Eight drug court graduates were honored along with their friends and family with a ceremony for completing the 18-month drug addiction recovery program on Wednesday at the Christian County Justice Center.
Drug court is an alternative to serving jail time for offenders with drug addiction issues, and allows them to work toward recovery. Circuit Court Judge Andrew Self says eight graduates was among the most he had seen at one ceremony.
Graduates Sarah Hirth, Ben Stamper, Tonya McCain, Josh Meacham, Kyle Gibbs, Tisha Kerns, James Jones and Alvin Powell all spoke about their journey through recovery and also had someone who supported them along the way introduce them.
Before she began her drug court process, Hirth says she felt as though she didn’t deserve drug court, saying she made too many mistakes. Hirth says she had four years of sobriety under her belt before she relapsed in 2018 and ended up temporarily losing custody of her daughter.
Hirth describes the program as a blessing and shares that before she had even started the program, she was done fighting against recovery.
Six months into the drug court program, Hirth says she regained custody of her daughter.
Kerns says she was originally in long term addiction treatment but did not stick to it and found herself in jail. Kerns says a big turning point for her recovery journey happened when her daughter broke a bone, because she was not able to be with her because she was in jail.
Now that she has completed drug court, Kerns says she doesn’t want to miss anymore milestones in her children’s lives.
Fellow graduate Jones says he initially found drug court to be overwhelming, but he stuck to it and shared that one of his biggest supporters was a friend who he says died of gun violence. Even though he could not see him graduate, Jones says he knows he would have been proud of him.
Concluding the ceremony, Self says this is not the end of their recovery journey, but instead the commencement.
Self says their next step is to be there for people who were in similar positions as them, at one point in time losing a battle against addiction, before being on the road to recovery.