The Story of Our Recovery

Hoyts Voice:

I started drinking and getting high at 13. Home wasn't safe—my stepdad used to beat me for anything he could find. So I ran. I ran to the streets, to drugs, to petty crime just to feed the habit that was slowly taking over.

As the drugs got harder, so did the crimes. I was in and out of jail and prison from the moment I was old enough to be locked up. At 21, heroin entered the picture—and it took everything I had left.

During my last prison sentence, I heard about TROSA. When I got out, I gave it a try. I lasted 90 days before I told myself I had one more run in me.

A week later, I was in the hospital. My liver was shutting down. My body was in atrophy. I couldn’t walk. It took three days just to take a step again. That’s when I called TROSA—begging to come back. And they let me.

This time, I was done.

Kristie’s Voice:

My story starts differently. I had an amazing family. My dad was a Marine, so we moved a lot—but I loved it. My mom was a teacher. I’m the oldest of five, and I grew up surrounded by love. My parents were never addicts. They never abused me.

I got pregnant in high school, and though my parents were hurt, they stood by me. Around that time, I developed intense pain that doctors labeled as “rheumatoid arthritis.” I never touched pain pills, even in all that pain. Eventually, some miracle supplement helped me, and I graduated, got married, and had two more kids.

It was during that marriage that the drinking started… then came the coke… then pain pills. Slowly but surely, I slipped. The addiction crept in and took root. I had another child, and soon I was out all night, not coming home. My parents intervened and got me to detox for the first time. But I wasn’t ready.

I was in and out of abusive relationships. Using. Detox. Lying. Manipulating. Stealing from my own family. Then came heroin—and I fell in love with it. Nothing else mattered. I went to prison for prescription fraud and used the entire time. Lied to my grandma to get money for dope behind bars.

After prison, I stayed clean for a while. Then I met another man, and back to heroin I went. That relationship almost killed me—physically and emotionally. When he went to jail, I had no way to support my habit. A "friend" offered me a place to stay if I did what she did: trick in hotels and shoot heroin all day.

Three days later, I was doing it on my own. I stopped seeing my family. I didn’t want them to see what I’d become. Then I overdosed—right in the back of a cop car after being arrested for stealing. I had swallowed my dope.

Narcan didn’t work.

They had to intubate me, but when they did, they hit a main artery. I was bleeding internally, overdosed, had COVID, and found out I had Hep C.

Doctors told my family I wouldn’t make it. But God had other plans.

I survived. And I decided I was going to TROSA.

Hoyt & Kristie:

We met at TROSA—two people with very different stories who ended up walking the same road. One of us came from chaos and violence. The other from love and stability. But addiction doesn’t care where you came from. It just wants to take.

But TROSA gave us a place to heal. To grow. To face the truth. And to become something new.

Today, Kristie and I are living proof that no one is too far gone. Recovery is possible. Change is real. And love can grow in even the most broken places.

We found strength in community. We found healing in truth.

Together, we have rebuilt our lives, learned to live with integrity, and found strength not only in recovery — but in each other.