“I started using when I was 13. I wanted to know what was so great. Just drinking and smoking weed. I quickly went downhill from there. I started stealing my mom’s prescription pills and taking them a few times a week. Then it was coke and meth. Then it was heroin. Once I tried heroin my life was over… or so I thought.” That is how Jordan Hinds describes her long and painful road to drugs, and ultimately, to recovery. (See videos of her recovery journey here.) Two years ago, ER doctors told Jordan that it was a miracle she was still alive. She had always been the beautiful, popular girl, with many friends, a loving family and a huge social life. Now, she weighed 89 pounds, had sores on her face, couldn’t eat or swallow because her throat was sore from smoking, began cutting herself, and was numb and in a deep depression - Jordan was a heroin addict.

At first, no one seemed to be the wiser, because Jordan was keeping up that façade of working, going to school, making straight “A’s,” and hanging out with her friends. Eventually, she started selling drugs to support her habit, dropped out of school and refused to see her family. “That’s what the drugs do to you, one moment you’re really, really happy, and then, when you come off the drugs, you become very self-destructive and hate everything and everyone around you,” Jordan said.

One night, after running away from her parents and going on a drug binge, Jordan knew she needed help - desperately - but was scared to talk to her parents. When Jordan’s mother realized that Jordan was in trouble, she had her drug tested. “I failed with flying colors,” Jordan laughs. “It was the best thing to ever happen to me.”

Her mother took her to the ER to detox, and then to a treatment facility where she stayed for over three months. “My mother stayed with me through thick and thin, and was always there when I wanted to give up on my treatment,” Jordan remembers. “If you stick with it, no matter how hard it gets, you can recover from your addiction - you just have to want it badly enough.”

Now, after two years of recovery, Jordan still goes to AA meetings and has a sponsor. She surrounds herself with positive people and maintains a positive outlook on life, and she knows that family is the #1 thing in her life. “I have great friends now and great relationships with my family. I got a full ride scholarship to college, and I’m going to school to be a counselor and help teens who are going through what I went through,” Jordan said. “The biggest lesson I had to learn was that you can have your life back!”