Tara Bijarro works to help others with addiction after one phone call saved her life
Every morning, Tara Bijarro makes a choice not to use drugs.
The 46-year-old is open and honest about her journey and commitment to live a substance-free life.
"I definitely don't look like what I've been through," Bijarro said. "For so many individuals, even on their worst day, they could not walk a mile in my shoes."
Before becoming a certified peer recovery specialist at Ryan's Hope Foundation and monitor and director of recovery services at Oaks of Righteousness/Oaks Village, Bijarro lived the life of an addict. She got hooked on pain meds following an accident in July 2005 after being hit by a drunken driver.
"I broke my neck and I found out I was pregnant," she said. "After I had the baby, it was off to the races. I was on OxyContin, and Big Pharma was really pushing those pills. I was taking it for pain management and they talked about how it was not addictive, but I struggled with addiction."
She recalls having her home raided by Office of Monroe Narcotics Investigations police in 2008. Bijarro and her husband were using and selling cocaine out of their Detroit Beach home while raising their two daughters, Halie who was 12, and Miracle, then 2.
In December 2015, the couple was raided by the Monroe Area Narcotics Team and Investigative Services and in trouble with the Drug Enforcement Administration.
"I was facing 40 years for what they found in the home. I was in a lot of trouble. They found a lot of narcotics – pills, crack, cocaine, heroin," she said. "My husband and I were both arrested. We were partners in crime."
Bijarro couldn't take care of herself or her girls. She felt cursed.
"Sometimes, we pray for miracles and they don't always happen in the form that we expect. I knew everywhere to go in Monroe County to get drugs, but I didn’t know where to get help," she said.
For the mother of two, help came when she lost her children and went to jail.
Her voice breaks as she talks about her daughters coming home from school and having to climb through a window to get in. They had no clue what had happened but needed to get some belongings. They would stay with family.
“My youngest daughter grabbed a photo of me and her dad and a blanket,” she said. “My other daughter was in her senior year in high school. They came home, and we were gone.”
23 calls for help
Behind bars, Bijarro listened as her mother pleaded with her to get help. Her body was breaking down from all the drug use. Her veins had collapsed and she was injecting drugs into her muscles. Her skin was abscessing.
“When my mom saw my arms and all the infection, she cried. She begged me to get help. She and I knew if continued to use drugs I would die,” Bijarro said. “I didn’t want help. I just wanted to get out.”
Lena Hughson, Bijarro’s mom, called 23 different places to get help for her daughter. She kept a list. Only one person called her back. George Barath, founder of Ryan’s Hope Foundation, a nonprofit named after his son that sponsors addicts through local recovery programs, agreed to help.
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For a month, she “white knuckled detoxed” while in the Monroe County Jail. Once out of jail and on parole, Bijarro and her husband stayed in a hotel before entering a recovery program, Life Challenge Ministries in Detroit. Barath was her sponsor.
For the first 30 days, all Bijarro thought about was going home and returning to a life of drugs. She was motivated by money. She told herself she wouldn’t use the drugs, just sell them.
“But every time I had tried that before, I ended up being my best customer,” she said.
Six months into the program, her husband was kicked out. She stayed.
“I had to turn nothing into something. I had absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain,” she said. “I didn’t follow. I stayed in the program. I told myself I was going to complete it. I had never completed anything.”
Bijarro worked on her pain and cultivated her faith. She graduated from the recovery, turned mentors into friends and started helping others.
Road to recovery
With help from Barath, she started working with Diana Monday at Passion of Mind Healing Center, a facility offering medication-assisted treatment for opiate addiction. It was there Bijarro met Pastor Heather Boone of Oaks of Righteousness/Oaks Village in Monroe. Boone gave her a chance.
Bijarro started working part-time at the shelter as a monitor. She’s been there for seven years and has obtained her CCAR certificate enabling her to guide, mentor and support anyone wanting to enter or continue long-term recovery from alcohol or other drug additions. She is also certified through the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services to handle peer recovery.
“I am here to be the voice of all the friends and family I lost. I lost my brother last year to an overdose. He was 38,” she said. “People dealing with substance abuse are more open to talk with me because they know I’ve been through it.”
For more than 10 years, Boone said she has begged Monroe leadership to help with the community’s drug problem. She attended coalitions and conferences and watched as nothing was done.
“They spent so much money on vaping and marijuana but nobody cared about the opioid addiction,” Boone said in a text message. “I have watched hurting parents bury their children in shame for over a decade. Working with people like George Barath and Diana Monday, we tried to do some things out of the box. Life Challenge was a program that I knew about in Detroit and I introduced George to the program. Tara is one of George’s graduates. When we hired her at the shelter almost 7 years ago, I knew she was special. She loved God and truly wanted to help people in addiction.
“We have tried to work with other agencies to get support with peer recovery in the Orchard East Community but we have always been told what we are doing is a duplication of services. The problem is we can't find those services and neither can people who want help.”
Boone said after experiencing an unprecedented number of overdoses since the pandemic, something had to be done.
“We tried to apply for (American Rescue Plan Act) funding and opioid settlement money but the county decided to work with their tried-and-true partners. So we created a boots on the ground position for Tara to help with recovery in the community,” Boone said. “We don't have the funding, but God makes a way every two weeks when payroll is due. She has saved so many lives and is bringing light to a dark situation.”
As director of recovery services for Oaks, Bijarro works getting help for those staying at the shelter as well as help for people off the street needing a recovery plan but said her case load is overwhelming.
“Substance abuse is so heavy and so many people at the shelter deal with mental health. They are not getting the care they need and they are also dealing with substance abuse,” Bijarro said. “Pastor Boone created a full-time position for me for substance abuse alone. I’m always on call. I sit down with any individual coming to the shelter and struggling with substance abuse and try to meet their needs.”
One of her biggest challenges is the urgency to get help.
“There is a two-week waiting list for one of the only residential centers we have in Monroe County,” she said. “Within that two weeks, I am losing people. They’re dying. We’re seeing three and four overdoses in one day.”
She admits long-term recovery isn’t easy.
“I get my strength daily from Jesus Christ. One phone call saved my life and I am here to be a voice,” she added. “I’m no different than the individuals I work with. No one wants to be a junkie. No one wants to be an addict. I have to make that choice every single day and every day I choose not to use.”
Anyone wanting information about substance abuse recovery and how to get help can call Bijarro at 734-244-5444 or Oaks of Righteousness at 734-241-5590.
This article originally appeared on The Monroe News: Tara Bijarro works to help others with addiction in Monroe
