LAKE TAPPS, Wash. — When meeting Jodi Borrelli, it's hard to believe that several years ago, she was addicted to heroin, living on the streets and was wanted by the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department.
Her addiction to drugs started innocently after the mother of three injured her shoulder coaching her son in baseball.
Now she is using her history of addiction to try to help others, working in a clinic and as a public speaker who visits schools. But it's been a long journey to get to this place.
Sliding into addiction
"All of a sudden, that one Vicodin doesn't work, then you're taking two. Then you go to the doctor. Well this just isn't cutting it anymore," said Borrelli.
Borrelli became addicted after she said her doctor overprescribed pain medication. She went from taking 5 milligrams of Vicodin to 30 milligrams of Oxycodone. When the pills couldn't satisfy her growing hunger to get high, she turned to smoking pills and hid her addiction from her children.
"I remember specifically my daughter knocking on the bathroom door saying 'Mom, why won't you come out and play with me?' But I was stuck in the bathroom getting my fix," said Borrelli.
She was sent to treatment twice but ended up leaving early. That's when she tried heroin for the first time.
"I let someone shoot me up," recalled Borrelli. "I overdosed in their front yard and I woke up with a water hose on me. And I didn't stop."
Ashamed and filled with guilt, Borrelli left her kids -- 12, 13, and 17 at the time -- and ended up homeless. She spent nights huddled in a doorway or sleeping in a tent. She started stealing to support her habit. She would brazenly walk out of department stores with high-end jeans and makeup stores with a bag full of products.
Borrelli was booked into jail 23 times and ended up on the Washington State Patrol's Washington's Most Wanted.
Outpatient treatment changes her trajectory
After a three-month stint in jail, her recovery journey began when she ended up in Bellingham for court-ordered outpatient treatment.
"I went to treatment every day and I had a counselor that gave me hope," said Borrelli. "He helped me find my inner light and recognized that I had passion for helping others."
That counselor encouraged her to become a drug and alcohol counselor, so Borrelli went to Whatcom Community College and graduated from its Substance Use Disorder Professional program. She now works at a methadone clinic in Tacoma.
However, her real passion is public speaking, and sharing her story of recovery with others is giving her a sense of purpose.
With the fentanyl crisis hitting kids, she saw an opportunity to talk to students at Spanaway Lake High School in Pierce County. Borrelli educated students about how one pill can kill, taught them how to identify an overdose and how to use the overdose reverse medication Narcan.
Listening to the story of how she turned her life around resonated for some students.
"They kept wiping tears away and those are the first ones I ran up to and wanted to give them a hug," said Borrelli. "They all have someone who is a loved one, a mom or auntie that are going through addiction and they told me I gave them hope and that's what I needed to be here for."