“Addiction and stigma may leave their mark, but they do not get to define the rest of the story. Recovery is the power to break free from labels, reclaim your life, recognize your worth, and boldly write what comes next.”
Krystle’s Story
My story includes childhood abuse, lifelong trauma, loss, hardship, broken dreams, and experiences I will never forget. But the most important part of my story is not where it began. It is where I am today. I am 36 years old and struggled with opioid addiction for 20 years after a serious car accident just before high school. During those years, I overdosed more times than I can count, experienced incarceration, lost everything repeatedly, and eventually lost my hope and sense of self-worth. I am a mother of two, a 9-year-old son and a 1-year-old daughter, and on July 8, 2025, I got clean. For the first time, I never looked back.
I knew I wanted to become a substance abuse counselor from the first time I entered treatment in 2009. After getting clean, I began breaking down the labels placed on me, challenging my own self-doubt, and building the life I had once thought was impossible. I completed residential treatment, sober living, and outpatient treatment, started school to become a counselor, and within six months of getting sober, I was hired at a treatment center. Today, I work full-time as a counselor, support my family, have a home to call my own, and get to give back to the same community I once took so much from. I also speak at events, raise awareness about overdose, and challenge the stigma surrounding addiction.
Recovery has not made life easy, but it has taught me that I can face difficult things without running from them. Today, I can give my children the best parts of me and be the mother they deserve. I accomplished the goals in my three-year plan within my first year of sobriety, and now my dreams feel limitless. I use my lived experience to show others that their past does not have to determine their future. If my story can change even one person’s view of addiction, help someone find their way forward, or give them enough hope to keep going, then I have done what I set out to do.
“Addiction is giving up everything for one thing, but recovery… that’s giving up one thing for everything!”
Krystle Boyd
Sacramento, CA
