PROUD OF IT –
July 2, 2025 – Sonya Johnson, 41, started taking drugs at age 11, when a man who was sexually abusing her gave them to her behind her parents’ back. It was the beginning of a 23-year journey through addiction that began with cigarettes, marijuana and ecstasy and eventually led to cocaine and prescription opioid pills.
At first, the drugs took away the emotional pain from the abuse, but Johnson quickly grew dependent on them. She was arrested for the first time at age 18 and sent to a detox facility, beginning a cycle of rehab, release and relapse that took 16 years to break. When she was young, Johnson didn’t see her destructive pattern. She got married at age 24 and became a stay-at-home mom to two young boys. She and her husband, who had also been addicted to pills, moved to Georgia to try to escape the lure of getting high.
