Feb. 25, 2011 —     EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the fourth in a series of articles about addiction and recovery in our community. Each Friday, The Morehead News shares families’ experiences as they encounter and overcome addiction and navigate through an array of public agencies.

    How does a vivacious young lady go from cheerleader, honors student and staunch anti-drug advocate to the cold floor of the Mason County Detention Center?

    Brittany Goodman will tell you. She said she doesn’t mind telling anyone about how she “earned” her seat in the 12-step program.

    “I’m not ashamed at all to tell anyone who I am and what I’m about. I’m a productive member of this community now,” she said.

    Sitting in a local coffee shop, sunlight illuminates the recovering addict as she spoke with force and passion about how the change occurred, and how the progressive slide into addiction once threatened to separate her from herself and her loved ones.

    “My dad was an addict, to everything. As a little kid, I saw him in rage tantrums because of drugs and I was dead set against it.”

    In middle school, Goodman said she won DARE essays and made high academic marks.

    In high school, she was a bouncy cheerleader and academic achiever--- until she was introduced to drugs.

    “About my sophomore year I started hanging out with some family members who were older and popular,” she recalled.

    “I started sneaking cigarettes and I drank alcohol and smoked marijuana on occasion.”

    Goodman said it wasn’t long before she began skipping classes and partying during the school day. In her junior year, she began using pills but said she didn’t like it very much and didn’t do them often. She managed to graduate from high school and moved in with her then-boyfriend.

    “I began using pills with a really close friend who’s now dead because of this disease.”

    Goodman’s friend was Savannah Kissick, who died of an overdose in 2009.  She was also friends with Sarah Shay, who also died of what Goodman calls “the disease of addiction”.

    Goodman was working at St. Claire Regional Medical Center the night that friends dropped Sarah off at the hospital and fled.

    After Sarah’s death, Goodman said she quit working at the hospital and said she was too scared to use pills.

    For a time, all seemed well but soon Goodman and her boyfriend began to abuse pills again.

    Bouts of withdrawals, or being “dope sick”, became the norm, and Goodman said she spent a great deal of time and money trying to avoid that feeling.

    With the help of her mother, Goodman went to a Suboxone clinic, where she was administered the drug which blocks opioid receptors in the brain, essentially preventing a person from feeling the “high” associated with pain pills.

    When she found out she was pregnant, Goodman’s doctor weaned her off the Suboxone.

    Happy to be pregnant, and optimistic that this would take her life in a new direction, Goodman moved in with her father and stepmother, but soon was using again.

    “I kept telling myself ‘I have to quit, I have a child inside me.’”

    Fortunately, little Madison was born healthy and with no problems.

    Shortly after her birth, Goodman’s drug use led to legal consequences.

    In 2008, she was arrested and charged with receiving stolen property after she and her boyfriend sold stolen catalytic converters to a scrap yard.

    While in the Madison County Detention Center, Goodman was initially denied admission to drug court because she tested positive for drugs and lied about using.

    “After sitting in jail for 60 days, I was just ready to get out of jail,” she said.

    “I told them I wanted to be with my baby, blah, blah, blah, but that wasn’t the real reason, I just wanted to get out.”

    Still, Goodman said it hurt her not to be with her child. Her mother kept Madison so social services wouldn’t get involved.

    “I saw my daughter’s first steps through glass,” she said.

    Something about that experience gave Goodman some internal incentive to appeal for drug court again.

    She was released from jail on January 5, 2009, three days after Savannah died.

    “I went straight from the drug court assessment to her funeral. It was a miserable day. It was surreal.”

    Goodman said at first drug court didn’t make sense to her. She didn’t understand why they kept telling her to go to 12-step meetings, get a sponsor and work the steps.

    She said she also only half-heartedly followed the rigorous drug court guidelines.

    “I didn’t want to do the work. I didn’t understand at meetings when people said the miracle would happen, but I wasn’t trying to either.”

    By this time, Goodman was pregnant with her second child. She said she was clean, but was not working a recovery program. Then “out of nowhere”, she said, someone offered her a pill.

    “Within two weeks I was using at the same level as I was almost a year before. I know I was hurting myself and my baby and my family, but I was too ashamed to admit it,” she said.

    She didn’t have to admit it because she tested dirty for drug court. She was sanctioned and sent to jail.

    “I couldn’t believe I was doing this to my family again,” she said.

    One night, as she sat in jail, certain things she’d heard at 12-step meetings began re-playing in her head.

    “All of the things I had heard at meetings began to make sense to me. For the first time, I really was interested in changing.”

    One night, she asked God to help her. The next day, she called a residential treatment center for pregnant women in Louisville. With the help of a UNITE voucher, Goodman was en route to recovery three days later. 

    “The Freedom House really helped me. I changed tremendously in 30 days. I had a healthy, pregnant glow,” she said.

    Goodman started working, really working, a 12-step program.

    “I think working the steps was a spiritual awakening for me. I’ve been a totally different person since then.”

    She gave birth to Shania while in treatment, and the 10-month-old and her sister Madison now live with their mother and their grandmother.

    Recovery, Goodman said, is hard work.

    “It takes a lot of courage to work recovery. It’s not easy and it’s not simple. We have to work on it every day.”

    Goodman is still in drug court, and now actively works a 12 step program and even sponsors another woman.

    She is an assistant manager at Arby’s and plans to return to college. She wants to become a drug counselor. She attends 12-step meetings daily, and cares for her daughters.

    Goodman said that as much as drug court has helped her become a stable and productive mother, employee and citizen, the real credit goes to God.

    “I’m not saying that drug court didn’t help, but I think God used drug court, and jail and so many other things to get me to where I am today. I am so grateful,” she said.

    Next Friday, the final article in this series suggests recovery options, for both families and their addicted loved ones.

    Noelle Hunter can be reached at nhunter@themoreheadnews.com or by telephone at 784-4116.