Rock Bottom Recovery Founder Stacie Ledford
By Meg Hale Brunton
Stacie Ledford was brought up in a poor, dysfunctional family in Hiawassee, Georgia. Her father was an alcoholic who died the day before Stacie’s 13th birthday at the age of 39 due to complications after having been shot. Her mother died of heart failure when Stacie was 23, and her sister died shortly thereafter of an overdose.
While Stacie was no stranger to alcohol, she says her addictive behavior really began when she was in her 30’s. “I’d always been one of those people that, if I picked up a drink, I was drinking to get drunk,” she recalls, adding that she doesn’t feel that she ever learned decent coping skills. Eventually, Stacie added prescription drugs to the mix and her life began to spiral out of control.
After her first arrest in February 2015, Stacie went to a detox center, which did not work for her. “I just told them what they wanted to hear. We are master manipulators and professionals at what we do,” she says of people with substance use disorders. In July 2015, she enrolled in a behavioral counseling center where was diagnosed with a borderline personality disorder. Within 60 days after being released, Stacie overdosed on mouthwash and Xanax, but was revived. Twenty-three days after that, she was arrested again and held in jail for 33 days. In jail, Stacie met several women whose lives had been ruined by their addiction to drugs, like heroin. Not only did the experience incite her to clean up her own act, but to help others do so as well. “I wanted to be part of the solution, not part of the problem anymore,” Stacie recalls.
In January 2017, she created her own nonprofit, Rock Bottom Recovery, in Hayesville, North Carolina. It is an open support group for people who are struggling with, or recovering from, addiction/substance abuse, as well as their families. They hold meetings every Monday night at the Clay County Senior Center. Besides meetings, Rock Bottom Recovery does everything from jail ministry, to driving people to rehab, to doing medical work-ups, and assisting in the financing of medical treatments. “It’s what I was meant to do. I have to be who I need,” she says of her role, adding that she meets all her clients with love and no judgment. “When someone is using, they’re hurting. Addiction is just a symptom of a deeper problem.”
Today, Stacie is a certified Peer Support Specialist, Recovery Coach, and SMART Recovery Facilitator for Rock Bottom Recovery. She finds her work incredibly gratifying, and hopes to grow Rock Bottom to have its own building, as well as transitional homes for her clients who have recently been released from prison. “For me, all I have is today,” she says. “You can’t do anything about yesterday and tomorrow is a gift.”