Megan McCoy celebrates five years sober

Megan McCoy is celebrating five years of sobriety on the day of publishing, August 15.

She revisited the story of her addiction and her journey to overcome it.

Megan's addiction began as she was growing up in Southern California at 11 years old. She was introduced to drugs and alcohol by a mix of both family and friends. She said, "Where I grew up in Southern California, it was pretty common for your friends' parents to be cool with you drinking at their house, or they would have older siblings, and it was kind of a domino effect." She states that her mother abused drugs and alcohol while Megan was growing up, and being around that affected her as well.

"I think overall, I had a lot of traumatic things happen to me growing up, not being in the greatest environment, and I was just searching for something that made me feel better," she said. By the time Megan was 13, she was both drinking and smoking marijuana heavily.

Megan's addiction progressed as she got to high school. She had yet to see any reason to change, because she was able to maintain straight A's in school, held down a part-time job and kept up appearances in her social life. She said a milestone in her addiction was when she was introduced to hard drugs.

"Along the way I found pain pills, and that really grabbed a hold of me. I actually had a kidney infection and I was prescribed them. I loved it, because not only was it numbing the physical pain that I was experiencing at the time, but it numbed everything else too," she said.

Megan lived in Southern California until she was 29, continuing to opportunistically feed her addiction. Things came to a head; she didn't have a job, she had lost her license, and she made the decision to follow her mom to Worland. She said, "In 2015, I moved here. My mom had already moved here, and she had been clean for some time. I was in a place in California where I didn't really have anything going for me; I either had to figure out how I was going to pay my rent or leave, so I left."

Megan didn't leave her addiction behind when she moved; it was only growing.

She eventually found a relationship in Worland and continued to use opportunistically, with the only real stint of sobriety she had during her active addiction coming from the pregnancy with her first daughter. "When I found out, I was able to stay sober for a while ... I smoked some weed here and there, but I was mostly sober," she said. Megan had her daughter Marley in 2016, and her drug of choice became marijuana for about a year. Still an opportunist, she was seeking marijuana from her neighbor who had acted as her drug dealer, but he didn't have any. He instead offered her meth, and her addiction grew from there.

"He gave me meth pretty much whenever he had it or I asked for it. I got very addicted to it pretty fast," she said. She started out smoking it, but being around IV users she quickly found herself using needles to inject it. She said, "I wasn't doing it by myself at first for a long time, I think I believed I was safer by not doing it by myself, but eventually I did anyways."

Megan's first major consequence of her addiction came within a year of beginning her meth use. She said, "I was living in Shell with the guy I was seeing at the time. I was in Thermopolis, we were giving another guy a ride there. I had been awake for like four days, and the guy I was dating and I had both fallen asleep in the car. We woke up to cop lights shining through the window, and the guy we were giving a ride to was in his seat trying to shoot up."

She served four days in jail that time, and spent several more in court facing her charges, but she said she had no intention of changing yet. "I was acting; I just wanted to say whatever I needed to say to get out of there. On the inside I knew I wasn't going to stop. My mindset was that there was always a way out, because up through then there had been."

Megan continued living like this, trying to take care of her daughter Marley when she could, but as she was unwilling to give up her addiction she found herself frequently in and out of jail.

This continued until her last major crime in 2019, when she stole a woman's purse and used her credit card to purchase goods at Shopko in Worland. Megan said, "Sure enough, she reported her stuff stolen, they traced it to me using surveillance cameras, and put a warrant out on me. So now I'm on probation and I have new charges."

She was arrested on these new charges, served some more jail time, was released and once again continued using. She was in the drug court program in Basin, and failed to submit multiple urine analysis samples. The judge in her case decided that it was time she had real consequences, and she was sentenced to jail until she obtained a bed date at an addiction treatment facility.

Megan spent three weeks in the Washakie Detention Center until she left for Southwest Counseling campus in Rock Springs with her daughter Marley. The treatment plan offered at this center is long-term, and unique in that it allows mothers to stay with their children and build positive family relations.

She confesses, "At first, my mindset hadn't changed. I wasn't going to take it seriously." She says this changed, though. "I had broken a rule, and I was given an assignment to break down my thinking errors that went into my decision. When I got done, I had 32 pages, handwritten. When I wrote that, for the first time I really reflected on myself. It made me realize just how distorted my thinking was, and I knew that if I was going to change my life and be the mother I needed to be for Marley, now was my chance," she said.

For the first time, after 22 years in active addiction, at 33 years old, Megan wanted something different. She said, "I knew that in my heart I was a good person, but I had this self-entitlement where I felt that the world owed me something. Growing up my life was traumatic, and I had this attitude that it was my time, and I was going to do whatever I wanted. It didn't matter who I hurt or what I had to do. It took me a long time to decide that wasn't OK."

It was going to take some serious work to change, but she was willing to do it. She spent eight months at Southwest, longer than average, to get all she could out of it. She completed treatment and returned to Worland on May 6, 2020.

She said it was a difficult transition, but having a routine and a support system helped. Soon after returning, she found work taking care of an elderly man near the end of his life. She was open about her addiction, and he accepted her. He even sold her a car for $500 to help her get back on her feet.

Ever since she came back from treatment, being open about her recovery has been crucial to her. She said, "Living in a small town, everyone already knows what you're doing. You might as well let them know that what you are doing now is good. People are going to support that."

Megan got her driver's license restored, works taking care of houses for friends, and took online classes in psychology through Western Wyoming Community College to learn as much as she could about the disease of addiction.

In 2021 she began a relationship with Cody McCoy. Cody, another recovering addict, has been a huge support for Megan. They welcomed their son Rylas in March 2023, and they got married on March 2. From Cody's previous relationship she got two "bonus daughters," Briella, age 5 and Aria, age 3.

With Cody's support, and the support of her community, Megan began a meeting for recovering addicts in January of this year.

Megan said that she had attended other meetings to try them out, but just couldn't identify with the message. "I wanted a meeting that wasn't based on anything. Just have people who wanted to stay sober come together, sit down, and see what happens," she said. Megan's Reach for Recovery meeting takes place at the Crosspoint Baptist Church at 6 p.m. on Fridays. She says she isn't always there, because sometimes things come up and life happens, but she will always try to facilitate the meeting.

She continues to share her message whenever she can, because she feels that's the best way to keep herself accountable, and it's the best way to make something out of her situation.

She said, "I spent over 20 years suffering through my addiction. I can either look at that as a lot of wasted time, or see it as a learning experience that I can share with those who still suffer to help them."