Dowagiac woman shares story of recovery

On Nov. 21, 2011, Misty Collett hit rock bottom.

With a large burly man shaking and crying on her living room floor, the 31-year-old Dowagiac woman was desperate, angry and hurting, eager to find her next fix.

In the midst of a meth crash, emotions were high as the couple fought, their son in the next room listening to the altercation. A knock on the door interrupted their sparring, and Misty says she knew then that it was over.

Misty Collett

“What do you want me to do?” she asked Preston.

Surrendering, the man replied, “Let them in.”

“It was like if you rescue an animal that’s been neglected,” Misty said. “But it was almost like a relief. I was scared. He was just done.”

So Misty opened the door and let the police take her away in handcuffs.

Sitting in the back of the police car, Misty said all she could think about was using.

She turned to Preston and said, “You need to make this go away.”

“I can’t do anything,” Preston said. “It’s just time.”

Five years later Misty recognizes that the man who is now her husband was right, and she knows that night was a turning point.

“I remember thinking, ‘I need to get my baby, and then I need to use so I can feel better,’” Misty said. “If they let me out of that police car, I was going to use and we were going to take off.”

But the officers did not let Misty out of the car, and she was arraigned and sentenced for manufacturing of methamphetamine.

As she continued her crash in jail, Misty remembers being as desperate as she had ever been, realizing she could not get high. Two weeks after her arrest, she remembers a pivotal moment in her addiction.

“I got down on that dirty bathroom floor and I just surrendered,” Misty said. “I was like, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing and I don’t know if I’ll ever get this right. But I want someone to teach me.’”

Becoming an addict

This November, both Misty and her husband will have been sober for five years. This is an incredible feat for the now 36-year-old woman, whose arrest ended a 21-year battle with drugs.

“I started using when I was 10 years old,” Misty said. “I started with alcohol and it progressed through the years,” to a wide array of drugs. As Misty puts it: you name it, she has tried it. But nothing had quite the hold on her as methamphetamine.

Although it has become more common in the last several decades for young people to experiment with drugs, usually usage is more common among teenagers. Misty, however, resorted to drugs and alcohol after witnessing her mother kill her father as a 10-year-old.

After shooting her husband in self-defense in 1995, Misty’s mother died of cancer in 1997. To cope with the traumatic experience of losing both parents in two years, Misty says she would become chemically altered.

“I didn’t know it at the time, but I was escaping that pain,” Misty said. “I just thought I was having fun. I knew when I was intoxicated I didn’t feel as bad as I did when I was sober.”

After some time experimenting with other substances, Misty said she was introduced to meth because she and Preston — then her boyfriend — were “in that lifestyle.” Unlike other drugs the couple had tried, though, meth created a dependency they could not shake.

“Meth took over my life once I had that drug in my system,” she said. “That was the main focus of every day of my life: how I could maintain that high. It just clicks that part of your brain over. That’s what drives you.”

Bob Weber, substance abuse supervisor with Woodlands Behavioral Center in Cassopolis, said meth is so addictive because of the intense high, and the way the drug affects dopamine levels in the brain.

“Meth releases a significantly high dosage, more than any drug we’ve come upon,” Weber said. “It’s quite a rush. The problem is because it is so powerful, people really like it and then can’t give it up.”

For many years, Misty and Preston chased that high, becoming so addicted to the substance that Misty says she truly believed she would use until it killed her. And although the couple realized the hold the drug had on them, they could not break free of the addiction.

“Three days before we got busted we were praying for God to help us,” Misty said. “We couldn’t even recognize each other anymore.”

As it turns out, Misty’s arrest may have been the answer to her prayers. Not long after her arrest, the woman was sentenced to Cass County’s Adult Treatment Court, where she was court-ordered to complete rehabilitation at the Woodlands Behavioral Center for her addiction.

Read about how Cass Cass County officials are working to combat the local meth problem here.

Read more about Misty’s recovery in Friday.