Judy Utley's Story
Judy Utley works as a peer recovery support specialist for CCWV.
My name is Judy Utley. I’m 64 years old, and I’m originally from Detroit, Michigan.
I grew up in a dysfunctional family. However, at the time, I thought it was just a normal life. When I was 14, I was sexually abused by my step-grandfather. I was too afraid to speak up, so I kept quiet. I am one of 26 grandchildren – 25 of whom are female. As I became an adult, I found out that many of them were also assaulted by him.
My dad was an alcoholic, and my mom suffered from mental illness. But back then, you didn’t talk about things like that… it was just normal life.
I had a younger sister, only nine months younger than me, and I always felt a responsibility to take care of her. When we were in our 20s, she partied a lot. I was getting in trouble for what she was doing, so I thought, I might as well go ahead and do the things I was getting in trouble for.
I started doing drugs. I became addicted because my sister was addicted. It was like a bonding ritual for us. Sadly, my sister died from an overdose a few years back, at age 53.
My drug of choice back then was crack cocaine, but I tried everything.
Even though I was using drugs, I was functioning. I got my optician license, and I was working for Ford Motors making safety eyewear.
I had my son, got married and divorced, married, and divorced again… Those things, combined with the drugs, started a vicious cycle.
My life was crazy during that time. I worked midnights, so after work, I’d pick up my son and take him to the bus stop, come home and do drugs until it was time to pick him back up from the bus stop, then get ready to do it all again.
Eventually, this cycle affected everything in my life. I’ve had a lot of trouble with the law… in total, I’ve spent nine years in prison. Unfortunately, I have a huge felony record that will follow me for the rest of my life.
When my son was nine, some of my legal troubles caught up with me and I was going to jail. I was about to lose everything, including him, so I gave him to my sisters to raise.
Fast forward a few years… I had been in an abusive marriage, in and out of jail, the vicious cycle that was my life. I was dating a man who was also an addict, but we both knew that if we were going to live – if we were going to stay alive and stay out of jail – we had to change our environment. I had a sister who was living in Salem, so we decided to leave Michigan and move to West Virginia.
In May 1997, we packed up my car with all our belongings, along with my dog, and made the long drive… we’ve been here ever since. We’ve spent 31 years together, nine years married. Along the way, we realized that even though we were toxic together, we were better together.
It wasn’t easy, but I never touched a drug again after moving to West Virginia. It took my husband several more years to get clean. Thankfully, he found his way, and he’s been substance-free for ten years.
We ended up in Glenville. I had to learn how to live again. I didn’t know how to pay a bill or buy food at the grocery store. Up until that point, my life had revolved around drugs. And when you’re on drugs, you don’t have to eat, shower every day, or pay bills.
Slowly, I began to get my life back on track. In the summers, I worked for Glenville State College with a program for troubled kids, which was pretty cool because I was a troubled kid. I did a 12-step program and discovered that I was good at talking to people. I took some classes and became a recovery coach, and the rest is history. I’ve been a peer recovery support specialist at CCWV for the past three years.
But long before I had the job title, I was doing the work. Years ago, when I was still going to meetings, I started sitting with patients in the emergency room – people who had made the decision to go to rehab. Those on drugs have burned all their bridges and put gas on everything they’ve touched. So a lot of times, they have no one. I wanted to be there for those people, because I know how scary it is to face this alone.
My favorite part of being a PRSS at Community Care is watching people grow… when it finally hits a person, they often wonder why it took so long for them to get it.
I’ve had custody of my grandkids for the past ten years because my son – their dad – is in active addiction. Sadly, my son got lost in the shuffle. About two years ago, he got a spine infection from shooting dirty dope. He’s paralyzed from the waist down and in a long-term nursing facility, probably for the rest of his life.
It’s taken a lot of work to be something better than I used to be. God thought it was funny to give me two teenagers, because I was terrible at being a parent. It’s been a learning process. I see the world way differently through their eyes than I ever did through mine. Because we’ve always been very vocal about substance use, they’re very smart to today’s society, which is a little unfortunate because they’ve missed some of that childhood innocence. But my hope is that they’ll use it to their advantage where drugs are concerned and stay away from them.
I keep track of the exact number of days I’ve been clean. The judge, when he sentenced me all those years ago, asked how long I’d been clean. I hesitated, and he said, “I want you to know that if you were clean, you’d know exactly how long you’d been clean.”
That stuck with me. I’ve currently been clean for almost 10,000 days. I also still carry my driver’s license from when I first came to West Virginia from Michigan. The girl in that picture reminds me that I am one stupid mistake, one bad decision, away from being that girl again. I look at her often, because I don’t want to forget her.
I’ve come to realize that there will always be dark holes in our lives to fill… we just have to choose good things to fill the holes. For me, with my grandkids, my work, and Jesus as my Savior, it’s easy to fill the holes with goodness.
Those in recovery do get better. We may be physically broken, but with support, we can get better. I’m known to be a hugger, and not everyone likes that, because hugs can wear people down… but I’m going to keep on hugging, and I’m going to be there to hold people up until they can hold themselves up. That’s what we’ve got to do. We’ve kicked each other down for long enough.
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