Article December 29, 2003 Issue

A whole new horizon

By Kristin Christensen

It was late in the summer of 1987. I was at the lowest point of my life. On that August morning as I walked through the piney woods of Spearfish Canyon in the Black Hills of South Dakota, I knew that the judge I would face that day in court was going to sentence me for the felony charge of possession of a controlled substance. I asked myself, "How did a nice girl like you wind up in such a dreadful situation?" How had I gotten to the point that I was going to go to prison?

As I looked back over the previous 15 years, I couldn't believe how far I'd swerved from the path I'd started on as a young girl from a lovely family. Although I'd attended our local Christian Science Sunday School until I was 18, somehow I'd drifted away from the wonderful spiritual teachings I'd grown up with. As I got into my 20s, my friends were all experimenting with drugs, and I just didn't see how harmful that could be. Along with drifting away from my life-long spiritual values, I also began to seek medical attention for health problems. Before long, I found myself abusing the prescription drugs I was taking.

Along the way, I got married and had two wonderful children. For a number of years, on the outside our lives seemed as typical as those of most young families. But on the inside I was living a nightmare of growing addiction. Eventually the turmoil this caused affected my family. The children began spending more and more time with my parents, and my husband and I divorced.