For this weeks Faces of Recovery, our weekly series focusing on local individuals who have overcome substance addiction, we focus on Jeremy Spradlin, 29, of Bell County.

For Spradlin, his experimentation with narcotics began especially young. At the age of nine, he was smoking marijuana. At 13, he was doing hard drugs because he thought it made him “cool” and made him fit in with people he wanted to hang out with.

“By 13, I was smoking crack. I felt like I was nothing more than a product of my environment,” he said.

At 15, Spradlin was snorting pain pills.

“I was running around with burnt lips and powder in my nose and didn’t care,” he said.

Once Spradlin hit his 20s, he was injecting pain medication and suboxone. He stated that in the beginning, he felt it made him cool. It was a way for him to fill a void, but all it truly brought him was misery.

“I did whatever I had to do to get my next fix, which included but wasn’t limited to stealing from stores and selling drugs. I would stay in a room for hours at a time trying to inject my drugs,” said Spradlin. “It was a constant battle to get more. I never participated in my own life. I was just a walking soulless zombie with track marks all over.”

Spradlin stated that there were many times he wanted to get clean but didn’t know how.

“The longest I could go was 30 days,” he said.

Spradlin described his rock bottom as no one or nothing mattering enough to not use drugs. He explained being in and out of jail and thinking of nothing but getting his next fix.

Spradlin was in drug court when the judge made the call to put him back in jail. In 2016, he went to recovery for seven months at a place called Hickory Hills.

“Hickory Hills taught me how to ask for help and to know my worth. I’m very thankful for that place,” he said.

Spradlin has been clean since Jan. 16, 2016. During his time in recovery, he learned how to peer and mentor. When he was out that was what he wanted to do. He moved to Lexington to pursue his new goal and was successful.

“The thing that I’m most grateful about is being clean. For once, being able to actually enjoy life and do things,” said Spradlin. “In October, I will be having my first child, and this child never has to see me high. I can teach it morals and principles. That was all thanks to applying a little bit of willingness and some people not giving up on me.”