Recovering heroin and meth addict has shared incredible before and after photos after she decided to turn her life around while behind bars.
Jamee Valet from Oregon was featured on the Facebook page of The Addict’s Diary where she shared a new milestone of getting her GED diploma.
Her post reads: “My name is Jamee and I am a recovering heroin and meth addict. These pictures are 2 years apart. The better looking version of me being just a few months ago when I got my GED!”
She added: “Recovery is possible!”
Her post also included two photos – one showing an addicted Valet in 2017 while the other one shows the new Valet ready for her graduation ceremony.
Valet, who now works in construction and wants to be an esthetician, told Daily Mail: “I love popping zits really bad and that was something I did when I was on meth. I am a picker really bad.
“I had been sitting all night in my car in a parking lot to meet up with someone for drugs. I stayed there afterwards and was using the rearview mirror to pick at my face. It was morning time and I realized I’d been sitting there all this time.”
Valet has a long history of drug usage. She was only 13 years old when she started smoking pot.
Speaking about her dark childhood, Valet said it was ‘really rough’ as alcohol, sex, and drugs became ‘ways that I found to escape reality.’
When she turned 15, Valet started dating a boy who got her addicted to pills, including Percocets, Oxycodone, Morphine, Vicodin and Dilaudid.
“He was the person who taught me how to crush them up and snort them,” Valet admitted. “That very quickly took over and opiates became my best friend.”
When she was 17, she dropped out of high school and was raped twice in one night as she was drunk. After two months, she got to know meth and heroin.
“I didn’t know limits,” she said. “I remember throwing up and doing more and throwing up and doing more. I made a fool of myself.”
Valet also started stealing so she could buy drugs, and when she was 19, she was arrested for trying to rob a home.
The teen tried to commit suicide while she was in jail. “Suicide was my escape plane my whole life,” she said. “When I was in jail for the first time, I didn’t have drugs to numb myself and my actions kept catching up to me.”
Paramedics managed to revive her. She was in a coma for two days and when she woke up, she told her mom that she wouldn’t do drugs ever again.
“After that, I went straight to a man that I had sex for money with and went straight back to it,” Valet admitted.
She has been arrested for a total of six times.
Valet ended up in a year-long inpatient program where she met Jake, her current boyfriend. They finished the program together and decided to live with each other. But she thought that she was over with her addiction.
“I got pregnant and miscarried, which caused me to relapse” Valet shared. “I put my boyfriend through hell. I stole from him.”
Jake almost gave up on her but a trip to his family helped them. “That’s when we told them I had a problem,” she said. “I wound up going cold turkey for 16 days and his mom nursed me back to health before sending me to a 90 day inpatient program.”
Valet said that the program, the Cheshire Center/Williamette Family, Inc, is one of the ‘best programs.’
Another miscarriage encouraged her to relapse for a ‘super short period of time’ before she managed to completely turn her life around.
Valet is now clean and recently celebrated getting her GED- She is currently working to build her relationship back with her loving family.
For others struggling with addiction, Valet wants them to take baby steps. “No matter how low how you’re feeling or how your life is, it does get better. It is up to you to make it better, you can’t be like ‘my life sucks’ and not do anything to change it.”
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Replaced!