Watch how a sister and brother came together to found the recovery and harm reduction nonprofit Savage Sisters.
Learning to love unconditionally and show acceptance at every stage of Sarah’s recovery journey, he now collaborates with her at Savage Sisters, a housing and harm reduction nonprofit, serving Philadelphia and the surrounding counties.
Before February of 2018, my life was completely different than what it is now. I was using and abusing multiple substances. I had dealt with incarceration and chronic homelessness.
On December the 4th of 2017, I was arrested underneath a viaduct where I had been living for the last 2 years. And while I was incarcerated, I didn’t have anyone to talk to. I didn’t have anybody to be around, and I was stuck with the reality of the situation I had found myself in. And I told myself, you know if I’m given the chance, I’m going to make the best of it. And that kind of started my journey to recovery.
Since committing to being in recovery, my life is completely different. It is more exciting and beautiful than anything I could have ever imagined. I have been able to help other people in recovery. My goal is to always leave somebody better than I met them. And really be open and honest with people about my experiences, the things I went through while in active addiction, to let them know that it doesn’t matter how far down you’ve gone, but if you stick to it, you know, great things can happen.
I was introduced to Braeburn last year when I was afforded the opportunity to go to their summit, and to say it was an absolutely amazing experience would be cutting it short. I’ve done lunch and learns with their employees, and I shared my story with them. They wanted to know and understand what addiction looks like and what it’s like to be someone in recovery. You could just tell they were very passionate. I was like “Wow! These are some people I really want to work with.”
A lot of times, in this field, we can get burnt out. We can lose hope. We can feel like we’re not helping anybody. I always say, if you help just one person, your job was fulfilled.
Growing up, my daughter Brittany was on the honor roll and involved in sports. We were that family where all the kids came and hung out, and we just loved family time. We were very close with our kids and always thought we knew what was going on in their lives. Brittany met a boy.
He played hockey, and unbeknownst to us, he had been prescribed Vicodin due to an injury. And they started to take that casually on weekends. Unfortunately, her body loved it. Her body loved it so much that within a year, she was homeless, living in a trap house in Detroit.
It’s been a very, very long journey of about 15 years of her living in about 12 different states. She was being human trafficked, experiencing seizures, being beaten, being robbed, raped. And as a mother, you can’t even comprehend this, because this wasn’t supposed to be our story. This wasn’t supposed to be her life.
I started to write just for my own self-awareness of how to handle this as a, quote, unquote, caregiver. And so, I took a leap of faith and a really big deep breath and I threw it on Facebook one day. Said this is my life and this is what’s been going on and here’s a little excerpt.
And I don’t know how or what happened, but it just kept being shared and shared and shared. And then this website that I built, they said, “Your website is crashing because so many people are trying to read your stuff.” This is crazy. This doesn’t even make sense.
Then I realized I’m not alone. There’s hundreds of thousands of families out there who struggle, and they struggled with the same things that I did. As a community, we are amazing at coming together when someone is struggling with a crisis in their life. Instead of focusing on stigma and shame, celebrating and focusing on the positives—that’s building community, and focusing on that love.
My dream in life growing up had always been to get into a career that involved service work. I definitely never planned on working in recovery or substance use or anything of that nature. My sister Sarah, she’s about ten years older than me. We have a huge family, and several of my siblings suffered from substance use disorder.
There were times when I was 15 years old, you know, and I had no understanding of what it was like to be chemically dependent upon a substance like heroin. And when I was inconvenienced by my siblings who were in active addiction, I didn’t have any sympathy for it.
Sarah was in active addiction for ten years. She was in and out of rehab more than 27 different times in that time period until she got sober. After watching my mom save my sister’s life, I listened to my mom. And her lesson was that no matter what, you have to be there for the individual that is in active addiction. You don’t have to give them your money, you don’t have to give them your house, but you have to pick up the phone. And if they’re ready for rehab, most importantly, you have to be there, ready to get them into it.
When my sister finally did get into that long term recovery, being an incredible salesperson, pitched it to me and said, I’m going to start this wonderful organization. That’s really how I got involved. Savage Sisters is a grassroots harm reduction recovery organization with three different programs: housing, harm reduction, and education. She’s chasing Savage Sisters with the same ferociousness that she chased her active substance use. That is her personality. She is fierce. She is ferocious.
She is. She is savage. Whatever she does, she is going to do it with that ferocious and savage energy that she does everything in life. Braeburn has been a huge supporter of Savage Sisters in the most significant ways. And for me, it’s important to support people at every stage of recovery. And I can always make a bigger impact if I partner and collaborate with people with the same mission.
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