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Recovering Meth Addict Shares Incredible Before And After Photos

Recovering Meth Addict Shares Incredible Before And After Photos

In a Facebook post, Jamee Valet explained she’s managed to turn her life around – and has even gone on to receive her GED diploma

Jess Hardiman

Jess Hardiman

A recovering meth and heroin addict has shared dramatic before and after photos to show off her incredible journey, telling others: "Recovery is possible."

Jamee Valet, from Sweet Home in Oregon, shared the contrasting photos on a Facebook page called The Addict's Diary, where people are invited to post their recovery journey with the online world.

She explained in her post that she's managed to turn her life around - and has even gone on to receive her GED diploma.

Her post said: "My name is Jamee and I am a recovering heroin and meth addict.

"These pictures are 2 years apart. The better looking version of me being just a few months ago when I got my GED!

"Recovery is possible!"

Jamee Valet's dramatic before and after photos.
Jamee Valet/The Addict's Diary

Valet is now 25 and works in construction, although she hopes to become an esthetician (a type of beautician).

In an interview with the Daily Mail, Valet said she'd suffered a 'really rough' childhood, and that drugs, sex and alcohol all became what she relied on to 'escape reality'.

Having started smoking pot at the age of 13, by 15 she was dating someone who got her hooked on pills including Vicodin, Morphine, Oxycodone, Dilaudid and Percocets.

"That very quickly took over and opiates became my best friend," she said.

After dropping out of high school, at 17 she was raped by two men in one night, and two months later she moved on to heroin and meth.

She said: "I was traumatized and depressed from the rapes, and the first thing I did the day I walked out of the door was met up with some guy."

Pure methamphetamine in rock form.
PA

Valet was arrested for the first time at 19 after she was caught trying to rob someone's house, and had also stolen a grandmother's purse from WalMart. She would go on to get arrested six times in total.

It was in jail that Valet then tried to take her own life.

"Suicide was my escape plane my whole life," she said.

"When I was in jail for the first time, I didn't have drugs to numb myself and my actions kept catching up to me."

Following a long and difficult path to recovery - which saw Valet relapse several times - she has now been clean for a year and was thrilled to receive get her GED in January.

Valet said she decided to take the first photo in 2017 as a means of getting her life together, continuing: "I love popping zits really bad and that was something I did when I was on meth. I am a picker really bad.

"I had been sitting all night in my car in a parking lot to meet up with someone for drugs.

"I stayed there afterwards and was using the rearview mirror to pick at my face. It was morning time and I realized I'd been sitting there all this time."

Jake and Jamee.
Jamee Valet

Valet met her current boyfriend Jake during a year-long inpatient programme, and the two have moved in together.

Urging those struggling with addiction to take baby steps, Valet said: "My heart breaks for people who are hopeless. I don't want them to feel that way because there is always hope."

She added: "No matter how low how you're feeling or how your life is, it does get better. It is up to you to make it better, you can't be like 'my life sucks' and not do anything to change it."

Featured Image Credit: Jamee Valet/The Addict's Diary

Topics: News, US News, Drugs