Ever since she was young Mindy McConnell wanted to be the “bad girl” and the “rocker slut that was doing the drugs, drinking the beer and having the sex.” When she was 10 she stole some beer and cigarettes from her father. By the time she was 15 she found methamphetamine and dropped out of high school in her freshman year as it “interfered with [her] drug career”. Over the next 10 years she tried a plethora of illegal substances, had a son, Isaiah, and sold meth with her boyfriend (who also cooked it). After being kicked out of their apartment, with Isaiah just having started first grade, she moved in with her mother who had to take a lot of care of her grandson. Living with her mother cramped her drug taking style and, over a period of a few months, she came to realise and decide that she really wanted to go clean and seek a new direction in life. This she managed to do in October 2004 with the help of her mother, outpatient drug treatment and the YWCA who she now gives talks on behalf of. Now 26, and in a far different frame of mind compared to when she dropped out of school, she finds being able to pay bills on the first of the month and the sense of responsibility that comes with it liberating, describing it as “that feeling I was searching for.”