Hagerstown woman reflects on her addiction recovery at Day Reporting Center graduation

Jennifer Custer said she remembers Deputy 1st Class Lance Davis asking her if she wanted an opportunity at the Washington County Day Reporting Center.

Speaking at the center's first-ever graduation ceremony on Friday afternoon, Custer recalled learning she would need to wear a "box" on her ankle and told Davis: "No way."

Custer shared her story of drug addiction, incarceration and recovery during the Day Reporting Center's with a crowd of about 70 people at the outdoor ceremony, near the center and Washington County Sheriff's Office off Western Maryland Parkway along Hagerstown's western edge.

More from Friday's graduation: Addicts share stories, thanks at Washington County Day Reporting Center graduation

The center is an alternative option to the Washington County Detention Center for eligible nonviolent offenders. Participants receive substance abuse and mental health counseling and take classes to help them develop employment skills, Program Director Meaghan N. Willis said.

Custer told attendees she remembers Davis, who had known her for about 20 years while she was in and out of the Washington County Detention Center, reply, "OK, go back to your old life then."

As she turned to go back to her housing unit, Custer said she experienced a flash of her life. A life with 28 years of addiction, first to crack cocaine and then heroin. A life that included various incarceration stints, including eight at the local jail and time in Maryland and West Virginia state prisons.

Custer said she went through numerous rehabilitation places and can't count how many addictions counselors she's seen.

She told the crowd that at that point in her life she'd been on some type of probation or parole since age 12.

If not for Davis' words that day, Custer said "this" never would have happened.

"This" is being clean for over 5 1/2 years. It's finishing the program in late 2021. And then, in January 2022, starting a full-time job as a certified peer recovery specialist for the medication assisted treatment program at the detention center.

"I believe that God has allowed me to go through everything with my addiction for this" — to help others, Custer said.

Davis, who used to work with the Day Reporting Center and is now retired, said it is an honor to see how far Custer has come.

"It's truly amazing to see all the faces, like Jenny," at the graduation ceremony, he said.

Custer said everyone who worked at the Day Reporting Center earned their paycheck when she arrived "a mess," in April 2018.

The center "saved my life," she said.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: Washington County Day Reporting Center holds first graduation