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YOUNGSTOWN -- Four years ago last week, Nicole Walmsley was on the other side of the podium from which she spoke at Community Corrections Association in Youngstown.
Speaking at a CCA graduation ceremony Thursday, Walmsley recalled the circumstances that landed her at the organization that provides correctional programs as alternatives to jail or prison.
"I got addicted to heroin after surgery when I was prescribed pain pills," Walmsley said.
In the years she was abusing drugs, she racked up a litany of criminal charges that eventually resulted in a court-ordered stay at CCA. Now a drug-treatment coordinator / law-enforcement liaison with nearly five years of sobriety, Walmsley credits that stay with giving her the foundation she needed to restart her life.
"By the grace of God, Mahoning County indicted me for a little bit of dope left in a syringe," she said. "When I turned myself in (to CCA), I turned my life over to a higher power I call God.
"CCA really filled in the cracks," she said. "They taught me what self-worth was. They helped me get a job. … They taught me how to manage a checkbook. Save money."
The five people who graduated expressed gratitude for similar aspects of their programs.
One man who had been addicted to pain pills said CCA staff believed in him when he didn't believe in himself. Staffers taught him there's more to life than jail or prison. He said it was especially helpful that CCA helps people get their general educational development diplomas and jobs. He now works full time, he said.
Another graduate called the organization a "diamond in the rough." She said when faced with a difficult family situation that previously would have caused her to use drugs, staff members at CCA provided support and helped her cope.
Walmsley offered graduates a glimpse at what life in recovery can offer. She told about how, after seeing her friends die of overdoses, she wrote to a police chief in Massachusetts who had started a program for police departments to help people get into drug treatment.
She helped bring that program to dozens of police departments in Ohio, which has helped hundreds of people get into treatment.
She told them, too, how she recently bought her first house and is now able to see her daughter, for whom Walmsley gave up custody due to her addiction. Now, she gets her daughter on weekends, and has educated her about addiction. The 13-year-old wants to be a police officer someday.
Walmsley wanted to come back to speak to graduates, she said, to show them "CCA is the foundation of who I am today."
Jordyn Grzelewski is a reporter for the Youngstown Vindicator. She is part of the Ohio media collaborative "Your Voice Ohio" that is exploring possible solutions for the opioid crisis.
jgrzelewski@vindy.com
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Your Voice Mahoning Valley grows from a belief the people are not being heard and solutions to problems they face are not receiving adequate attention. The project is part of a statewide effort begun in late 2015 as Ohio news organizations worked together, experimenting with new ways to represent the people of Ohio in the 2016 election.
Backed by research conducted by the Jefferson Center, a nonpartisan civic research organization in St. Paul, and polling by the Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron, the news organizations, led by the Akron Beacon Journal, developed a working model for listening to Ohioans and joining with the public in working toward solutions.
The Your Voice Ohio media project has selected the Mahoning Valley as a test site to work closely with citizens in identifying solutions to the heroin epidemic. What the people decide here will be used as a model for other news outlets to tackle the crisis statewide, and then launch conversations about the economy.
In the Mahoning Valley, participants are the Tribune Chronicle, WFMJ-TV, The Vindicator and WKSU/National Public Radio. To see more on the statewide news partners and the project, go to www.yourvoiceohio.org.