A Waco woman not only kicked her addiction to meth and cocaine - she set out to make a difference in her community.
After suffering from addiction herself, Shine noticed that there were many options for men in recovery in Central Texas, but she saw very few options for women.
"I want to die. I was living in my addiction...I wanted to die because it was the worst life I had ever lived. I hated living that way, but, God would not let me die," Shine said.
She said she felt the need to create a longterm housing community for women recovering from drugs and alcohol addiction.
"Whenever I'm down, whenever I don't feel good, whenever I have thoughts of using I go help somebody else...and by doing that, I'm able to stay sober myself," Shine said.
She opened Sunshine Recovery House, and a week after they opened, five women moved in. Women from all walk of life, including Crysta Grady.
Grady was not only addicted to drugs - she was living in a home that was also dealing drugs.
"You know, there some days where I can't call my mom or my best friend and tell them what I'm going through or what I'm feeling ya know, but I know who I can call because whenever I lived there I could just go and go knock on the next door and be like 'hey look, I'm going through something' ya know. I can't call my mom and tell her that because she would have no darn clue what I was talking about," Grady said.
Another member of Sunshine Recovery, Shelly Cook, said that her road to recovery included criticism from others.
"Good luck staying sober. Ya know, 20 years being an alcoholic that's just not something that's in people's minds that I'm going to live a sober life, that I'm going to be a productive member of society," Cook said.
Recently, the Sunshine Recovery House purchased this 5,000 square foot Victorian home in uptown Waco. Although it's just a shell of a house right now, Summer believes it will create a space to transform lives for a long time.
"So, right now, we house nine ladies in two separate houses and the houses are really small...and they're rental houses. So we were able to purchase this house outright with contributions from our community. And, we're going to make this house a beautiful beautiful place for women to come," Shine said.
At KXXV, we believe in supporting our community. We, along with the Scripps Howard Foundation, donated $1,000 to the Sunshine Recovery House.
