The first time Rebecca Rohl recognized that she was an alcoholic was during an alcoholics anonymous meeting. Addiction wasn’t new to her. Just prior to her acknowledging her newest addiction she had been addicted to prescription pain pills.
It was after a car accident in 2007 that Rebecca was prescribed pain medications that would become her first addiction.
“Over the next nine or ten years, that time was spent being addicted to the pain pills,” said Rebecca. “It wasn’t until the day I wanted to stop that I realized I could not stop.”
With the help of medical experts and another round of medications, Rebecca was able to end her addiction to pain medications in 2016. Shortly after, she would begin drinking.
“The alcoholism was what really took me to a dark path,” said Rebecca.”I had always been able to drink in college and could put it down but once I had experienced the addiction to pain pills, it was like I could not put alcohol down.”
During this time, Rebecca says she began to understand what a relationship with God could give her but her addiction would consume every aspect of her life – including going to church drunk.
Meanwhile, Rebecca’s mother would be watching her daughter’s life slowly drift away. It was then that Melinda Hill would be among the first in the state of Kentucky to file Casey’s Law to help her daughter.
Casey’s Law offers parents and families the ability to be granted a court order that would require their loved one to receive treatment before their addiction causes further harm.
“At the time she couldn’t see that I was not trying to control her in any way but filing Casey’s Law is an act of love,” said Melinda Hill. “It is an act of love when you see your loved one suffering they can’t help themselves.”
Rebecca would begin her treatment journey but would relapse multiple times. Her mother would utilize Casey’s Law three times before getting her daughter back.
Rebecca says it was Addiction Recovery Care’s Lydia’s House in Benham, Kentucky that she would find herself and discover what a life in recovery could do for her.
“I learned really what it meant to receive God’s love and to sit down with my Bible and to actually experience joy from reading the word,” said Rebecca. “Looking back on it, I was so broken and I needed God’s Love.”
Rebecca has been in recovery since 2018.
Partnering with Rebecca’s former and her mother’s current church at Sanctuary Church in Louisville, Kentucky, the mother and daughter duo have worked to find resources for anyone looking for recovery resources. While the two estimates they have helped nearly 25 to 30 people enter treatment, Lead Pastor Robert Pitman, who too is in recovery, estimates the seeds that Rebecca and Melinda have planted for those to find recovery sits in the hundreds.
“My message to anyone hearing this is that God loves you and He has a plan for you,” said Rebecca.
