Debbie Posey

Debbie Posey is single, widowed mother with five grandchildren. She has been on her own since she was 14, having been abused by her father, who was a chief of police in California. As a youth, Ms. Posey swam in Olympic trials. She thinks she started using drugs with the “stoners” to get back at her cop dad.

Debbie was homeless for six years, living in abandoned buildings, in tents and on the streets. She shoplifted, or “boosted” to get the money to feed the drug habits of her and her man. He has served two prison sentences. She said she morally did everything she said she would never do to get the drugs she used to “get well.”

THE BLACK HOLE: “You have to decide what’s real and what’s not and that’s the scary part for me. I can’t hide from the world anymore. If I do I’m back into that black and hole and not make it back out. I feel I don’t have the strength to make it back out again.”

Now, on methadone, and living in the Frye Apartments, she feels she is only one day away, each day, from living that life again. She has relapses. Coming from a rich family, she says she went down to hell and is proud that she has finally stopped trusting the wrong people and letting predators control her.

Debbie’s daughter, also a victim of abuse, had her first of four children at age 15. When she wanted Debbie to see her grandkids, she asked a relative where junkies go in Tacoma. That’s where she found her mother. Debbie says she must still look like a junkie, because street people walk up to her and ask where they can score.

Debbie let someone take her son at 16, when he was in a gang and arrested for stealing a gun. She is proud and amazed that he graduated high school, went on to college and is living a good life.

Debbie gives her daughter a third of her check to help with her struggles. And, more than anything, Debbie hopes that her grandchildren have good lives and not do what she did.

DAILY STRUGGLE: “I’m one day away from living in an abandoned house again or selling my soul so I could survive. One day, one minute away from not having anything again. I’m tyring to make my life right, what I have left. Just trying to live without struggling so hard.”