When news broke that Hayden Panettiere’s death had been ruled an accidental overdose involving fentanyl and other substances, many people were stunned. Hailey, a graduating participant in our program, wasn’t surprised, and she wasn’t distant from it either.

“Stuff like that is so scary, because you can be someone homeless on the street or you can have all the money in the world, and fentanyl doesn’t discriminate,” she said. “It’s silent, because a lot of people don’t know it’s laced with something.”

She was 12 when she first used drugs. Like a lot of kids, she didn’t see the danger. “I thought it was just what teenagers did,” Hailey said. “I thought I was just having fun.”

Over the years, her use escalated and her life unraveled. She lost her home, her job and her car.

The night she didn’t see coming

At 23, while pregnant, Hailey bought Xanax from a stranger at a bar. She remembers almost nothing after that, just waking up in an ambulance after being given Narcan.

“I just woke up hyperventilating. I was sweating. It felt like I was in a nightmare,” she said. “It turns out the Xanax bars were pressed with fentanyl.”

Her experience is more common than many people realize. Pills that look like prescription medication can be counterfeit and contain fentanyl. Hailey estimates that “like 80 percent” of the people she knows were surprised to learn fentanyl was in what they were using. That number is her own estimate, but it reflects what she’s seen.

Why it was so hard to walk away

After that overdose, Hailey says, fentanyl was easy to find. “I said I wanted to get high, and I just got it. It’s accessible anywhere.”

She also remembers how fast it took hold. “I’ve tried a lot of drugs, but fentanyl was the absolute strongest drug I have ever tried, and I instantly got hooked.”

She doesn’t mince words about where it could have ended. “If I didn’t come to treatment here at Santa Maria, fentanyl would have taken me.”

Treatment number eight, and what changed

When Hailey came back to Santa Maria, it was her eighth time in treatment. This time, she asked for help because she was afraid for her life. “I said, ‘I need to go to treatment. I’m going to die.’”

Through the care and support of her team, something shifted. One piece of advice from her counselor changed how she thought about her own recovery: “Don’t focus on why you keep relapsing. Focus on why you can’t stay sober.”

“That one simple sentence shifted my whole perspective on my recovery,” Hailey said.

Once she stopped asking why she kept relapsing, she began to see what she had been running from. “I was running from me,” she said. She had never truly let go of the person she became while she was surviving, and this time she did. “I can’t run from me, because anywhere I go, I take me with me.”

Building something new

Today, Hailey lives in Santa Maria’s recovery housing, with the structure and accountability she says she never had after previous treatment programs. She’s focused on a future for herself and her children.

“I’m ready to be the cycle breaker,” she said. “I’m ready to start making a new life for me and my children and a new generation.”

According to the Texas Department of State Health Services, fentanyl-related deaths fell 46% between 2023 and 2025. That’s real progress, and Haley’s story is a reminder of why prevention and accessible treatment still matter.

Her message to anyone who is still using is one of hope, with a practical step to stay alive. She encourages people to use fentanyl test strips, because “it’s becoming a silent epidemic.”

“People don’t deserve to die just because they’re using drugs,” she said. “Just because you’re not ready right now doesn’t mean you’re worthy of death. You’re worthy of a good life, whether you’re ready for it now or not.”

Family Healing and Reunification

Kerri was born in Marble Falls, Texas. Although she lived in this beautiful small town, her childhood was anything but idyllic. Her father lost custody of her at the age of 2, and she was sent to live with her mother, a woman struggling with a meth addiction. Soon after, her father took his own life. Kerri’s early years were tumultuous, and she was often neglected. 

As a young adult Kerri took her mother’s path and become involved with alcohol and drugs. This life left her vulnerable to trauma and violence. Beaux, her pride and joy, was born into these unsafe surroundings. Beaux’s father was physically abusive and violent with Kerri for years. She was not providing a safe home for Beaux to grow up and she knew it, so she got away to protect her son. 

However, she could not find a safe and stable living arrangement. This resulted in her first case with CPS. Kerri was lost as to how to navigate the child welfare system and although she got her son back temporarily, it did not last. She was soon arrested for intoxication and child endangerment. Beaux was placed in foster care. 

Kerri faced three years of probation or the offer to be placed in treatment to start rebuilding a life in recovery. Kerri made the choice of recovery. She chose Santa Maria to restore her life. 

Kerri participated in her first substance use and trauma treatment alone at Jacquelyn House. There she met Tommy Austin, our court liaison, who offered her assistance in navigating her case with the possibility of regaining custody. Kerri says, “Tommy said that I was someone who was smart, put together and all I needed to do was learn how to talk to those making the decisions and do all they asked to get my son back. He gave me hope and promised to work with me.” 

Tommy made sure Kerri was prepared to advocate for herself. She requested an additional stay at our Bonita House where Beaux could live with her under supervision. Thankfully, she was allowed temporary custody of her son. She began parenting Beaux, learning to be a good mom and to include recovery basics in their lives. For her next step, Kerri chose to live in Santa Maria’s recovery housing which provided continued support for the family’s journey through individualized case management. 

Tommy continued to guide her, now including Beaux in the counseling. Soon, Kerri was awarded full custody of Beaux. “Without Tommy there to show me how, that would have never happened,” says Kerri. “I would have given up long before, thinking that Beaux would be better off without me.” 

Says Kerri today, “After I addressed my trauma and addiction, a light flicked back on in my life. I can be silly with my son, enjoy life and have dreams.” 

 

RECOVERY ROOTS

Ashlynn knew that night it was time to go for help. Somehow, she made it home after a night of binging, but did not remember how. It had been days, weeks and months- actually 10 full years of drinking. Waking to a drink and drinking throughout the day had become her whole focus. She was missing her life. She was missing her daughter’s life.

Although she had been to treatment before it was just to appease her family. This time, Ashlynn made a decision to go for herself. She decided on Santa Maria’s Jacquelyn house while her daughter, Avery, was safe at home with her mother and aunt. Although Avery was a loved little girl, Ashlynn knew that regaining her own health would improve her daughter’s life as well. She was determined to prevail and learn to live in recovery.

Aslynn was assigned an amazing counselor who helped her understand things about her past, slowly and surely. She remembers, “At each session I cried and without being rushed, I was guided with grounding tools to recognize the hurt that was buried, way back. I quickly learned to allow those feelings to rise and then move forward. The other sessions and groups on recovery made a huge difference. Within 90 days, I had the tools to move to Paschall House and have Avery join me.”

Ashlynn continued her recovery work with guidance and support from her coach, Amelia Murphy. She attends meetings three times a week where she has found a small, tight-knit group of women in recovery. She has a sponsor and is completing her step work. Thankfully, Ashlynn was honest with her employer about her health struggles and they allowed her to take advantage of FMLA and then return to her job. Since returning, she has been promoted and has a bright career future.

The women living at Paschall and working to rebuild their lives embraced both Ashlynn and her daughter, Avery. The residence at Paschall is peer- led sober housing based on the Oxford House model. It allows the women who live there to build independence, constantly honing their recovery skills. Avery also received many services to assist with the transition and is flourishing. Today, she is a vibrant 7-year-old, attending second grade. Mother and daughter are close and loving, living through their first year of residence together since Ashlynn began her healing, bonding in new ways.

Says Ashlynn, “Santa Maria literally changed my life, but I had to be ready for those changes. It required that I be willing to do what was necessary for myself, including opening up and being interactive and honest about my life. If I didn’t speak up, those things that had held me in bondage to drink would have continued. I did everything in my power to participate, to change and to be a better me.”

She realizes that she must keep that mindset and continue to build her own “recovery capital.” With those choices, her life continues to fall into place. The tools and support she received at Santa Maria give her the structure and stability to venture out on her own.

SHE IS THE FACE OF RECOVHERY.

 LaNisha’s story starts with trauma. When she was just two years old, her father was murdered; later her mother whom for years suffered from addiction to substances was incarcerated. Once moved to live with her grandparents and younger sibling, she was again faced with continued violence, drug abuse, neglect, and gambling on her grandparents’ side, followed by repeatedly being molested by a family member. Living in such an unsafe environment caused LaNisha’s spirit to sink and feel despair.

LaNisha grew up fast and learned to escape the home whenever possible to avoid chaos and when she could not, she assumed a “caretaker role” in order to protect her little brother.

At school, she became the “class clown” and started to hang out with the “cool kids.” She began to cultivate a life on the streets with much older kids that led her to destructive behaviors. At age 12, she began driving to the grocery and liquor stores for her grandparents. At age 13, she got a job to have some money to escape. Without parental supervision LaNisha started to use marijuana when she was 14 and found she liked how it made her feel.

Every now and then, there were some glimmers of hope, rays of promise. She became a devoted percussionist in the school marching band, symphony and jazz ensemble. In addition, she played a skilled game of basketball on the school team. Being there after school meant she did not have to face what was going on at home. But that all ended when she could no longer maintain the physical demands required as a member of her school basketball team without coughing, so she gave up her basketball and shrugged it off.

Then, her mother was released from prison and did not return home. “All I could think was, why did mom not come for me and my brother? I was so angry with her. The pain was unbearable. Eventually, mom got married and moved to another town, which then added another level of frustration and feelings of abandonment.”

Remarkably, through it all, she graduated high school and applied for college. She was accepted by Texas Southern University. With no guidance, she headed to Houston. It felt like freedom and party time again. She began to try the full array of street drugs and within six months her use of drugs was at full throttle. She quickly spiraled downhill, began lying to her family and asking for money beyond her student loans to support her new habits.

In time, she moved in with eight friends, focused only on getting money, by any means necessary, to fuel her addiction. They were quickly evicted. LaNisha says, “Then it was beyond manageability. I started committing crimes and selling drugs to eat. All my focus was on feeding my drug habit. The next seven years, my addiction took over and destroyed my life.”

In 2009, her grandmother passed away and she was once again in such a haze that it was hard to find the compassion for the one person who had provided a place for her to live. She felt alone and defeated. She spiraled into a deep depression with thoughts of suicide and psychosis brought on by heavy drug use.

During this time, LaNisha was unaware that her mother had been participating in a 12-step recovery program. Subconsciously, her mother was paving the way for her daughter to follow her path. After realizing the deep trouble that her daughter was in, her mother stepped in and arranged for a mental health assessment to be performed for LaNisha.

The recommendation was traditional rehab. She knew that LaNisha would need more than just 60 days of treatment. While attending a rally, her mother heard Amelia Murphy, Director of Recovery Support Services at SMH, speak on the importance and benefits of building a recovery community. She knew she wanted that for her daughter, so they sought help and waited for a bed to become available. Santa Maria was exactly where LaNisha needed to be.

Comforted and welcomed at Santa Maria, LaNisha was hopeful. She entered feeling afraid but with a new-found feeling of optimism and an even stronger feeling of relief. There was no limitation of what she was willing to try. Without this help, only death loomed before her.

She quickly began to feel a sense of integrity, accomplishment, and healing. She assembled her “village” that included her counselor, her sponsor, her coach, her director, her therapist, and others from the SMH staff. “The old saying, it takes a village, was true for me, and each individual had something I wanted. I learned to uncover, discover and recover.”

Soon LaNisha moved into transitional housing and went back to college. Here she felt inspired to do more, and with much encouragement from recovery coaches, LaNisha moved towards becoming a Peer Recovery Coach where she could now pave a way for others, as her mom did for her.

As LaNisha transformed and found she was now a woman of her word with much love to offer, she knew what she had to do. She understood she had a calling to serve as a coach to the many women at SMH who were going through the very thing that brought her darkness into light. LaNisha knew she could be funny, charismatic, motivating and most importantly felt confident as a contributing woman to society. She learned to steer clear of people who were not determined to change destructive patterns and instead surrounded herself with likeminded influencers. She recalls, “Treatment in itself could be a stagnant stale process, but my peer SMH coaches included love, encouragement, and support groups to make this the formula for the success of this program. The women and staff at SMH are amazing and I am forever grateful to journey with them.”

Upon reflection, she believes the turning point was a profound lesson on boundaries and establishing her own identity. “I found a new outlook on life and shaped my own path to recovery.”

Today, LaNisha continues to serve and lead as a coach at Jacquelyn House. Her testimony serves as an inspiration for all women to RISE UP. 

Nicole followed in her mother’s footsteps, she learned to close her feelings off working long hours and withdrawing from her family.   This was not the first time she had lived her life this way. She put in many hours every day at her restaurant job and then socialized occasionally.  Soon, like times in the past, she began to drink heavily and use cocaine with “friends”.  She felt very alone.

She met a charismatic man on-line, excited to have someone to share life with – both he and his family seemed the right answer to her loneliness. He began to spend all his time with her, moving into her home, borrowing her car and sharing the drugs he took frequently. But soon, his destructive and frightening behavior emerged and her life was being controlled more and more by their drug use and his threats and violence. By that time, she was afraid of him. She stopped spending time with her kids, embarrassed by the things she was going through.  Her life was quickly consumed and spun out of control as they both began to use more and more PCP.  In the spring of that year, he died at Ben Taub Hospital from an overdose.  Although she was free from him, she was addicted to PCP.  She was arrested that summer twice for possession and her court appointed attorney recommended STAR Court, Harris County’s diversionary drug treatment court. Through that program, she was sent to Santa Maria’s residential treatment.

She spent 90 days in treatment and soon began remembering underlying things that she had repressed.  She soon realized that her life had been troubled for some time, with untreated grief and trauma.  She became open and accepting of the help, talking to her counselors and heeding the advice of her peer recovery coach. She learned to trust the process and have patience.  Nicole was introduced to the resources and groups of the recovery community.  She found peers who understood her and through their stories and struggles, she learned to trust her own recovery path. She found that her own patience was rewarded and she grew stronger.

Nicole’s biggest desire was to reconnect with her children.  She slowly started her life over again and gradually put her youngest son back in her life.  Her daughter and granddaughters followed. She regularly talks with her mother.  She is learning to be a better mother every day. She enjoys her family, now more than ever, learning the hard way what is was to be disconnected.

She has also connected with her God and her faith, attending Mercy Street Church (a resource she discovered through SMH).  She prays now.  She has found her humble side and regularly stops to breathe and find her feelings.  Her recovery meetings also keep her grounded, providing supportive friends that she can lean on.  Journaling is also an important part of her healing.

Nicole successfully graduated from the STAR Court program, this past March.  She is living in transitional housing at Jacquelyn and has started back to work after the stay-at-home orders were lifted. The future looks bright to her for the first time in a long while.  She has hope.

She is the Face of RecovHERy.

A young woman sits in the lobby awaiting her appointment to enter the Santa Maria detox program.  A tear silently rolls down her face. Coach Karen Gaddis gently makes her way to the chair next to her, speaking in hushed tones, knowing well the pain and anxiety that is building as they wait for this woman’s admission.  This is the beginning of a long relationship, one that Karen will cultivate and pursue, regardless of where this woman goes. Karen is one of our recovery support services staff. She is a coach who is regularly found in our lobby, knowingly, kindly and compassionately waiting to meet women who need her help and understanding.  Coach Karen’s presence sends a calming message that what lies ahead will be worth the struggle to regain health and hope.  She listens intently and understands with the experience of having “been there” herself. She understands that the fear, doubt and pain will rise to an almost paralyzing level. She also knows for this woman, and every women in the program, their best chance at beating the odds is to be drawn in and respected. Karen realizes each woman must find a level of trust that she belongs to a community not only of treatment, but also acceptance.  Karen meets each woman “where she is” and builds a lasting, nonjudgmental relationship from that point.  She has chosen to serve this woman, and so many others, with emotional support, practical guidance and most of all, empathy for the journey that is recovery.  It is her vocation, her avocation, her passion and her salvation.

Karen knows that this kind of care at Santa Maria can save lives, for she credits it for saving hers. As she recalls, “the staff became like angels in my life”.  After 23 years in recovery, she sees the mission of her life to serve other women find serenity, hope and a bright future.  She has become one of those angels.

Karen’s own story is fraught with pain and violence.  Her desperate addiction to crack cocaine, in the epidemic that swept Houston and other cities in the 90’s, lasted far too long and led to horrific and degrading experiences.   It began innocently enough, with a friend offering a cocaine- laced cigarette at a party, which quickly led to Karen’s dependence and desperation.  That addiction took her to unimaginable places, where she was robbed of her will to live, year by year.  She entered “treatment” many times over five years but never found a place that helped her to get honest about how her lack of self-esteem and untreated abuse and violence had hijacked her life.

The team at Santa Maria helped her recall buried trauma from her childhood.  They helped her understand that her parents “weekend alcoholism” set the stage for developing an understanding that adults can deal with the issues of life repressing stress and fear with substance use.  She was able to look at the low points of her addiction and she says, “they, (the staff), helped me to see what I really looked like, at 90 pounds and about to lose my family.”   They taught her that substance use disorder was a medical condition. Slowly, with their help and her hard work, she began to heal.

After completing treatment and maintaining sobriety, Karen was hired and came up through the ranks of the Santa Maria staff, first serving at Paschall House as residential tech.  She also served in that capacity at Jacquelyn and Bonita House.  She learned of her coaching assignment as recovery support became a prominent part of our treatment services.  She took the training and became certified as a coach.  She has been serving in that role ever since.  She says, “You have to keep helping, don’t ever give up.  I have to humble myself to be an advocate.  I have to lovingly tell my full story. That is what helps the most.”

Today, she is married and has grandchildren in her life.  She is very active in her church. She continues dedicated participation in AA and NA by sponsoring many woman and continuing to work her program with the help of her own sponsor. She says she wants to continue to serve more clients because she knows so many are out there suffering.  Karen has turned around the dark moments of her life to become a beacon of hope for others. She is the face of RecovHERy.

April Dawn was born in a small town in the hills of southeastern Kentucky, given a name that illuminated the light, beauty, and joy of a newborn’s arrival to the world. Somehow, her infancy and childhood became, instead, a nightmare of abuse that left her scarred permanently and alone with her pain and humiliation. April’s parents did not offer love and protection, but were responsible for her abuse.  At the age of four, she was hospitalized for six months to heal internal wounds.  At 13, she was “sold” to a man that took her away from her home and married her with parental consent.  The time in between was a constant story of abuse at the hands of those who were supposed to guide her growth, treasure her spirit. There was no intervention.

To mask her searing emotional and physical pain, she learned to numb her feelings with alcohol, taking her first drink at age 9 and becoming a full blown alcoholic by age 10.  By the age of 15, she almost died from alcohol poisoning and it still turns her stomach to think of drinking.  She found opiates and meth as a replacement to numb her pain.  “I knew I was numbing, when I felt sad, that was my clock… I knew it was time for more drugs.”  She suffered through three abusive marriages and brought four children into the world.  She had periods of sobriety, trying to be a good mother on her own.  Although she was not actively using drugs, she did not did not receive treatment for her loss and trauma.  “I had seven years sober, but I was not in true recovery….I know that now.” Her sobriety did not last. Eventually, she lost custody of her three children and a fourth died.  Her life was again spiraling downhill.

Eventually, April was sent to inpatient treatment by Harris County, a condition of her probation for a possession charge.  This offer of treatment over jail time turned her life around. She spent 30 days in the county program and was released with a determination to stay on a straight path.  However, she found herself returning to a very unhealthy situation in a home in Baytown. She simply was not surrounded by the support needed to change her life, but rather the temptation to return to a life of misery. Without a safe place to stay and in danger of being at odds with her probation orders, she called her peer recovery coach Deborah who dropped everything and came to April’s side. Deborah was available because Santa Maria’s coaching team is attached directly to the county treatment program that April had just completed.  Participants in the program are given a lifeline contact number to keep close and encouraged to reach out for any need or concern.  Coach Deborah brought her to Santa Maria, recognizing that additional treatment and support were absolutely necessary.  The staff at SMH coordinated with April’s probation officer and made sure she was compliant with court orders.  April began her 60 day treatment in our intensive program.

While in admissions at Santa Maria, April said, “I saw a sign that read trauma informed care which I didn’t really understand, but I knew that my life was filled with violence and that I needed that.”  Safe in her room and at the Jacquelyn campus.  She could identify with every other client and learned much from their stories.  With the help of her counselors, she began to rebuild her trust and confidence. She opened up in recovery, looking at the real reasons that she had become an addict.  She found that she had suppressed her feelings for years and came to understand that the abuse, fear and humiliation were connected to her life choices.  She became more resilient, believing she could live her life and thinking differently about her future. April began to envision a different kind of life.

Near the end of her program, she discovered that she needed to have faith in something outside herself, that she could not do it on her own.  For months, her coaches and counselors had held her faith and her inspiration.  She was angry with God, for the abuse and for the loss of her children.  Again, a peer recovery coach guided her to her next safe haven.  April moved to a faith-based treatment campus for the next period of healing.   During her participation, she set down her anger with God and made an important spiritual and emotional shift.  She discovered a belief system that had never been presented in her life.  She blossomed.

Today, April Dawn is back at Santa Maria. She is hard at work earning her GED through our education program.   She is living in sober housing on our campus at Paschall.  She is enjoying reunification and some limited involvement with her children, thanks to the support of our CPS liaison services.  They are all receiving family counseling and although she won’t regain custody anytime soon, she is healing with them through their efforts.  She jumps at the chance to stay connected to the community of those in recovery.  She is active in our PAC (Peer Advisory Council) and jumps at every opportunity she can to tell her story to others that are struggling.  She dreams of a shot at working in technology, learning programming skills; a dream she never dared voice before.

After an entire lifetime of violence, trauma, addiction, and defeat April Dawn has worked with her team to create a supportive structure for healing and hope.  That structure is as individual as her own story and has been “wrapped around her” for maximum success.  It takes the extensive and dedicated work of an entire staff, in concert and with great compassion, to both recognize and provide all of the services a woman needs to be whole, perhaps for the first time in her life.

When asked how she feels, she says “Victorious, I am victorious.  With drugs there is nothing but death at the end, but with recovery there is anything that I want.”  She is the face of RecovHERy.

“Loving and forgiving yourself is necessary to change your life”, states Courtney Mendoza, a 29 year old Santa Maria Alumna. Growing up with parents who struggled with addiction, Courtney witnessed the negative effects of addiction throughout her childhood, to the point where she was taken away from her parents by Child Protective Services (CPS) during middle school. She later on started her addiction at the age of sixteen, consuming alcohol and smoking marihuana. 

Before walking in the road to recovery, Courtney was a wife and a stay at home mother of two girls Izabella and Abigail who at the tender age of 4 and 8 months respectively were taken away from her by CPS, due to the endangering drug habit that her husband and herself were following. Unwillingly, Courtney was repeating the same cycle of addiction that she endured in her childhood. This situation made Courtney fall into a stage of depression that led her to consume even more drugs, as a coping mechanism. Shortly after, she and her husband became homeless and found themselves living in her car, living a life of heavy drug usage and active addiction, until one day, Courtney realized that if she continued living the way she was, she would never get a chance to have her children back. 

After researching treatment facilities in Houston, she came across Santa Mariaand knew that going into treatment would be the only way she would ever get to gain custody of her children back. “I made up my mind about going to Santa Maria because Iknew they advocate for children and support family re-unification. I called just about every day for a month, asking if a bed was ready for me.” Finally, on September 7, 2016 she was admitted to Intensive Residential Treatment at the Jacquelyn House location, where with the support of her Case Manager, Counselor, and the Recovery Coach, she began taking the necessary steps towards recovery from her addiction and trauma.  The love for her children and desire to gain their custody back, gave her the strength and fuel to follow the recovery plan designed specifically for her.  

A couple of months into the treatment program, Courtney discovered she was pregnant with her third child. Taking advantage of the resources that Santa Maria offers, Courtney was able to bring structure into her life, she learned how to cope with her anxiety and to deal with the trauma experienced in her younger years. She learned to forgive herself, to love herself, to live life in life’s terms and to embrace a life in sobriety. She was doing everything her team at Santa Maria and her CPS caseworker would ask from her… she attended meetings, she worked on her 12 steps, she stayed connected to Santa Maria even after she successfully completed 120-day program. She gave birth to her 3^rdchild, Ovelia and shortly after, she moved to the Housing Program at the Santa Maria Bonita House location, where she was provided with child care for her newborn. After three months, through the available resources in the Housing Program and the support of her coach and peers in the sober living facility, Courtney was able to find a job and a few months after, she was reunited with her two older daughters.

Now she lives on her own with her three children and continues to work on herself to be a better parent. She maintains contact with her recovery coach who continues to encourage and help her make the best decisions for her overall well-being and her children.   “I learned to advocate for myself and use resources available to me– and to not to give up.”  Courtney proudly shares.  Although she believes that it is better for her to live her life one day at the time, she hopes to continue furthering her education, and in the near future purchase a home for her and her family to enjoy.  Courtney glows when speaks about her recovery and the transformed woman and mother she is today—and she looks forward to serving as a strong advocate for women in recovery.