Amethyst was different, the way they treated me and made everything so seamless; they had everything I knew my daughter needed.

Oftentimes we hear the perspective of the person who gets sober but don’t always know how it impacted their loved ones, people who might have initiated and/or witnessed the process. We recently spoke to the mother of a young woman who sought treatment for drug addiction at Amethyst Recovery Center in Port St. Lucie, Florida. This is her story:

Formative Years

My daughter started being rebellious around 12 or 13. I was going through a divorce and didn’t have as many eyeballs on my children as I should have. She went a little wild and started smoking cigarettes. That led to pot; pot led to pills. Luckily she graduated high school but as soon as she turned 18, she left my house. She didn’t want to follow rules, and after she started doing pills, she moved onto harder stuff—always in and out of trouble. There were always some emotional issues. She didn’t fit in and was on the heavy side. She had a sister who she was close with but the total opposite: always skinny; always good-looking; guys always wanted her. Not that my other daughter was ugly or the opposite of all that but she was always in her sister’s shadow. I think that caused a lot of emotional distress and made her feel like an ugly duckling even though to me she is the most beautiful person in the world. She’s very book smart but naïve and always wanted to fit in and was very gullible because of that.

Bad Influences

She met a guy who became her boyfriend. His family was involved with manufacturing meth so they started selling it to make ends meet, then she started smoking it. It wasn’t like pills and pot, where she was doing it but still had control. This was different. I could tell she was gone—she could not make a right decision to save her life. This family that had taken her in was basically using her and warping her mind. I really noticed a difference. She had cut off all contact with her family, was very angry and mean all the time, in and out of trouble even worse than before—a big downhill spiral. She would not listen to me or anyone else in our family. That was when I knew I had to get help from the courts.

Seeking Help

I filed for Casey’s Law and in the process you have to pick a treatment facility (if you win). I think I committed to two or three facilities before Amethyst but each time something didn’t feel right. A few days before our final court date, I had gotten in contact with Amethyst—the name had come up somewhere and I thought, I’m going to give this one more shot. I called them and almost from the beginning I knew it was different. The way they treated me and made everything so seamless; they had everything I knew my daughter needed. I knew she needed a dual diagnosis facility. I knew she needed to be as far away from our hometown of Louisville as possible, so she couldn’t make arrangements or have someone pick her up. I wanted her to be somewhere I would like to be and I’ve always liked being around the ocean. They bent over backwards and helped me get her there. Read more “the fix”…