Woman Celebrates 10 Years of Sobriety After Using with Her Mother as a Teen. 'I Didn't Realize I Had a Problem' (Exclusive)
Darra Sargent opens up to PEOPLE about experiencing addiction at a young age
The mom grew up with parents who frequently used drugs, complicating her teenage years
Now 10 years sober, Sargent shares the moving message she would tell her younger selfOne woman is proudly celebrating 10 years of sobriety.
In a video posted to TikTok and Instagram, Darra Sargent shared a clip reflecting on her decade of sobriety. The post showcased her over the past 10 years, sharing colorful shots from her life. Though she'd used for years with her mother, she quit when she was five days pregnant with her first child.
'My mom and my dad fell victim to the opioid epidemic when I was in 1st grade … Before that they always partied my entire life,' Sargent tells PEOPLE exclusively. 'They were huge hippies and had a big social life, but nothing too crazy. My dad was a drummer in a lot of local bands so I grew up around the scene. Once they fell victim to the opioid epidemic, my life started to go downhill.'
As a kid, she remembers losing her home and needing to stay with various family members as her parents struggled with their addiction. When she was just 13, her father suffered a seizure and ultimately died of MRSA.
'That was when my mom really went off the deep end,' Sargent recounts. 'They were together from 16 years old and she didn't know how to do life without him after being together for almost 30 years. My mom started using harder drugs more frequently and truly didn't know how to be a parent due to her mental health struggles and grief.'
Sargent went through a variety of living situations and says she was 'on my own for about a year-and-a-half,' living with various friends' families. When she eventually moved back in with her mother, 'she was already partying with my brother, who was a year younger than me,' she says.
'Once I started experimenting with partying in high school, my friends would always come to my house since there wasn't any parental supervision, and she started asking to join in or asking us to give her things,' Sargent continues. 'She was so deep in her own mental health struggles that she didn't even realize how unhealthy that was.'
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'She started putting weed and cigarettes in our stockings on Christmas, drinking and partying with us regularly, and just acting like one of the kids," she continues. "It was a normal event to just hang out and drink, smoke, take pills, whatever together.'
Sargent decided to get sober on New Year's Day 10 years ago. She says she was up partying and using drugs with her mother the night before, but decided that day she would get sober — a move she still calls 'divine intervention.'
'I was one of those people that didn't really think I had a problem,' she admits. 'My mom was the benchmark for a problem. I thought, 'Oh I have a decent job, I can afford what I need, I'm not letting this take over my life .. I'm just a young adult having fun.' I was only 21 when i decided to get sober.'
She recalls a brief period when she had a move back in with her mother — when the two of them shared a room just big enough for a twin-sized bed — as the moment that she 'felt like my biggest fear was coming true before my eyes."
'I was becoming just like my mom. Even though I thought I was just a young adult having normal young adult experiences, I didn't want to go down that slippery slope,' she shares. 'So something in me made me get sober. I found out I was pregnant a month-and-a-half later and I was five days pregnant when I made that choice.'
Sobriety hasn't been an easy path, she admits. Going sober at 21, Sargent says many of her friends at that age were partying and going out frequently, but she found art to be a soothing and grounding outlet for herself, coupled with the support from her partner and therapy.
'Following my dreams gave me a goal post, something to work towards and something to look forward to. Now 10 years later art is still a driving factor but I have an amazing support system in my partner and my children,' she shares, noting that she even started sharing her art on Instagram 'not long' after she went sober. Sargent's art is colorful, with most pieces including a rainbow of some sort — a move she says has become her 'signature style.'
'I think that's my way of signifying the rainbow after the storm. I live in the rainbows now,' she says. 'Color is truly one of my biggest passions in life, and I try to collect as many rainbow things as I can! Life is just happier when you're surrounded by color. Color is the way I communicate with the world, and most of the time I have so much to say it has to be a full rainbow spectrum.'
As Sargent continued her sobriety journey, she says her mother continued to use until her death in 2016. When she'd initially told her mother that she was going to get clean, her mom asked Sargent if she thought she was 'better' than her.
'She was so deep in her own issues that she just couldn't be happy for me,' Sargent says. 'We had had a rocky life together up until that point already.'
'I reconnected with her in the summer of 2014 when she called and told me she had lung cancer. She was only back in my life for about a year-and-a-half when I decided to get sober,' Sargent continues. 'It was tricky navigating sobriety, while being a caretaker for my dying mother. Our relationship had its challenges, I was still incredibly angry at her, but I had to put that to the side because she needed me.'
Now that a decade has passed, Sargent can look back with empathy on the young girl who got into drugs.
'I would tell that girl that's not who she is and she doesn't need to be the person her mom raised her to be,' she says. 'I'd tell her she deserves love, peace and happiness. She deserves to find out who she is, not who she's told she is.'
'Figuring yourself out takes time. We all make mistakes, every person learns and grows," she continues. "It's okay to change and to grow. That's what makes us human. We can go through life with shame about who we used to be, or we can be proud of how far we've come.'
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, please contact the SAMHSA helpline at 1-800-662-HELP.
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