- As long as I don't give up on myself,
there is hope that things can get better,
and there's hope that there's a way out
of whatever situation I'm in.
When I was 16, like I didn't believe in myself at all.
I really didn't think I was gonna live past 18.
Like if that happened, that would have been a miracle.
And I did, and now I'm 20.
- [Michelle] And how many years sober do you have?
- Two and a half years.
- [Michelle] Congratulations, baby.
- That's so crazy.
(gentle music)
I've been living in a sober house on Cape Cod.
And I did that for a year.
I moved out of that sober house
and I moved into a graduate house.
Yeah, then I moved into my own apartment,
and then COVID happened.
And since corona happened,
I still technically live in that apartment,
but I have moved back into a sober house
so that I didn't have to be alone during corona.
And I took an EMT course
and I had just graduated my EMT course
and I passed my practical exam
and I passed my national exam.
And I'm now a certified EMT.
Ultimately like what keeps me clean
is the fact that so many of my friends have died from this.
And like, they don't have the opportunity
to get another shot at staying clean.
They don't have an opportunity to go to treatment again,
they don't have an opportunity to get clean again.
And I'd be selfish if I, you know,
like wasted the chance that I have.
Like I got to go to whatever,
I had the fancy insurance card
that got me to whatever treatment I wanted to go to.
And you know, so many people don't have that.
And it's like, I have this opportunity,
I have, you know, all the resources I need.
Why not take advantage of that and do it?
Not just for myself, not just for my friends,
not just for my family,
but for everyone that doesn't have that opportunity.
What it comes down to is like, Shawn was my best friend.
I do this for him because
he wanted to be clean more than anyone I know,
and he doesn't have a chance to be clean anymore,
and like, he should still be here with us.
If I can help someone else
and keep his memory alive in any way I can,
I'm gonna do it,
because he didn't deserve what happened to him.
No one can really relate to what we went through
at this school unless you went through it,
'cause it's not an experience that like,
anyone else has ever had.
Normal people, when I say I went to recovery high school,
they're like, oh, like a credit recovery high school?
And I'm like, no, like a addiction recovery high school.
They're like, you mean you went to treatment
and you did your schoolwork in treatment?
And I'm like, no, I didn't.
It's like recovery high school.
And people just don't understand it
unless you live through it.
And it's like, when I'm having a hard time,
I'm not gonna text someone who I know won't get it.
I'm gonna text someone who went through
the same experiences.
You know, like I don't trust people very easily.
You have to like,
prove to me that you're gonna follow through
because so many people in my life have left.
And so many people in my life
have just like been like, I'm not, I'm done with you.
Like I'm done with you.
You're a mess.
But like the only person besides like my family
that's stayed with me the whole time has been Michelle.
When something bad happens to me,
the first person I call isn't my mom, she's gonna kill me.
Even when good things happen, I text Michelle.
I texted Michelle before anyone else
when I got my EMT certificate.
The fact that she doesn't treat us like we're bad,
she treats us like we're sick because we are,
because addiction's a disease, it's not a choice.
We don't choose to live our lives like this.
Like that's the only reason I'm clean.
Being treated the way I was treated when I went here,
like no chance, I would be dead, 100%, I would.
There's no way I would be clean today.
(gentle music)
Since filming the documentary,
I feel like the easy answer would be
I'm proud of the fact that I'm still clean and sober,
but by far, the thing that I'm most proud of
is getting my EMT certificate
because I don't finish anything.
I'll start everything, but I never finish anything.
And that was like the first thing I finished.
And like, I did it by myself.
And like, no one thought I could do it.
Like people told me to drop the class
because my class was online because of corona,
and people said, oh, you're never gonna get through that,
just drop it and wait until you can go take it in person.
And like, I wanted it so bad just to prove to myself,
like you can, you know,
find something that you're passionate about
and you can go do it.
It gave me a sense of self confidence
that I've never had before.
Well, my ultimate dream,
which I say all the time, is to be Michelle Lipinski.
I want to do for other people what she did for me,
'cause I see how many lives Michelle has changed,
and how many of my friends she's literally saved.
And like, I don't know what that looks like,
I don't know what my future looks like.
I don't like to think about it because that's scary,
but all I know is that whatever I ended up doing,
I want to help other people.
(gentle music)