The Hardest Addiction Wasn't the One You'd Expect | Christie's Story
- Western Michigan Adult & Teen Challenge
- Jul 21
- 3 min read
Christie's instability started before she ever had a choice in the matter. She grew up without a stable home, and as an adult, she carried that same rootlessness with her: moving constantly, taking risks without fully realizing how dangerous they were, and never staying anywhere long enough to build the responsibility or routine most people take for granted.
That pattern eventually caught up with her. She'd been in jail more than once. And while she was in Virginia, she was the victim of an assault serious enough to land her in the hospital.
That moment became a turning point. For the first time, Christie recognized that the way she'd been living, moving constantly, often alone, wasn't sustainable, and it wasn't safe.
One Phone Call, One Honest Conversation
Christie called the only pastor she knew, Pastor Vern, and talked with him and his wife, Miss Cheryl, about a life she could no longer keep living. That conversation is what brought her to Western Michigan Adult & Teen Challenge (WMATC).
It's a familiar shape for a lot of the men and women who come through WMATC's doors: not a single addiction in isolation, but a whole way of living, built on instability, self-protection, and constant motion, that finally has to be confronted all at once.
The Real Addiction Wasn't What She Expected
Christie came in assuming her fight would be with substances. What she discovered instead was that her deepest addiction was running itself; the compulsion to leave the moment things got hard. Staying clean, she says, was manageable. Sitting still was the hardest thing she'd ever had to do.
There was a point where she wanted to leave the program entirely. In every other chapter of her life, when that urge hit, no one had ever asked her to stay, so she'd always gone. This time was different. Staff, interns she'd grown close to, and the pastor and his wife who'd brought her in asked her directly to stay and give it a chance. That single intervention, she says, changed the entire course of her program.
Getting to Know God for the First Time
Before WMATC, Christie didn't have a real relationship with God; she barely knew Him and didn't know what to expect. Through Bible study and consistent teaching, that changed. She describes finally understanding who she was praying to, and coming to know God as someone who answers prayer and who she describes simply as "a good father."
Community, and Watching Others Grow
Christie built real relationships inside the program: friends, mentors, people she now walks alongside rather than runs from. She's watched women she didn't expect to make it through the program not only stay, but grow in visible, God-shaped ways. She points to the staff and interns too, noting that their own growth has run in parallel with the students they mentor.
An Honest Answer, Not Just a Blessing
One of the more searching parts of Christie's story is about her children. She's spent months praying that her family would be restored, that she could tell a story where God brought her kids back to her and made them whole again. As she nears graduation, that hasn't happened yet, and she's honest about it. She describes an answer from God that her children carry real, deep scars, and that her relationship with him was never meant to be built on blessings alone. It's about her faith and what she does with it; trusting that restoration, on God's timeline, follows from that.
Worship That "Moves Mountains"
Christie describes Friday chapel services at WMATC as a highlight of her week; worship, scripture, and prayer woven together at the altar in a way that brings the whole community into one moment together.
What Comes Next
As she prepares to leave WMATC, Christie's goal is to earn her chaplain's license and move into jail ministry; a direct answer, in her words, to giving back to her church the same thing they gave to her.
Her message to anyone watching who has someone they love caught in addiction: God and ATC, together, can meet that need. Don't give up hope.
Why Christie's Story Matters
For donors, Christie's story is a picture of what a full year of consistent community and mentorship can do: not a quick fix, but a slow rebuilding of a person's ability to stay.
For prospective students, especially women who've spent years in survival mode, her story shows that the hardest part of recovery isn't always the substance, sometimes it's learning to be still.
For families, Christie's honesty about her own children is a reminder that restoration doesn't always arrive on the timeline we pray for, and that faith can hold even when the outcome we want hasn't come yet.
If someone you love is caught in a cycle they can't seem to stop running from, there's a path forward.
Help make stories like Christie's possible.
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