Michelle Hanna Warrior Uprising: From Trials to Triumph BY JULIE BURKE Neither marriage nor having children is ever easy — but both can be made more challenging when role models are short supply, and when drugs come into play. That was the reality faced by Michelle Hanna, whose parents divorced when she was young, leaving her to be raised solely by her mother. After growing up in Ohio with her single mother, Michelle got married, had two children and moved to California with her family. After her marriage ended and she became a mother again at 40, Michelle moved back to Ohio. That’s when drug addiction took over. Though the drugs cost her much of her memory during those, she remembers she started with pain pills. When she got hooked but couldn’t afford more, she turned to heroin. When that stopped doing the trick, she was so desperate for a high that she tried bath salts. She didn’t know what effect the drug would have but, she says, it was cheaper than meth. At this time, Michelle had medical insurance, food stamps and child support, and was renting a decent home for herself and her 12-year-old son . her other children being grown. Though she can’t imagine what her addiction put him through, Michelle says, she remains close with her son, and is grateful to God for keeping him safe and protecting him from the worst experiences of her life. They were evicted from their home because Michelle was spending the rent money on drugs, forcing the two of them to stay with friends and home school to cover her son’s poor attendance in school. This period also marked their first trip to a family shelter, which they had to leave every morning and return no earlier than 4 p.m. Michelle would walk to the South Side to get high, then head back to the shelter at night. She hated it, but she was still addicted to heroin, and staying in the shelter for free left money to feed her addiction. The shelter eventually found them an affordable place to live, but they only lived there for about six months before she stopped paying the rent. After being evicted, they moved in with a neighbor who, Michelle says, was no better than the streets. Still, she needed to keep a roof over her son and her mother’s heads. Her son had been out of school, and children protective services was looking for them. Someone eventually got them into a motel in her old neighborhood, leaving her in the same situation as before. The family walked to the train tracks, and Michelle left them there while she walked to the woods to look for her daughter, who was staying in a tent with her boyfriend. After she found them, she moved the three of them into their own tent. After three months, CPS came with the police and took away her son, who was then 14. Though they knew his living conditions were unsafe, they never investigated why, leaving Michelle to her addiction. When others gave her items to help her survive, they would tell her things like “God put this in my heart to give to you.” Gradually, this opened her eyes and compelled her to give thanks to the Lord for the gifts, keeping her mother safe and watching her son in the foster ENVISIONPROVENSUCCESS.COM | 37
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