As I entered 4 years of recovery, I started having digestive issues. I had a new primary care doctor. She was so thorough and detailed and immediately had me tested for Hepatitis C based on my background and information I had given her. I got my answer through a positive Hepatitis C test. The walls around me seemed to crumble, I could not breathe and I could not think. Within those 4 years of sobriety, I had gotten married and had two children, what if I had infected them? Never had I been tested for Hepatitis C even with my gynecologist knowing about my history. Again, these were missed opportunities for me to find out about my Hepatitis C. I did not know to how advocate for myself and I was still learning to find my voice those first 4 years. After my diagnosis, I went to endless doctor appointments to figure out an appropriate medication regimen. I ended up taking one medication once a day for 12 weeks. This medicine saved my life. In September of 2022 I was announced as “cured.” I continue to have yearly blood work and monitoring on my liver.

When I was diagnosed, I had to assess how I was going to tell people. First, it was my partner, getting him tested and our two infant children. Trying to explain to my children’s pediatrician that I needed to have them tested for Hepatitis C because of possible exposure was a very low point in my life. This had a huge impact on my mental health and felt like it was destroying me. One day, someone reminded me what I had been taught for 4 years in recovery, “tell your story, secrets keep us sick.” I did just that. I got on my social media and announced my diagnosis of Hep C, where I was mentally and emotionally while continuing to document every milestone in my treatment. It was not until I started getting questions and people reaching out saying, “I’m in the same situation” did I start to find my purpose and self-worth again. Overcoming fear, shame, and guilt by sharing my story helped me cultivate a purpose and identity.

My relationships are stronger than ever, I believe, because of what I had to overcome throughout my Hepatitis C journey. I am grateful for the undeniable love, support, and comfort I received from loved ones. I found a career working with folks who are getting sober from drugs and alcohol. I went back to school and finished my bachelor’s degree. I was recently accepted into my master’s program and will start that adventure in June 2026.

Over the past year and a half, I have flown all over the country working and speaking with doctors and other people in the medical field. I enjoy working with the medical community and helping them learn how to better serve people who are diagnosed with Hepatitis C. I have told my diagnosis story and shared the multiple missed opportunities to get tested earlier along the way. I have captured the resilience and mental strength it takes to overcome this disease. I will continue to share my story and remind society that my past does not define me. I no longer sit with the labels that come with being an addict. Instead, I embrace my challenges and make them teachable and shareable moments. Today, I decide which labels serve me and I will walk away from those that do not.

Emphasizing the importance of getting tested can change the trajectory of health for many people. Learning to ask questions and advocate for oneself, which took me years, can help minimize the unknown. Continuing to monitor my liver and my health in general is how I show up for my body and myself. Sharing my story, which was once one of pain and suffering, has now brought me hope and freedom. One of my goals is to make sure that people never feel alone with a Hepatitis C diagnosis.

With community, we never have to be alone again.

On his last prison sentence, he finally had a revelation. Combining antidepressant medication, therapy, and a class he took on computer-aided drafting while incarcerated, Dave saw a new light. He became sober and decided that he wanted to turn his life around and build something positive. He wanted to create, not destroy. After getting out of prison, Dave’s older brother Glenn allowed him to come back to the family bakery (then called NatureBake). Dave used the passion and energy he’d been keeping bottled up during those last few years to focus on creating breads that were hearty, organic, packed with seeds and grains, and more nutrient dense than anything on the market at the time. Dave did multiple iterations, wrote down notes, and obsessed over getting just the right flavor and texture.

In 2005, Dave showed up at the Portland Farmers Market with his loaves of Dave’s Killer Bread. The result? His bread sold out, his story made the headlines, and the new brand took off like wildfire. He put his conviction on the front of the packaging and didn’t try to hide it. He was a convicted felon who used to do drugs who had gotten a second chance. And people loved him for it. Consumers believed in Dave’s redemption and they believed in his bread. In the years that followed, Dave’s Killer Bread quickly became the country’s number-one organic bread. By 2015, Dave’s Killer Bread was sold to Flowers Foods for $275 million.

Dave’s belief in redemption is something that the brand is still built on today. Dave’s Killer Bread has a long-running initiative called Second Chance Employment at its Oregon bakery and other locations around the country. The baker hires people who have criminal records and gives them a second chance in the same way that the company gave Dave one. The brand has a campaign on its website called “Real Chances. Real Change. Real Talk.” where it interviews these people and shows videos of their “real” stories and what it means to them to have had a second chance. All of these people show similar traits to Dave, strength, determination, gratitude, and a belief in the restorative power of work.

The people they hire, known as “partners,” make bread and baking mix in their bakeries in Seattle, Oregon, California, Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, New York, and Minnesota. They are people like Kurtis, who spent 12 years in prison for bank robbery and now has three different part-time jobs at Dave’s Killer Bread. There’s Diego, a current inmate at a California prison who has learned the art of baking from Dave’s Killer Bread through the prison work program. Or Conroy, who spent four years in prison and has now been with Dave’s Killer Bread for seven years, because he loves the product and the feeling of helping out.

Dave’s own story doesn’t end at the bakery. Today, in his sixties, he lives a more relaxed life than he used to. He owns a 33-acre farm on the Clackamas River with his wife, Michelle. He still has a creative mind and a little bit of that ADD still inside of him. But he’s still writing and drawing, and still reflective about his own addiction and mental illness. In 2013, after an episode that landed him in a police chase, he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and has been open and honest about it. He admits that recovery and healing is not a linear path and we can all fall off track sometimes. Healing, much like baking, is an ongoing process that requires work, consistency, and patience.

You can look at the package of Dave’s Killer Bread on the grocery store shelves and think it’s just another organic, nutritious bread. Yet for others, it’s a reminder of the power of community, support, and believing that even broken things can be fixed.

I had battled with opiate use disorder for six years by then, and was still succumbing to the drug that my body so desperately craved. I’d lost touch with my family, lost custody of my son, and was often homeless or in jail by the time I made it to that detox. When I left a couple of days later, I forgot all about the fact I’d gotten tested.

Nearly a week later I was staying with a friend when he’d gotten a phone call. “It’s for you,” he said.

“Me?” I asked incredulously. I had never received a phone call at his house before. I took the phone.

A woman’s voice asked me if my name was Amanda and to verify my last name. I did, growing more concerned by the moment.

“How did you get this number?” I asked, with a bit of an attitude.

“This is the number you listed as your emergency contact when you were in detox last week,” she patiently replied.

“Oh..’” I said, vaguely remembering listing my friend’s number since I was often without a phone.

“We need you to come in as soon as possible,” she said. “When can you make it up here?”

I wanted to know why I had to go in and why she couldn’t just tell me on the phone. She insisted it be in person and so I’d made the trip to the clinic.

“I hate to be the one to tell you this, but you tested positive for Hepatitis C,” the nurse said.

The room started spinning as I suddenly recalled everything I’d learned about Hepatitis. When you have Hepatitis C and you continue to drink alcohol and use drugs, it’s like “pouring gasoline on a fire”, I remembered the video saying.

She suggested a supplement and sent me on my way with a few brochures explaining the disease. As I walked out the door, I tossed them in the trash bin, not wanting my friend to see them and start asking questions. I just wasn’t ready to face it.

In the next two years, I continued to use opiates and when I finally stopped, I used alcohol around the clock. I noticed my hands shaking as I twisted the cap off the bottle each morning, only steadying after I’d had my first few sips of liquor. Like gasoline on a fire, I thought.

My body started to change. I had loved wearing crop tops and bikinis but suddenly my body began to swell, especially in my stomach. I was eating less and less but gaining more and more weight. My feet stopped fitting into my shoes and I started wearing slides. When I pressed down on my wrist, it left an indentation, what I later learned was called edema, a condition caused by liver damage. 

On a trip to the ER over an unrelated injury, a doctor had examined me and declared that I would not make it to 30 years old. I was 26 at the time.

In the next year, I finally was separated from drugs and alcohol when I’d been sentenced to five years in prison. As I started to regain my health, I still told no one about the Hepatis, afraid I would be ostracized by the other women.

Still, I was careful to not share razors or tweezers and I passed on getting a prison tattoo. I didn’t want to spread the disease to someone else. After my time in prison, I continued to pursue a lifestyle of recovery. I ate healthy meals, exercised regularly and gradually became more comfortable sharing my Hepatitis C diagnosis. I wanted to help de-stigmatize it so other people wouldn’t feel ashamed of their own diagnosis. I wanted people to see how I was living my life to the fullest, even with Hepatitis C.

I still remain open about my diagnosis, wanting people to see how anyone can live a full and happy life with Hepatitis C. If you or a loved one has Hepatitis C, there’s nothing to be ashamed of. You are still just as valuable, talented and worthy as you were before and by taking extra care with your health, it doesn’t have to permanently disrupt your life.

I wish you health and healing on your path to peace and I hope to one day hear about your own Hepatitis C journey.

Coming in my senior year. I was the best high school athlete in the state of  Alaska; First Team All-State Wide Receiver and Free Safety. Guess how my senior year  ended? I got kicked off the basketball team for getting in a fight during a game. So no  more sports. A month later I was charged with a felony; a crime in the amount of 6  dollars. My face was all over the news. East Anchorage basketball star $6 bandit. I was expelled from school, lost all my scholarships, became an alcoholic, and was later sent to prison. All in 365 days. That was my 18th year. From college-bound athlete to an inmate, and an alcoholic just like that. 

Now here are 2 stats that define my life:

• Stat #1: From ages 18 to 32 every single day, every hour, every minute, of those 14  years I spent as either an alcoholic, a drug addict, or an inmate. That was my entire adult life.  

• Stat #2: Well I’m 34 now. That one year between ages 32 and 33 is the first calendar  year in my entire adult life with NOT ONE drink, NOT ONE drug, NOT ONE day in jail. 

I mentioned what happened at 18 right? Lost my scholarships, kicked out of  school, but really what happened was I lost my future. I got lost. I leaned into the streets  and the criminal lifestyle. I continued drinking and started experimenting with drugs to  somehow numb that enclosing feeling of failure from the bright future I had just blown. I used substances to convince myself I didn’t care because I didn’t want to. And if there’s one thing that narcotics are very good at, they are very effective emotional  suppressants. While I was high, I did not feel, I did not care. I did not care about how my mom felt, my younger siblings felt, I simply did not care. 

Around age 23, my life was altered indefinitely. I was sitting in a hotel with a good friend of mine getting high and drunk. I became so desensitized morally and had no acknowledgement of the  line between right and wrong. Good or bad. Careful and careless was always blurred. 

And on this night, while sitting face to face with my friend, about 3 ft from each other, he was recklessly playing with a gun, got it too close to his head, and by pure freak accident, accidentally pulled the trigger, shot himself, and he died there. 

That was the worst day of my life. Devastated, distraught, despondent, the only coping mechanism I had developed over the years was a two-part move. First: Get high.  Second: Ignore it.  

And at that moment, right after that tragedy I didn’t know what to do. There’s no rule book on how to react to that, but I did know that I couldn’t deal with it. So I decided to do  what I always did when a problem presented itself and that was ‘get high’. The problem was, I could only get my hands on one drug. And that drug was heroin. So at 23 years  old, on the worst day of my life, I made the worst decision of my life. I told myself ‘I’ll just  use heroin for two months, that’s it, to get past this grief, I’ll just do it for two months  and I’ll just quit.’ And with that drug, it just does not work like that. 

I used heroin every day for the next 2 1/2 years. I quit for one year. While I sat in prison. After I got out, I relapsed in a week and went right back to using heroin every day for the next two years. It wasn’t until I went back to prison that I finally found a way to change my ways. But it didn’t start like that. Would you believe it? I went to prison because of a crime I committed to support my drug habit, and while in prison I picked up another drug habit.  Yes, I was in prison addicted to drugs as well. But when COVID-19 came around and the world locked down, that meant no more drugs, even in prison.

I remember sitting in my prison cell, 23-hour lockdown, withdrawing, staring at the floor,  thinking to myself ‘Dude. You know what? You are the freaking problem. You have no  one to blame. You have no excuses. You got nowhere to run. IT’S YOU. YOU NEED TO CHANGE.’ 

I don’t think I ever held myself accountable for the way my life had gone all those years.  And when I looked up off that jail cell floor. I did some soul-searching. Then I started trying things. Reading. I started learning. Working out. Reading the Bible. Journalling. Meditating. And I started to feel different. Working on myself from the INSIDE/ OUT was my way out of addiction. 

Changing how I thought, which changed how I acted. Learning how to be a better person,  treating people better, telling the truth, and being generous, all these things were new to  me. 

That’s how I recreated myself from a criminal and an addict. To an author, philanthropist,  speaker, and a changed man. And to rewrite my story from a tragedy to a comeback story. 

Make no mistake, I still remember those rock bottom moments during addiction thinking: ‘I cannot believe that I cannot overcome this addiction’ or ‘I cannot believe that I’m going out like this, I’m going to die a junkie’. I can still remember thinking that was how I was going to die.

So while I still can feel those chills in my skin from that period of my life I don’t  have to live in that anymore.

What I live in now is a newfound fondness for the entire human experience. I don’t know what kept me hanging in there that one more hour, one more day, one more morning, one more night when I had given up on life. But I held on and God intervened and my luck finally changed.  

I don’t know what it is about the human being that gives them the strength to get back on their feet after being knocked down again. Not to give up. To keep fighting. To try one more time. I don’t know what it is about us, but I do know that we all have it. We all have that courage, the resilience, the preservation to fruition to rebuild ourselves, remold our character, reshape our future, reinvent ourselves in any way we choose. We all can rewrite our stories. We all have comeback stories. Thanks for listening to mine.  

Hepatitis C is a viral infection that primarily affects the liver by causing inflammation and potentially leading to severe liver damage over time. The virus is mainly transmitted through blood-to-blood contact, which is why addicts sharing needles are of elevated risk.

What’s tricky is that Hep C often presents no symptoms in its early stages, so many addicts and former addicts don’t even know they are infected. Oftentimes people actively injecting drugs can carry and spread the virus without realizing it.

When symptoms do appear, they can include fatigue, jaundice (yellowing of the skin and eyes), dark urine, abdominal pain, and flu-like symptoms. Here’s a few stories from recovering addicts about their experiences testing positive for Hep C:

So I got the news I have Hep C today… I have been sober for about 4 years so this is all wild to me. I gave birth to my son 2 years ago. I am in a state of shock but still, obviously, it makes sense. How much damage has been done to my liver in 4 years? That’s all I can think about. I’m also going to have my son tested. I feel so much guilt. I’ve had chronic exhaustion for years now and it’s starting to make sense as well.

I had Hep C for many years… I suffered so long with Hep C until I got treatment. The chronic exhaustion was the worst for me, and the depression and not being able to eat and always feeling sick. Ugh it was horrible.

Getting tested for Hep C is crucial for early detection and effective management of the disease and preventing the long-term health consequences associated with the virus. Early testing allows for intervention, which reduces the risk of severe liver damage, cirrhosis, and liver cancer. So, if you happen to be in a high risk group for Hep C, such as those with a history of intravenous drug use, consider getting tested. The more you know, the more time you give yourself to take action and the more peace you can bring to your mind.

Quote source: (Reddit)

Between the ages of 18 and 32, Derrick faced a tumultuous period where addiction, alcohol abuse, and incarceration were constant struggles. However, he emerged from these dark times with a powerful message: Recovery is possible.

Derrick’s journey wasn’t just about overcoming physical dependence; it required mental strength at his lowest points. He emphasizes the importance of believing in life after addiction, a belief that fuels his advocacy work and inspires others to find strength in their own recoveries. His story serves as a beacon of hope for those grappling with addiction, showing that with determination and support, a brighter future is attainable. Derrick’s message is clear: life after addiction is not only achievable, but worth fighting for.

Imagine the worst you have ever had to pee in your entire life. Maybe you were stuck in a traffic jam and it got so bad that you resorted to peeing into a water bottle. Maybe you peed your pants. Or maybe you’ve never actually popped but it was so close that the pain was excruciating and your bladder was absolutely quaking.

I remember one time I was riding the train, and suddenly I had to pee so bad that it felt like my bladder was a swollen basketball. All the train stops were in residential areas for the next 15 minutes. I got off at the nearest commercial center, moved my pounding, urine-filled body as expediently as I could without peeing my pants, and burst into the first fast food restaurant I saw. I asked the cashier if I could use the bathroom. She said it was for customers only. I declared, “It’s an emergency, and I’m using your bathroom. Thank you.” I charged to the back where I found the bathroom and peed furiously for what felt like several minutes.

In that moment when your bladder is screaming at you, are you thinking of anything else? Is there any other priority that matters more at that moment? You know that this is a temporary problem and soon it will be relieved — you hope. (Worst case scenario, you just pee your pants, right?) In that moment, everything else in your life takes a backseat in your mind — your loved ones, your job, your most pressing and urging problems and concerns in life all fall to the wayside as your brain goes into pure animalistic instinct, and you can think of only one thing: FIND A TOILET AND PEE.

That is how it feels to be in the grips of an addictive urge. Addiction is a brain disease that, through a series of biochemical mechanisms resulting from repeated behaviors, creates an overwhelming, animalistic urge as pressing and intense as the bursting bladder. When that urge takes hold, logic flies out the window. The urge can’t be reasoned with. It feels like a biological emergency. Every cell in your body screams at you to GET THAT FIX, just like your bladder screams at you to find a toilet. Nothing matters more in that moment. All rational thoughts, all concerns, all reasons for not using dissipate in the face of that desperate urge.

The fix feels like the unleashing of the pee into the toilet. Aaaaaaaahhhhhhh…llelujah. Every muscle relaxes. You can breathe again. You can think again — or, more accurately, you can’t think again, finally free of the neurotic storm that exists when withdrawing from the last fix. And so the cycle continues. You get the fix, and you feel normal until you begin to withdraw, and the process repeats itself. This is why addiction is so overpowering and so incredibly challenging to overcome.

Unlike with the steady rhythm of our bladders filling and emptying throughout our lives, addiction progresses. If the same amount of the hit was always needed to create that feeling of relief, addiction wouldn’t escalate. The alcoholic would down those four drinks a day and feel fine. The sex addict would indulge for a few hours each night and carry on. For the coke addict, a line each morning could function like a daily antidepressant. Habitual, like a bladder emptying and filling, over and over. No harm.

But that’s not how addiction works. With addiction, a tolerance develops. The amount of a given drug needed in order to feel relief multiplies exponentially over the years. The withdrawal becomes more severe, and the compulsion to use grows in power. The negative consequences begin to pile up. Addictive substances and behaviors are usually harmful to begin with but manageable when merely vices. Remember, the dose makes the poison. When addiction is underway, the amounts of these substances and behaviors are downright destructive. But the addict can’t stop because the brain is diseased — at every level, from damaged neurotransmitters to conditioned responses.

The addicted brain now functions like a popping bladder, screaming for relief.

Fortunately, there is an answer. Recovery is possible, and all over the world, people are recovering from addiction every day. Recovery begins with abstaining from the addictive substance or behavior, going through withdrawal, and using a massive toolkit to overcome the discomfort and live effectively while the brain heals itself.

That’s the good news — the brain does heal, if given the opportunity. It’s now common knowledge that the brain is plastic, meaning that our neural wiring changes depending on the neural pathways that we reinforce. Not only can our neural pathways change with time, but our biochemistry can heal and adapt the longer we abstain. Amino-acid therapy is one example of a protocol for restoring the chemistry of the brain, giving the recovering addict a chance to heal physically. Nutrition can be another key piece.

The fact that addiction is a disease is not a euphemism — it’s biology. The addicted brain is in a state of disease, and recovery involves an understanding that the person is not their disease. They are stuck in a hell of biological emergencies and progressive illness. The wreckage that typically lies littered about the addict is a result of consequences unfolding from the disease of addiction, like a person who lives in desperation to pee kicking down walls to find a toilet.

To recover, not only does one need to ride out withdrawal, unravel the patterns, and heal the brain and body, they must also address the underlying pain that led to the use of an anaesthetic in the first place. It takes a village. It often takes a higher power. Having the understanding of others can go a long way, too.

You used to be my person.

All of my recent memories with you are clouded by a fog of anxiety, guilt, confusion. I never know which you I’ll get when we’re together.

When my phone rings in the middle of the work day or late at night, my stomach ties itself in knots. I wonder what crisis I might be answering the phone to this time.

Will this be the day your addiction finally got the best of you?

Sometimes in unexpected moments, I find myself reliving that night when I thought I was watching your last moments on earth. I’ve never seen a body lose so much blood so fast.

I was eerily calm. I knew exactly what to do. I moved you from the bathroom floor to the bed and wrapped you in a sweater. A little sister should never have to do that. All I could think about was how, if you were dying, the only thing I could do to help was to make sure you weren’t naked when the EMTs arrived.

I didn’t cry. My heart didn’t race. I don’t think I was even surprised.

Then came the guilt.

We spent the whole day together, and I knew something wasn’t right. I should’ve forced you to go…somewhere.

I left for a few hours when it got to be too much for me. If I hadn’t left, would you have gotten so bad? What would’ve happened if I hadn’t come back? Would you have died? Would it have been my fault?

I told you last week that if you don’t take steps to address your substance abuse, to fight the addiction, then I’m out of your life.

Honestly, it wasn’t even a hard decision to make.

You’re not you anymore. You are your addiction. Everything you do, everything you say, is for one purpose: feeding the addiction.

You don’t care about anyone the way you care about the monster who lives inside you. You nurture it, feed it. It’s turned you into the most selfish person I know.

The big sister who once cared for me now manipulates, lies, twists the story.

Your monster broke you, and you broke us. Broke me.

You used to be my person. Now I don’t even recognize you.

But try and love one, and then see if you can look me square in the eyes and tell me you didn’t become addicted to trying to “save” them.

If you’re lucky, they recover. If you’re really lucky, you recover, too.

Loving someone with Substance Use Disorder can and will consume your every thought.

Watching their physical deterioration and emotional detachment to everything will make you the most tired insomniac alive.

You will stand in the doorway of their bedroom and plead with them that you “just want them back.” If you watch the person you love disappear right in front of your eyes long enough, you will start to dissolve too.

Those not directly affected by addiction won’t be able to understand why you are so focused on your loved one’s well-being, especially since, during the times of your loved one’s active addiction, they won’t seem so concerned with their own.

Don’t become angry with these people. They do not understand. In a world where nearly 100 Americans are dying each day at the hands of opioids alone, they are lucky to not understand. You’ll catch yourself wishing that you didn’t understand, either.

“What if you had to wake up every day and wonder if today was the day the most important person in your life was going to die?” will become a popular, not-so-rhetorical question.

Drug addiction has the largest ripple effect that I have ever witnessed firsthand, impacting an estimated 45 million people when taking into account the loved ones.

It causes parents to outlive their children. It causes jail time and homelessness. It causes sisters to mourn their siblings. It causes nieces to never meet their aunts. It causes an absence before the exit.

You will see your loved one walking and talking, but the truth is, you will lose them far before they actually succumb to their demons; which, if they don’t enter recovery, is inevitable. In 2015, 52,000 people lost their life to a narcotic. It is estimated more than 60,000 died in 2016.

Drug addiction causes families to come to fear a ringing phone or a knock on the door. It causes vague obituaries. “Died suddenly” has officially become obituary-speak for “another young person found dead from a drug overdose.”

Drug addiction causes bedrooms and social media sites to become memorials. It causes the “yesterdays” to outnumber the “tomorrows.” It causes things to break; like the law, trust, and homes.

Drug addiction causes statistics to rise and knees to fall, as praying seems like the only thing left to do sometimes.

People have a way of pigeonholing those who suffer from addiction. They call them “trash,” “junkies,” or “criminals,” which is not the whole truth. Addiction is a chronic illness. They have families and aspirations.

You will learn that drug addiction doesn’t discriminate. It doesn’t care if the user came from a loving home or a broken family. Drug addiction doesn’t care if you are religious. Drug addiction doesn’t care if you are a straight-A student or a drop-out. Drug addiction doesn’t care what ethnicity you are. Drug addiction will show you that one decision and one lapse in judgment can alter the course of an entire life.

Drug addiction doesn’t care. Period. But you care.

You will learn to hate the drug but love your addict. You will begin to accept that you need to separate who the person once was with who they are now.

It is not the person who uses, but their addiction. It is not the person who steals to support their habit, but their addiction. It is not the person who spews obscenities at their family, but their addiction. It is not the person who lies, but their addiction.

And yet, sadly… it is not their addiction that dies, but the person.