A Morning in Active Addiction:
Marshall alum Jeremy Bailey used to wake up wherever he could. Sometimes, it was on a couch in someone’s living room in Oceana, West Virginia, and sometimes, it was in an abandoned trailer where scrap metal had been torn from the walls. That is, if he slept.
“When you’re on meth, you’re up for days,” Bailey said.
When he finally did crash, Bailey said he would sleep from 18 to 24 hours at a time, waking up worse than if he hadn’t slept at all. “You wake up groggy, with a horrible film in your mouth,” he said. “It’s worse than a cold, it’s worse than the flu, it’s just awful.” Withdrawing, Bailey said he would try to find the energy to move, struggling as his dopamine levels were “nowhere near normal.” Then, the day would begin. “Day to day, it was just pure survival,” Bailey said. “Drugs became more important than housing, food or anything else.” While shelter, food and relationships typically sit at the top of the priority list for the average individual, drugs hijack the brain permeating one’s thoughts, Bailey added. “If I didn’t have drugs, I was constantly trying to figure out how I was going to get some,” he said. “I might steal food from the grocery store to get by, and even without money, you can talk someone into getting you drugs.” Bailey began drinking and smoking marijuana as a teenager, and slowly, alcohol was replaced with pain pills. At 24, he said he began IV drug use, and over the next 11 years, his substance use disorder escalated to heroin, fentanyl and eventually methamphetamine. At night, Bailey said he suffered from being homeless but would often be able to couch surf as he built a reputation that even at his worst, he would not steal from someone helping him out. In addition to friends, Bailey said his family never gave up on him; however, they couldn’t let him live with them either.
“Even knowing this and knowing that I don’t want to do drugs, I kept doing it,” he said. “You can not want to do drugs, but that is not going to stop you.”
The Turning Point
One summer back in Oceana, Bailey said he used more than he ever had before, overdosing twice. That second OD triggered something mentally, he added.
“I thought, ‘I’m going to die in this small town,’” he said. “I remember thinking, ‘I’m going to die, and I’ve never done a single thing with my life.’”
At this point, Bailey hadn’t finished high school and said he felt like he had never completed anything he sought out to do. This mental anguish sparked his desire for recovery. (Photo Courtesy of Jeremy Bailey)
Recovery Point: Structure, relapse
On his first trip to Recovery Point in Huntington, he immediately asked for the Wi-Fi password. He soon found out how serious this recovery journey would be. “They took my phone, and I just thought, ‘Man, what did I get myself into,'” he said. At Recovery Point, the lights came on at 5:30 a.m., and Bailey’s feet had to be on the floor by 6 a.m. ready to go for chores, followed by breakfast, class and meetings all day. He would then work in the kitchen until the evening and work the 9-11 p.m. snack time. “I don’t think I’ve ever slept that hard in my life,” he said. After four months, Jeremy left Recovery Point – for the first time. He then returned to using, obsessing over getting high, he said. One day, Bailey ran into a Recovery Point staff member on the street in Huntington who asked him one simple question: If you could go back right now, would you? “I said, ‘Yeah, if I could go back right now, I would,’” he said. “That was the biggest lie.” That staff member made a call anyway, and Bailey said he ended up hopping in the truck en route back to Recovery Point.
Committing to Recovery
This time, Bailey said he was ready. This time around, however, he had to face the barriers of the COVID-19 pandemic. “I spent three weeks in quarantine and detox combined, withdrawing off Suboxone,” he said. “I took like four or five hot showers a day because that was the only thing that helped in those miserable three weeks of the program.” After detox, Bailey started fresh in his recovery journey, where he completed the facility’s 12-step program.
(Photo Courtesy of Google Maps)
He said he adopted a whole new attitude towards recovery and was particularly inspired by the stories of Recovery Point alumni. “They were all doing stuff in recovery,” he said. “I was like, ‘If they can do it, I can do it.’” Thus began Bailey’s never ending goal setting.
“My brain always goes to the thought, ‘I want to do the most,’” Bailey said. “If I want to do something, I want to go to the highest levels."
At Recovery Point, Bailey became a peer mentor supervisor, where he handled benefits for more than 100 clients at a time as well as intakes, mail and quality of life surveys. From there, he earned his GED and became a peer recovery support specialist motivated to work over 12 hour days, he said. At 38, Bailey applied to Marshall University despite the fear of attending classes with 18 and 19 year olds. “That was not going to stop me,” he said. “I was determined to get my degree.” Fast-forward to 2026 and Bailey has graduated summa cum laude with a degree in social work, and is currently working towards his masters in the same subject.
A Morning in Recovery
As a person in recovery, Bailey said now his mornings look different. “I wake up and will do some work, and I go to the Rec Center four days a week and weight lift,” he said. “I‘m training for the Marshall marathon, so I also run four days a week.” Instead of surviving day to day, Bailey’s life now thrives on structure, goals and connection. The same intensity that once kept him up for days chasing drugs now fuels two-hour lifts and marathon training plans, he said. The biggest difference, however, is not in his schedule; Bailey said it’s in his beliefs.
Destigmatizing Addiction
“I think what I still see now is people that feel like people can never change,” Bailey said. “By stigmatizing people with substance use disorder, you’re only making the problem worse.”
If it wasn't for a supportive community, he said, he would not be here. “It was terrifying, I’d been chasing drugs since the age of 15,” Bailey said. “But what do you have to lose?” When he was at the bottom, he had nothing left to lose, he said. Now at 41, he has built a life structured by early alarms, long runs, conferences, classrooms and community. Beyond the day-to-day grind, Bailey said he goes back to Oceana a couple times a year to stay with his family. “Instead of me looking to them, a lot of times now, they look to me,” he said. Above all, Bailey said he now hopes that if he accomplishes anything, he wants to destigmatize addiction. “Think about how much better the world would be if we all just support each other a little bit more,” he said. “Not just people in recovery, but everyone.”