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From user to useful
Junior League honors local woman who turned her life around
By JoAnn Jones
YOUNGSTOWN
When Felicia Scott Briggs was 14, she liked everything she saw in her neighborhood on the north side of Youngstown — the fancy cars, the men in suits, the women in short skirts.
And she wanted it all, including the alcohol and drugs.
“That excited me,” she said. “I wanted it and I went after it.”
“I started using at age 14, drinking wine and smoking marijuana,” Briggs said. “I was just living the fast life and started abusing drugs really bad.”
“Heroin became my drug of choice,” she said softly.
How could a young woman like this end up being named one of Three Wonderful Women by the Junior League of Youngstown last month?
Briggs, who is a Women’s Program case manager at the Neil Kennedy Recovery Clinic on Rush Street, was sentenced to that same facility by Judge Maureen Cronin for drug abuse. And although it took her many years, three failed relationships and some jail time, she turned her life around and is now helping other women who are going through the same problems.
“I see a lot of the same behaviors in the women I help,” Briggs said. “That’s why I can help them. I don’t always tell them [my story], so they’ll look at me and say, ‘How did you know?’ I just smile.”
A 1988 graduate of The Rayen School, Briggs came from a large family of seven girls and five boys. Coincidentally, her mother’s name was Twelvena. She said she never had a relationship with her father.
“We’ve all made mistakes,” Briggs said of her brothers and sisters, “but now we’re all okay.”
Briggs said her drug use was related to her relationships; the men in her life were also users.
“I was in an abusive relationship for a couple years,” she said. “Drugs were involved. Then I became a mother [to her son Bernard], and 11 months later, I had a daughter [Bernadette]. That slowed me down a lot.” Briggs later had another daughter, Jodeci, who is now 16.
Unfortunately, she didn’t slow down enough to give up drugs. Fortunately, Briggs said, her mother was very supportive.
“Yes, she was angry about my relationship and about the drugs, but if it weren’t for my mom, I would have lost my kids,” she said. “She was a strong woman.”
“My oldest sister Diane, who passed away in November of 2009, was also very supportive,” Briggs said. “She told me, ‘I don’t care what drugs you’re on; I’m always going to love you.’ She even took my son in for awhile.”
Briggs got out of the relationship with her children’s father, but soon found herself in another one — with another user.
“I made the decision to get married, and it was the worst thing I’ve ever done,” she said. “I was so high, the man performing the ceremony had to hit my arm for me to say ‘I do.’”
Briggs said at that time her heroin use got worse, and she left her husband after having her third child. But shortly after that, she found herself in jail.
“I went to jail for drugs, and when I was in there, I started to read the Bible and pray,” she said. “But I didn’t know what God had in store for me yet.”
After a 93-day jail stay, Briggs was sent to a halfway house in Akron for four months. Her mom took care of her children for the seven months she was away, and she was allowed passes home occasionally. However, she said while she was in the halfway house, she was in a relationship with another man who used.
“My counselor told me I had to surrender all those people,” she said. “I had to let them go.”
“I came right back [to Youngstown],” she said, “and after three days, I used again.”
“My probation officer threw me right back in the Mahoning County Jail,” Briggs said. “All I can remember of that day is my youngest daughter looking me in the eye and saying, ‘Mommy, are you going to be here when I get home from school?’ They never knew where I was going to be.”
“When I heard that big, loud clang of the gates,” she said, “I couldn’t believe I was back.”
Briggs said as soon as she got to her cell, she prayed and asked God to help her. She believes that help came when she appeared in front of Judge Cronin again. Previously, Judge Cronin had told her she would go to Marysville, Ohio’s women’s prison, the next time she appeared in court.
“Judge Cronin said she didn’t know why, but she was giving me another chance to go to rehab at Neil Kennedy,” Briggs said, adding that that was the third time she had been sent there.
“My mother didn’t believe me, and my brothers and sisters didn’t think I could do it,” she said. “That’s when I hit rock bottom.”
“I was angry,” she said. “I did not want to be there. Then my counselor said to me, ‘If you don’t want to be compliant, I’ll call your probation officer, and you can go back to jail.’” She decided to cooperate.
Part of her anger arose when a niece and a nephew were murdered, the niece in 1993 before she had gone to jail the first time, and the nephew in 2001, the last time she was in jail. The other part, she said, was that she always thought something was missing in her life because she didn’t have a father.
During her time in rehabilitation at Neil Kennedy, which included 28 days of in-patient care, a counselor told her that her drug use was “an obsession.” At that point, she said, she ran back to her room, got on her knees and prayed.
“God, take this obsession and compulsion and taste out of my mouth,” she prayed, saying she felt a “spiritual awakening” when she stood up. She completed her 28 days, then some outpatient care and then went to the clinic once a week for nine months.
The result? Finally being clean at 32 years old, she said.
A supervisor at Neil Kennedy told her after she had “a year clean” she should put in an application and she could get hired. She’s now been working there for eight and a half years in various capacities.
Briggs said she shared her story with one her friends, Cathy Campana, who is a member of the Youngstown chapter of the Association of Junior Leagues International, whose goal it is to develop the potential of women and improve communities.
Prior to the group’s fall fundraiser, “It’s a Wonderful Life ... in the Mahoning Valley,” the Neil Kennedy clinic, Beatitude House and the Junior League each selected one woman who had overcome extreme obstacles in her life to become successful. Briggs’ story illustrated many obstacles over which most addicts never triumph.
On Oct. 21, when she and two others were honored by the Junior League, she said she “felt like a diva” as league members bought them each an outfit and matching accessories, paid for facials and makeup at Macy’s, and gave them gift cards, among other gifts.
“That night, I felt like a star,” she said. “They appreciated what I achieved.”
Junior League president Anna Aey said it was the first time in the group’s 80-year existence in the Valley that the league had honored women at one of its fundraisers.
“We had such a great community support that we’re looking into continuing it,” Aey said.
“We wanted to do something to highlight the good things in Youngstown,” Aey added. “I had dinner with the three women, and they were very inspirational. The support we had that evening shows how we stick together as a family in the Mahoning Valley.”
Junior League members and Briggs’ co-workers at Neil Kennedy weren’t the only ones who were proud of Briggs. Her son, daughters and niece, as well as her boyfriend of three years, said they’re also very proud.
“I was mad and angry [growing up],” said her son, Bernard Hasley Jr. “I’m proud of her and I’m happy she’s helping other women.”
Alfred Bunting, her “significant other,” as Briggs calls him, echoes that thought.
“She’s a good woman,” he said, “and I feel really good about what she’s doing.”
“Words are meaningful,” Briggs said, “and I love it when my clients say, ‘Miss Felicia, you’ve helped me so much.’ I love my job, and I know that God placed me there. The staff members at Neil Kennedy are the best on earth.”