September 6, 2018, the day I began truly living.
Finding Purpose in Recovery
The first few years of sobriety were hard. I had to face the pain I had spent a lifetime running from. But over time, I realized that every struggle I went through had shaped me into someone who could help others do the same.
After about three years sober, I knew I had found my calling: recovery work. Helping others break free from the same darkness I once lived in gives my life meaning. Every person I work with reminds me why I fought so hard to stay alive.
One of the things I find most incredible is when a client completes our program, moves into sober living, and then comes back to work for OCHRC. That speaks volumes about the type of place OCHRC is. A place where hope is real, recovery is possible, and lives can be rebuilt into something meaningful.
Discharge Planning & Systemic Barriers
Working in discharge planning has shown me how many barriers clients face in accessing care. For many, it’s not just about wanting help; it’s about navigating a system that can feel impossible to understand. Long waitlists, insurance gaps, social stigma, housing instability, and untreated trauma all make recovery harder to reach.
Our country’s healthcare system, policy gaps, and social inequities have a huge impact on who can access quality treatment and who gets left behind. But I’ve also seen how powerful it can be when a person is met with compassion, support, and guidance. That’s why sharing our voices, people with lived experience, matters. We can spark change, challenge assumptions, and create hope where it feels like none exists.
Healing Forward
Recovery isn’t a destination. It’s a daily choice. Every time I help someone take their first step toward a better life, I see the scared little girl I once was in them. That girl who had no voice? She now stands tall and recovers out loud for anyone still suffering in silence.
At OCHRC, people feel seen, heard, and respected. I’ve watched hopelessness turn into confidence, despair turn into hope, and broken lives become whole again. I have witnessed individuals enter without hope and leave with renewed self-belief, which is the real starting point of recovery. At OCHRC, I’ve found a place where compassion meets experience. A team that understands the power of showing up authentically. Recovery gave me my voice, my purpose, and my life. And now I am blessed to help others find theirs.
