women for sobriety new life program huntington wv

#Women for sobriety new life program huntington wv how to

Annessa’s defiant spirit, developed after a lifetime of having no control or say in her own happiness, refused to quit, and so, she went home, back to her mother. When he caught her smoking cigarettes, he gave her the ultimatum to stop or go back home.

#Women for sobriety new life program huntington wv how to

Whitney’s father taught Annessa how to box and allowed her to live in his home for one year. It wasn’t until she moved in with a friend named Whitney that she had once again found reprieve. She was angry, and it showed in school, and at home. For one year, Annessa continued to live in her mother’s home under the same conditions that had her in foster care to begin with. She now knows that substance was methamphetamine. One of the most vivid memories she has is seeing a purple-colored substance on a piece of glass. Annessa spent a mere month in foster care before being returned to her mother’s home. She had finally had a bit of happiness and what she felt were her mothers own selfish desires, was interrupting it. The visitations were granted and were to take place on the weekend. All was well in her world until her mother began to demand weekly visitations. Annessa’s failing grades went up and she began participating in her school’s swim team on the weekends. It was stable and healthy and for the first time, she found herself happy. It was a life she had not experienced before. For Annessa Randolph, she and her brother were finding their place in the foster care system after methamphetamine was found in their systems due to their mothers in house clandestine lab.Īnnessa didn’t mind foster care. They find their interests, they find their style, they begin to find a place in the world at that time. Her hand trembled a bit as she lit a Marlboro and began to share her story with me.Īt twelve years old, most young girls are just starting to develop. We sat in February’s bitterly cold wind on the front porch of the brick house on ninth avenue and smoked. February 1st they had a graduation party for their female participants and that’s where I met Annessa.Īnnessa can best be described as about 5 foot even, maybe 130 pounds, she is tiny and has short mousy brown hair, but there is something about her, something beneath her awkward nervousness and brief glances that invites you in, like the warmth of a hearth in the midst of winter. Newness of Life has been around since 2016 and in that time has had hundreds of graduates from its program. The name is well suited because if you talk to the founder, Justin Ponton, he will tell you that the newness of life God gave him, is what saved him, and inspired him to do the same for others. Annessa Randolph found it too.Īnnessa Randolph is a program participant of the sober living house in Huntington called, Newness of Life. This is what we call jail house religion and there are few that do not find it within the confines of those walls. I was never religious, but I prayed to God in that moment, and I prayed every day, until I the day I was released. I was shoved through with other women and searched.Īfter, I was assigned to my housing unit, my “pod.” Walking into that concrete box, that “pod,” with 40 other women whose names and crimes I didn’t know, was the worst encounter with fear I had yet to discover. The moment it hit my face, I nearly vomited, but I didn’t have the chance. The stink could only be described as rancid a vile mixture of a couple hundred women’s sweat, filth, and food. When it first opened for me, the reality of my situation began to seep in. You will not get through that door unless a CO radios for it to be opened. The sally port is a large solid glass wall with a door in the center.Ībove the sally port sits a guard. On either side of the halls, it’s all the same, offices and holding cells, a concrete block for rec (outdoor recreation), not much else, except, the sally port. After you’re dressed out and put into a bright orange uniform that feels as though it’s made of fiberglass, you’re led from your holding cell up front by a CO (corrections officer) through multiple gates until you come to a long hallway.