Beverly Hill Beat a 25 Year Drug Addiction, Now She's Helping Others Do the Same

     

Beverly Hill takes a selfie while enjoying a sunny day with her beloved dog Abijah.
Photo courtesy of Beverly Hill.

    On an average day, you can find Beverly Hill sharing hope and encouragement with patients at Richmond Recovery, where she works as a Certified Medical Assistant. In the evenings, you are likely to find her at church, volunteering with an outreach ministry, or spending time with her family. This was not always the case. Beverly Hill overcame years of addiction, abusive relationships, and incarcerations to get to where she is today.

    Hill appeared eager to tell her story as she sat, legs crossed, at a table in the back room of Lionheart Ministries, one of the churches she attends. She was still wearing the blue scrubs she had worn to work that day. Before she began sharing her story, she expressed her hope that in sharing, she would be able to help someone else. 

Hill says her struggles with substance abuse started at only 11 years old. Her addiction began when she started getting high with the other kids in her neighborhood. “Cigarettes and marijuana was the gateway,” Hill says. 

    It did not take long for her use to escalate beyond that as she was introduced to more potent addictive drugs. By the time she was 14, Hill says she had been to her first drug rehabilitation center and experienced her first incarceration in juvenile detention. What started as smoking pot and cigarettes with her friends ended with IV drug use and 25 years of addiction. 

Hills says both of her biological parents struggled with substance abuse. Hill shared that she was raised by her paternal grandmother, who she looked at as her mother and called mom. Hill says she was a “holy terror” to her grandmother during her teenage years. 

    Hill expressed remorse for those years. “I feel so bad about it,” Hill says.“I was mad at her. I had no appreciation that she had raised me. I had no appreciation for her doing stuff like my laundry and cooking food. All that I was blind to. I just saw her as this evil woman who kept putting me in jail or rehabs, so I just kept getting worse and worse.” Even though she is remorseful, Hill keeps an optimistic outlook and does not let regret about the past hold her back or weigh her down. Hill shared her gratitude for the time she got to spend with her grandmother in sobriety before she passed.

Hill says she found her freedom from addiction in May of 2017. She gives God all the credit for her sobriety. Her eyes welled with tears as she shared the story of her salvation, which marked the end of her drug use. She says it all began when she heard music coming from the building next to the laundromat where she was doing laundry.

     “I was walking back from the laundromat and I heard this awesome band and I thought it was a pool room,” Hill says. When she went to check it out she discovered it was a church. She says didn’t stay for the service that night even though she was invited in, but she returned the following Wednesday. She credits the experience she had that Wednesday with changing her life. Hill says, “As soon as I walked in the Holy Spirit floored me. I felt like I was floating or drowning. I felt like I was in water, and I felt a quickening. My heart started pounding. I just started crying uncontrollably. I knew I was home.” Hill says she has been sober since that day. 

Hill has fully embraced her second chance at life. She went back to school for medical assisting in 2018. She had completed one year of schooling while she was still in addiction but did not finish. At first, she did not think it would be possible for her to go back to school because of her unpaid student loans.

     Hill says she called and spoke with a woman at Federal Student Aid to see what she had to do to be eligible for aid again. Hill said when she had checked in the past, the minimum monthly payments required on her loans were much more than she could afford. “It was God,” Hill says. “I was on the phone, and she was like, hey, how does five dollars a month sound.” Hill paid five dollars a month for six months and was then eligible to receive the grants and loans she needed to complete her education. 

Hill says she graduated as a CMA in January of 2020. After graduating, her first jobs were at a medical spa and an urgent care center, but she felt she had a different calling. Hill says she started working at Richmond Recovery Center in November of 2021. Richmond Recovery Center provides medication-assisted treatment to people struggling with addiction. Their website states, “our mission is to address the drug epidemic that is sweeping the country and, more acutely, our region by providing necessary assistance to those individuals in the grips of the devastating cycle that is opioid addiction.”    

    Hill finds her work very rewarding. “God has blessed me with a way to help other people to look forward past their addiction and not stay in the vicious cycle,” she says. Hill says her favorite part of working there is, “Watching people get free. I’m thankful God has given me spirit that doesn’t judge others. Nobody is too far gone.”

Benjamin and Beverly Hill pose joyfully on their wedding day.
Photo courtesy of Beverly Hill

Beverly Hill’s husband, Benjamin Hill admires the work she does there. He says, “She helps people a lot with the testimony of who she was to where God has brought her from. She is sensitive to their needs and their hurts.”

     Beverly and Benjamin Hill have been married since July of 2021. They met at the church Beverly Hill had her salvation experience in. Benjamin Hill said the thing that first attracted him to Beverly was her eagerness. “She was hungry for God,” Benjamin Hill says. “She was very zealous for ministry. No matter what it was she was like sign me up I’ll be there.” 

    Beverly Hill shared that she is a domestic violence survivor and was in several abusive relationships during her addiction As a domestic abuse survivor, Hill commented on how abuse affected her addiction. "It definitely fueled it for a long time," says Hill. 

    Hill shared that her first experience of domestic violence occurred while she was married to her oldest son’s father. Hill says her ex-husband became physically abusive after she found out she was pregnant and that the abuse endured for the duration of the marriage. “It was the darkest time of my life,” Hill says.  

While Hill expressed that she is still working on overcoming the trauma from her past relationships, she is grateful for the relationship she has with Benjamin. She says she sees being able to serve God alongside her husband as a blessing. “Worshiping beside someone you’re married to is a beautiful thing,”  Hill says.

Tricia Marcum, who works with Hill at Richmond Recovery, shared the positive impact Hill has had on her life. “Beverly has helped me in so many ways,” Marcum says. Marcum shared that Hill has been a “true friend” to her. Marcum is also in recovery and shared that Hill has been a major support in that. “It helps to know I can call her and she’s always going to be there for me, whether I’m having a craving or just feeling down or whatever it might be,” Marcum says.

Hill shared that there are things she does to help strengthen her recovery and ensure she never returns to her old life. Hill says she attends a faith-based recovery meeting weekly and is very active in church. She also expressed that working with patients at Richmond Recovery who are still struggling with addiction can be helpful. “It keeps me grounded,” Hill says. Hill says “staying close to God” is the most important thing out of everything she does.