Hagerstown woman uses addiction recovery story to inspire others

HAGERSTOWN, Md. ( DC News Now ) — “I knew God had a plan for me, and that was to be clean and sober and to be a productive citizen,” Lillian Perrain said.

If you have met Perrain you would never know about the things she has endured in her past from fighting with her addiction to spending 13 years in jail.

“I started out just wanting to know which got me into trouble,” Perrain said. “I started using it and abusing my body by using, I neglected my children and my family then I guess God said he had another opportunity for me, and that was prison.”

While she was incarcerated she realized that she wanted better for herself.

“While I was in prison, I got my culinary degree because you go in [prison] doing something, you come out doing something, you go in doing nothing, you come out doing nothing,” Perrain explained. “I promised myself, after my mother passed away, that I wasn’t gonna be one of these people that was gonna go out here and go back into the drug system again.”

Soon after she participated in a transitional program to keep that promise to herself where she found Teresa Peek with The Elder Group. The nonprofit organization helped her find housing after the program.

“When the transition home should have been my rock, she became my rock,” Perrain said. “All I have is because I have her and her organization.”

Now that she has a home of her own and a stable job, she uses her story to inspire others to do the same.

“Never think there’s nobody out here to help you, because there is, and I’m one of those people that if people need help, I’m not hard to find, but it’s other organizations,” Perrain said.

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