FAMILIES MATTER –

June 12, 2024  – Kim Jones has been sober for a dozen years. “In recovery we talk about needing to forgive yourself and being able to move on,” she said. “I’m not sure there’s really such a thing.”

Kim Jones’s addiction started in the summer of 2009, after her divorce, when she was feeling ashamed and bereft at the loss of her marriage. She met a man at the beach and they snorted cocaine. He was an experienced user, “Mr. Charming,” she said, “and I was off to the races.” She had previously experimented with alcohol and weed, as well as with a little cocaine and LSD when she was younger. What started as a weekend joyride quickly became a daily habit.

The man eventually moved to Florida and she continued to see him, raising the stakes, and the risk, with every visit. Snorting cocaine became smoking crack, which became injecting Dilaudid and, eventually, heroin. Kim and her kids were living with her parents in their big house in Bear, Del., and everyone could see she had changed.

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