From 12-year-old meth addict to honors college scholar: The redemption of Ginny Burton

Childhood photo of Ginny Burton. (Photo: Ginny Burton)

At 16 she was raped by a man who bought drugs from her mother.

By 17 she’d attempted suicide for the first of many times.

She got pregnant and the baby’s father was shot and killed.

She eventually had two children and married into an abusive relationship.

At 21 she started shooting heroin. By 23 she was a full-on, hardcore heroin addict.

Ginny Burton, a little girl surrounded by squalor, addiction, and violence, had become a grown woman surrounded by squalor, addiction, and violence. She never had a chance.

Ginny and a guy named Jack used to feed their addiction by robbing Mexican drug dealers at gunpoint. They knew that they wouldn’t go to the cops because they were undocumented.

She was hell on wheels.

She said to me once:

‘I am that person. I have 17 felony convictions. I am the person you used to clutch your bag when I walked by you. I am the person that would randomly attack somebody in public. I was not a savory person. Everybody was a victim, and everybody was prey.’Continue reading…