A new transformation from a woman, Ginny Burton, has been sober for nine years now.
After struggling with her addiction to drugs most of her life, Ginny got cleaned in the year, 2012. The mom of three children graduated from the University of Washington with her degree in political science in June of 2021.
In May, ahead of the ceremony, Burton, now 48, shared one of her graduation photos alongside a mug shot taken in 2005, during “one of the most intense times” of her addiction, Burton told Fox News, at a time when she “had a tremendous heroin habit” and was “smoking a lot of crack cocaine.” says Fox News. “I just thought that, besides the fact that there was such a vast contrast there and it just really for me, it just showed the depth of my journey in those two photos,” Burton told Fox News. Says Fox News.
As September’s National Recovery Month comes to a close, Ginny spoke with Fox News about her journey. She talked to Fox News about her tough time trying to recover from her addiction to drugs.
She said that her mom introduced her to drugs at only the age of 7 years old and by 14 she started to smoke crack. And by the time she was 15 years old she was a full-blow crack addict. Ginny also told Fox News, “And I was becoming the exact thing that I did not want to become, which was my mom.” One way she explained why she was so addicted to drugs was because her family had 7 kids including her, so it was complete chaos in the household. So the only way she felt like escaping from the chaos was to take drugs.
Even though she had loved school as a child and had wanted to become an attorney, Burton said the last grade she finished was the sixth grade. She said she was in and out of seventh and eighth grade – doing classwork when she was in juvenile hall. By ninth grade, Burton “officially quit school.” Ginny told Fox News.
She said that she became everything that she didn’t want to be. And that as she got older her addiction got uncontrollable was very hard for her. When she was in her 20s, Ginny said she was in and out of prison. Though she was sober for about a year and a half, after her second prison term she ended up relapsing.”I had a really hard time,” Burton said. “Once I started using again, I had a hard time quitting.”
Ginny’s Grandma raised her for most of her life and then later on her mom and grandma both died. And then she married an abusive husband. “Even when I was arrested and knew I didn’t want to be using anymore. I ended up getting bailed out the first time. I still immediately went back to the user,” Burton said. In 2012, she was arrested again, but this time the bail was set too high and she was unable to be released, she said. Ginny was also allowed to go to drug court and had support to get a private attorney. She spent six months in jail and during that time, she went through withdrawal and was finally able to do “a lot of personal work on me,” she said.
She recognized that she did this all to herself and not her mother. Her husband was a part of it too because he abused her, and it was all of the choices she made for herself. So when she was committed to figuring herself out she was going to change the negative side of her.
Ginny said she would write down positive words and repeat them to herself every day, sometimes even multiple times a day. Even if she didn’t want to read it, she would remind herself to look at the positive words if she wants to be a better person. She referred to the positive messages she would tell herself and put them into her life and that’s how she is a better person today.
Over the last nine years, Ginny has gotten into active activities such as hiking, climbing, cycling, and running. Also, she says her friends and people on social media, she’s trying to help them stay away from their addiction. Ginny said, “Because so many people know what my life was like when I was in addiction, it was really important to me to share those pictures and to show people what’s possible.”
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