Oh, good morning.
This is a really sad story, so I always like to open with a biblical joke.
What did Daniel tell his real estate agent?
He preferred a house without a den.
I'm just going to get right into it.
Most good stories start from the beginning, but this story isn't all good, so I've decided
to start at the place of my downfall, a sports bar on Brainerd Road.
I made my money and I went home for a while, but the enemy only needs a cracked door to
begin revealing all of his evil and his deception.
I was in several car accidents when I was young that resulted in back pain, a pain a
little white pill took care of.
Something I didn't know was taught to me free of charge in that very bar.
I don't blame any of those people because when you go out seeking, you will find, and
one pill after another led me to oxymorphone.
It is a narcotic given to people who are in terrible pain all the time.
You have to see a special doctor to even be prescribed it.
I spoke the words, I found my true love after being introduced to it.
They were very expensive and it wasn't too long before I learned I could make more money
in 30 minutes prostituting than I was able to make all night at the bikini bar.
Prostitution wasn't an option, it was a necessity.
To be able to use drugs the way I wanted to, I needed more and more money every day.
After using drugs regularly, it doesn't matter if you want them anymore or not because you're
going to need them.
You will be mentally and physically dependent on drugs after two or three days of use.
It's very fast.
For years, my entire life consisted of waking up dope sick, calling the dope man, waiting
on him to call back, or sitting in a random parking lot or in a sketchy hotel room waiting
on him to show up.
I got pregnant with my beautiful daughter.
God definitely knew what he was doing.
I could have never guessed that that baby girl would end up being my best friend.
Jeremiah 29, 11, for I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper
you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
I got into a high-risk pregnancy doctor who prescribed me subutex because not only was
I sick and in withdraws, my precious baby girl inside me was going through it all as
well.
The doctor promised he would continually drop the dose and that my baby would have no effects
from it after birth.
I am no doctor, but I was an expert drug addict, so I expressed my concern of still being on
too high of a dose, even taking less on my own.
The doctor said he knew what he was doing and that she would be fine.
He lied.
She went through several days of withdraws after birth.
As I lay in the hospital bed next to my beautiful newborn baby who was going through withdraws
while watching her tremble and take deep quivering breaths, I went back to using.
I lost custody of her before she was a year old.
My beautiful saint of a mother took her.
She was right next door.
For the next two years, I was in and out of jail.
I checked into several rehabs.
I had gotten into some trouble.
I had caught a few charges.
I know that God was the only reason I didn't do any serious jail time.
I honestly saw no problem in my actions, prostituting, living in hotel rooms, supporting my habit
with my self-respect, doing whatever deed brought the most money.
When the enemy has a hold on you the way he had a hold on me, all you can concentrate
on is your next fix, your next meeting with the complete stranger.
God decided to sit me down, and I spent 21 days in the Silverdale Detention Center in
Chattanooga.
Going to court and seeing my beautiful mother sitting there is something I'll never forget.
My mom never gave up on me.
I was released on house arrest to my mother's house.
House arrest required weekly drug screens, so I was unable to get high.
The only time I could leave the house is if I was going to see my probation officer or
if I had some type of medical emergency.
I got pregnant with my son, and then COVID hit, and for safety reasons, the in-person
drug tests stopped.
I was finally able to get high again.
I had doctor's appointments, so I was able to leave the house.
After going to an appointment where I got to see an ultrasound of my beautiful baby
boy inside me, I would go and meet the dope man, and I would get high.
Out of nowhere, the in-person drug screens started up again, but I was able to continue
to get high for a few weeks and still pass my drug screens.
I went in for a drug test, confident I was going to pass it.
I had a nice chat with my probation officer.
We had a laugh, and I went home.
She called me a few days later and asked me what was up.
She wanted to know what I had done.
She had my drug test results.
Heroin, I told her.
My drug of choice at the time was heroin.
Heroin stays in your system for 72 hours, but little did I know that's not the drug
I had been doing.
She informed me that I had failed for fentanyl.
I wasn't even completely sure what that was.
This is my high school best friend.
This is Alexis.
We did all kinds of drugs together.
I watched her do absolutely crazy things.
I honestly thought that no drug could kill her.
We were mixing drugs that people say will make your heart explode, and by the grace
of God, we would always be fine.
A lot of people don't know this, but literally anyone can go online, buy a pill press, mix
up whatever they want, and press a pill that will look absolutely identical to the drug
that you would pick up from the pharmacy.
The last pill that she did was press with fentanyl, and she didn't wake up.
That was my complete knowledge of the drug, fentanyl.
After my probation officer informed me I had failed for the drug that had killed my best
friend, she told me to go in front of the judge and ask if I could go to rehab.
I hadn't given her any problems.
I'm pretty chill, so she was like, I'm going to give you this chance.
I was so pregnant.
The judge took one look at me, and I could see the disgust and disappointment on her
face.
You look terrible, she said.
I explained to her that I slipped up and I needed to go to rehab.
Hamilton County's judge's stater is an amazing soul.
From the very first time I went in front of her, she knew that I had potential to be great.
She asked me if I had a rehab that would accept me and if I had a ride, but of course I had
already lined those things up because I did not want to go to jail.
I went to rehab and lied and manipulated those wonderful people, so they didn't keep me but
a few days, and then I was able to go home.
Not long after that, I got off of house arrest with no probation.
I had my son and I did better for a little while.
I thought it would be okay to start drinking.
I don't like to drink.
I like hard drugs, so I thought it would be something I could control.
First Peter 5 verse 8, stay alert, watch out for your great enemy, the devil, who prowls
around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.
The enemy saw his chance and he took it.
The night I was drinking and causing havoc, my mom came down to check on everything.
She asked my daughter if she wanted to go home with her, but my daughter said, no Mimi,
I have to stay here and take care of my mommy.
She was five.
My beautiful five-year-old angel of a daughter felt the need to take care of me and to make
sure that I was safe.
Like I said earlier, little did I know that that girl would become the person I needed
the most.
It didn't matter how long I had been doing good.
Didn't matter how long I had been sober.
Didn't matter how many people had decided to trust me again.
I started drinking, then I was right back to drugs, and then I was right back to prostitution.
I really liked fentanyl.
The drug that was killing so many people, the drug that had killed my best friend, had
became what my life revolved around.
I lost custody of my son.
My mom wouldn't take him this time because she knew in her heart that I would never get
it together or get sober if I knew that both of my babies were safe, taken care of, and
right next door.
As I waited for my son's paternal grandmother to come and pick him up, I couldn't help but
to feel anxious.
But not because I was losing my son.
I was anxious to go and meet the dope man, to freely buy and do my drugs without having
to worry about my kids.
I was living in hotel rooms because that's what you do when you're a prostitute and a
drug addict.
This is Tayyuda, my absolute best friend.
I remember being in a hotel room with her.
I thought it had been two days.
It had been a week and a half.
Drugs consumed me to the point I had no idea what time of day it was.
Did the sun just rise or is it setting?
Has it been a day or has it been a week?
It took over my mind until I had no idea if the things going on in my head had actually
happened or if it was a product of a drug-induced psychosis from mixing drugs that had no business
being mixed.
I definitely had my preferences on drugs but I did not discriminate.
I would do any drug that was put in front of me.
Fentanyl and opiates were what I thought to be the love of my life but I would never turn
down what was passed to me.
All drugs are bad.
The number of people that die from Fentanyl overdoses increases regularly.
But methamphetamine is a demonic drug that invites demons in.
I didn't even like meth.
I liked to nod out and forget about everything.
And meth is the literal opposite.
It's the only drug I ever did where I heard and saw things that weren't there.
It had me arguing with the walls, swearing that someone was there and that I was not
crazy.
A lot of people don't believe in the devil but I can stand here today in front of you
guys and confirm that he is real because I have met him.
His demons tortured me and tried to convince me that I was insane.
The entities that he sent to taunt and humiliate me were very, very real.
Rock Bottom always has a basement.
Just when you think the enemy can't drag you any lower, he can and he does.
Not long after that, it really set in that I had lost everything.
I had nothing.
I didn't have my babies.
Every dollar I made went to support my habit.
Everything I said I would never do, I was doing.
I was regularly shoving a needle in my arm, smoking anything and everything off of aluminum
foil and snorting what was left.
I was in complete mental and physical darkness.
I had moved into a basement with absolutely no windows.
I was so far from God that I honestly thought my purpose in life was to be a prostitute
and a junkie.
I felt like I was just a background character that would never truly have a purpose in life.
I decided to go home because I honestly truly felt that I was losing my mind.
I had put in just enough work where I was able to regain custody of both my children.
I had the certificates, I had put in the hours, I had done everything the judge asked me to
do.
I just knew if I could get my babies back that things would be different.
They weren't.
And it was a very short time before I was back to my worst self once again.
For 14 years I sold myself.
14 years and 13 rehabs.
I had a good childhood.
I wasn't raped, I wasn't molested, my mother loved me.
And I tell you that because a lot of the rehabs I attended, before you left you were required
to tell your story to the group of ladies you were in the program with.
And so many of these girls and women had terrible lives.
Their mothers didn't love them.
The brothers, cousins, and uncles molested them.
The step dads raped them.
They didn't have food.
There's never an excuse for being a drug addict.
But if there was, these ladies had it.
Their lives had been so rough and so ungodly that they felt numbing the pain was their
only option.
14 years and my mother had enough.
You told me that me and my son were going to have to leave.
She wasn't going to allow me to take my daughter because she was in school and it wouldn't
have been fair to uproot her from what she was used to just because I had failed once
again.
There was a place on the mountain that would accept me and my son and I could get treatment.
My mind was all over the place.
But the thought that stood out the most was my daughter may not be willing to take me
back if I leave again.
The last time I left and came home, it took her a minute to warm up to me.
She didn't trust me and she had every right not to.
In my heart, I knew if I left again, she may never come back around.
I said, Mom, you've dealt with me this long.
Give me one more chance.
Tell me what to do because I clearly don't know how to fix myself.
She said, start taking your babies to church and you got to get it together, Hillary.
You just have to.
The first time I took my babies to Sabbath school, I walked them in.
I went back out to my car, drove down the road and got high.
The next time I walked them in, went back out to my car and smoked fentanyl off of aluminum
foil in the parking lot.
I'll never forget my mom saying, well, if I died, would you get sober?
Then she said, that's a stupid question.
If I died, that would give you an excuse to get high.
She went on to say, I don't know why I'm having this conversation with you and trying to say
something to hurt you.
You get enough pleasure out of hurting yourself.
I had never thought about it that way, that I enjoyed hurting myself.
I decided to try what my mom always told me to do and I started praying.
Nothing else I had tried worked.
I was tired.
I was mentally and physically exhausted.
Matthew 11 28, then Jesus said, come to me all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens
and I will give you rest.
13 rehabs didn't help.
Misoutpatient programs didn't render me successful.
Getting my children back and having them full time also didn't work.
Trying to be a functioning drug addict was absolutely not in the cards for me.
It was beyond my power to save myself from the hell that I was in.
I kept praying.
I kept talking to God.
One Sabbath as I walked in to take my babies to Sabbath school, an amazing lady stopped
me and asked if I would stay for the adult class.
I was crying.
I had mascara all down my face.
I had a black, I had on black oversized sweatpants and a black oversized hoodie with my hood
up and black Air Force ones.
I looked like I was there to rob the place, but she didn't care.
She saw me coming in and out and she saw the pain that I was in and she wanted me to stay.
I sat in that Sabbath school class and I cried and I cried and I cried some more.
I used two or three times after that and I was disgusted with myself.
I would have nightmares that literally terrified me.
Nothing had ever scared me before.
I remember pulling in the public's parking lot and hitting my drugs off the foil.
My beautiful baby son was in the back seat.
I had knotted off for only God knows how long.
When I came to, I looked back to find my beautiful baby just staring at me, probably wondering
why on earth I had him sit there for so long.
This beautiful guy, this was my best male friend.
This is Jacob.
Best friend.
I loved him so much.
When I got the news that he had overdosed and died, my first question was, do you know
where he got the drugs?
They must have been really good if they killed him.
I stopped asking God to deliver me from addiction and I started thanking him and praising him
for setting me free.
Psalms 145 verse 18, the Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in
truth.
He delivered me and he set me free.
John 8 verse 11, and Jesus said to the prostitute, nor do I condemn you.
Go forth and sin no more.
He gave me the peace that I had been searching for.
Psalms 29, 11, the Lord gives strength to his people.
The Lord blesses his people with peace.
The peace that I had paid hundreds and hundreds of thousand dollars, if not a million, searching
for.
He gave me for free.
All the meetings with strangers, all the different dope mans, all the different drug dealers,
all the ways that I had tried to find happiness never prevailed.
I reached out to God and he picked me up and he gave me what I had been searching for.
Colossians 3 verse 15, let the peace of Christ rule in your heart since as a member of one
body you were called to peace and be thankful.
He met me right where I was.
He met me in my complete and utter darkness.
All my friends are dead.
From the first time I shared this story until now, the number of people that I knew that
have lost their battle with addiction has only increased.
So many times I bought the same sack of drugs that the next person bought and they didn't
wake up.
So many situations I put myself in, a strange man could have murdered me and chopped me
up in little pieces.
I could have been sex trafficked and never saw my family again, but God saw fit to keep
me safe.
I have broken every commandment except murder, but I don't know that I didn't sell someone
a sack of drugs and then go home and not wake up, but God has forgiven me.
Forgiving myself has been hard, but the Lord works with me daily and gives me peace about
my past.
Romans 5 verses 3 and 4, we can rejoice too when we run into problems and trials, for
we know that they help us develop endurance and endurance develops strength of character
and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation.
I wouldn't change a thing about my past.
After seeing all the evil in the world, it's so easy to see just how wonderful my Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ is.
He knew that those 14 years of darkness would all lead up to me standing right here in front
of you beautiful people sharing with you the worst parts of my life, sharing with you the
hell that He pulled me out of.
Romans 5, 6, when we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died
for us sinners.
I really honestly used to think I could do everything I was doing, say a prayer when
I needed something and I would go to heaven.
God knows my heart is something that people say when they know that they're not living
the way they should be.
God absolutely knows our hearts.
Jeremiah 17, 9, the heart is deceitful of all things and desperately wicked.
Who can know it?
God knows we are sinners.
He knows our righteousness is but filthy rags.
God didn't just deliver me and set me free from addiction.
He gave me an entirely new outlook on life.
He gave me a purpose that I never knew that I had, a purpose that the enemy was trying
so hard to keep me from.
Romans 15, 13, may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him
so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
I could have killed my children.
I could have killed other people and I could have killed myself.
I alone demolished my confidence and self-respect, but God is working with me to restore those
things.
Psalms 25, 10, all the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful.
In seven months, He has done more for me than I was able to do for myself in my entire 32
years of life.
Drugs altered my soul, so I took my soul to the altar.
I didn't finish high school.
I never held down a real job.
When I decided to give my life to Christ, when I stopped selling myself, when I stopped
selling pictures and videos, I had no idea how I was going to support myself and my children,
but I decided to bluntly follow the Lord.
I told God I wanted to tell everyone my story, that I would go anywhere and everywhere.
I was given the opportunity to share what He did for me.
He blesses me through the people whose hearts I touch, sharing the hell He pulled me out
of.
I'm a single mom with no help from either baby father, so the love offerings I receive
from telling this story are how God makes sure we have what we need.
I wouldn't change my poorly picked baby daddies because they gave me the two most amazing
kids in the entire world.
And a lot of times I think if I wouldn't have been having premarital sex, I wouldn't be
raising two babies by myself.
But without those babies, I would have never had a reason to get sober.
So God always just works it out.
I am and I will continue to raise them to love Jesus.
I read them Bible stories.
I pray out loud around them all the time because I want them to know that there's never a wrong
time to talk to Jesus.
There's nothing He can't help you do or help you get through.
Philippians 4 verse 13, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
I want to shout from the rooftops that Jesus is love and that He delivered me.
A sad, lonely, depressed, anxious, prostitute junkie.
He's the first man who never wanted anything from me except my heart.
I will never stop telling strangers that Jesus loves them.
No matter how many times someone gets angry or laughs in my face, I have to share this
love that I have found.
The love I have been looking for all my life, I found it in my Heavenly Father.
I was so loud in my sin and in my addiction that I have to be even louder in my love for
Christ.
He kept me safe because He knew that I could give hope to people living the life I left
behind and that I would encourage people who have loved ones and friends in that situation
to not stop praying, to never give up on that person because there's no limit to what my
God can do.
I'm just a nobody.
But with God, I'm powerful.
I am anointed, appointed, blessed, and ever so highly favored.
When I started this journey with God, I had nothing.
I didn't have a car.
I didn't have self-respect.
I didn't have my sanity.
Everything I have right now belongs to God.
And even if He took it all away, I am sober and I have a mind and heart full of Christ
and I know that everything's going to be okay.
All these pictures that you've seen while I've been speaking are people who are no longer
with us, people who lost their battle with addiction.
Thank you for letting me share.