Stories of Hope

Dylan Walker’s life has always included music.

Music has been a constant in Dylan Walker’s life, growing and changing with him from his teenage years through some of his most difficult experiences, including his addiction to methamphetamines. “It was kind of like a punk rock lifestyle. I wanted to skate and play drums and guitar,” Dylan said. “I just wanted to live that life. So, I started off with skateboarding and then got into music because those two lifestyles are kind of tied together.”

Dylan began using meth during his freshman year of high school. At the time, he said, drug use was intertwined with the skateboarding and punk rock culture he embraced.

“It was all live fast, die young. I was all about that. I got used to that lifestyle.”

He continued using drugs throughout high school and into college while pursuing a career in music production. Eventually, however, he could no longer hide his addiction. “They said I couldn’t be around our clients if I’m using meth, so I had to leave the team,” he said.

At 21, Dylan found himself homeless.

“It was not ‘fun,’ but for me at the time, I was 21 years old, so it was party time.”

After losing what he saw as his career in music production, Dylan abandoned his passion for music and became more deeply immersed in active drug use. “I moved back home, and my family wanted nothing to do with me anymore,” he said. “I ended up being homeless on the streets in my hometown, a very small town, to the point where no one trusted me because I was stealing from everyone.”

Dylan eventually entered treatment for his addiction, but he wasn’t ready to stop using and left. He remained houseless for another two years before an arrest for drug possession forced him to choose between prison and treatment. He chose recovery. “I would still be in prison right now if I hadn’t [entered treatment]. Having the opportunity to seek help over a prison sentence made me decide to give recovery a chance,” Dylan said.

His perspective began to change.

“Within 30 days of putting effort into my recovery, and thinking I could do this, it changed my perspective and gave me hope. It really gave me hope that things didn’t have to be that way forever.”

Nearly a decade into recovery, Dylan is now a program manager for Bridges to Change, where he draws on his experiences to help others find hope in their own recovery journeys. “I see myself in a lot of people I work with, and I like the community at Bridges to Change. The team we work with, it’s all peers with shared lived experiences of what we’ve been through,” he said. “Knowing we can all give back and share that experience and give hope to people that come in is powerful to me.”

And after all these years, music has found its way back into Dylan’s life. So has his dream of pursuing a career in music. “I’ve recorded so many songs and forgotten so many songs,” he said. “I still have a dream of being on the stage one day.”

How Safe Housing Became the Foundation for Recovery

“All of the times my life was incredibly hard was when I didn’t have a place to live,” said Hannah Leyshon, housing services director for Bridges to Change.

Hannah knows from her lived experience with active addiction that without a reliable place to live, pursuing recovery can feel nearly impossible.

“That’s what got me here, was clean and sober housing. It meant so much to me at the beginning of my recovery and was what helped me learn how to stay sober.”

Now in her thirties, Hannah traces much of her experience with unstable housing and substance use back to the death of her father when she was a teenager. “When my dad died, it was when my whole life plummeted,” she said.

Hannah had started experimenting with alcohol as a pre-teen. After her father’s death, her substance use escalated, eventually leading to drugs like meth in her teens.

Reflecting on what ultimately led her to seek recovery, Hannah said, “In the end, it was a choice that I didn’t want to live that way anymore. I didn’t have it in me. I didn’t have it in me to be in my addiction.”

With help from Oxford House, Hannah found a place to live in recovery. Her experience taught her that deciding to pursue recovery can be complicated and isolating, particularly for people who don’t have a stable support system. For Hannah, having a safe place to live was a critical part of learning how to build a different life.

“I remember one day [in my sober home], there was a huge snowstorm and the whole town shut down for two weeks. All of us went outside and started to build a snowman, and we decorated and had Christmas,” Hannah said. “Those are the things in recovery that are important because a lot of us in recovery don’t have those family histories. It gave me the beginning stages of learning what a healthy family looked like.”

Today, as director of housing services, Hannah helps others find a safe place to call home through Bridges to Change. Looking back on the journey that brought her there, she feels proud of the life she has built. “Today, I have a life that I am proud of, my family is proud of. There aren’t pieces of me that I feel like I have to hide anymore.”

Seeking a New Pathway to Change

“If you’re not shown different, how can you do different?” said Terri Collins, senior finance manager of Bridges to Change. She is referring to the lack of services available for recently incarcerated folks who are seeking recovery, treatment services and stable housing.

Terri has been in recovery for 24 years. After beginning to use drugs at 12 years old, Terri went through a cycle of arrests and incarceration until she was 38. During her time using drugs and alcohol, Terri wasn’t aware of what resources were available for people seeking help in their recovery, especially for women.

“I didn’t know that people [entered recovery],” she said. “I mean I knew people disappeared, but I figured they were either dead or ended up in prison.”

She shared that while incarcerated, she didn’t receive any offers of assistance for addictions treatment or housing services after her release from prison. She believes this lack of available services contributed to her continuing in and out of incarceration throughout a cycle of arrests.

“Back then, there were no options for people coming out of prison. I didn’t even get a bus ticket when I was released from prison. They just let me out in Portland with no plan,” Terri said. “All I knew was to go back to old people, places and things. I did and ended up going back to prison. “However, Terri said that there was one moment that helped her decide to seek help pursuing recovery from drug and alcohol use.

“What happened for me, in August of 1998, I was staying with some guy and using [drugs] with these people, and I ended up overdosing and they left me for dead,” Terri said. “When I woke up, I was bleeding out of my nose. People talk about what they call a spiritual awakening; I just knew that was it. I didn’t have any more chances. I had to quit.”

From there, Terri received assistance from family to enter sober housing at the Oxford House, an organization that empowered her to pursue recovery while adjusting to life after incarceration.

It was after this that Terri learned of Bridges to Change and the recovery services offered there for people being released from prison. Here, she became interested in working to help other women who have similar lived experience with incarceration and substance use disorders.

“I just remember how excited I was when I heard about Bridges because I didn’t know anything like this existed, and nothing had,” Terri said. “[Bridges to Change] was a pioneer in the industry.”

She has dedicated her career to helping Bridges to Change in assisting other women on their own recovery journeys, ranging from direct outreach at women’s prisons to her current role as senior finance manager.

“That’s what is so important about what we do here, that our mentors have lived experience,” she said. “I have lived experience with my substance abuse being tied to my criminality. I understand how important it is to be able to access resources, a safe place to stay, and a mentor.”

Reflecting on her own journey to where she is today, Terri’s favorite part of being in recovery are the gifts that life has given her in the last 24 years.

“I started using when I was 12 years old. I never dreamed about anything, about being anything, because I had a single focus,” she said. “I think about the life that I’ve been given, I’m a homeowner, a senior finance manager. Sometimes I’m just like, someone wake me up. It feels like a paradox because sometimes it feels like just yesterday that all that happened and then other days it’s a lifetime.”

The Power of Belief During the Recovery Journey

My recovery began in September 2018 when I got lost in the Mt Hood national forest. I was rescued by Clackamas County after almost 14 days of being lost. I was placed at OSH in Salem until I got better.  I entered the Clackamas county Mental Health court in January of 2019. I was placed in a Bridges to Change house known as the Haven house. I was encouraged to go attend recovery meetings as a stipulation of living in the house. The mentors there Alex, Jeff and Wayne and a lot of support from Shannon and Jason. They all were so amazing in helping me in my early recovery.

I was not quite convinced I had a drug or alcohol problem in the beginning but some of my house mates there convinced me to go to a palace called 4D to play a game of pool. Not knowing what 4D was being as I was from the state of Maine, I went. Next thing I knew I was in an AA meeting and the nurse who helped me get better at OSH in Salem was running the meeting. By the end of the meeting, I was so overcome with emotion and knew I was an addict, so I asked for help finding a sponsor. I quickly started working the steps with my new sponsor. The meeting was at 8pm and the curfew of the house at the time was 9pm. I took the bus so BTC gave me permission to extend my curfew on Fridays for that meeting and I always brought back a signed slip from it. That was one of my first times building trust with anyone in recovery.

A few months later I wanted to start having some independence and pay rent as the haven house is transitional living and rent free. I moved into the Hill St house in Milwaukie and the house manager Glen “Preston” was so amazing. I was scared of being a gay man in a house full of straight men. The guys there were so nice to me. I could not have asked for better house mates. My house manager was always there and supportive of me. I made so many solid friendships with some great people in that house that I still have today. My house manger took me under his wing and mentored me. His story of strength and hope is why I worked hard in my recovery to want to be a house manager for BTC myself. I thought someone like me was worth nothing and had no future but after the people I have got to know in BTC and my former house manager.

“I began to come to believe I was not a bad person, I have worth, and I can help others.”

I graduated CCMHC in January 2020 and had a solid year sober in recovery that with UA’s I could prove. I had finished my 12 steps and was sponsoring others in AA. I asked staff to let me know if there were any job opportunities as a house manager with BTC. In December, Hannah told me about a HM position in partnership with Quest for the LGBTQIA2S+ community. I quickly filled out the application and went through the process and interviews and got the job. I started work December 18th of that year. I continue to work a strong recovery and work with my sponsor who I still call almost every day. I maintain mental wellness through NARA. I sponsor others in AA and with the support of BTC, I can continue to grow learn and be the me I always wanted to be. I am so grateful to this program and all it has to offer. I never knew that such an amazing thing would happen to me here in Oregon. A truly traumatic situation on Mt. Hood was the best thing to ever happen to me.

A Story of Resiliance

When I came to this program, I was broken, afraid, unemployed, homeless, and had just spent a week in medically assisted detox. I had been to traditional inpatient treatment before. This time I felt that I needed to do something different.

Although I didn’t quite realize it at the time (especially in the midst of post-acute withdrawal), I now believe that what I needed was a place to begin to learn how to live as a responsible, mature, sane human being instead of the terrified, broken, self-hating, and self-destructive addict I had become. I needed a place that would allow me to begin the lifelong process of learning how to balance my recovery with the need to function in the real world as an adult — more importantly for me, a safe place to practice the new skills I was learning.

“This program gave me a safe, clean, supportive, and rent-free house in the community to live in.”

Intensive outpatient treatment to give me insight into my path of addiction; structure, accountability, and routine; compassionate counseling to address my deeper issues; peer support; exposure to Portland’s large recovery community; and other things too numerous to name here.

But as I stated earlier, I believe that one of the most important things this program gave me was a supportive environment in which to practice the skills I was learning-and would ultimately need-in order to be successful after completing treatment. And through that process, I gained perhaps the most important thing of all: the hope that I really could change my life, and the self-confidence gained from actually changing my life.