From hate to hope

“I look around me and I’m just so grateful, you know. I’ve come so tremendously far.”

Indeed. Before getting help at UNC Horizons, Sheena was addicted to painkillers. She took them “every day,” even when she was pregnant.

“Just to get out of bed I had to have opiates. I was just in a place of complete self-hate. I hated myself.”

Now Sheena is getting treatment at Horizons—a substance abuse treatment program for pregnant and parenting women and their children at the UNC School of Medicine—and recovering from her addiction. She says Horizons saved her life and the life of her sons, Kiefer, 5, and Rohan, 18 months.

Sheena’s story was featured in a PBS NewsHour Weekend segment, “The opioid epidemic’s toll on pregnant women and their babies.”

Horizons hopes to build a new clinic building in Carrboro, N.C., to help many more women like Sheena. The Oak Foundation will provide $1 million for the project if UNC can raise another $1 million by March 31, 2016. You can make a gift at www.horizonshelps.org (click DONATE button; then choose “UNC Horizons Expansion Project” fund to help meet the Oak Foundation challenge).

Related Stories

Food for Thought

Carolina’s libraries connect a dad and daughter

A mathematical biologist walks up to a farmer