Breaking the addiction
Hello, my name is Rikki.
I grew up in a loving Christian home. My parents taught me about God, and church was always part of our lives. My dad has always been one of my greatest heroes. When I was three, he entered a Christian rehabilitation program because of his addiction to alcohol. Whenever I asked him how he overcame it, he would say, “It was only by the grace of God that I was able to quit.”
I heard those words my whole life, but I didn’t understand them personally until much later.
As a teenager, I became consumed with rejection, acceptance, and what other people thought of me. I began drinking, entered unhealthy relationships, rebelled against my family, and eventually turned to drugs. Cocaine became my escape. Over the years, my addiction grew until I found myself living with a drug dealer.
Our home became a place of drugs, violence, abuse, and complete chaos. My mental, physical, and emotional health deteriorated. I experienced severe panic attacks daily, began harming myself, and became completely dependent on drugs and alcohol. I had lost almost everything. My job. My relationships. My family’s trust. My self-worth. And I had lost any sense of who I was.
I remember going to bed almost every night telling myself, “Tomorrow I’m going to leave.” But every morning I woke up still trapped. Then one night, I knew I was losing control. I was terrified and exhausted, and completely powerless to do anything about it. And then it came to me. I remembered the words of my Dad from so long ago.
“It was only by the grace of God that I was able to quit.”
This was my breakthrough moment. I knew I had to surrender to God. I gave Him my addiction, my fear, my shame, and my future. I stopped trying to rescue myself and asked Him to do what I couldn’t. And in that moment, I experienced something I had spent my entire life searching for. Peace. Not the temporary peace that drugs had promised me. Not numbness. But real peace. The peace of the Holy Spirit.
That moment didn't fix everything overnight, but it sure did changed the direction of my life. I began to pray every night. I asked God for strength, wisdom, courage, guidance, and freedom. I didn't know what His answer would look like, but I had this new trust in God and I knew I was leaving this completely in His hands A few months later, I found myself entering the doors of Teen Challenge Ontario Women’s Centre, a one-year rehabilitation centre for drug and alcohol addiction. This is where God began the greatest transformation of my life.Over the past two years, God has taken me from captivity to freedom. He has taught me that recovery is not simply about stopping drugs. It is about allowing Jesus to transform me every day to be more like Him. What amazes me most is not only what God rescued me from, but what He has been building in my life ever since. God began renewing my mind. He has been teaching me my identity in Christ, and replacing shame with grace, lies with truth, and fear with peace.
God has given me a church and community where I truly feel I belong. This year I became a member, joined a Bible study small group, and have had the privilege of bringing family and friends to church with me. I’ve studied Scripture with my mom and sister, helped my sister introduce Christ to her children, and watched God draw my family closer together than ever. This year God has also given me opportunities to serve. I’ve been able to volunteer alongside my mom at the church I grew up in as well as right here at C*Road and even pursue a mission trip to Thailand next year. I also reached out to a Christian school hoping to merge my two passions together and volunteer in a Christian education setting. That small step of obedience unexpectedly opened the door to a paid position as an Educator Assistant, which next week will become a long-term full-time job. Teaching has always been a dream of mine and this past spring I’ve even had the opportunity to begin supply teaching within the Christian school. God has been restoring parts of my life that I thought were lost forever. He has brought me back into healthy relationships with my family and friends. He has given me a renewed desire to care for the body He has entrusted to me. I’ve started going to the gym and running again, a passion I had as a child but thought I had lost along the way. Yesterday, I got to experience just how far He has physically restored me when I ran across the finish line of a 5K Spartan Race.
One of the most recent and most meaningful things God has allowed me to do just last weekend was host a Teen Challenge reunion. Ten women who had walked through the recovery program alongside me drove several hours to spend a weekend together. We shared life updates, worshipped, prayed, encouraged one another, and celebrated the ways we’ve seen God moving in our lives as we integrate back into our lives at home. And now, I’m praying about applying to teacher’s college this September. I don’t know whether that door will open, but I fully trust God with both the open doors and the closed ones. I believe He knows where He wants me, and I want my life to follow His direction rather than my own.
On October 21, God and I will celebrate two years of being clean, sober, and smoke free.
My life has gone from completely empty to overflowing with fullness. Not because I became strong enough to save myself, but because I finally surrendered to the One who always could. And I am no longer asking God simply to help me survive. I am asking Him to use my life for His glory.
Thank you for reading to my breakthrough story. To God be the glory.
