Angela Sizemore Making Her Own Way BY AMANDA PAGE Angela Sizemore is a fighter. She worked in the recovery and human rights field for eight years, after a much longer struggle through the cycle of addiction and recovery and relapse. She has fought her way back to recovery and is now working with women to empower them during their own recovery. Angela’s experience runs the gamut, and whether it has been addiction, child abuse, or human trafficking, “I’ve been a fighter all my life,” Angela says, “Now I’m fighting for others.” “ I stand up for things I believe in. ” Angela was born in Columbus and raised by her abusive stepfather who believed children should be seen, but not heard. When she was 9 years old, Angela threatened to tell someone about his physical and emotional abuse. He responded by threatening to kill her. She did not say a word to anyone about the abuse until she turned 13. That year, her math teacher noticed the signs of abuse and called Children Services. It took the social worker six hours to get Angela to open up. Once she did, she was removed from her stepfather’s home. “It took them six hours to get me to talk, and now I talk all the time,” she says. “I stand up for the things I believe in. Women go too often being abused without standing up for themselves. If I know about it, I’m going to say something.” She has fought opiate addiction, which had her in its grip three times in her life. The first time she became addicted to opiates, she was 22 years old. “I had abdominal surgery,” Angela says. When she realized she was addicted to her painkillers, Angela went to get help. She sat in the waiting room at Talbot Hall until they could give her a bed. It took three days, but she waited it out, because she had the will to quit. She was released with a taper dose of Suboxone, and she went about her life, raising her son. The second time opiates entered her life, she was in the wake of her breast cancer diagnosis. “I got breast cancer and got addicted,” Angela says. She survived breast cancer, only to enter the dark world of human trafficking as a victim of a man who exploited her. She met this man while in the midst of her addiction. She went to a house on the westside of Columbus to buy drugs. When she left to buy cigarettes, this man pulled up beside her in his car. She got in, and before she knew it, she was supporting her drug habit through human trafficking. About six months later, a police officer stopped her while she was on the street. Angela knew at that moment that it was time for her to get sober. “I was sick and tired. I knew in the back of that cruiser that I was done,” she says. ENVISIONPROVENSUCCESS.COM | 23
24 Publizr Home