Road To Redemption
Road To Redemption
Samara Bailey's Road to Redemption
What happens when a life spirals into addiction and then finds redemption through faith and community support? Join us on Road to Redemption as we uncover the compelling journey of Samara Bailey, a remarkable community outreach coordinator. Samara shares her vivid experiences growing up in Southern California during the 1980s, where early encounters with alcohol set the stage for struggles with methamphetamine and complex relationships. Her story is one of resilience, highlighting how faith and spiritual encounters have guided her towards six years of sobriety and a powerful impact on her community.
Through a chapter aptly named "Radical Grace," we explore Samara's transformation during a profound spiritual awakening in Okaloosa County Jail, igniting a mission to spread hope both within and beyond the confines of incarceration. Psalm 139 becomes a touchstone for her personal transformation, while the decision to seek rehabilitation at Path of Grace underscores the necessity for lasting freedom from the chains of addiction. Samara's journey exemplifies the extraordinary power of faith to inspire meaningful change and illuminate a path to recovery.
As we navigate the persistent journey of recovery, we emphasize the continuous nature of healing and the importance of community support. Encouragement is extended to those grappling with addiction to reach out to trusted "lighthouses" for guidance. We also introduce an upcoming fundraising event at Drive the Coast aimed at enhancing recovery efforts. Our conversation wraps with heartfelt advice to seek spiritual growth through local Bible-centered churches and small groups, alongside a prayer of gratitude for the privilege of sharing these stories of hope and redemption.
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Welcome to Road to Redemption, a show sharing powerful life testimonies, giving hope to those on their own road to redemption.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Road to Redemption. I am just thrilled to be in the studio today. This is Valerie Peterson. John Martin and I have an opportunity to interview an amazing woman of God that is just impacting our community. It's just amazing, and so I want to start off by just introducing Samara Bailey and thank you so much for coming today and letting John and I interview you and just to hear your road to redemption. But we want to start first by just tell us what's going on in the line of work that you do and how you're impacting this community.
Speaker 3:Wow, well, just first and foremost, it's just an honor to be here with you, val and John. And yeah, so, like you said, my name is Samara Bailey. I'm a community outreach coordinator for Be Generous Inc. I serve on Walton and Okaloosa County coalitions. I'm currently in training for peer certification. What else, val? Well, a mother of three amazing children, a Gigi to a grandbaby. I love it. I love it, all kinds of things.
Speaker 2:And I know you're a wonderful friend. So many people you know just have shared with me the impact you have on them. You really your laugh. Samara is contagious. Don't get me going, val, and you're just the joy that you carry around people. You just are a people magnet. So we're just thrilled to interview you today. So can you start with telling us, john and I would love to hear your road to redemption.
Speaker 3:Yeah, wow, okay, where do I begin?
Speaker 2:redemption. Wow, okay, where do I begin? Wherever you feel like it will be good to start, like your younger years.
Speaker 3:Sure, so I grew up in Southern California to a single mom in the early 80s. Let's see, it was a colorful, shall I say, childhood. There was a lot of backyard barbecues and gatherings, and my mom was the matriarch. I say a single mother, but she was actually married four times twice to my real father and so, like I said, it was a colorful childhood.
Speaker 2:Can you share with us when your addiction started? When you're shifting?
Speaker 3:That is so, so good, absolutely. So, let's say, in January I'll have six years sober. Six years sober and free and clean and recovered identity. And yeah, just thinking back on my childhood, I have this vivid memory of me. I think it was probably about sixth grade, you know, I would drink on the way to school and I would drink on the way home and I vividly remember this time in sixth grade, blacking out, incapacitated, just floored, and couldn't go home and I thought, man, is this normal? You know, I grew up in a, let's say, a John 3, 16 household. So there was Jesus, you know, but my environment didn't necessarily reflect Jesus.
Speaker 3:Yes, you know, I hadn't developed a relationship with him per se, but there was a lot of partying and so, you know, alcohol was easily accessible and that's what you did for fun, that's what family gathered and they drank and they partied and we loved hard and we loved loud, and so, yeah, you know, it was alcohol at a very young age and smoking, of course, at a very young age and smoking of course. But I knew right from the start that I was all in, in the sense that it wasn't let me have a drink here or there, it was. I'm going to drink, and I'm going to drink until I can't drink no more, and so it was an awful romance. Yes and so, yeah, what were your high?
Speaker 2:school. You said you started young. Yes, what were high school years? And after that like?
Speaker 3:So, you know, I made it to my sophomore year, and then my mom, we moved to a place called Bullhead City, arizona, and my mom picked up, sold everything and moved to Arizona. But up until my sophomore year, you know, I'd met my first love, and you know. So it was get up, get ready, pretend that I'm going to school, have a drink, hang out with my boyfriend at his house. Until that didn't work anymore. My mom was like, listen, we're moving to Arizona, we're packing everything up. I was devastated. I had to leave my first love, and um, but I did, you know, um, and we moved to Arizona.
Speaker 3:And so that cycle of addiction continued. My mom at that age was like, at 16 or 17, you know, learned how to, you know, take care of myself. I got my first car and made money. And, um, there was another relationship. You know, I'd met my children's father at that time. Um, so we're talking, um, you know, let's say, 17, 18, early twenties, um, and boy oh boy, did I meet my match with, with him, um, my children's father. Um, what did they say? Oil and water, they don't mix, but we were like dynamite in a match. It's like boom.
Speaker 3:You know, in this small little podunk town called Bullhead City, Arizona, both coming from colorful pasts and both very young, and we were off to the races. Is that what they say? Yeah, and you know.
Speaker 2:At the time, what was your drug of choice?
Speaker 3:It was methamphetamine, okay and so, and at this time, like in that time, you know, early 90s, it was a dangerous drug then Not that it's not any less dangerous now, but it was evil.
Speaker 3:It was evil and you know, we played around with that and, like I said, we were young it was about that time, though, with my children's father, that we would have bouts of sobriety, and I remember going to a church with my parents and he came, you know, he came along and tagged along and I had a Holy Spirit encounter with the Lord at that age and we both had been sober and we started following the Lord and we got like Bibles and wrote our names in it and you know, I had this romantic notion of, you know, the marriage and we would that stuff that goes along with it, um, but you know, he took a different route, um, and I remember during that time it was about that time, just reflecting on it that I was angry at God and I would sorry he would disappear for days at a time and I would sit in my room looking at his bible in my bible and thinking why, why, and if you're this great god, why? And so, um, and so, wow, it was tough.
Speaker 2:What would you say to someone that's listening in that is just extremely angry at God right now?
Speaker 3:Yeah, what would you say to them oh wow, that's a good question, that is a really good question. He's there, yeah, he's a good, good, good god, and he's a good father. Yeah, and you know, sometimes it's us and it's the path that we choose, and you know, I had to learn that the hard way. Thus the journey, thus the path, and so, man, that was a tough time.
Speaker 2:I bet, I bet. What got you to this part of the country? Yes, that's a good question. What got you to this part of the country?
Speaker 3:Yes, that's a good question. So I landed in Florida. I remember this like it was yesterday as well. I landed in Florida about 2014 on a Greyhound bus with a huge monkey on my back. I was addicted to vodka. I think I was up to like a half a gallon a day and two Suboxones. And my sister was living here in Florida and her husband was in the military. I was in a relationship and had my children.
Speaker 3:We lived in Georgia and we both drank and used Suboxone, you know, and I thought I was doing fine. I thought, you know, I got this. And one day he said enough's enough. And we were living with his parents and they said you have to go. And I thought, okay, I'm going with my bottle. Then, yeah, and my, my children had been living up here or visiting my mother for the summer and, um, like I said, I landed in Fort Walton beach, of all places, um, with that monkey on my back and um, uh, it's been quite the journey since then. Um, our first day was at opportunity place in Fort Walton beach on love joy. Um, stay was at Opportunity Place in Fort Walton Beach on Lovejoy. It was tough. It was tough. I had three children. I had a huge addiction to alcohol and Suboxone and I tried to quit cold turkey and I did. I managed that for a minute.
Speaker 3:What is Suboxone.
Speaker 4:I managed that for a minute. What?
Speaker 3:is Suboxone? No, not at all. So Suboxone is a God. That's a good question. How would you do you know what Suboxone is?
Speaker 2:It's like yeah, it helps people get off of like heroin. They used it but you know.
Speaker 3:There's a name for it, there's a term for it, but it's like methadone. Yeah, okay, a methadone clinic.
Speaker 4:It's like something that you use to get off heroin, but then it itself is addictive.
Speaker 3:So you've got to have Very much so and abused.
Speaker 4:But do you get high from it, or is it just something you need to stay off?
Speaker 3:I believe it's, you know, my experience that you do um, that it keeps. You know, it's not anything like heroin or anything like that, but um in combination with alcohol.
Speaker 2:It was you know just, and the plan was by the government to help people once again put them on methadone or Suboxone, and the plan was to slowly wean the person off. Right, Samara like to reduce the dose and to help them be freed. So, anyway, keep going.
Speaker 3:So I was getting those legally. So they were prescribed to the guy that I was seeing in Georgia and he was taking two or three strips a day and just passing them along to me. I see, yeah, so that's how that all came about and it worked for a while. It worked for a while I wasn't using heroin or meth. Of course, my heroin addiction came later on, after I'd been in Fort Walton for a little bit.
Speaker 2:How did you get into recovery. We want to hear I mean, you really have had a journey, it's been a journey.
Speaker 3:It's been an incredible journey. And how did I get into recovery? That's a good question. I was at my lowest low, you know, living in Fort Walton Beach. We, you know, we started off in the homeless shelter and I got, I got a job and I graduated that program. Now, mind you, not a lot of women at that time graduated from that program and graduated, I mean, made it to the point to where they help you get into housing. And so I got into housing.
Speaker 3:I was working as a general manager for Zaxby's and just walking back and forth every day to work and my kids, my children, were in school, two of them in high school, one in middle school, my youngest in middle school. And I remember, even then, though I, you know, I I started to play that tape in my head. Oh, okay, well, I'm going to stop by this gas station and have a drink, just get a drink, I've worked so hard, I'm going to get a drink on the way home and um, you know that started and um, it didn't, it didn't end. You know, I ended up losing the home that I was in During that time.
Speaker 3:I lost my children's or, excuse me, my youngest son's father During that time and he was my best friend and I remember coming home from work one day and my mom and sister were there and they let us know that you know he had passed from a heart attack in Las Vegas and um, you know it was devastating. And um, I turned to drugs and alcohol. I start. I picked up a needle, um, shortly after that and started using heroin and it was just a short amount of time before I went from hero to zero, or from having everything to losing it all.
Speaker 3:And my mom took my children and I remember the police knocking on the door saying you need to evacuate this place, and I was sitting in the dark and holding on to every little last piece of whatever I could and having to be physically asked to leave, physically asked to leave, and it was, you know, I would go from home to home, you know. And now I had this heroin addiction.
Speaker 2:I know you had an encounter. Can you tell us, the listening audience, about the encounter you had?
Speaker 3:So, with this heroin addiction, I'd be arrested multiple times and I would have these stints in Okaloosa County Jail and I would be, you know, three or four months at a time. And I developed a relationship with the Lord in Okaloosa County Jail. Of all places. He made himself known to me, um, he courted me and he spoke to me through his word. I would open up that Bible in the middle of the night and anytime that I could, you know, get away for a little bit, and the words would just penetrate every part of my soul and I just I remember faintly this was, you know, right before going into treatment at Path of Grace.
Speaker 3:I remember just being lost. I could not go home. I was looking at grand theft, auto charges, which are pretty serious charges. Grand theft is like you come out of a store and your car's gone. This was my mother's car, but she was saying enough's enough, I'm not going to bail you out this charge. You're either going to go to prison or you're going to die, and I'm trying to save your life. And so I was at the end of my rope and I was sitting in this cell and my roommate had went to take a shower and, um, I just remember calling on him and um, and he came and he sat next to me and it was the most incredible feeling I've ever experienced in my entire life.
Speaker 3:I just remember the ground underneath me giving way and like all the smells were gone, the sound was gone and I just felt love and peace and joy and hope, hope, really it was hope, it was hope again and it was love, and that was it, though Gosh you know that was it. I was sold out. I was madly, deeply, radically in love with the man.
Speaker 2:Tell us what happened next. Just amazing.
Speaker 3:So you know, after that, like, literally, I was on fire I would go from cell to cell in Okaloosa County jail offering hope in a brown paper bag and would have women, you know, pick out a Bible verse in a brown paper bag and would have women, you know, pick out a Bible verse. And I remember this one Bible verse that was with me at the top of my bunk that I would read every night and it was search me, oh God, Psalms 139, because I knew I had to change. I knew that whatever was in me was that I needed to change, and so I would. That was the Bible verse. That was the Bible verse that carried me through.
Speaker 3:That is, that is amazing. Change me.
Speaker 2:Lord, Change me. Look at me, you know I love. Because it says I know when you sit, I know when you stand, I know your thoughts from afar. I have the hair's number on your head and then it says search me. Yeah, and look at, that's what you did the whole Psalms.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love it the whole Psalms. How you know he's a good, good father and how well he knows us. Yes and so yeah, from there you left Okaloosa.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Coming to jail.
Speaker 3:Actually, yep, they offered me three years of probation, and so it was just a swinging door. You know you go and you commit these crimes and you get out on probation. And I've watched over and over how that didn't work. You know you go out on probation and you go back in, and it was just this revolving door. And I thought, man, I just met the man who knows everything about me. You know, I'm going to stay in jail, I want to stay here with him. He's here, the woman at the well right. And so Okaloosa County Jail was my well, and I met the man who knows everything about me.
Speaker 2:Love it, john, chapter 4, right.
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 3:And so I heard about this place called Path of Grace and I had talked to Eddie Mansfield prior to all of this happening. You know, we had a small conversation during one of my times and I thought I told my public defender I would like to go to Path of Grace and I'm going to be honest with you, he wasn't happy. He was like, listen, you know, I got you covered. You can walk out tomorrow. And I was like no, I cannot.
Speaker 2:You knew.
Speaker 3:I knew.
Speaker 2:You knew you needed more help than just walking out the door.
Speaker 3:Yes, ma'am, and the Path of Grace just in the name of God out the door. Yes, ma'am, and the path of grace just in the name. Yeah, path of grace.
Speaker 2:You know, as we look, what happens in our life doesn't happen overnight. The healing, the recovery is a process, not an event. So here you had time, in more of a longer term facility path of grace, to heal, to do what you're doing today. Your pain really has become your platform in this community. It's just amazing.
Speaker 3:Thank you, thank you. It's amazing, it's amazing. It's really just this radical grace that we're offered, radical grace that were offered.
Speaker 2:And so just what would you say to a person that's listening, that was in recovery, like you were, and then is now back in using substance again? What would you say to them?
Speaker 3:I would say that God is in the relapse, that God is in the relapse. I say all that to say that you're not alone, he's there, that recovery is not a one and done, it's a journey, and to get up, to speak up.
Speaker 2:That's good, get up to speak up.
Speaker 3:Speak up. Shame likes to keep us broken and it's not a one and done deal. And if you're listening right now, we believe in you. We believe in you. It's not the end of the road. It's not the end of the story.
Speaker 2:You know, Samira. As you're saying that, I'm thinking of the verse in Micah 7, 8. Don't gloat over me, my enemies, when I have fallen, For I shall arise, Like you're saying. Just go tell one person that you trust.
Speaker 3:There's lighthouses. You know, along my journey, I've met so many lighthouses, you being one of them, val along the way. But there's somebody that's, you know, willing and that the Lord's put in your path to. You know, along the way, you kind of ask who.
Speaker 2:It is right Ask who that person is.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:You know, I know you have an event coming up. Can you share with the listeners what you know? With Stephanie McMinn, we've got to share her name, right. Can you share with the listeners what event? Shifting to what's coming up in November? Right?
Speaker 3:Absolutely so. This is our most intimate event of the year. It's our yearly fundraiser, it sustains us throughout the year and we're at Drive the Coast this year, which is just an amazing, beautiful, beautiful venue, and that's November 9th. You can get your tickets at Eventbrite now and it's just, it's an incredible, incredible event. I'm so blessed, I am so beyond blessed, to be walking alongside with Miss McMinn, mama McMinn.
Speaker 2:That's what so many women call her right yes.
Speaker 3:Right, she's incredible. She is incredible. You know, I left Path of Grace and I packed up my little car and I headed straight to the Yellow House with her and I've been with them ever since and it's just been a beautiful, beautiful journey. Yeah, and so you can check out Be Generous at wwwbegenerousincorg for more information on what we're doing, but we would love to see everybody at the gathering in the garden. It's going to be an amazing event. We're going to have worship and a catered meal and all of the things.
Speaker 4:Testimonies Awesome, awesome, well, great. As we come to the end of the show, we always like to just really speak to anyone that's out there that needs help. It might be addiction, it could be depression, so many people. People just really need hope and the first thing we really encourage you to do is to find a local church. You're not supposed to do this alone. So just go find a Bible, christ-centered church and go and give it one year of your life and then also get involved in a small group in that church. A group that you can do life with, you, can be transparent with. You will get great healing, you know, from that group.
Speaker 2:Community right Right Community is so important.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and you know, just seek to know God. You know, get your Bible, open your Bible and just start reading it right now. You know, no matter where you are. If you do that, he will speak to you. You know if you don't have a Bible, you can open the app. There's tons of Bible apps out there, right?
Speaker 2:There sure are.
Speaker 4:But that's the greatest way that God speaks to us is through his word.
Speaker 3:Yes, you know, as you found, absolutely, it's so awesome that you just said that, because at the top of my paper it's your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path and how I can look back and reflect upon each, you know, verse that he had given me to nourish and fill me up until the next verse. And he's in the Bible, he's in his word.
Speaker 2:He sure is, he's living, breathing. We're just grateful you've come on the show today Thank you so much, John. Would you be willing to close us out in prayer.
Speaker 4:Yes, I will. Oh, dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this great talk today we've had with Samara. Thank you for her being transparent and giving hope to those that are in similar situations. Lord, so we just pray right now for anyone out there that needs hope, that feels like they need a second chance. Lord, we pray you speak to them right now and just guide them into a personal relationship with you and let people out there know that you are their true father, you are the father and many have been without an earthly father really and that they really see that you are the true father and that they find you. And we just pray this all in your name, jesus, amen.
Speaker 2:Amen.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to Road to Redemption, sharing powerful life testimonies, giving hope to those on their own road to redemption. If you have any comments or questions, we would love to connect with you. You can reach out to us at destinyradiolive. Thank you for listening and we'll see you next week on Road to Redemption.