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From addiction to redemption
Greenville woman refuses to be a victim of her past Story By Beckie Erwin
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My name is Savannah and I celebrate victory over addiction, self-harm, and mental illness. I’ m in recovery- one day at a time- and I’ m learning how to be the woman, wife, and mother God created me to be.”
Savannah Causey of Greenville, Pennsylvania, was born in Longview, Texas, the youngest of seven children. Life at home was filled with constant fighting and chaos.“ Even as a little girl, I thought that was just how families were,” she recalls. But behind the noise and confusion was something far darker- years of abuse that no child should ever endure.
Her mother, struggling with her own pain and fear, didn’ t protect her.“ When I was eight, my mom gave me my first pill to calm me down,” Savannah says.“ By age 10, my dad was in prison and my mom was dying of kidney failure. I became her caregiver, even though part of me resented her for never taking care of me as she should have.”
Childhood and her teenage years were a blur of trauma, fear, and survival. There were nights of being passed around her own father and his friends, days without food or electricity, and an overwhelming sense that no one would ever come
16 VALLEY VOICES to save her. By 16, after surviving a sexual assault and being dismissed by the police, Savannah learned to numb her pain the only way she knew how- through drugs, alcohol, and reckless living.
“ I ran the streets and partied because I thought that was normal,” she says.“ I thought everyone was just as broken as me.”
But when her mother died, her world collapsed. Savannah turned to
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Don’ t give up. Don’ t leave before the miracle happens.
Savannah Causey
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daily drug use and self-harm.“ Cutting became my way of punishing myself for everything I hated about who I was. Every high, every mistake, every inappropriate encounter- I thought I deserved pain.”
That downhill spiral led to homelessness, exploitation, and despair.“ One night, I was kicked out of a drug house with nowhere to go,” she remembers.“ I found an unlocked church van and slept in it to stay warm.”
That van, parked outside Bethel Life Worship Center in Greenville, became the first doorway to a new life. The next morning, a church member found her and, instead of calling the police, invited her inside, fed her, and helped her get into rehab.
“ It was the first time in my whole life when I felt seen,” Savannah says.
Recovery didn’ t come easy. She cycled through multiple rehabs and psychiatric hospitals.“ At one point, I tried to take my life in treatment,” she says quietly.“ I didn’ t think I could be fixed.” But after being court-ordered to a state hospital and later sent to a group home, she met people who showed her compassion and helped her take small steps forward.
Those steps led her back to faith and, ultimately, back to the same church where she had once slept in a van. The pastors there opened their home to her, supported her through her chaos, and eventually adopted her.
“ That’ s when things started to really change,” Savannah says.