Dignity

This month, 33-year-old Nexus alum, Laura Dobson, shares her recovery journey which started at Nexus in February 2016. Her time at Nexus gave her the tools to help her recovery and taught her that “women need to try to support each other in recovery.”

A native of Stephenville, Texas, Laura had a loving and supportive family growing up, but a family history of alcohol and substance use disorders. She started drinking at age 12. At age 15, she tried meth with her friend out of curiosity and soon began using regularly. She dropped out of high school. At age 16, she got pregnant and had her oldest son, Isaac. Although she went through a period of abstinence from her meth use during this time, she continued to drink and eventually began using again. She also had two additional children, Ian, her middle son, and Isabella. Although she didn’t have custody of her kids, Laura was always able to see them, and she maintained a good relationship with their father.

When asked what led to her decision to seek recovery at age 27, Laura noted that there was not a specific incident, but a culmination of circumstances that made her see her true desperation. By 2016, Laura’s substance use disorder was severe and her lifestyle was chaotic. She was living in a house that was regularly broken into and she was taken advantage of during this time. She also struggled in her relationships with her family because of her substance use. She vividly remembers that her mom told her that she was not allowed to attend her son’s birthday party. In addition, her father did not want to see her unless she was ready to go to treatment. Laura recalls waking up in the middle of the night and seeing guns across the counter in her home and thinking to herself, “I gotta get out of here.” She called her dad and asked him to make a 2-hour drive and pick her up to take her to treatment because she needed to be somewhere where people could help her. Before leaving Stephenville, she had breakfast with her kids and celebrated Ian’s birthday.

On February 15, 2016, she entered the residential Adult Women program at Nexus. When she arrived, she was scared and unsure of what she was getting herself into. While at Nexus, she remembers learning how to practice mindfulness and other tools to help manage her recovery. She also created a vision board that she still has in her closet, which focused on self-love because she knew that she needed to learn to love herself. She also attended various meetings to support her recovery from Narcotics Anonymous, Alcoholics Anonymous, and Cocaine Anonymous. Laura also learned about her substance use disorder and neuroplasticity in the brain. “I realized that everything I had been teaching myself over the last 12 years and that I could reteach myself how to live a different life,” says Laura. “So, I started on that path of trying to teach myself something different. I was determined when I went into treatment to learn how to not have to go back to the life I was living.” After completing 14 days in the Adult Women program, Laura continued treatment in the Outpatient program where she had an amazing Outpatient counselor and was able to have one on one sessions that helped her work through some of her issues. Overall, she stayed in Dallas for two and a half months working on herself and her recovery.

Laura then returned to Stephenville where she began working and started attending classes at Ranger College. She then transferred to Tarleton State University to pursue a bachelor’s degree in marketing and graduated magna cum laude in May 2021. She had the highest GPA of all the marketing graduates that year. Soon after, she began working as a marketing coordinator for a company that does convenience store supplies and recently celebrated 1 year of employment. She has also been accepted and will enroll at Texas Tech University this fall to pursue a master’s degree in marketing research and analytics.

These days, Laura continues to practice the tools she first learned at Nexus to maintain her recovery and regularly attends therapy to help her stay grounded. She has good relationships with all her family members and is happy to be involved in her children’s lives, have visitations, and help pay for the things they need. She is also excited to share that she is looking for a new apartment because her son, Ian, who has special needs, is moving in with her in July. Laura is grateful for all these blessings and notes that going into treatment was the first step.

“I am grateful that Nexus is able to be there for women that may not be able to get treatment anywhere else,” Laura says. “For me, it was one of the very few options. I’m glad that it was able to be there for me whenever I needed it and it got me to where I am today.”