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

She studied political science. And maybe it was then, at the age of 47, surrounded by kids from nice homes with nice parents who attended college parties on weekends and whose paths had been laid out for them since birth, maybe it was then, perhaps for the first time in her life, that Ginny Burton realized just how smart she really was.

I was entering into a bunch of areas I had never experienced before,” she says now. “I had a lot of insecurity at first, I was significantly older than the majority of people I was sitting in classrooms with. And i was reading up to 350 pages a week in a field I had no understanding of.

But she did it, and she excelled.

She made the all-academic team at the university.

She was the 2020 Truman Scholar for the state of Washington.

While all of this was happening, she was working on reconciling her relationship with her husband, Chris Burton, who had been incarcerated and was recently released.

Chris, like Ginny, is clean now, and he has watched and learned as his wife has proven over and over again that for some people, there are no limitations.

He says:

I see a lot of the things behind the scenes, the hard work she puts in, the passion, her fire. She really genuinely wants to help people. She wants to help those at the bottom rise to the top, and I believe that she will.

And she posted to Facebook two stunning before and after photos.

One was taken in a red King County jumpsuit in 2005. Her head was shaved and there were sores from picking at her face during her addiction. She’d been using a quarter ounce of heroin per day when the picture was taken. She looked sad and strung out and infinitely tired.

In the other picture, taken that day with the cap and gown, she looked happy and beautiful and proud and full of bright, endless possibilities.

Next to the two pictures, she wrote these words:

Today I’ve let go of feeling insecure about my age, the lines on my face, my genetics, my failures, and imposter syndrome to recognize that no matter what, if I’m still breathing, I can do anything I set my mind to. Graduating at 48 from the Political Science department at the University of Washington Seattle is a real accomplishment for this former quitter.

She and Chris have moved away from Seattle to the small town of Rochester, Wash. They are adding an apartment to the home of Chris’s grandparents. There is peace and solitude around them. And flowers and trees.

Ginny and her husband Chris, both living clean. (Photo: Ginny Burton)

Ginny wants to change the world and believes she can. She wants to get her master’s degree and use it to save lives by changing prisons, so that addiction is tackled head-on on the inside, but also out in the world, where she sees what she calls a “learned helplessness” that she considers a death sentence. And, she knows. Ginny says she’s been to more than 20 funerals in the last seven years, funerals for friends who were drug addicts, people who she believes have been loved to death by Seattle and King County, and a culture of tolerance at all expense.

Nobody wants to hurt anybody’s feelings,” she says, “everybody wants to be loving and supportive, which means we don’t hold up a mirror to people. We don’t want to tell anybody they can’t do this, we’re just going to support them to death. We’re gonna love them to death.

Sitting on the lawn with rhododendrons in full bloom behind her, she continues”

It’s not love. I am grateful the Pierce County Sheriff’s loved me enough to arrest me. I am grateful that the judges loved me enough to incarcerate me because those incarcerations gave me an opportunity to work myself into changing my life.

To know Ginny Burton’s story is to believe that no soul is irredeemable. To look at her before-and-after pictures is to understand that truly, anything is possible.

My story isn’t an accident,” she told me. “I think it will be used for everybody else. Maybe I can be some kind of Pied Piper, to help people recover their own lives. That’s what I care about. There are some days that I wish I could just slip away here, with a garden, and open up a little cafe. But in reality I know it’s my job to continue to create hope.

Will she pull it off? I believe she will. The force of this woman’s will is indisputable. Her story is undeniable, her particular truth irrefutable. And now she understands these things. It’s what I sensed that first day at the men’s shelter, but couldn’t quite put my finger on… Ginny Burton is the truth.