Anna’s Story: You Can Get Help for Addiction Too
Addiction impacts millions of people around the world. According to the World Health Organization, alcohol abuse kills 3.3 million people each year and around 31 million people have substance use disorders worldwide. Despite the daunting numbers, each day people take the first step and seek help for substance use (SUD) and alcohol use disorders (AUD).
This first step—admitting there’s an issue and asking for help—is often the most difficult of all. However, once this step is taken and treatment begins, many who once lived in despair, hopelessness, and deeply enveloped in their addiction, find a life beyond their wildest dreams. You can too.
If you or someone you love is living with an alcohol addiction or drug addiction, there is hope. Futures Recovery Healthcare is dedicated to supporting each person who comes to us in discovering a vibrant, healthy life in recovery. We will help you or your loved one too.
Futures is proud and grateful to have helped so many in the local Palm Beach community, the nation, and across the globe to get the help they need and live in recovery. Our dedicated, compassionate staff have seen many lives transformed. People come in sick in body, mind, and spirit and walk out head held high, smiling, in a body that’s recovered from addiction. Futures’ commitment to our clients and evidence-based program offerings help each person who wants to recover from alcohol or drugs do just that.
One such person is AnnaMarie McCoy. And like many who struggle with addiction, her story is both familiar and unique. Each person with an addiction, whether to a substance or alcohol, shares similar feelings, thoughts, and behaviors. However, each person’s story is unique and their treatment needs are unique as well.
Before
Anna’s Journey to Futures and Recovery
Anna, who hails from New Jersey, began her journey in recovery in 1988. In fact, she experienced 20 years of recovery before she came to Futures desperate to restore her life and manage her addiction issues. Relapse is part of her story.
As many in recovery know, life doesn’t stop being life just because you are not drinking or using drugs. Events happen that are painful, difficult to handle, and often overwhelming. During those times, recovery can be threatened.
Anna’s story reflects this.
After 20 years in recovery, Anna’s husband, also in recovery, passed away. She was left with deep sadness and grief. In addition, she became the sole caretaker and provider for her two young children, ages seven and nine, who were also reeling from the loss of their father. The load on Anna was massive. Working full time, being a single full-time parent, managing recovery, and trying to work through grief and heal from a significant loss weighed heavily on her.
After about eight years of this ongoing, significant stress, Anna was given a prescription for Percocets. Percocets are a narcotic used to treat moderate to severe pain. This was the end of 20 years in recovery for Anna. Becoming dependent on this medication, her addiction came back with a vengeance. Within a few years, she was consuming four bottles of wine a day and prescription pills. Adding to her regime of Percocets were Xanax and Ambien. Anna’s life quickly progressed from recovery to full-blown addiction.
Addiction Impacts the Body, Mind, and Spirit
And as anyone who has lived with addiction knows all too well, the body’s addiction is the tip of the iceberg. Addiction ravages the body, mind, and spirit—and quickly. What once was a happy life can transform seemingly suddenly to one of agony, despair, and utter hopelessness. This happened to Anna.
“I totally isolated myself. In the last five years of my addiction, I was solely at my house. If I made plans I canceled them. The plans I made were always made while I was drunk, of course,” Anna remembered.
“I felt helpless, angry, alone, desperate, and completely hopeless. I knew what I had to do but couldn’t do it. I was in total despair,” she recounted.
Most everyone who has or had an addiction to alcohol or drugs knows these feelings first-hand. But, as Anna discovered, there is help and hope—no matter how bad off you are. It’s just a phone call away.
Not only was her spirit beaten, but her body was beaten too. Gaining excessive amounts of weight, becoming diabetic, having high cholesterol and blood pressure, Anna’s body was showing the battle scars of addiction, and getting worse each day.
Yet, despite the overwhelming beating her body, mind, and soul were taking, Anna was still not able to take that first step and reach out for help. Like many others who struggle with addiction, she wasn’t ready to stop and didn’t know if she could.
And there were people and things in her life she just wasn’t able or ready to leave—not just yet…
Anna’s son was battling an addiction of his own and living in her home. As the sole provider, the fear of losing her job and income was also weighing heavily on her mind. With a head full of recovery from 20 years of sobriety, she knew what she needed to do but just wasn’t ready.
As her health continued to decline and her addictions continued to grow worse, Anna knew she had to do something or she would die.
“My health was terrible. I was living on wine and string cheese. Once in awhile I’d have a slice of pizza,” Anna said, “My legs had edema and were oozing fluids, I could barely move. I was drinking 24/7. I wanted to stop, I tried to stop, I just couldn’t do it.”
Finally, Anna reached out.
After
Taking the First, Brave Step in Recovery
She found the courage and the will to live. It all began with a Google search. Anna knew she wanted to go out of state for treatment. She had been in treatment in Florida before. After her search landed her on Futures’ website, something clicked. She knew Futures was where she needed to go for help.
She made the call and three weeks later Anna arrived at Futures. And while during this three-week delay she could have changed her mind, Anna was ready. But not only was she ready, the contact she made at Futures called and checked in on her each day. This is simply not a practice common with most addiction treatment centers. Anna knew that Futures was different and if she were willing, could save her life.
Arriving with nothing other than the clothes she was wearing, Anna was in bad shape. Upon assessment by the admissions team, it was discovered that she was sicker than she had realized. Battling pneumonia, unbeknownst to her, Anna was taken to the hospital where she stayed for the next seven days.
After leaving the hospital, she was then admitted for addiction treatment at Futures. And what began on that day is her inspiring, miraculous story of recovery.
As mentioned, not only was Anna deep in her addiction, her body had also become very sick. Walking was hard. Moving was hard. Her body, mind, and soul needed to be healed and nurtured. And that’s just what happened at Futures.
From the therapists and medical staff to the physical therapists and wellness and nutrition staff, each member of the Futures team stepped in and helped Anna heal all that needed to heal. She rediscovered freedom from addiction and how amazing life with alcohol or drugs can be.
On July 17, 2018, Anna successfully completed clinical treatment for her substance use and alcohol use disorders. And on June 11, 2020, she gratefully celebrated two years of continuous sobriety—living free from the pain and devastation of drugs and alcohol.
These two years in recovery haven’t been without challenges for Anna. She was tested and prevailed. Just as she left treatment at Futures, her brother passed away. Then at Thanksgiving in 2019 Anna lost her sister to the disease of addiction.
But Anna didn’t break. Holding strong to her recovery and Futures’ family she continues to live in recovery. Her mission? To help just one person find recovery.
“I’m on a mission to help just one person out there. I post on FaceBook all the time about recovery and helping others,” Anna explained.
“I want people who have addictions to know you’re worth it. You’re a miracle. There’s hope and there’s a life for you,” she continued, “If I can do it, you can do it.”
Today, Anna describes her life as happy, joyous, and free. And she urges anyone struggling with addiction to alcohol or drugs to take that first brave step and ask for help. A life beyond your dreams is waiting for you. And like, Anna said, you deserve it!
“Without Futures I wouldn’t be here. No other rehab does what Futures’ does. They are unique in so many ways,” Anna raved.
Living life in active addiction—or loving someone who does—can be painful, hopeless, and pure agony. But recovery is real. Futures is here to help you or your loved one heal your body, mind, and soul from the pains of addiction. Contact us confidentiality online or by phone at 866-351-7588.
