Ella’s Story: “I Learned That I Am His Daughter”

Ella can remember the first time she reached for something to numb what she was feeling.

She was nine years old.

Her dad wasn’t there, and although her mom was physically present, Ella remembers feeling like she wasn’t there mentally. She was a child trying to make sense of abandonment and loneliness without knowing what to do with either.

That was when she took her first sip of alcohol.

Years later, what began as an attempt to numb the hurt had become a life controlled by addiction.

By 16, Ella was using cocaine. Pain pills followed.

“That's when it just really just kept spiraling and the disease of sin and the drugs just took over.”

Eventually, addiction became the rhythm of her days.

Until Ella came to Charis House and began learning how to live differently.

When Numbing the Pain Becomes a Way of Life

For Ella, substance use didn't begin with a desire to destroy her life.

It began with pain.

At nine years old, she didn't have the words or tools to understand everything she was feeling. She only knew she wanted relief from it.

As the years passed, that desire to escape grew into addiction.

By adulthood, drugs weren't something Ella occasionally turned to. Getting what she needed to feel better had become the focus of her day.

Nothing else seemed to matter.

“I didn't care how I got it. Who I got it from.”

“As long as I got it… I didn't care.”

Addiction had narrowed Ella's life down to the next thing that could make her feel okay.

She thought she was managing it.

Looking back, she knows she wasn't.

“I was a nonfunctioning addict.”

“I couldn't maintain. Of course I tried. I thought I was, but I was not.”

Learning How to Live Again

There is a sentence in Ella's testimony that captures just how much addiction had taken from her:

“I didn't know how to live.”

Not simply how to stop using drugs.

How to live.

“I didn't know what life really was until I came to Charis House.”

At Charis House, recovery isn't meant to happen in isolation. Women live in a structured environment where faith, responsibility, relationships and everyday life become part of the process of rebuilding.

As women progress through the program, they have opportunities to begin preparing for life outside of Charis House.

“As you progress, you still you you are able to get a job and start, you know, getting out there to transition into life.”

For someone who had spent years organizing her days around addiction, those ordinary responsibilities were part of learning a completely different way to live.

But Ella wasn't doing it alone.

“It’s Our Sisterhood”

Ask Ella about life at Charis House, and she doesn't only talk about classes or structure.

She talks about the women beside her.

“We pray together, we eat together, we do Bible studies together.”

“So it's our sisterhood.”

That community matters.

Recovery asks women to confront things they may have spent years trying not to feel. It requires new habits, difficult conversations, accountability and learning how to respond differently when life gets hard.

Having other women beside you doesn't make those things easy.

But it means you don't have to face them by yourself.

For Ella, that sisterhood became part of discovering what life could look like outside of addiction.

And at the center of it was a relationship that would change the way she saw herself.

From Unworthy to His Daughter

For years, Ella's view of herself had been shaped by what she had experienced and the life she had lived.

“Before Christ, I felt I was unworthy, undeserving… didn't matter.”

Those are heavy words.

Unworthy.

Undeserving.

Didn't matter.

Addiction can reinforce those beliefs. Shame points backward at everything we've done. Pain reminds us of everything that has been done to us. Eventually, it can become difficult to imagine that our lives could mean something different.

But as Ella began building a relationship with Jesus Christ, her identity began changing.

“And when I started building my relationship with Christ, I learned that I am His daughter, His child.”

She wasn't simply learning how to live without drugs.

She was learning who she belonged to.

The Piece She Had Been Missing

There are practical parts of recovery that matter deeply.

Structure matters. Accountability matters. Learning how to work, handle responsibilities and transition back into everyday life matters. Healthy relationships matter.

At Charis House, we believe something else matters, too.

A woman needs to know who she is in Christ.

Ella spent years trying to fill an emptiness. Alcohol couldn't fill it. Cocaine couldn't fill it. Pain pills couldn't fill it.

Today, she knows what had been missing.

“Without Him, I am nothing.”

“And I was missing that piece for a long, long time.”

For Ella, knowing Christ didn't simply add something positive to the life she already had.

It gave her a new foundation for the life she was learning to build.

You Are More Than the Life You’ve Lived

Maybe you've spent years believing some of the same things Ella believed.

That you're unworthy.

That you don't deserve another chance.

That you don't matter.

Maybe substances have become the way you get through the day. Maybe you can't remember what life looked like before addiction. Maybe you've tried to convince yourself you're still managing everything, even though somewhere inside, you know you're not.

There is another way to live.

Ella's past didn't disappear when she came to Charis House. The hurt she experienced as a child was real. So were the years of addiction that followed.

But those things no longer have to tell Ella who she is.

Christ does.

Today, she can look at herself through a different lens.

Not abandoned.

Not worthless.

Not defined by addiction.

A daughter.

A child of God.

And that was the piece she had been missing for a long, long time.

You are more than your addiction. If you're ready to begin rebuilding your life and discover who you are in Christ, we invite you to learn more about Charis House and apply today.