Hopeless by anyone’s standards: Three felonies, hooked on meth, countless hours of jail time and enough mug shots to wallpaper one of her kid’s bedroom door.
With a rap sheet that reads like a hardened criminal, Alisha Bryans hit bottom in life — at thirty. But her impassioned cry for help after 14 years of methamphetamine addiction didn’t go unnoticed.
Who heard her — and changed her life — is the last page in this story.
To see Bryans now, she could pass for a typical “20-something” mom even though she’s 37. Fresh-faced and with a sparkle in her eye, this former drug addict remembers the easy road downhill — and the tough uphill climb to who she is today.
“I grew up in an addicted family,” she said. “Both my parents were hooked on marijuana and my mom occasionally used meth, although she hid it from my dad.”
By the time Bryans was 11, she was stealing marijuana and smoking with her sister’s older friends. Meth became her drug of choice at thirteen.
“My best friend’s mom was a drug dealer,” Bryans said about the girl whose mother supplied meth in exchange for baby-sitting.
Still, the teenager couldn’t get enough of the drug. Before long, she began stealing money from her parents.
By the time she was 16, Bryans’ parents discovered her habit and she was on the road to the first of many rehabilitation programs.
“I could have taught the classes,” Bryans said about her six times in rehab. “I did it for my parents, my husband, my probation officer, but not for myself.”
In spite of this kind of help, her life continued in a downward spiral that led to three children, a failed marriage — including loss of child visitation rights — and a lot more jail time.
Life wasn’t pretty — nor was Bryans. An arrest photo in 2001 captures the dead stare of a gaunt, hopeless young woman.
But when she moved from Albany, Ore., to Tri-Cities with her then-divorced mom, Bryans thought she could start over. Still, the past dogged her steps, resulting in more jail time. Eventually, though, drug counseling began to have some effect.
Without much effort she had connected with new drug-using friends. However, one night as she mingled with her regular crowd she spontaneously jumped into a car with some guys she didn’t know. Before the joyride in the stolen vehicle was over, Bryans found herself in the middle of a standoff with police, a sawed-off shotgun within arms reach.
Fortunately, one officer recognized the weeping young woman, a victim of her spontaneous decision. Knowing Bryans had been out of trouble for quite some time, he decided to give her a break.
“He looked me in the eye and he said, ‘Let this be a wake-up call,'” Bryans said.
Alone in her apartment the next morning, she kneeled beside her bed and cried out to God, pleading for a second chance. A feeling of love, forgiveness and comfort was immediate.
“It was a presence that I felt, an assurance I didn’t have to go it alone,” she said.
Filled with newfound courage and purpose, Bryans called her drug and alcohol counselors knowing the consequences of admitting her drug use. She was arrested shortly thereafter, and the uphill journey began with six months in the Benton County jail.
It was there that a pastor encouraged Bryans to join the inmates Bible study group. That first meeting was the start of a closer walk with her Savior-God and the road to recovery.
Eleven years later, the married, drug-free and inspiring woman reads the scriptures daily as she hugs on her surprise “miracle child” — a little boy conceived in spite of doctors’ diagnoses of the unlikelihood.
