Restored Smiles Gives Addicts a New Lease on Life

PUT ON A HAPPY FACE –

Dec. 7, 2023 – By the time she was 12, Lilly was addicted to drugs and had been sexually abused by her grandfather. Her life was filled with issues that no child should ever have to face.

After years of struggle, Lilly landed at Birmingham’s Lovelady Center, where she found God and received help overcoming addiction. She also found resources for eliminating some of the barriers that held her back.

But one visible barrier remained: Drugs had done a number on her teeth. They were a broken and decaying mess.

“There were times I would cry myself to sleep because I would look in the mirror and hate what I saw,” Lilly said. “I was ugly in my eyes.”

Another Lovelady alumnus, Angel, was dealing with a similar problem. Her front teeth had been knocked out when the airbags deployed in a long-ago car accident.

Trapped in addiction, Angel had neither the money nor the motivation to replace her missing teeth. In the meantime, she was too self-conscious to reveal her gap-toothed smile.

“For more than 20 years, I didn’t smile at all,” she said.

As she prepared to graduate from the Lovelady program in early October and search for a job, Angel wondered how she could possibly make a good impression on prospective employers.