‘The reality of death is very present’

SO IS RECOVERY –

April 22, 2023 – A Colorado Springs mom is helping others navigate the heartache of drug abuse.

Lisa Smith is a mother to a son who struggled with drugs as a teen. But now she is connecting with other families going through the same fight.

Lisa also told 11 News she felt alone and lost for six years and wants families to have the resources she says she didn’t have.

“I came to a very clear realization that this was not turning around, and it’s very likely that he would not make it,” Lisa Smith, Founder and CEO of Reclaim and Recover, said. Lisa Smith was a teacher, and her husband was a soccer coach. They lived in a nice neighborhood with their two sons. The last thing the Smith family expected was to see drug abuse enter their home.

Lisa says the battle for her son Noah began around 14 and continued until he was 20.

″He had been through several treatment centers and was not getting better, and our family was really just getting more and more fractured,” Smith said. “I think the most challenging part was really the radical acceptance of this is terminal it’s also a treatable disease, but if not treated, it is terminal. And the reality of death is very present.”

According to Lisa, Noah never really fit in at school, and learning traditionally was difficult. Then in 2012, the Waldo Canyon Fire destroyed and devastated their family home. At that time, Noah was in the 7th grade.