End The Stigma Faces of Recovery: Destiny Gutierrez

End The Stigma

Faces of Recovery: Destiny Gutierrez

Editor's Note: Since 2011, October has been proclaimed National Substance Abuse Prevention Month. This month, Cloud Peak Counseling Center, in partnership with the Northern Wyoming News, is bringing four stories of recovery from Worland community members.

Meet Destiny Gutierrez, an addiction recovery warrior.

Destiny started her drug use at the age of 15. She says she was trying to deal with traumas that had happened in her life like "being bullied, a family suicide, sexual abuse as a child and an absent father."

She was experiencing severe depression at that time and said, "I was trying to find ways to forget," so she used marijuana. Destiny said that, "I ended up using it every day, multiple times a day. I was actually never really sober." At 17, she tried mushrooms and alcohol, and was "drinking frequently."

Destiny's boyfriend was a drug dealer and Destiny was eventually introduced to smoking Oxy30s and selling with him. They ended up trading some pills for heroin, "just so we could try it."

By the time she was 18, she decided to go to college. She said, "My alcohol use continued to multiple times a week and I started using meth so I could stay up and do homework". At the age of 19, she dropped out of school, "because my partying got excessive. I lost my Horatio Alger Scholarship.

"I came home and moved back in with my boyfriend who lived in Basin. We were selling Heroin to feed our habit and, I was using a lot."

Eventually she and her boyfriend moved to Worland and lived with a few friends, continuing to sell heroin. At the age of 20, she said that after a few months of living in Worland, "our house got raided because someone overdosed off of the drugs we sold them. Destiny went to jail and was released after two months with three and a half years probation. She lived sober for five months, relapsed, and at the age of 21, ended up going to residential treatment. After treatment she was sober for three months, and then relapsed again when an uncle passed away.

She says, "That was the start of my bad spiral. I was trying to cope with old traumas and watching my uncle die, I was willing to do anything so I went to IV use."

She was working and making a lot of money, but said, "every single paycheck went to drugs." Destiny ended up losing her job, so her family began helping her with money. "After they realized I was spending it on drugs, they stopped giving me money, so I started stealing it. I had no money, I was shoving needles in my arm, my family was about to kick me out, and I wanted to die." She said "that's when I knew I had to get clean."

At a counseling appointment, she opened up and started her journey of sobriety. She said, "I remember looking at pictures of my uncle and family with me in them, and not remembering anything about it. The only reason I knew I was there is because I was in the pictures. I decided I wanted to be around to experience my life and not just be idling in the background with a fogged-up mind from drugs."

At the printing of the article, Destiny is clean and sober 482 days.

She said her advice for someone struggling is, "Most of all, heal yourself and your mind, and be willing to open up about traumas in your past. Know that you're not alone. There is always somebody willing to listen and support you."

She said one of the things she told herself is, "I put so much effort into staying high, I can put that much effort into staying sober."

Recovery is possible!