Ashley Ewing was a student at Garden City High School when she was first introduced to drugs.

Garden City resident Ashley Ewing at a special place in her addiction recovery effort: Grace Centers of Hope in Pontiac.

“I started doing drugs when I was like 14,” she recalled. “I started taking pills and smoking weed, and I doing cocaine by the time I was 16. I was fully addicted to the heroin by the time I was 17.”

As a teenager, Ewing said she had a job, attended high school full-time and, to top it all off, was battling a full-blown heroin addiction.

Now 29 and living in Pontiac, Ewing has been clean for a year and a half, but she said the road there wasn’t an easy one. Before going to Grace Centers of Hope, a life skills program in Pontiac that helps people escape abuse, homelessness or recover from addiction, she tried rehab some 20 times and spent time in jail.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, 14,996 people in the U.S. died of a heroin overdose in 2018. Among students, heroin use has remained relatively stagnant at less than 1% nationwide over the last few years.

“It’s horrible. It’s exhausting,” Ewing said. “It’s so hard to deal with the addiction itself and if you have mental illness feeding into it, it’s so much worse. You lose yourself. You lose who are. I’ve been clean for about a year and a half now, and I’m still getting used to the being the person I was before I got into the drugs.”

Ewing said the longevity of Grace’s free program, which is faith-based and can last about one year, was what made a difference for her. She had attended 30-day programs in the past to appease family that weren’t necessarily the best option for someone who had battled addiction as long as she had.

But then, Ewing had a son just before doing some jail time. The little guy, now 2-and-a-half years old, gave her the final push she needed to join a long-term recovery program

“No one is going to get clean from heroin or other drugs in 30 days,” said Kent Clark, CEO of Grace Centers of Hope and a pastor. “I’ve been here about 30 years now, and this is the oldest and largest shelter in the State of Michigan. We’re not a flop house. We don’t lock people up and give them some food, like a prison-type thing. This is long-term care.”

Clark added the faith-based approach of what Grace does, in his opinion, also makes all the difference.

“A hurting heart needs inward work, and only God can do that,” he said. “We believe that’s through the gospel of Jesus Christ. We’ve seen tremendous success of that happening and people getting their lives back.”

Ewing spent a year in Grace’s recovery program, entered its two-year aftercare program and eventually regained custody of her son. She’s also looking forward to pursuing a degree in business management.

“Once I got my son back, I pretty much knew that I could achieve anything,” she said. “For me to stay clean for as long as I have and to get my son back was everything for me.”

During a pandemic in which, according to the Centers for Disease Control, substance abuse and mental health decline are on the rise, Ewing said addiction is something that can keep a vice grip on someone, and it’s important to seek help.

“I know it’s hard to sit there and watch someone you love and care about go through that because I’ve gone through that seeing my friends do it,” she said. “One thing I want people to know them acting on their addiction is not about their family and friends. It’s not that they don’t love you, or care about you, addiction is a very strong, conniving thing to go through.”

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s national helpline can be reached at 1-800-662-4357.

Contact reporter Shelby Tankersley at stankersle@hometownlife.com or 248-305-0448. Follow her on Twitter @shelby_tankk.