Tiffiney, pictured on our home page with her mentor, Abbey, is a 19-year-old student and Reclaiming Futures spokesperson.

Reclaiming My Future
When I was 15, I started doing meth. By the time I was 16, I was using meth every day. It was practically a way of life. I had dropped out of school and was living from one awful place to the next. I would just up and leave without telling anyone where I was going. Disappearing was normal for me. There were times when I would be sitting and thinking that I could seriously be hurt or killed and no one would even notice. It was normal for me to disappear for long periods of time. This really scared me. I was going to some extremes I always said I wouldn’t go to. So I opened my eyes and looked at the people around me. They were fully grown and had been doing drugs for years. I didn’t want to end up like them with no place to live, no food to eat, and destined to be nothing in life. Then my eyes “closed” again and I just kept doing what I was doing until the day the cops picked me up. They took me to a place called New Avenues for Youth and called my DHS worker. By the time she got there, I was a total mess. I knew I needed help. She probably would have just put me in a foster home, but I told her I needed inpatient treatment. So I went to a temporary foster home until a bed opened at the treatment center.

Once in treatment, it only took two weeks for me to become bored. So I hooked up with a girl who was planning to run for it. I decided to go with her. I assured myself that I would come back that night, within our grace period. That never happened. I ended up drinking and the next thing I knew, I was getting high again. I kept telling myself the entire time I was out there, “I’ll go back to treatment tomorrow.”
Almost a month later, “tomorrow” actually came. Unfortunately it was a long month. My use got heavier than before. I saw things I had never seen before. I was becoming a zombie. This time I could no longer close my eyes to what was going on around me. I called my caseworker and told her I was ready. I had surrendered the control that I really didn’t have to begin with; I was completely out of control. She picked me up and I went to treatment. With only the clothes on my back I was now serious and certain about how I was feeling and what I needed to do.

Getting clean and going through treatment was not like going to Disneyland. It was hard. I had to change my whole life and deal with very hard personal issues every day. Who helps you through that? It surely wasn’t the friends I’d used with. It was caring adults. For those who are lucky enough, it’s family. Not for me. My parents used drugs too.

But this time in treatment, I got lucky. I got a great counselor, Linda. She was amazing. She knew I didn’t have family members who could do things with me. She even came in on her day off and took me to a softball game. That’s what mattered to me. She was straightforward but nurturing. We got to a place where she could tell me things I didn’t want to hear, but needed to hear, and I would listen. I know now that this is what adults do when they care.

While in treatment, I was informed that I had a pending charge. “I forgot all about that,” I told myself. I figured this was only a test of my commitment to my journey. The day came for me to meet with a juvenile court counselor. With a felony charge over my head, I didn’t know what to expect. When she came to meet with me, to my surprise, I was offered a diversion program through a program called Reclaiming Futures. I hadn’t been convicted yet, but I figured if I didn’t take this offer I probably would be.

With Reclaiming Futures came Abbey, a family advocate who supported and helped me through the process. Again, I got lucky. I knew after our first meeting that she was in my life for a reason. She taught me how to properly interact with others. In the world I came from, we interacted by yelling and screaming. She taught me how to process, vent, and still be able to laugh about it. We shopped together and had coffee. Abbey helped me research different churches because I wanted to go to church. It was also Abbey who led me to the program at the community college where I not only have the opportunity to earn my high school diploma, but earn college credit as well. Since attending college, I have learned that I am really good at and enjoy math. I looked into different majors where I could use this gift and have decided to become an engineer. Abbey is very proud of me. I could not have made it without her.

It has taken a long time for me to get over some of the things that have happened to me. Nearly a year ago I started talking to my mother again, after almost 3 years. She has been clean for 18 months and is in clean and sober housing. We have a better relationship now than we did throughout my whole childhood. She has learned not only to be my mom but also my friend. Instead of feeling lucky, I feel blessed.

As I look back over my journey, which is not over, I think about all the youth in treatment who aren’t as lucky. They come in alone and leave alone, many of them without completing treatment. They don’t have the same safety net of trusted adults. A girl I was in treatment with did not want to talk to me because she was ashamed of using again. Little did she know, this was not my first attempt at treatment either. If she could have had an Abbey or Linda, she too could have achieved success. This makes me sad. At the same time, it makes me want to be a voice for other youth like myself.

I’m currently working in a pediatric clinic and volunteering with Reclaiming Futures, the same program that helped me and other youth in the Multnomah County justice system overcome drugs, alcohol and crime. We are working hard to get youth the treatment they need and get hooked up with mentors to help pull them through. My goal is to let adults in my community know what we “really” need to make it: adults involved in our lives no matter if we have functional parents or not. We deserve to start over. We deserve to have our futures reclaimed.