Meet Carey Payne

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Carey Payne. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Carey below.

Carey , so great to have you sharing your thoughts and wisdom with our readers and so let’s jump right into one of our favorite topics – empathy. We think a lack of empathy is at the heart of so many issues the world is struggling with and so our hope is to contribute to an environment that fosters the development of empathy. Along those lines, we’d love to hear your thoughts around where your empathy comes from?

I started using drugs and alcohol at age 12. I had smoked weed once before that, but nothing on a regular basis. I was a full blown addict by the age of 14. I got kicked out of high school for possession of marijuana. I would drink almost everyday and just wanted to hang out with my friends who were all at least 3 or 4 years older than me. My life continued this way. Using, going to jail then getting out and doing it all over again. I had tried detox a couple of times with no lasting results. I would go to drug and alcohol counseling that was mandated by the courts but would always return to what was familiar. I had finally decided to go to rehab in 2015. That is where I got my first taste of recovery. I was so tired of the way that I was living in addiction and was excited for my new life. I managed to put together 2 years of recovery but got complacent, and eventually started using again. I was eventually arrested for trafficking methamphetamine and was sentenced to prison where I would serve the next 4 years. It was in that time that God showed me what my life was going to be like if I managed to stay alive. It was then that I knew that all of the awful things that I had experienced in my addiction wasn’t for nothing. God showed me that I was suppose to help those women who struggled like I struggled. Showed me that I am suppose to show them that there is a better way to live outside of addiction.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

When I was growing up alcohol was predominate in my life. My father is ex-military and my mother done all that she could to make sure that we were well taken care of. We may not have had everything that we wanted but she made sure that we had everything that we needed. I come from what was then a small town in Georgia where we would walk down the street and had a sense of safety everywhere we went. At the age of 7 some girls in the neighborhood, my sister, and myself included was molested by my best friend’s dad. This was the beginning of my internal struggle. I never said anything to my parents because I didn’t want to have my friend’s dad taken away. My sister and the other girls did say something, and he was arrested and sent to prison. This started something in me that I didn’t understand. It made me feel ashamed and dirty. I didn’t ever admit to what that man had done to me until I was well into my 30’s. It also made me aware of my body and how it feels to be touched. At the age of 12 I lost my virginity and started trying to fit into places that I had no business being and with people who were 4 or more years older than me. My first time drinking I drank until I blacked out. I found that when I drank that I didn’t have to feel all the feelings that I had carried around with me since my molestation. This is when my people pleasing started to take off. I started drinking and smoking weed on the weekends. My mom and dad were having some problems in their relationship and my mom was trying to fix it by becoming the woman that she thought my dad wanted which was a biker chick. So, she was staying gone with him to the bar on the weekends getting drunk. They would come home fighting and there was a couple of time that it had gotten violent. Seeing that, as well as what I had seen from other people in my family violence was something that seemed normal. All throughout my teenage years my drinking and drugging escalated rather quickly by the age of 13 I had already started to do crank and taking acid. My promiscuity was out of control as well. I always had a boyfriend that I was never faithful to. I would run away from home not because I didn’t like it there or because I was being mistreated but just because I wanted to stay where the party was. The cops brought me home a few times, but nothing ever really came of it. I was expelled from high school for possession of marijuana and was put on probation. For some this might be enough to turn back, but it wasn’t for me. With not being in school awaiting my tribunal to see what the school was going to do, I partied! I tried to go back to school here and there but it just never fit into my schedule with what I had going on. By the age of 18 I was a full-blown addict. Doing whatever it took to keep from feeling my feelings. I was functional, working 2 jobs to pay bill and keep my habits up. One toxic relationship after another, none of which I was faithful in. I continued this way till I found out I was pregnant with my son at the age of 20. I continued to smoke weed but stopped everything else. When I gave birth, I tried to make it work with his dad, but he was an addict as well who would lean on his parents’ enablement to get by and I couldn’t work with that. I was very violent towards him because he wasn’t doing what I wanted him to do and that wasn’t actively participating in the life I wanted us to have. I eventually ended things with him. When my son was about 3 months old, I went back to using. My mom got my son, and I was back off to the races. When my son was a year old, I had called my mom and told her that I was ready to do something different. This was my first introduction into any kind of treatment. I went to detox for a week, then didn’t do any kind of after care and started using again. Repeating the same habits until I was pregnant for a 2nd time with my daughter. Again, another toxic relationship with someone not wanting to actively participate and being enabled by his mother. I had made it 6 months without using but then my addiction showed back up in full force. Everything progressed in the same manner as before until I was pregnant again for the 3rd time by another man that was enabled by his mother. I was clean through the pregnancy and was trying to make it work in my relationship, but I wasn’t using, and he was. It infuriated me that he could use, and I couldn’t, so it caused a lot of strain, and I finally ended things with him as well. When I gave birth to my 2nd daughter, I thought that this was going to be it. That I could maintain this time and put my life together and be a good mom. During these 6 years of having my children I managed to be arrested 3 separate times for DUI and possession of marijuana. I had to do some jail time and probation and other things that came along with the sentencing. I was living with my 3 kids and the youngest father and things was going well until I got off of probation. I then started drinking and smoking weed again which escalated yet again relatively fast. I started using meth on the weekends which then ran into the week. It got to where I was using all the time. I then added another form of using into my life with a needle, and I loved it! This was the peak of my addiction. With that lifestyle the people that I had around me were not the best kind of people that I should have had around my kids, but they had what I wanted, and they made me feel like I wasn’t alone in the world. One evening me and the kids returned home to find that the house had been broken into and ransacked. It was at that point that I realized that my kids weren’t safe with me, but I wasn’t done using. So, I call my mom to come and get them. Then with that come more guilt and shame. I then started spinning out of control. I moved off away from everyone so I wouldn’t have to answer for my using and not being present in my kids’ lives. I was in one abusive relationship after another. I was tired but didn’t know how to stop. My life was in ruins and the pain finally got great enough that I hit my knees to pray. I told God that he was going to have to change my situation, or I was going to die. The very next day I was arrested. I served 33 days in jail and decided that I was going to have to do something different this time. I went to treatment at a 12-month sober living residence. While living there I was going to NA meetings and jumped right into service work by chairing meetings and being of service inside the fellowship. I managed to put together 2 years of clean time till another toxic relationship happened and I had done what my mother had done all those years ago and started to become the woman that my boyfriend wanted me to be. When I relapsed, I picked up right where I left off when I went to jail the last time. Except for this time, I added a new substance to the mix. This is when I first found heroine and fentanyl. I continued to use in this manner for the next 2 years. Overdosing and continuing to use just praying that I didn’t make it each time. The desperation was so real. I didn’t want to use but didn’t know how to stop. I didn’t want to be sick and didn’t want to see my boyfriend sick which caused us to make sure we never were. During this time my mom had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. I tried to get up enough dope to go back home so I wouldn’t be sick but was never able to. So, I went home anyway. On top of her dealing with this news of her cancer, she also had to witness me going through withdrawals. My boyfriend ended up going to jail and I moved on to the next guy and started using yet again. I was again so tired of using and needed God’s intervention. So, I prayed. I was eventually arrested for trafficking methamphetamine. They set me a bond where I was able to go home to be with my mother the last 3 weeks that she was alive. I tried to stay busy working 2 jobs, being a mother to my children for the first time in a long time, doing mom stuff at home and trying to go to school, but I wasn’t working on my addiction issues. I eventually used again and was arrested again 12 hours later after that first use. I was charged with a new charge while out on bond. My bond was revoked, and I was eventually sentenced to prison for the trafficking charge. They give me 20 years to serve 10 in confinement and a $200,000 fine. This was God doing for me what I would not do for myself. I was incarcerated during COVID which was a very scary time for the world outside the wall, but it was traumatic for those of us who were on the inside. There was a shift in my mind and my heart that I knew that this wasn’t the life that I wanted for myself. That God had a purpose for me. That I was supposed to help the women that were like me, that had been through what I had been through. I wasn’t sure what that looked like, but I knew that is what I was supposed to do. About a year before I was released God give me a vision of a tiny home village where women would be released to upon re-entry to society and a residence where women could have a safe sober place to live to rebuild their lives. Before I was released, I had put in an application to a women sober living residence where I was accepted. I lived there for the 12-month program and started putting my life back together. I was able to gain employment at a hotel, cleaning rooms which I was grateful given my record. I was working the 12 steps of AA and NA with a sponsor which helped me recognize some patterns that I knew were there but that I had forgotten about, as well as heal from somethings that was keeping me sick. It helped me develop coping skills that were healthy and showed me how to apply them to my life. I was going to church working on my personal relationship with God. That has been such a crucial relationship to restore. I know that without Him everything else wouldn’t matter. I started working on building relationships back with my children. There was a time while I was sitting in prison where I didn’t know if that was going to be possible given all the damage and trauma that I had caused. I made efforts to make amends to those that I had caused harm to. I finally had a foundation on which I could build my life. After about 10 months in the sober living program someone had asked me if I had heard about CARES. I told them that I had heard of it but didn’t really know anything about it. So, I went to a ROSC workshop where they explained what it was and how to fill out the application. So, I did. I went through the process and was accepted into the CARES academy. After that I took my exam and passed making me certified peer specialist in addiction disease (CPS-AD). I didn’t do anything with my new certification right away, instead I prayed about it letting God open any doors that he wants me to walk through. What I did do was start writing down all the information that I could to open a sober living and re-entry residence. When I was released the last thing that I wanted to do was live with more woman, but I knew that it was necessary for me to start my life with structure which is what the program offered. So, taking that into consideration and that feeling of not being trusted even though I had already served my time give me the desire to give these women a space of their own. I want to be able to remove the psychological oppression that happens when returning citizens come out of the system and told that even though they have served their time they are still not trusted. I believe by giving them their own space it will remove some of that and change the dynamic in their thought process better setting them up for success. I am still currently in the information stage of the program that I want to open. Gathering information from other people in my community and people who have come before me doing the same things that I am wanting to do. I spoke with the Executive Director at the sober living residence that I went through this last time, and she said that she wanted to help me in any way that she could. The door that I was praying for and waiting on God to open had just been opened. The same program that I graduated from I am now the Program Director of. Never would I have thought when I was released from prison May 2023, did I ever imagine that I would be where I am now. My God is all about redemption and restoration. I now have a great relationship with all 3 of my children. Have built back the relationships with my family, and I get to make living amends to my mother every day that I live and breathe. I have the opportunity to give back to those that I have taken so much from. I am a sponsor and a friend. Coming through what I have been through to get to where I am now was all worth it. I love the life I live today. Recovery is possible for everyone! I am really needing more information on how to start a re-entry program for women who are transitioning out of prison. I want to help those women to have some where to go but I am not real sure how to get that started. If anyone has an information please feel free to contact me.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

The fact that even though I would be down and out I never quit. I might have wanted to give up but never could. Being able to push through all of the pain, guilt and shame that I carried around with me was one of the hardest things that I ever had to do. Being able to finally admit that I needed help was such a huge turning point. Even though it didn’t stick right away, it got easier every time I asked until I finally latched on to the recovery that I have now. I didn’t think that I was ever going to make it. I thought I was going to be a junkie forever. There was no light it seemed like. I felt that all hope was lost. I had lost all of my kids, my family didn’t want to have anything else to do with me and I had burned all of my bridges. I truly believed that I was not going to make it out of prison. But God stepped in and reminded me who I was. That I am the daughter of a King! Not only did I make it out of prison, but I made it out with out putting any drugs or alcohol in my body. Recovery is possible for everyone. I got a great relationship with my children and family. I have a loving boyfriend who supports me to go after my dreams, and I have an amazing job being able to help women who have been where I have been. If you are struggling with addiction, just know that you are worthy and deserving of a good life. Every day breathing you are a miracle. There is a way out of the pain and I am living proof.

Who has been most helpful in helping you overcome challenges or build and develop the essential skills, qualities or knowledge you needed to be successful?

There has been a few people who have been helping me. The first would be my boyfriend Edmond Patterson, Co-Director of Modern Pathway to Recovery who has taken the time to talk to me and tell me how him and his other Co-Director Shane Sims have set up their recovery residence. He has give me encouragement to move forward with my dreams, and never makes me feel stupid for asking questions. Shane as well explains things to me from his perspective being a returning citizen himself. He explains what his biggest barriers have been and how he has made it through them. Tlayra Sims also has been a huge help in showing me what it is like to be a woman in our recovery community. How to stand tall and have confidence in what I am doing. Always there to help when ever asked. And lastly my current boss, Chris Church with Freedom from Bondage Women Recovery Residence. When I told her what the vision was that God had given me, there was no hesitation. She immediately told me that she wanted to help in any way that she could. A few weeks later I became the program director of the same sober living residence that I had completed. She wanted to show me what it took to be able to run the program. She wanted me to see what the infrastructure looked like. She has been absolutely amazing in how she is teaching me all that I need to know to be able to open a facility of my own. Without all of the strong, amazing people in my life I don’t know where I would be. They are all a very important part of my circle, and I am forever grateful that God put them in my life.

Contact Info:

• Other: payne.carey1983@gmail.com

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