Creating Something: Stephanie Akin’s Story of Recovery
Recovery Date: January 5, 2021
“Recovery is not only about stopping something. It is also about creating something.”
Today, Stephanie Akin is a wife, a mother of three, a person in long-term recovery, and someone who has dedicated her career to helping others.
She works as the Program Development and Outreach Manager at Reflections Counseling Services Group, where she helps develop programs, strengthen community partnerships, and support services for people experiencing substance use and behavioral health challenges.
She is a Certified Peer Counselor, a Substance Use Disorder Professional Trainee, and a Certified Crisis Interventionist. She earned her bachelor’s degree in criminal justice with an emphasis in human services and recently completed her master’s degree in management with a concentration in project management, graduating with a 4.0 GPA.
Her life today is busy, meaningful, and filled with responsibilities, goals, a career, and a family who can depend on her. It is also a life Stephanie once could not imagine having.
When Life Became About Survival
Before recovery, Stephanie spent approximately 15 years using substances intravenously. During those years, she survived seven nonfatal overdoses. She experienced homelessness, involvement with the criminal justice system, and Drug Court.
Life became centered on survival. Along the way, Stephanie lost pieces of herself, relationships, stability, and hope. But the person underneath it all was still there.
“The person I was underneath everything was still there, but for a long time I could not see her or imagine the life I have today.”
There was not one dramatic moment when everything suddenly changed. There were many moments when Stephanie knew something had to change. The harder part was believing she was capable of changing it.
After surviving multiple overdoses and experiencing the consequences of substance use, homelessness, and the criminal justice system, Stephanie began to understand that she might not survive if her life continued in the same direction. She was afraid and exhausted, but somewhere in that exhaustion a small amount of hope began to grow. Eventually, that hope became stronger than the belief that she could never change.
January 5, 2021
Stephanie’s recovery began when she became willing to accept help and started believing her life could be different. Treatment, Drug Court, recovery support, and the people who continued to see something worthwhile in her all played a role.
There was no single person, program, or pathway that did everything. Recovery grew through experiences, relationships, support, and choices. Others could open doors for Stephanie. She still had to decide to walk through them.
On January 5, 2021, she did. That date became the beginning of a life she once could not imagine.
Learning How to Live Again
Stopping substance use was only part of Stephanie’s early recovery. She also had to learn how to live without using substances to escape difficult emotions. She had to face consequences from her past while simultaneously trying to create a future, and she had to discover who she was outside of substance use.
Trust had to be rebuilt. Relationships needed repair. Stephanie learned that telling people she had changed was not enough. She had to show them through her actions, and rebuilding a life required patience.
Her family, treatment, recovery connections, education, supportive people, and goals helped her continue moving forward. Small milestones started adding up, each becoming another piece of evidence that lasting change really was possible.
Eventually, Stephanie was no longer simply trying to survive another day. She was building a life she wanted to protect.
From Lived Experience to Leadership
Recovery gave Stephanie opportunities to discover what she was capable of. Education became one part of that journey. While working and caring for her family, she completed both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees, earning a 4.0 GPA in her graduate program.
Her lived experience also became an important part of her professional life. Today, Stephanie helps develop programs, manage projects, train staff, build partnerships, advocate for people, and speak publicly about recovery and stigma.
“I am not successful despite my lived experience. In many ways, my lived experience has helped me become the advocate, leader, and professional I am today.”
Stephanie uses both her education and lived experience to help improve systems and create opportunities for others. Working alongside people who believe in compassion, dignity, harm reduction, and person-centered services reminds her why this work matters.
The Ordinary Things Are Extraordinary, Too
Degrees, professional accomplishments, and career milestones are easy to recognize as success. But when Stephanie talks about what makes her proud, some of the things that matter most sound much simpler: showing up, keeping commitments, being dependable, going to work, being present for her family, and facing difficult days without returning to the life she left behind.
Stephanie is proud that her children and family get to know the person she is today. Recovery has given her back her family, identity, voice, and future. It has given her stability, education, a meaningful career, and the ability to be present for the people she loves.
Recovery Does Not Have One Path
Stephanie wishes more people understood that substance use is not a moral failure and that recovery does not look the same for everyone.
There is no single pathway every person must follow before their recovery is valid or before they deserve support. Treatment, medication, harm reduction, peer support, counseling, faith, and recovery communities can all be part of someone’s journey. People deserve dignity, compassion, safety, and access to services wherever they are.
And people are more than the most difficult chapters of their lives.
What She Would Tell the Woman She Used to Be
“You are not a lost cause. You are not the things you have done to survive, and you are not the worst thing that has happened to you. There is still a future waiting for you, even if you cannot see it yet.”
She would tell her that rebuilding trust will take time, that change will be hard, and that every difficult step will be worth it. She would tell her that one day she will have a family life, an education, a career, and a voice that people respect. Most of all, she would tell her to hold on because she is going to become someone she cannot yet imagine.
To the Person Who Is Struggling Today
“Recovery is possible, even if you do not believe it yet.”
You do not have to have everything figured out. You do not have to change your entire life in a single day. You only have to take the next step and allow someone to help you.
There may be setbacks, fear, shame, and days when giving up feels easier. Those moments do not erase your progress or your worth. Keep reaching out until you find the people and support that are right for you. You deserve help before you feel “ready,” and you deserve to be treated with dignity at every stage of your journey.
Your life can become bigger than what you are experiencing right now.
Recovery Is Creating Something
Stephanie’s story challenges the idea that recovery is defined only by what a person stops doing. Recovery can also be about what someone begins to create: relationships, purpose, trust, stability, opportunity, a family that can depend on you, a career that matters to you, a voice you once thought you had lost, and a future you could not see from where you were standing.
Recovery does not always announce itself through degrees, careers, awards, or public accomplishments. Sometimes recovery looks like making an appointment, answering the phone, reconnecting with family, finding housing, showing up to work, asking for help, or simply deciding to try again.
Every one of those steps matters.
The most difficult chapter of your life does not have to be the final chapter.
This is Stephanie’s story. A story of survival. A story of rebuilding. And, most importantly, a story of creating something new.
Stories of Survival is a Sheryl’s Second Chance Designs project sharing real stories of recovery to encourage hope, challenge stigma, and remind our community that recovery is possible.
Wear hope. Spread awareness. Inspire change.