Help Alexa raise money

My lifelong friend Alexa and I are doing the run for recovery and as many people know, this cause is so close to my heart but some don’t.
So here’s our story My sister Jaclyn suffered from addiction more than half her life. It was a dark time for all of us. In and out of treatment programs trying to get clean, to get better. On the way to treatment once she told my mom “ I’ll never stop trying “ and I believe that to be true. She fought a long hard and courageous battle. Until she didn’t. And we lost her this last November. A pain that my mother and I will never recover from. Not everyone recovers from opiate addiction. In fact very few do. But if we can reach one person, provide hope for one family and heal one mother’s broken heart; that is a win. If we can save one life through hope for recovery THAT is the win.
My sister and I grew up the best off friends. Inseparable actually. I talked for her, I carried her. She was my baby and I was her second mama despite her and my mom liking this at all. When we got to the teenage years things changed, and her world took a turn. She was introduced to drugs af the age of 13. I was the first one to know at only 15 trying to get help for her. There’s no manual for helping someone with addiction, especially at a young age. I remember going to the school counsellor and asking for help, and she just handed me some pamphlets and said how unusual this is for the older sibling to come for the younger one. This is how much advocacy and understanding our world had in addiction at the time. A pamphlet? Shortly after it took a turn for the worse, and that was it. She was taken from us and engulfed in the world of addiction. 17 years she fought and we fought along side her. Through many ups and downs and hardships and pain, we lost her for good to a fatal drug poisoning. I call it that because she was given a drug that does not respond to the antidote narcan. She was taken from us.
My mom and I spent years trying to help her, through treatment program after treatment program, move after move, to my house in grande prairie to Calgary for treatment and finally my moms, we tried. My mom never gave up, she loved her through it all. And she supported her and fought as hard as she could for my sister to find recovery. It never happened. And now we have to spend the rest of our lives with the what ifs, the regrets, the guilt but mostly a broken heart.
There is an epidemic in our country that is claiming the lives of somebody’s someone. We can find hope for someone searching for recovery. There is this common misconception that addiction is a choice. It is not a choice. It is prison. It is a disease. It grabs ahold of you and there is no way out after that. There are not many success stories of recovery after life introduced to fentanyl. But I’ll never stop fighting for hope. That is somebody’s someone. We can  give hope to someone for finding recovery.
Jackie I love you so much. And I will never stop fighting for you. For the rest of my life I will be your legacy. I will be your voice and I will make a difference in your name.
If you want to provide hope to somebody’s someone Alexa and I will be collecting donations before our run. Please see details in the comments.
We run for Jaclyn 🩵