MAKING A DIFFERENCE FROM MY STORY TO YOURS

My name is Levi Smith and I am 17 years old and my mother battled with drug addiction throughout my childhood. My mother was a school teacher and my parents were divorced. That was a hard patch for me.  I was going to school, playing sports and seeing my friends parents together and happy always made me wonder why this had to happen to me. And on top of my parents being divorced my mom had a complete hysterectomy. The doctor prescribed pain pills for her and she started to misuse them.  Before she realized it...she was addicted. So, she started doing harder drugs and shortly after that, my mom lost her job.  I remember coming home and there was a sign in our front yard that said the house was in foreclosure. Then it just felt like everything in my life was falling apart.  At that time, I was in fifth grade and the feelings of judgement and the thought of what was going to happen next was always a question. My brother and I moved in with my grandparents and my mom went to a rehab. We did everything we could to get her the best help possible. Drug addiction was new in our family and we had no idea what was going to happen. All we knew, was to just pray, pray, pray.  My mom would get better and start going to A.A meetings.  She would stay clean for a couple of years and then relapse. It was the worst feeling when we all would get our hopes up and think it was over.  But, when we heard the news or got the call that mom had been arrested again, our hearts just dropped to the floor. I can remember my friend's parents would tell their kids not to hang out with me, because my mom was a druggy or that I wouldn't do any good in life because of the mistakes she had made in life. So, what people said about me, and all the negative things that was going on during that time affected me so badly. I started to fail school and I was not involved in anything like I normally was. I honestly did not know what to do with my life at that point.  So I started to do a lot of praying and asking God what did I need to do with my life and despite my mom's addiction what was the path that I needed to go down. Because I only wanted the best for my mom.. I never once gave up on her, no matter her situation or how long it had been since I saw her. So I turned my life situation over to God and I got over the judgement. I completely blocked out the negative things going on in my life and started working towards success. So I got my grades back up and I started joining clubs. I started to progress, and I started seeing my mom progress. After seeing my mom in and out of four different rehabs, she finally joined a women's recovery home and that is where we found hope.  Every time I got to go visit my mom and see everyone there, it gave me a peaceful feeling. I seen a whole group of people working to get better. After a few times after visiting my mom, out of nowhere,

a thought came into my mind about starting a thing called Making a Difference From my Story to Yours. The purpose of this was for me to tell my personal story to other teens and adults about addiction and give advice to other teens my age that are going through the same situation. To let kids know that they are not alone. So I started a Facebook page. The amount of people that engaged was incredible. People started reaching out to me wanting to do radio podcast and after that one good thing happened after another. I got the opportunity to speak at our local middle School about drug addiction during red ribbon week and after that our towns newspaper reached out to me. We were put into the headlines of the news paper. I continued to  make encouraging posts on social media and our Website. And  WAAY-31 News called me, having seen these,  wanting to do a news interview.  We made the main special series on the news that night. It is such a blessing being able to do all of this. Now in 2021,-2022. I am still pushing forward to help others and getting my story out there. We are now able for people the opportunity to share their own story to our page. We help provide free counseling to teens and help teens AND adults find rehabs and encourage others to find the best help available.