When I was ten years old I was already smoking marijuana and cigarettes. Age 15, I was introduced to syrup, which was codeine, and I was snorting brown dope—we called it Mexican Mud. Then freebasing cocaine. Junior year [at Lindblom Math & Science Academy] I got pregnant. I went to school for one semester my senior year before I dropped out. When I got pregnant, I didn’t use anything. I stopped smoking everything and had my son. And then shortly after I went back to drinking and freebasing. Eighteen years old, first time I shot heroin. And I went from there—mixing powder cocaine and white heroin, shooting it.
Mitzi Scott, 47, is a recovering addict who’s been clean for 12 years. Now a counselor with Emages, a nonprofit treatment and intervention facility on the south side, she first got help through TASC (Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities), an advocacy group for prisoners and others with substance abuse problems.—Kate Schmidt
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During my addiction, me and my son always had a very close relationship. When it came time for him to graduate he sent me a letter in jail, and he let me know that he was going into the Air Force. And it kind of hit me: I had burnt every bridge I had. My mother was just like, “I can’t do it no more. You wanna kill yourself, I can’t stop you. You go on, but I ain’t got to watch it. So don’t even come around anymore.” Which was one of the best things she could have did for me. You can call it a bottom, or you can call it a blessing.
I resigned from TASC in October 2006 and came over here to Emages, and I’ve been here ever since. I got certified in 2006, and I graduated with my associate’s degree from Kennedy-King in May of 2008.
