Sarah Spier points out what Daybreak Youth Recovery means to her following a meeting with staff at Daybreak Youth Center in Brush Prairie on Sept. 19
At the age of 19, Sarah Spier reached into the cupboard and pulled out a cup. “Be the change you wish to see in the world,” the cup read, a quote from Indian political activist Mahatma Gandhi. At the time, she had just gotten home from a trip to Europe, which she visited as a part of her career in the film industry.
“I had this moment and asked, what am I doing to give back to life,” Spier said. “I am so privileged, what can I give back to life.”
Spier, who grew up in Santa Fe, New Mexico, comes from a long lineage of women filmmakers and found herself doing makeup for academy award-winning films such as “No Country For Old Men.” She traveled around the world working on movie sets and even produced a film of her own.
“I had this desire to travel,” she said. “I traveled all over.”
A few weeks after finding the inspiring coffee cup, Spier was on a plane to Africa to start her mission of change. She had found a role as a volunteer at a school in Bagamoyo, Tanzania.
But Spier quickly spotted a problem.
“When I got there I realized a lot of the money that was being spent wasn’t actually going to the school,” Spier said.
To combat this, Spier started the international nonprofit “Mwambo Alliance” with the goal of more effectively distributing funds.
Over the next two years, Spier began drinking and using prescription drugs.
“I justified my behavior by convincing myself that I deserved to be young and party,” Spier later wrote in a blog post. “In reality, I was looking for ways to escape traumatic memories from my past. I was becoming numb and I liked it.”
Soon Spier was introduced to heavy drugs by close friends and old “love.” Over the course of a year and a half, she lost everything she had built and became an intravenous heroin and cocaine addict.
“It truly was rock bottom,” Spier said about her experience with hard drugs. “I went from working on academy award-winning films and running my international nonprofit. This big, amazing beautiful life… to being completely sick.”
A year and a half into her addiction, Spier attempted to take her own life as a way out of “hell.”
“I got to the point where I truly thought the only way out of my misery was to kill myself,” Spier said at a panel discussion in Spokane.
Spier was saved by her mother, who found her in a coma-like state. “My mom is my savior, my story,” she said.
“I was in a wheelchair and diapers,” Spier said about her recovery explaining that she had contracted Hepatitis-C and had a contracted gallbladder. “(It was) the descent into hell, I literally went to hell. It was painful.”
Spier spent the next 18 months in drug treatment facilities while living sober.
After her treatment, Spier went on to get degrees in political science and cultural anthropology to become a drug treatment researcher. She is now the Director of External Relations for Daybreak Youth Services. She spends time at the organization’s facilities in Spokane and Brush Prairie.
“I really felt the need to improve our system,” Spier said about drug rehabilitation in the United States. “One of the problems we have across the industry with drug treatment systems is this idea that a 21-day model is effective.”
Spier believes the industry needs to incorporate more time and trauma healing into addiction treatment, explaining that focusing on personal trauma from her youth was key to the success of her treatment.
“I’m alive today because I had prolonged and extended treatment,” she said.
As Director of External Relations, Spier plans to incorporate a focus on healing in the community and is planning to start blogging and podcasting with prominent community members in both Spokane and Brush Prairie.
“I really see Daybreak as a pivotal point in the community to help youth,” she said after mentioning a high teen addiction and suicide rate in the Brush Prairie area. “If we can get kids in when they’re just starting to have a problem, it’s fundamentally going to change the way that their life is going to be.”
Along with community involvement, Spier hopes to incorporate her story into the healing of others and uses it as a recovery tool for others and continues to be the change she wishes to see in the world.
“The key was not living in shame and not wearing the stigma,” she said. “That is something I think is so important for people and that’s why I continue to share my journey today because if I can empower somebody to just say it’s okay to not be okay and you’re allowed to struggle and you’re allowed to ask for help, that’s how real change starts.”
