Tamiko first tried PCP when she was 31. Her cousin shared it with her on New Year’s Eve, and she was hooked.

“It’s like you’re floating on cloud nine,” she said. “And then the next day, when you come to, you don’t remember anything.”

Her addiction consumed her for the next 19 years. “I tried to quit on my own, and that would last about a week, and then I’d be right back at it,” she said.

Now she is a resident of Aster House, CHD’s recovery program in South Hadley, and she is taking back her life. “Aster House has done everything for me,” she said. “I’ve been here for six months and I’m seven months clean.”

Her youth had its share of trauma, which is common among those in the Aster House program. The Springfield native was raped by a neighborhood youth when she was 12. “After that happened, I put a turtleneck sweater on to hide the bruises from him holding me down. My brother said, ‘Why are you wearing that turtleneck?’ It’s summertime.’ When he saw the bruises on my neck, he thought they were hickeys, so he called me ‘a fast girl’ and beat me up.”

There were other traumatic events. “We’d be here forever if I told you everything that happened to me,” she said. Still, she shared another ordeal she went though: going to prison at age 18 for selling crack, where she was sexually exploited by another inmate.

Tamiko was also a heavy drinker, although she quit “cold turkey” in her early 20s. She never used other drugs, however, trying to stop using PCP was a whole different ballgame. “My family tried to get me to quit, to steer me the right way, but I just wasn’t ready,” she said.

She finally sought help at the urging of her sister and Justine Tompkins, one of her counselors at CHD’s Adult Mental Health-Springfield program. Nonetheless, Tamiko still thought she wasn’t fully ready to recover. “When I got to Aster House, I had dreams every night about running away from here. Thankfully, I don’t have those dreams anymore,” she said. “About two-and-a-half months in my mind changed. I learned a lot from the groups. I started to participate—to raise my hand and talk—especially in the women’s group, which is once a week. It’s easier to speak up when it’s just women.”

She even talked another resident out of trying to get drugs. Like that client, Tamiko knew what it was like to want to quit the program, but she credits staff—and her sponsor—with believing in her. “They’re always there for me,” she said. “Aster House saved my life.”