DANIELLE WALLACE

Second in a series.

My name is Danielle Wallace. I am the executive director of the Turning Point Center of Addison County. I teach the DUI course formerly known as CRASH. I have a bachelor’s degree in Mental Health and Human Services from the University of Maine at Augusta and a master’s degree in Restorative Justice from Vermont Law School. 

I am also a person in recovery from substance use disorder. Addison County was not meant to be the place I would raise my daughter. When I came here to stay with my aunt in 2016, I never imagined I would find such a deep sense of community here, one that I thought was a thing of the past. 

So, I understand that this sense of community might feel threatened to many of us because of recent stories in the news about people who are unhoused, whose aggressive behaviors seem to be the result of mental illness and addiction. And I share in these community concerns, not just as a responsible neighbor but because my own lived experience with addiction once had me living this reality. 

I spent most of my 20s cycling through jail, rehabilitation facilities, and active substance use. My mom and dad went to sleep many nights worrying this would be the night they would get a call saying I had overdosed and died. To an outsider, looking at the behavior of a person struggling with substance use can look completely irrational. Who would ever choose a substance over their children or steal from their family or repeatedly engage in behavior that could take away their freedom? Making sense of active addiction is nearly impossible. And I absolutely “get it.” 

The people who cared for me could not see I hated what I was doing to myself and them, and that I could not figure out how to get out of that black hole of active use. I would wake up every day promising myself that today would be different. Today I would not use. Today would be the day I would get a real job. Today would be the day I would be the mother my little girl needed me to be. Today would be the day I would call my parents to tell them I loved them and was sorry. Today would be the day I would, “just say no.” 

At the end of each of these days, I would try to figure out where it all went wrong. How did my determination to be the person I was raised to be vanish so quickly? The biggest misconception I had was that somehow, I was going to figure this addiction business out all by myself. I was going to beat the monster alone because no one could possibly understand or accept the chaos that cycled through my thoughts. 

My story is not unique, and the isolation and hopeless feelings of active addiction are not unique. Finding a place to belong was an essential first step in my journey to recovery. A place where people could relate to my insanity and share with me how they walked through life without a drink or drug. A place where people saw more than just the negative decisions I made to feed my addiction. 

Unfortunately, those safe places are not plentiful in our community. Yes, there are places for some of our unhoused neighbors to find a warm bed and a meal in Vergennes and Middlebury, but these are very few and far between indeed. As I learned the hard way, recovery from addiction simply cannot occur under a bridge or in a tent out in the woods. Those of our neighbors living this way need and deserve more. They are not some “faceless few.” They are us.