When Rosa speaks about addiction, she doesn’t just share her personal struggle. She tells the story of a family pattern that spanned generations, and her determination to break that cycle once and for all.
The Inherited Struggle
Rosa’s journey with addiction didn’t begin in isolation. “My parents were drug addicts,” she explains, describing how she grew up witnessing their struggles. Determined not to repeat their path, Rosa made a promise to herself: “I said I would never do what they’ve done. I would never do that to my children, what they put me through.”
This determination kept Rosa drug-free throughout her youth and into her twenties. “I didn’t start using till I hit my 30s because I was so like, ‘I’m not gonna do drugs. I’m not gonna be like them.'”
But life’s challenges: divorce, abuse, and associating with “the wrong crowd”, eventually led Rosa down the very path she had sworn to avoid. “It just took over,” she remembers. “I ended up losing control of that.”
The Devastating Ripple Effect
The most heartbreaking aspect of Rosa’s story is watching the pattern continue with her own children. “I have three sons that followed in my addiction,” she shares with evident pain. “My sons, I have two boys, you know, that try to get clean, I have a third one coming out [of prison], that says he’s gonna want to stay clean too.”
The cycle reached a devastating peak when Rosa lost her son to a fentanyl overdose in September. He had been following her example by entering recovery but relapsed just before entering a new treatment program. He left behind two children, ages 7 and 10.
“The sad part is he ended up following me and losing his children too,” Rosa reflects. “It’s like a disease, it just creeps up on you and it gets worse and worse and worse. And by the time you realize it, you’re so far deep.”
Finding the Strength to Change
For Rosa, breaking free from addiction required more than just personal determination. It required having somewhere stable to go after treatment, something she didn’t have during her previous 15 attempts at recovery.
“Every time I came out of a program, there was nowhere for me to go but back to the streets,” Rosa explains. This cycle of treatment followed by homelessness made lasting recovery nearly impossible.
At Davis Community Meals and Housing, Rosa finally found the stable foundation she needed. With affordable housing, supportive staff, and a community of peers also in recovery, she has maintained sobriety for nearly three years.
“If we didn’t have this place, we would have not made it. We would have gone back out into the streets,” Rosa emphasizes. “I’ve done 15 programs. I never made it until there was somewhere for me to go.”
Setting a New Example
Today, Rosa is determined to break the intergenerational cycle of addiction by living as an example her family can follow.
“It stops here,” she states firmly. “If I could change the way I’m living, my children will follow along with me, and their children won’t have to go through what we all been through.”
This determination extends beyond her immediate family. Rosa now shares her story at Walter’s House, speaking to people just beginning their recovery journey. “I used to be shy and quiet,” she admits, “but I said that’s why I feel like God wants [me] to give my testimony, that if I could reach, give hope to somebody… if I can do it, you can do it too.”
Rosa is even pursuing education in drug and alcohol counseling so she can help others break free from addiction. At 60 years old, she sometimes questions if it’s too late to start this new chapter. But she pushes past that fear, explaining, “Something’s pushing me to do it… I know it’s not me. It’s God pushing me.”
How Your Support Makes a Difference
At today’s fundraising event for Davis Community Meals and Housing, your contributions directly support our work helping individuals like Rosa break the cycle of generational addiction:
- Stable housing that provides the foundation for lasting recovery
- Supportive services that address the root causes of addiction
- Community connections that replace isolation with belonging
- Skills development that builds confidence and independence
Through these comprehensive approaches, we don’t just help individuals, we help transform family trees.
Rosa’s powerful statement about ending her family’s cycle of addiction reminds us why this work matters: “I’ve been to prison. I’ve been in jails… and they have too. They’ve followed. So now it’s time for me to turn it around, and they can do better.. People talk about generational curses, you know, that it goes on and on and on. I say it stops here.”
Your donation today isn’t just supporting individuals experiencing homelessness and addiction, it’s helping end cycles that have persisted for generations. https://www.bigdayofgiving.org/organization/dcmh
Davis Community Meals and Housing provides the stable foundation individuals need to break free from addiction and homelessness. Through comprehensive support services and affordable housing options, we create opportunities for lasting change that impacts not just individuals, but entire families.