VIDOR, Texas — A Vidor man is sharing his inspiring story of addiction and sobriety.
Brandon Mckenney is celebrating 17 years of sobriety. He says drugs make you do things you'd never do sober, like lying and stealing from family and friends.
Mckenney tells 12News he faced an uphill battle as he worked to turn his life around.
Growing up with a single mother who worked a lot was hard so he acted out, according to Mckenney.
Mckenney was 16-years-old when he was first introduced to drugs. Addiction came fast and he started down a path of destruction.
"I was hanging around the wrong people. You know, not staying in class, skipping school a lot. And we were all just sitting around smoking weed," he said.
In 2003, Mckenney was introduced to meth. By January 2007, 20-year-old Mckenney was in the Orange County Jail.
"That's how bad off in drugs I was. I don't remember getting in trouble with the law, going to jail, going to court, signing for probation," Mckenney said.
He had cashed stolen checks from a Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses in Vidor and spent six months in jail. At court he was given the option of jail or rehab.
"Where you gonna go? And I looked back at my mama, and my mama shook her head. She's like you're not coming to my house," he said.
Mckenney chose 16 months of rehab, and have never relapsed since.
"Just knowing that that prison wasn't nothing I wanted to be apart of. And if all I had to do was just not do drugs and let somebody else make my decisions for a little while, then maybe it'd get better," said Mckenney.
Mckenney has shared his key to staying sober.
"Is to completely 100% remove yourself away from it, and people that do it. You know even some people that say 'oh I only do it occasionally', that's too much for me," he said.
Amber Mcshan is a peer support specialist at Spindletop Center. She knows how it feels to struggle with drug addiction.
"We have burnt bridges, or we don't have the people that we used to have, or we feel so alone because we think that there aren't people who have been through the things that we have. But there are, there's so many of us," Mcshan said.
Spindletop helps people with the recovery process.
"So getting involved with support, a recovery coach, a sponsor is so important," said Mcshan.
Now 17 years later Mckenney is a hardworking traveling technician.
For those of suffering from drug or alcohol abuse there are resources like the Spindletop Center, Dream Center of Southeast Texas and The Recovery Council of Southeast Texas.