Editor’s note: This article is a personal account of lived experience with substance use, traumatic experiences and domestic violence. Help is always available by calling High Plains Mental Health Center at 1-800-432-0333, or by calling or texting 988. For support regarding domestic violence, contact Options at 1-800-794-4624.
By KALEY CONNER
Special to Tiger Media Network
Recovery is a journey. And as Tara Rollins knows very well, that journey is never easy but is always worth it. And sometimes, the path toward wellness leads to unexpected and beautiful places.
Rollins, a certified peer mentor providing substance use disorder support at High Plains Mental Health Center, draws on her lived experiences to help relate to and support her clients who are also in recovery from addictions. She has been in recovery for several years, helping establish the first Oxford House recovery homes in Hays, and working at HPMHC for the past three years.
For Tara, an important part of her own recovery story has been finding the motivation to pay it forward by helping others who are facing the battle of addiction. Today, she’s a mental health professional and finds her greatest joy in being a mother to her three kids. Life is good, Rollins said, but it wasn’t always.
“I came back, helped start the women’s Oxford House, found a purpose, found a voice,” Rollins said. “It’s just been enlightening. I didn’t think I could have a life like that for so long. It’s like I was stuck in this sadness, and with these substances, too long.”
As a certified peer mentor, Rollins is a mental health professional who has lived experience with substance use and helps others who are struggling with similar issues. She serves as a role model and provides recovery support on an as-needed basis. In honor of National Substance Abuse Prevention Month, Tara is sharing her story of resilience and recovery.
Substance Use Disorders (SUD) are common in the United States and can affect both adults and youth. A national survey conducted by the federal government in 2022 found 48.7 million people ages 12 and older had experienced SUD in the previous year. Alcohol-use disorder is the most common, affecting 29.5 million people, while 27.2 million people had drug-use disorders. It is also common for substance use disorders to co-occur with mental illnesses, as individuals may be self-medicating to cover up distressing symptoms in the absence of professional treatment.
Like many individuals who eventually struggle with substance use, Rollins recognizes now that unresolved childhood trauma was a contributing factor. She moved to a new city in middle school and being very eager to make friends, soon connected with an older group of peers who “made poor decisions.” Tara just wanted to fit in and remembers getting drunk for the first time at the age of 12.
“I strongly believe that the people you surround yourself with are a huge influence on your life in general,” Rollins said. “When you’re younger, you don’t always take things as seriously as you should. I definitely didn’t.”
She continued drinking and partying through high school, eventually dropping out after becoming pregnant with her first child at a young age. She would try several times to go back for her diploma, but as she continued her partying lifestyle, she recognized that education was not yet her highest priority.
What happened next for Tara was absolutely devastating – her romantic relationship turned abusive, and for more than a year, she endured severe physical and emotional abuse. She was finally able to escape the dangerous situation but carried significant psychological trauma forward with her. Soon after, she lost a long-time friend as a result poor decision-making while under the influence of alcohol and drugs.
It was a dark time in her life, and that was when she first began “dabbling” with harder drugs in addition to alcohol use. She reconnected with an old friend and thought she had finally found a healthy relationship but ended up being introduced to opioid pills. She was immediately hooked.
“I knew that’s what I wanted was whatever that (pill) was,” Rollins said. “I was so relaxed, like this is amazing. I had not felt that good probably ever.”
As a professional, Rollins recently attended a national recovery conference and heard a nationally known speaker, Tony Hoffman, explain how opioids affect the mind and body. The drugs produce a euphoric effect, making them easily addictive and quickly leading to a lifestyle of seeking the next high.
“You have a baseline for your mood and below it is misery, and above that is the best you’ve ever felt,” Rollins said, noting opioids take people to their highest high. “When it’s not in your system anymore and when you’re not feeling great up here, you’re lower than your baseline … so you start to slip down a little bit which eventually takes you down into misery.”
Rollins was easily able to obtain black-market opioid pills (even in small-town Kansas) buying from people who had physician prescriptions and sold the pills for extra money. Her tolerance grew, and so did her dependency. Still, Rollins was in denial and continued trying to justify her growing pill habit.
“It just felt like a vice. That’s what I told myself. Everybody has a vice, and this is mine,” Rollins said. “I’m totally functional. My life is good.”
She was able to function well at home and in society – as long as she had access to the drug. Then one day, she was out of pills and unable to obtain more as healthcare professionals nationwide began to sound the alarm on the growing opioid epidemic and prescribers began taking additional steps to limit and monitor pain pill access.
Rollins went into severe withdrawal effects – the worst pain she’d ever felt in her life – and ended up being hospitalized due to infections in her body that were caused by physical complications of detox. When she was discharged from the hospital, a physician prescribed her more opioid pain pills.
From there, it was a rapid downward spiral. Her boyfriend was arrested, causing great financial strain for Tara and her children. She would eventually experiment with meth out of desperation, but that didn’t last long.
“I was so out of myself. I didn’t do meth for very long,” Rollins said. “I felt like it only took eight months to ruin my life. To really crash everything down, it took less than a year on meth.”
Relatives stepped in to care for her children, and Rollins became involved with the judicial system. She was on Corrections and in and out of county jail. Rollins knew she had hit rock bottom, and eventually, she became determined to do whatever it took to get her life and her family back on track.
Eventually, she would enter the Ellis County Drug Court (now Recovery Court) in its early days and seek treatment at High Plains Mental Health Center to address the underlying trauma. She spent time at a recovery facility for women and returned home with a newfound sense of purpose.
“I hated it. I hated not seeing my babies. They were missing me, they didn’t know what was going on with me,” she said in a voice tight with emotion. “That was my biggest drive right there was all that pain. How could I do this to them? I was like I never, ever want to do this again.”
She became involved with starting the first Oxford House recovery homes in Hays. She also became HPMHC’s first-ever peer mentor for substance use recovery and now serves alongside the treatment team of Ellis County Recovery Court. She finished her GED courses and earned a high school diploma. Today, she’s working to continue her education to further help those struggling with addiction.
It’s been a beautiful, full-circle journey, and every day Rollins is motivated by a desire to pay it forward and to help reach others who are trapped in the dark cycle of addiction. More than anything, she wants people to know there is help and there is hope – no one has to go through addiction and recovery alone.
Recovery looks different for everyone, Rollins said, noting that some may choose to participate in 12-step programs and daily support group meetings, while others lean into their personal faith or recovery-based Bible studies. It’s important and OK that every individual finds a recovery outlet that works for them and for their lifestyle – but it’s important to make supportive connections, she said.
“If you don’t have an outlet to make connections with other people in the recovery community and you’re wanting to stay clean and sober, it’s going to be a lot harder for you because you can’t do it alone,” Rollins said. “It looks different to everybody. Not everybody’s recovery is the same.”
Help is available through a variety of local agencies and resources. High Plains Mental Health Center offers a comprehensive substance use disorder treatment program that may include therapy to address underlying trauma and build coping skills, Medication-Assisted Treatment for opioid and alcohol use disorders, and Rollins’ peer support program. A sliding fee scale is available, as well as funding from the Kansas SUD block grant to ensure cost is not a barrier to receiving care. Support is available 24/7 by calling HPMHC at 1-800-432-0333.
Rollins offers words of encouragement for individuals who are struggling with substance use.
“Reach out, go to Oxford, go to a meeting, come get services at High Plains or somewhere else. Find an area where you fit,” Rollins said. “But if you stay stuck in the same routine, you’re not going to move. You’ve got to take yourself out of this routine.”
For family members and friends concerned about a loved one’s substance use, Rollins says it sometimes may be helpful to reach out for professional support on behalf of that individual, because they aren’t always able to make the call.
“When you’re stuck in it, even if you think you know somebody that you could reach out to, that phone weighs 800 pounds to them mentally,” she said. “It is so hard for them to pick it up even though it’s in their hand.
“All we can do is say there is an alternative. There are people who can help guide you through it. You’re not alone.”
High Plains Mental Health Center is a licensed Community Mental Health Center and Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic dedicated to the aggressive pursuit of providing a comprehensive mental health program to the residents of northwest Kansas. Embodied in this pursuit are fundamental principles of establishing quality services as close to home as possible, at an affordable fee, and delivered in the least disruptive manner available. Such services will offer a continuum of care so that treatment can be individualized, and our staff can respond quickly and compassionately to those reaching out to us.
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