- November 15, 2024
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Letisha Tennant's cocaine addiction began at the funeral of her great-grandmother, the woman who had raised her. Someone offered her the drug, and she was so grief-stricken she took it.
She was 12 years old.
During the next 17 years, she bore three children, became homeless and lost everything. She was pregnant with her fourth child and, as she would later describe it, "Death seemed like the only option," when, on Feb. 19, 2009, she was hospitalized under the Marchman Act, a state law that provides a path for the voluntary — and, in some cases, involuntary — treatment for substance abuse.
“Recovery only asks you to change one thing, and that’s your whole life.” Letisha Tennant, Survivor
Her treatment was involuntary; she appeared before a judge, afraid and angry, and was ordered to participate in treatment. After completing a seven-day detox course, she was taken to WARM, Women Assisting Recovering Mothers, in Daytona Beach.
"If it had not been for that first Marchman Act, I don’t know if Letisha would be sitting here before you today," she said. "The disease of addiction takes a person to a place they never imagined."
Tennant is still at WARM, now located at the Vince Carter Sanctuary in Bunnell, but she is on the other side of the admission process: Tennant is an intake specialist. With every new client she helps admit into the program, she relives each step of her own success story.
“It is interesting for me ... seeing the ladies come in," she said. "They are either frightened, resentful or angry." Of those three, she recalled, "I was the frightened one."
“Strip down” is how Tennant refers to the first 45 days in the program. Clients are stripped of any outside contacts. There are no personal phone calls and no visits. If a doctor appointment has been made, WARM transports the client. Keeping their clients away from destructive outside influences is the first priority.
After that, the WARM program renews treatment for another 90 days. Clients can stay from six months to a year, depending on their situation.
“I stayed for 10 months,” Tennant said. “I got the message."
While she was undergoing treatment, Tennant watched women working with other women in the program. They were living the life she desperately wanted.
“They were working a job, taking care of their children, accomplishing things, and loving themselves,” she said. “Seeing that helped me to let my guard down, and I started to seek what they had.”
Tennant searched for a way to be on the helping, not the receiving, end of treatment.
"I wanted to know who the winners were so I could talk to them because I needed to know how they became winners," Tennant said. "My counselor told me, 'the ones that choose to be a winner.'"
By this point, Tennant was passionate about her new life and made being a winner her goal.
She worked hard, and followed any advice she could get. She attended 90 meetings in 90 days, got a user sponsor, stayed in the center of fellowship, worked the steps, helped others, and didn't keep secrets -- she shared her struggles.
“I separated myself from people who weren’t seeking the things that I was seeking. I wanted to live clean; I didn’t have anything to do with my old life.”
Trust didn't come easily.
“I came here with the mindset, the defensiveness: 'Do you know first-hand what I am going through?,'” she said.
Going through the process she learned that while most counselors do not know first-hand what the clients experience, they do offer a valuable perspective and have the education and training to help. Tennant is able to identify with the clients and says her experience and the counselors' skills are "an awesome combination."
“We don’t look at the messenger, we receive the message,” she said. “I share with clients that this is a team and our teamwork does make their dream work. If you need someone you can relate to, see Miss Letisha, because I can relate.”
It’s the raw honesty, the matter-of-fact manner in which Tennant speaks about her life that stays with you. She’s been through things most cannot relate to. She could blame her family for not providing her a nurturing home, or have resentment toward those who gave a 12-year-old cocaine, but she doesn’t. She's moved on.
“When I tell clients, ‘I too have the disease of addiction,’ the response is, ‘What?’” she said. “One thing I like to share with new moms, is that if you get this now, your children don’t have to encounter what my children did. Your children don’t have to know you as being a using addict. ...
In July 2010, a year and five months after a judge ordered her into treatment, Tennant married a man with seven children. She has four, and they’re in the process of adopting her nephew, so she will soon have an even dozen, even more than the family of 10 children she dreamt of as a child.
“God does have a sense of humor,” she said. “I wanted seven boys and three girls; now I have seven girls and soon to be five boys.”
Six years ago, Tennant couldn't imagine the life she has today. While at WARM she earned her GED and worked as a behavioral tech prior to being offered the position as intake specialist. She is now working on her bachelor’s degree in psychology and talks about possibly going for her doctorate.
“Never, never, never, did I imagine it would be like this,” she said.“I was going to die a drug addict. My children were going to be raised by other people."
"We are all waiting for that knight in shining armor to come and rescue us. I was the damsel in distress, and WARM was my knight in shining armor," she said. "It’s provided me with all those riches — and I am not talking about material riches; I am talking about the internal ones: self-love, self-acceptance, self-respect.”
