All of us have a story to tell along life’s way.
This is Chanda Walker’s story of travails and triumphs in a woman’s emotional and inspiring journey.
“With the help of God,” Walker, 39, said last week about her life as a recovering alcoholic and drug addict from age 12 until 2018. “I didn’t think I would live to be 35. Today, I’ve got a life far greater than I could have imagined. It’s a miracle.”
Born in Greensboro, she was one of four sisters and a brother, all raised by an alcoholic mother.
“My biological father never was in the picture,” she said.
The family moved to the Waldo’s Beach area in Hope Mills and later lived in Massey Hill.
Walker said her stepfather drank alcohol.
“But he was functional and took care of us,” she said. “He was a good man.”
Her mother, she said, was another story.
“I was injured in a car accident, and she was drinking,” Walker said. “I remember thinking, ‘I would not want to do that, if that is what alcohol did.’ And years later, I was doing it myself. I was 11 or 12. As a teenager, I smoked marijuana and did cocaine. At 17, it really got bad. I was on crack at that point and hanging out with older crowds.”
She even flirted with heroin in her 20s.
“I was 90 pounds at 18,” and a high school dropout, Walker said.
She was a young woman in a downward spiral because of alcohol and drugs.
“It just kind of numbed the trauma,” she said.
Along Her Way
Walker joined the Army National Guard in 2006.
“I went to basic training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina,” she said. “And [Advanced Individual Training] at Fort Lee, Virginia. I was drinking, but no drugs. I was deployed in 2009 to Baghdad. I married a soldier in the same battalion. That fell apart pretty quickly.”
Walker left the Army in 2012 as a private.
“Once I came home from Iraq,” she said, “I was in the Wounded Warriors program on Fort Bragg with a hurt back.”
Even as a young mother, she was a woman in search of herself.
“I had my first child in 2011,” Walker said. “I had my son in 2013. By this point, I was severely addicted to heroin. I was trying to escape a bad relationship. I detoxed at home with my sister. My little sister and I got a place in Haymount.”
She was trying hard to distance herself from the shackles of addiction with recovery groups of others living lives of addiction.
“I gave my life to Jesus in 2014,” Walker said. “I had almost three years of sobriety in 2018. But I just couldn’t understand why I kept going back” to alcohol and drugs. “I lost my best friend of 21 years, and I started drinking again, and then it went to meth.”
Walker’s youngest sister, an older sister, and her brother had seen enough.
“They gave me an ultimatum to either get help,” she said, “or they would take my kids.”
Walker found support at a Fayetteville detox facility on Roxie Avenue.
“I went to Roxie Detox for nine days,” she said.
‘I Wanted Peace and Sobriety’
Walker’s path for recovery continued at Myrover-Reese Recovery Homes on Wilkes Road.
“There were six or seven women at the Myrover-Reese Recovery Homes,” she said. “They had what I wanted. I wanted peace and sobriety.”
Chanda Walker found her peace and recovery, and along her way a husband.
“I got a sponsor and started working the [recovery] steps,” she said. “I got a job working on Fort Bragg. I was eight months sober, and we moved into our own place. I was not married at that point. It was just me and my older two kids. I left that job at Fort Bragg to work at Myrover-Reese briefly as the house manager.”
Walker knew Adam Walker, 52, from attending group recovery sessions around town. He, too, is a recovering alcoholic.
“We had a lot in common,” she said. “Slowly but surely, we hit it off, so we got married in 2020. We got pregnant on our honeymoon. When the house we were in—we were outgrowing it—we bought one in Gray’s Creek. While looking for a house, we found out we were pregnant again. We were not trying at that point, but God had different plans.”
Adam and Chanda Walker have three children together—ages 5, 2, and 10 months—and Chanda Walker will tell you they are blessed to have them. Her other children from two previous relationships are ages 14 and 12. All are blessings in the couple’s lives.
“Adam cares for them like his own,” she said about his stepchildren.
She offers a gentle smile at the thought of “this good man” who has come into her life.
“I got a life far greater than I could have imagined,” she said. “I would not have thought I would have the blessings I have today. We are homeowners with five beautiful children. Today, I don’t have to pick up a drink. And now I can look for someone to help” who is struggling with alcohol and drug addictions of their own.
Along with her longtime friend, Jen, you’ll find them each Monday evening at the Women’s House on Quality Road in Massey Hill encouraging other women and sharing their stories of overcoming their addictions.
“We call ourselves the sobriety twins,” she said. “We read the ‘Big Book.’. We just tell them about us. We don’t tell them what to do. We tell them how we did it.”
They learned from the late Marcia Ratcliffe how to be strong in their support for others.
“Marcia came to the Women’s House on Tuesday mornings for well over 25 years and did the ‘Big Book’ study with us,” Walker said. “I will never forget how she came no matter what, even when she wasn’t doing well healthwise. She also put us in our place in a loving way.”
‘I Was Completely Broken’
Chanda Walker reflected on her life of addiction in the July newsletter for Myrover-Reese Recovery Homes with encouragement of Melissa Reid, who is a resource coordinator for the nonprofit. The organization was founded circa 1961 by the late Jimmy Myrover and the late Pat Reese, the longtime Fayetteville Observer investigative reporter and a recovering alcoholic.
“God didn’t meet me in a church building that day,” she wrote in remembering her time at Roxie Detox. “He met me on the floor of a detox center when I was completely broken. I cried out to Him and asked Him to save me, because I could not save myself. Then God began putting people in my path. Members of AA came into that detox center and shared their stories. For the first time, I heard people who understood what I was going through.
“They gave me hope that recovery was possible.
“After detox, I entered Myrover-Reese Fellowship Homes,” she wrote. “What I found there was more than a place to stay. I found structure, accountability, support and women who showed me how to live differently. For the first time in a long time, I felt safe. I learned how to live one day at a time, how to work a recovery program and how to build a life instead of constantly trying to escape it. The women who came before me poured into my life. They loved me when I didn’t love myself and believed in me before I believed in myself. This is where my true relationship with God began.”
Epilogue
Today, Walker, her husband, and children often find themselves attending Manna Church at Executive Place off Raeford Road as she reflects on a life that includes a failed marriage, military deployment, divorce, a miscarriage, the 2010 death of her 49-year-old mother by suicide, heartbreak, and addiction.
“I didn’t think I would live to be 35,” she said again.
But Chanda Walker is here, and she is here for others hoping for a life free of alcohol and drug addiction.
“You don’t have to keep living that life,” she said. “There is a way out. There is hope. There are resources. Alcoholics Anonymous has a hotline. There are drug-use hotlines. Somebody will help them.”
And the Myrover-Reese Recovery Homes for men and women is a telephone call away at 910-779-1306.
“I would never have thought I deserved this life,” Chanda Walker said. “It’s not always rainbows and butterflies, but I don’t have to drink today. I’m still in therapy and meet with women in recovery every week. God has given me a spiritual toolbox. I never want a drink now. God removed the obsession earlier for me. My husband is proud of me, and I’m very proud of him.”
Once, she lived for alcohol and drugs.
Today, she lives for her family.
“They are,” Chanda Walker said, “my whole world.”
Bill Kirby Jr. can be reached at billkirby49@gmail.com or 910-624-1961.
