I was in a stolen truck. A really slow one. I pulled out and a cop turned on the lights to pull me over for a light that was out. I took off and he chased me. I almost crashed into a tree in front of an apartment building. And that was it. that was the end.
She recalls sitting in the back of the police car, handcuffed and happy. Relieved.
I knew I was OK. I knew when he put the handcuffs on me and put me in his car, I knew my life was going to change and it was then, in that moment, that I made the decision to turn it around no matter what it took.
Her charges were transferred to King County, and she begged to be put into the Drug Diversion Court program. She went through a treatment program at the Regional Justice Center. She got clean and stayed clean.
Ginny never looked back.
She did social service work for the Post Prison Education Program, and at Lazarus for seven years. And she watched and learned. She told me something that nobody wants to hear. She said that in those seven years, working with hundreds of addicts, she knew of exactly two people who were able to voluntarily get clean and who stayed that way. Two.
And she started going to school.
In the beginning, she took classes at South Seattle College, a grown woman taking classes with kids, feeling out of place and awkward, but also inspired and awakened.
It made me recognize how much time I had wasted in my life. And I also recognized that I was actually good at learning. something I enjoyed.
