‘Life is hard work’
It’s always emotional. Pick any cliché you want — anything that fits with hitting bottom and then clawing your way back.
Put a soundtrack with it if you want.
But no matter how hard you try, how touchy-feely and inspiring you think you’re getting …
You’ll never touch the real deal.
Misty McCoy lived the real deal.
Because Misty McCoy is the real deal.
She hit rock bottom — took drugs, saw the inside of a jail, and tossed aside family members.
Then she clawed her way back.
She said her life had reached a point where, “I didn’t want to live like that anymore.
“But I didn’t know how not to.”
McCoy completed the Anderson County Drug Court last week — celebrating as they always do with a graduation and with a testimonial.
Because getting from where McCoy was to where she’s at now took hard work
There was a lot of damage done along the way, McCoy said last week.
I hurt a lot of people,” she said. “Now I’m rebuilding those relationships.”
She has regained her family and her daughter.
She has gone from being someone you didn’t want to be around to a “true inspiration.”
It’s not been easy.
“As the days and years went by I’d see her time and time and time again,” Anderson County Judge Don Elledge said.
And when McCoy reached out for drug court Elledge said he thought, “No way.”
He was wrong.
“She did it,” he smiled last week.
And McCoy did it impressively.
For a program that takes as long as it takes (two years on average), McCoy completed drug court in just under 18 months.
In that time she tested negative 226 times — earning the drug court’s “Gold Cup,” and becoming a model of what drug court can accomplish.
“When I first met Misty something just didn’t click,
Drug Court Coordinator Barrit “Winnie” Gadd said.
“Then she bought into the program.”
And the process worked.
McCoy said she knows there is work ahead, that the job is not finished.
“I’m not where I want to be as a person,” she said. “But I’m a long way from where I was.”
But she’ll keep clawing her way back.
Gadd said as part of the program those in drug court have to find a job. McCoy did just that, getting a job at Chik-Fil-A.
“She started on the floor, just like everyone does,” Gadd said. “Then they saw what she can do. Now she’s a manager.”
Her co-workers do more than follow instructions from her — they showed up to support McCoy and provide a moment of levity when they stood up with placards spelling out M-I-S-T-Y, and in smaller letters “Eat More Chicken Do Less Drugs.”
That, Gadd pointed out, is the kind of support people going through drug court need.
Her father, Ted Metcalf, joined in. He told his daughter, “I’m very proud of you. But now it gets hard. Life ain’t easy. Life is hard work.
“But you hold on to us and we’ll hold on to you.”