“I had 49 years of addictions,” Leah says. “I started using drugs at the age of nine … I’m an alcoholic, too. I started drinking and smoking cigarettes at nine … I would always black out and be so sloppy drunk. I was terrible.”
Leah married and had children, but her addictions continued throughout her life. She eventually divorced. “The only time I didn’t drink or do drugs is when I was pregnant,” she says. “I’ve always used drugs and I didn’t know how to live without them.”
When the city locked Leah out of her house over an unpaid water bill, she was homeless for the first time in her life. “It was really scary,” she says. “I didn’t realize how hard it was to be homeless.”
"I knew God was with me."
“I was all by myself and I had my two dogs and all I had was just my suitcase,” Leah says. “I slept underneath a picnic table my first night … I knew God was with me, though. I felt that. And my two little dogs stayed up all night and protected me.”
After she’d been homeless for about two months, Tim (Leah’s ex-husband) picked her up and told her he’d been checking into the Mission’s Women’s Recovery Program at Hope Place. He offered to take her there.
Leah had first learned about Hope Place while at a 28-day treatment center several years before. She says at the time the wait list was long, and she ended up in a sober house instead. “But I always thought of Hope Place for some reason,” she says. “I checked into it a few times.”
“I’m so grateful I’m here.”
Now, with Tim offering to take her, Leah decided to come. “When I walked in, it was like, oh God, these people love you,” she says. “They hug you. And they’re saying, ‘Welcome home.’”
At first, Leah didn’t know how to accept the love she was receiving at Hope Place. “I haven’t been loved or welcomed anywhere in so long, it kind of made me feel weird,” she says. “But months went by. I felt the love and I’m giving back the love … I’m so grateful I’m here.”
Leah says it was important to be in a Christ-centered program. “I always wanted to go to a program that was run by Christians because I wanted more healing and more God in me,” she says. “I really believe you have to have a relationship with God to get clean.”
Leah’s case manager, Olivia, has made a profound impact on her. “She encouraged me, and she said things to me that made me feel like I was capable of doing this,” she says. “I was smart. I was beautiful. I haven’t heard these words in so long … she just really inspired me.”
“I feel I have a lot to give and I have a lot to learn.”
Leah loves seeing God’s hand at work in the women at Hope Place. “I think He hand-picked us all and brought us here together and just made a puzzle,” she says. “And these pieces fit so well together. I’m so grateful for all these girls here because I just see growth and every day, I see something new with these women. I just love it.”
Leah is now part of the Mission’s Graduate Internship Program, a 12-month program for recovery program graduates who want to serve in ministry. “I feel I have a lot to give and I have a lot to learn,” she says.
Leah looks forward to rebuilding her relationships with her children and with Tim. “I’m so grateful that my kids are so proud of me,” she says, adding that Tim has never given up on her. “He is my best friend and I love him forever.”
Leah credits God for her life today. “I knew there was a God out there because I wouldn’t have been alive today,” she says. “I knew He was with me … He loves me. He loves us all.”
