Christy Bettis’ addiction to cocaine and methamphetamine sent her life into a long and painful tailspin that hit bottom in 2005.
That’s when the Vancouver woman got into an altercation with her mother over the custody of Bettis’ two daughters. Bettis was arrested on suspicion of domestic violence after the fight.
The jail booking photo taken of her that day was with Bettis on Sunday as she celebrated being clean and sober with hundreds of other recovering addicts in downtown Vancouver’s Esther Short Park. She and other members of the recovery community carried printouts of their mug shots, showing their transformations, as they prepared to trek over the Interstate 5 Bridge during Oxfest.
As Bettis, 50, walked through the park, she was stopped more than a dozen times by people saying hello, all giving her a big hug. A man showed Bettis a picture of his 2-year-old. A woman thanked Bettis for supporting her through her own recovery.
After a few speakers rallied the crowd with chants of “recovery rocks,” Bettis and a few dozen others brought their old photos, many taken when they were booked into jail, up on stage for all to see. The message on Sunday: addiction recovery is possible, and recovering addicts are capable of giving back to their communities and regaining their lives.
Hundreds of recovering addicts and their loved ones then walked down Columbia Street and onto the sidewalks along the I-5 Bridge as part of the Hands Across the Bridge Project. Participants walking from the Oregon and Washington sides of the Columbia River packed the bridge’s walkways, held hands and recited the serenity prayer.
Some vehicles crossing the bridge appeared to give celebratory honks as the crowd assembled. As Bettis approached the bridge with her best friend, Angela Gameros of Vancouver, Bettis was stopped twice by Hands Across the Bridge safety volunteers, who each hugged her and said, “I love you.”
“It’s like a family reunion,” said Gameros, also a recovering addict.
Bettis said she’s not afraid to talk about where she’s come from because it’s that path that’s led her to the life she has today.
She said she started partying in high school because she thought “it was the cool thing to do, but little did I know it would become the worst thing I ever did.”
Bettis eventually accumulated a felony record because of drug possession convictions. Her grandmother, and later her mother, gained custody of her children. She tried a couple of drug recovery programs, and some of them worked for a while, but she would relapse. Finding stable housing was her biggest challenge when she was trying to kick her addictions, she said. She was homeless at times, living in cars and abandoned houses.
It was after the arrest in 2005 that she found the recovery path that worked best for her: “turning my life over to God,” she said. She joined Grace Ministries and The Xchange program in Vancouver.
The notes she jotted down in recovery classes turned into poetry, and those poems gave her strength, she said. One of her favorite poems she wrote touches on her faith:
Once you’ve reached the point where you know you can’t go back,
Look at what you need, the spiritual things you lack.
Take the time to learn the tools you’ll be needing to succeed,
And God will surely provide you with everything else you need.
After getting clean, it took her some time to contact her mom, who later allowed Bettis to regain custody of her daughters.
“I learned about forgiveness, and I realized it was actually my fault — everything was my fault,” Bettis said.
Bettis attended her first Oxfest after she was just one-month clean. Her roommate in her Oxford sober house invited her.
“We had so much fun. We stayed until the very end,” Bettis said. She’s been attending every year since.
Bettis, now eight years clean, works as a detox aid at Lifeline Connections in Vancouver, the very center where she went through drug detox. She also is active in Grace’s jail ministry program and is a case manager in the church’s recovery housing program for women.
Her daughters are now 18 and 19, and the 18-year-old will attend the University of Washington this fall on a scholarship.
“My life is so blessed today,” Bettis said.
