She'd Been Using Since She Was 12. At Rise, Samantha Got Sober for the First Time in Her Life.

Samantha is a graduate of the Rise Discipleship women's home. Long before she got there, her life was out of control, and she didn't even know it, because to her, it all looked normal.

She grew up right down the street from the bar, in a world where the party never really stopped. She thought everybody did drugs. She thought everybody partied. It was normal to catch a head change, normal to chase a different level.

"I started smoking weed at 12. I thought that was just quality time with my sister."

From there it moved fast, into cocaine and harder drugs, much of it introduced by the people closest to her. By 17 she was a functioning addict, and she stayed one for years, holding a job for eight years, keeping a schedule, even completing a ten-year probation sentence. From the outside, she was managing. Inside, there was no real joy and no peace.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnBKsyTm3WA

The Lies She Agreed With

What Samantha struggled with most was pride, even a strange pride in her drug use. Underneath it were the lies she had come into agreement with: that she wasn't worthy, that she wasn't strong enough, that she always had to prove herself to measure up. She knew of God, raised Catholic with her first communion and confirmation, but it had always been something you did, stand up, kneel down.

"I didn't know what it meant to be a daughter of God. To be in His kingdom, in His love."

Two Years Without Her Kids

Her breaking point was her children. Samantha was coming and going, keeping a home without them, first for almost a year, then two. One day her fifteen-year-old sat her down.

"She said, mom, you're hurting your daughter. You can't keep coming and going. And I thought she was giving up on me."

Losing their respect and their love was the bottom. She was seeing things, unable to focus, terrified of losing her mind. In one moment of crisis, she grabbed her own hair and chopped it off. Her family was bracing for the phone call that they'd found her somewhere.

How the Holy Spirit Boxed Her In

Looking back, Samantha sees the Holy Spirit guiding every step. She spent a little over a month in county jail, where she received her first Bible and began building a foundation with the Lord. When she was granted time served and walked out, her car was gone and her people were in another city, so she just started walking, and crossed paths with the brothers from Rise, who handed her a flyer.

She kept that flyer. She kept going. That night, arriving in Abilene and using again by around 4 in the morning, she found herself walking alone in the dark, a knife in one hand and a flashlight in the other.

"I said, what are you doing, Samantha? Here you are again, alone in the dark."

That morning she made it to the intake house. And when she finally walked through the doors of the women's home, something shifted.

"The Holy Spirit sealed me up and opened my eyes."

She had told them she didn't need rest, she'd just done 30 days in county. But she had no idea how spiritually and mentally exhausted she was. She slept nearly three days before she could even join class and prayer.

The Chains Behind the Addiction

The home gave Samantha a sense of belonging and peace, and taught her to trust both God and people. She learned to praise no matter how she felt, to bring everything to the Lord, to stay in steady conversation with Him, and to be vulnerable and transparent instead of harboring her worries.

Her deepest breakthrough came on a fundraiser, when a woman prayed deliverance over her shame and guilt. Samantha hadn't realized how much she was carrying. Before the home, she had accidentally left a stove on and burned down her mother's house, the family's home base for two decades. After that prayer, God gave her a stunning revelation.

"It wasn't just a mess. God showed me I freed my family, from decades of people coming to that door for drugs. I broke chains. It wasn't the addiction. It was the stronghold behind the addiction."

A Life She Couldn't Have Imagined

Today Samantha wakes up and invites the Holy Spirit into her day. She takes a second to process instead of reacting in the flesh. She isn't paranoid anymore, and she can actually trust the people around her. She had been so close-minded to anything beyond her own block, the boys, the bar, and now she sees a whole life she never could have pictured, one with peace in the middle of trouble and joy in the middle of confusion.

She is also headed to Austin, chosen, she says, to help plant the Rise campus there and be God's hands and feet. And she gets to say something she never could before.

"This is the first time I've been sober since I was 12 years old."

If This Is You

Samantha spent more than two decades believing the life she was born into was the only one available to her. It wasn't. If that's where you are, or if you're watching a mother, a daughter, or a sister disappear into it, don't wait. It's free, a real person answers day or night, and it starts with one call.

Ready to reach out? Get help now. Freedom really is just one phone call away. (325) 232-5449.

And it's all free because of people like you. As Samantha says, the women's home became a safe refuge in God's presence, and your giving is what keeps that refuge open.

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If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction or thoughts of suicide, you are not alone and help is available. Rise Discipleship's 24/7 helpline is (325) 232-5449.