“Heron,” the street name for Heroine, became Mondrea D. Jacobs obsession. At 12, she faced the harsh realities of living from one drug fix to the next.

“I began to hang out with people whose lifestyle was to drink, drug, party, smoke reefer, commit crimes and hang out in all night bars. I just lived for drugs. I woke up using drugs. I went to bed using drugs. Drugs was my life.”

“I would go in the bathroom in the seventh grade, in the bathrooms during my lunch period; I would go and shoot up. I would be smoking marijuana around the back of the school building while everyone else was in the lunchroom having lunch.”

Mondrea’s mother feared her daughter’s addiction would kill her. Out of desperation, she had her own daughter arrested and placed in a children’s center. For two years, Mondrea remained in the center and was drug free. When she went back to her old hangouts and old friends, her addiction resurfaced with a vengeance.

“I would prostitute, sell my body, to get the drugs; steal from people, rob people, sell drugs for drug dealers.”

Drugs were slowly destroying Mondrea’s life. But, at certain moments, Mondrea remembered her grandmother’s faith and wondered if there was still hope.

“My grandmother instilled the word of God so deep in us; there was a voice that would constantly speak to me and remind me that there was still a little speck of hope for me. I would smoke crack and while I was smoking it, I would be praying at the same time.”