The event revealed changed lives now and hope for the future
Two years of group therapy and individual counseling, random drug testing, fee payments, court appearances and more are “worth it,” Taylor Born said.
Born, an Appalachian Judicial Circuit Accountability Court graduate, was celebrating three years of sobriety Friday, July 18.
“I’m just ready to move forward and put this all behind me,” she said.
Her parents, Adam and Nicole Born, said they were “very proud” of her.
She, along with 20 other graduates, was celebrating graduation from the court’s program at Covenant Community Church at 191 Harold Pritchett Road in Ellijay.
Participants came from the counties of Pickens, Gilmer and Fannin.
In an emotional ceremony, graduates and family members shed tears as they prepared to move on to a new life.
Kevin Tanner, the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities commissioner, celebrated the work of the late Georgia State Speaker David Ralston in fighting drug addiction. “Speaker Ralston understood that justice without mercy is incomplete. He believed deeply in the power of accountability courts to change lives,” he said.
Those present were also celebrating the Appalachian Judicial Circuit receiving a $499,652 grant award from the Georgia Opioid Crisis Abatement Trust (GOCAT).
The grant award will support medically assisted treatment for people addicted to opioids and other substances.
The money will expand treatment services with a new Pickens County Treatment Center and pay for a compliance officer to work with recovering addicts.
It will also provide housing funds to support program participants who are unable to work, for up to six months, at Redemption, and fund group and solo therapy sessions.
Since 2010, opioid deaths in Georgia have tripled, Tanner said.
“The good news is Georgia is fighting back,” he said.
Programs like these give drug and alcohol addicts a chance to recover from their addiction, Tanner said.
Although getting out of addiction is difficult, it’s possible.
Veterans, parents, spouses, sons and daughters were all among those who walked across the stage to graduate.
The program they go through includes drug tests, many hours of community service, participation in 12-step community meetings and more.
“Addiction is a disease that just doesn’t infect individuals, but addiction infects the family, it infects employers and it infects the entire community,” Tanner said.
The packed auditorium at the graduation showed a community ready to fight addiction together.
This intensive style of help connects addicts with a peer group that can encourage them toward goodness.
Many participants thanked God for the ways they have changed in the last two years.
“The accountability courts are probably one of the best things that we have,” Pickens County Sheriff Donald Craig said. “I get an opportunity to see a lot of folks we never thought would change have that opportunity.”