How Living In The Wilderness Helped One Girl Retake Control Of Her Life
03November

How Living In The Wilderness Helped One Girl Retake Control Of Her Life

Written by Craig Rogers, Posted on , in Section Personal Growth

Finding A Way Out Of Heroin Addiction

When Felicity Potter turned 14, it felt like everything in her life started to fall apart. Her parents got a divorce, and she found herself dealing with depression and extreme anxiety. Like any teen in these circumstances, she felt lost. Unfortunately, these feelings eventually made her turn to drugs for relief. Quickly, she found herself using drugs like cocaine and marijuana on a near daily basis.

Overcoming Drug Abuse

As Felicity went through high school, she was able to keep her drug abuse secret from her parents and subsequently avoided getting the help she needed. Once she had graduated, she moved to San Francisco with a friend, and being totally separated from her parents resulted in a lack of supervision that just further fueled her drug habit. She found herself moving from using cocaine and marijuana to heroin and quickly developed a serious addiction. Over the next three years, Felicity's addiction to heroin would completely control her life while seriously damaging her health. Eventually, her parents became aware of what was going on, but were unsuccessful in trying to get Felicity clean. She bounced in and out of rehab but was never able to truly overcome her addiction. This eventually culminated in her passing out at work one day and being taken to a local hospital. At this point, her parents made a life changing decision. They lied to the hospital staff and told them that she had been contemplating suicide. This resulted in Felicity being involuntarily committed to the hospital psych ward. While she was there, Felicity was given the option of remaining in their care or going to Wingate Wilderness Therapy for help with her addictions.

Finding A Better Path Forward

Luckily, Felicity chose to attend Wingate and it completely transformed her life. She stayed in the program for 99 days and was finally able to come to terms with her addiction and the underlying issues behind it. She would later say that spending time in the wilderness stripped away all the distractions and was like looking into a giant mirror at the state of her life. This allowed her to finally really understand the effects of her choices and the path her life was taking. This was a breakthrough moment for Felicity, and she used this experience to finally get clean. Once she left the program, she was ready to start living her life again. She has since graduated from Prescott College in Arizona and is currently attending a graduate school program for clinical psychology. Her goal is to eventually open her own practice and make a difference in the lives of others.