Taylor found out she was pregnant in jail.
The news was a shock. But Taylor had hope.
By then, she had started to turn the corner in her years-long struggle with methamphetamine addiction. In fact, Taylor—already a mother of two at the time—was in jail that day because she had turned herself in.
“I just woke up and thought I can’t do this anymore,” she said. She knew she had an active warrant out for violating her probation, and she was in danger of losing custody of her children.
“My kids were suffering,” she said. “And at the time, in my head, I thought I’d rather my children be with me, even if they weren’t getting treated right. But that was wrong.”
“I decided I have to suck it up, take my kids to my stepmom’s, and turn myself in,” she said.
Today, Taylor has been sober for over a year. She and her three children are healthy, safe, and living together at VOA Southeast’s Pines Family Campus in Valdosta, GA, one of only a few locations in the state where mothers struggling with addiction can live with their children while they receive full-time inpatient treatment for substance use disorder (SUD).
Treatment for Mothers in Need
Pines Family Campus and its sister campus, the Millennium Center in Cuthbert, GA, provide a safe and structured environment for recovering women and their children where they get round-the-clock support from a team of licensed counselors.
Through these programs, women can receive the treatment they need to address their addiction while maintaining and building connections with their kids, their families, and other critical support networks that help them stay off drugs once they leave.
“The support we have here is wonderful,” said Taylor, who’s in her eighth month at Pines’ one-year residential program. “It’s a great place. For anyone who has kids who really wants change, this is for sure the place to go.”
Some mothers arrive with their children; others have temporarily lost custody but can reunite with them midway through the program once they’ve achieved the necessary milestones.
When Taylor arrived eight months ago, she brought her two children—both under two years old—with her, and she was pregnant with her third. Three months into her stay, she delivered a healthy, drug-free baby.
Referrals for screening and assessment typically come through Georgia’s Department of Family and Children Services (DFACS), Accountability Court (Drug Court), or by self-referral.
“When people come in through self referral, it usually means they’ve truly made up their minds to get treatment,” said Pines Program Director, Sheree Revels. “It means they did all of the research and decided they’re going to commit for the year.”
Years of Addiction
Taylor’s struggle with drugs began when she was 17 years old. In March of her junior year in high school, she got caught with marijuana in her car on school grounds. She was expelled and had a falling out with her parents. She left to stay with a friend whose parents were using methamphetamine. Within a few months, she started using it as well.
Meth is an extremely powerful stimulant. It keeps users awake for hours or days at a time. During her first experience with the drug, Taylor reports she stayed awake for 12 days straight. The experience led to a run-in with police and the first of three drug possession arrests she would get over the following years.
“I was messed up for so long, in and out of the streets for seven years,” she said. During that time, she moved around from one temporary living situation to another: sometimes living with friends, sometimes with a boyfriend, sometimes on her own.
“Looking back, I knew in my heart this wasn’t what I needed, but the drug was so much more powerful than my needs. It was like this dark cloud over me that would block my consciousness,” she said. “I knew I wanted to be better, and I knew this wasn’t right, but that cloud just blocked that out.”
Struggles to Quit
Taylor tried to stop using methamphetamine several times since she began as a teenager, but never had the structure she needed to succeed. She would move back in with her father and stepmom for a few days or weeks, only to leave abruptly with no warning.
“I would get bored or lonely and I would text people,” she said, “then I would leave in the middle of the night, and they wouldn’t hear from me for a few weeks. They had no earthly idea where I was or what I was doing. It got to the point where they said you can’t come back unless you’re serious.”
In 2022, when Taylor got pregnant for the first time, she made a long, concerted effort to get clean. She got sober for several months and stayed with her family until her delivery.
But soon afterwards, old habits came back in force.
“Shortly after I had my first child, not even two months later, I ended up relapsing,” she said. “That was probably the darkest point in my life after that relapse. Because I didn’t care about myself, and I didn’t care about taking care of my child.”
Methamphetamine use would keep Taylor awake for hours, making it impossible to create or stick to any schedule. It would suppress her appetite, so she’d go long stretches without eating or even thinking about her child’s hunger. During this time, she got pregnant again: one led to a miscarriage, the other to the birth of her second child.
Methamphetamine use during pregnancy can lead to miscarriage, premature birth, altered brain development, and other complications. Fortunately, Taylor’s daughter was born without any problems or traces of the drug in her system. Still, Taylor tested positive for methamphetamine during her hospital stay, which led to the involvement of Georgia’s Department of Family and Children Services (DFACS).
Family Focused Recovery
Drug use in families affects children at all stages of life. It affects them in vitro before they’re born. It affects their connections with their parents as they’re first growing up. It affects the way they learn to socialize with others and impacts their performance in school.
“Addiction is a family disease,” says Audrey Green-Campbell, VOA Southeast’s Director of Integrated Behavioral Health, yet “there aren’t many programs in the state that allow children to come with the mom as they go through treatment.”
VOA Southeast’s Family Focused Recovery (FFR) model doesn’t just help mothers get off drugs; it helps them grow as caregivers and heals the bonds between parent and child that are damaged through substance use disorder. FFR integrates intensive addiction treatment, behavioral health services, and robust family support, targeting underlying issues that impede physical, mental, and behavioral well-being.
“The staff is very unique here because we’re so family oriented,” said Revels. “Counselors have that one-on-one tangible relationship with the individuals they serve. They develop really strong rapport so they can openly discuss anything, and that’s vital to the treatment process.”
Starting Over in a New Environment
For Taylor, starting over in a new place was key to her treatment.
“It’s your environment,” she said. “It’s the people. It’s who you surround yourself with.” Familiar places and old friends—especially friends who are still using—can be powerful triggers, leading patients to relapse back into drug use.
Previous attempts to cut those ties left Taylor isolated and unsupported. Here, at Pines, she has constant support from counselors, facilitators, and other women who are working toward recovery.
“We’re not alone here,” she said. “I’m a talker. If I need to talk, I can find someone to talk to about anything.”
At Pines Family Campus and the Millennium Center, clients attend individual and group therapy sessions while their children can participate in on-site daycare. Sessions cover topics like mental health, relapse prevention, and building better habits, and clients learn to identify and avoid the things that trigger their addiction.
Taylor’s learned to set a schedule for herself and her children.
“Instead of getting bored and being on my phone 24/7, I can keep myself occupied,” she said. “I like to clean, I like to cook, I can spend time with my kids and with people who’ve been sober a long time. I’ve also learned to wake up early so I have some me-time. I’ll get up early, drink some coffee, sit on the porch, listen to the birds, and just thank the Lord for the day.”
The program at Pines has three phases. After the first 90-day phase, clients are encouraged to get their GED or look for employment. After weeks of looking for work, Taylor got a job as the deli clerk at a local Piggly Wiggly with the support of her counselor, Ciera Burnam.
“It took me nine interviews before I landed a job,” she said. “I was having two interviews every week, but nothing worked out. I wanted to give up because I’d never really tried before. But my counselor never let me give up. Every week, she kept telling me, ‘Keep applying. Keep applying.’”
Help Keep Families Together
Thanks to you, Taylor and many other women with stories like hers are getting a fresh start.
“Since I’ve been here, so many things have happened for me,” Taylor said. “My DFACS case is closed. I’m not on felony probation anymore. I’m with my children. I have a job. I have money saved up. This place has given me more opportunities than even my parents could have.”
Last year, VOA Southeast touched the lives of over 57,000 people just like Taylor across Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi, and it’s your contributions that made it possible. Together, we can stop the cycle of abuse and addiction, strengthen families, and build the foundation for a healthier, happier community.
“This program will let you soar as high as you want to go,” Taylor said. “It’s all up to you, but the counselors have your back every step of the way.”