{"id":174,"date":"2026-04-16T15:18:40","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T15:18:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/heuristic-yonath.40-160-33-16.plesk.page\/?p=174"},"modified":"2026-04-16T15:18:40","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T15:18:40","slug":"from-drugs-and-jail-to-5-years-of-sobriety-tiffany-wade-shares-her-recovery-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/heuristic-yonath.40-160-33-16.plesk.page\/?p=174","title":{"rendered":"From drugs and jail to 5 years of sobriety, Tiffany Wade shares her recovery journey"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n
\"Picture\" <\/a>
<\/div> <\/div><\/div>
Behind every phone call to Lebanon County Christian Ministries is a story.On the surface, Tiffany Wade\u2019s story was straight forward. Her apartment building was being sold, and she found herself with a temporary need for shelter for a few weeks.\u00a0\u200bBut there was a lengthy journey leading up to her stay at LCCM\u2019s FRESH Start Emergency Shelter & Resource Center, one she believes God orchestrated for a larger purpose: to offer hope by sharing her life\u2019s story.<\/div>
<\/div> Give Today<\/span> <\/a>
<\/div><\/div>
‘I lost every family member’<\/font><\/strong><\/div>
On Jan. 17, Tiffany is looking forward to marking a milestone: five years of uninterrupted sobriety from drugs and alcohol.\u200bIt\u2019s surreal to think about, she says, as she reflected on her life in FRESH Start\u2019s resource center in September.Tiffany has had more near-death experiences than she can count. She\u2019s lost most of her family members to drugs and spent years of her life in and out of jail, drug rehabs and halfway houses.\u201cMy mother was one of the first people that I used with,\u201d she said. \u201cShe taught me how to use a syringe and prostitute, and all of that.\u201dDuring one of her prison sentences in 2011, Tiffany received the news just three weeks before her release that her mother \u2013 her last surviving family member \u2013 had died of an overdose.\u200b\u201cI\u2019ve been using since a very young age. I lost every family member except for my uncle who is still actively using back home. I lost my mother, my grandmother and my grandfather,\u201d she said.Not only was she grieving the loss of her mother, but she had to prepare for her release.She was accepted into Jubilee Ministries in Lebanon in 2011.\u00a0\u201cI can see back now in hindsight it was definitely a divine act of my higher power because I got sober in Lebanon,\u201d she said. \u201cA lot of people told me \u2018why would you choose to come to Lebanon, but I really didn\u2019t choose Lebanon. This is what was chosen for me, it was the path for me.\u201dTiffany was doing well in Jubilee and graduated after six months. She was presented with an opportunity to possibly work for the ministry, but a couple of months later she relapsed.\u00a0<\/div>
‘I don’t want to live that way anymore’<\/strong><\/div>
She left the program and used the money she had saved to rent an apartment in Lebanon. But her addiction began to consume her life.\u00a0She ended up in a cycle of addiction and prison through 2016. During her last stay in jail she said she got down on her knees and prayed.\u201cThe reality of it was, I was in my early 30s, and I was homeless, I had no family members left I was strung out on drugs even in jail, so I said to Him simply, \u2018God, if I can\u2019t get this right, just take me,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t want to live that way anymore.\u201d\u200bThat was the last time she was ever incarcerated.\u00a0<\/div>
Road to recovery<\/strong><\/div>
After her release from prison, she spent some time at a Salvation Army. She came back to Lebanon in early 2017 but had nowhere to go.\u00a0\u201cI got dropped off at a Turkey Hill, and I can remember looking left, and then right, and I was like, oh man, what am I going to do?\u201d she said. \u201cSo, I stood there for a minute, and I cried, but I remembered I had this piece of paper in my bag from an alcoholics anonymous meeting on 10th Street. I have one lady\u2019s number on this list and said if I ever needed help to call her.\u201dThe woman picked her up and drove her to an AA meeting.\u201cThey told me I never have to drink or use again, and I didn\u2019t believe that because I lost everybody,\u201d she said. \u201cI had been drinking and using my whole entire life. I\u2019ve used IV drugs, I I\u2019ve smoked crack, I ran for days until my body shut down\u2026I just didn\u2019t think I\u2019d make it out alive,\u201d she said.Once she entered recovery and began working the 12 steps of recovery, she says her life began to come together.She became a facilitator at a local AA group, and for the next four years had worked on rebuilding her life. She got an apartment in Lebanon, she was working, and developed a good financial track record. But in 2021, the apartment building where she was living was sold and she had nowhere to go.<\/div>
A fresh start<\/strong><\/div>
In the meantime, she needed somewhere to stay in August 2021, and that\u2019s when FRESH Start entered the picture.\u201cI was a little discouraged in the beginning, like, how am I homeless after all these years of recovery? I\u2019m not really financially strapped. I was just a little discouraged,\u201d she said. \u201cBut when I came through here, they were just so kind and I was like, OK, God, maybe this is the next step I have to take. Just stay humble, keep going, and don\u2019t get discouraged.\u201dAnd then FRESH Start staff suggested she talk to a staff member to tell her story.\u201cI was asking God every day\u2026\u2019What\u2019s my purpose in all of this? Ok, so maybe my purpose is to be able to share my story even through this program to help others know that this is possible. I truly believe this was the link. It was like a blessing in disguise,\u201d she said.\u201cGod is real. And if it wasn\u2019t for him, I would not be sober and these things in my life would not be happening,\u201d she said.In 2021, not only did she obtain her driver\u2019s license for the first time and bought a car, but she began looking for homes. Though she was prepared to buy a home early into her stay at FRESH Start, the sale fell through, and she spent more time in the shelter than anticipated.She is now renting temporarily until God reveals the next chapter. Until then, Tiffany feels blessed to be able to celebrate five years of sobriety in January.\u200b\u201cYou can change your life,\u201d she said. \u201cYou can search for God and He will help you on a journey that is beyond your wildest dreams.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Behind every phone call to Lebanon County Christian Ministries is a story. On the surface, Tiffany Wade\u2019s story was straight forward. Her apartment building was being sold, and she found herself with a temporary need for shelter for a few weeks.\u00a0\u200bBut there was a lengthy journey leading up to her stay at LCCM\u2019s FRESH Start […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":175,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/heuristic-yonath.40-160-33-16.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/heuristic-yonath.40-160-33-16.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/heuristic-yonath.40-160-33-16.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heuristic-yonath.40-160-33-16.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heuristic-yonath.40-160-33-16.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/heuristic-yonath.40-160-33-16.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heuristic-yonath.40-160-33-16.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/heuristic-yonath.40-160-33-16.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heuristic-yonath.40-160-33-16.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heuristic-yonath.40-160-33-16.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}