 The Appalachian Advantage plan is the simpler, better way to get the phone you actually want instead of paying hundreds of dollars up front. Simply pay the taxes up front and a few extra dollars on your monthly bill and get the phone you really want. It's called the Appalachian Advantage and is available at Appalachian Wireless. Addiction recovery programs can assist in an easier transition back into a sober way of life, allowing those who might have made mistakes receive a second chance. The Southeast Kentucky Chamber of Commerce hosted an event at Gaddy Land in Pikeville to discuss a new opioid response program to help educate employers and community members on substance abuse disorder in hopes of reducing stigma in the workplace. I was helped, my life was changed, so I need to help other people and I'm just spotting this file so that everybody can get a second chance, those who deserve it. And it's individuals like myself that are standing up here that do deserve that chance. The program here today was to educate other employers as well as myself on the benefits of hiring people that are in recovery. We have a recovery center at Mountain Comprehensive Care Center and we're very proud of. And we work with individuals to help them get back to their normal daily routines and help them with housing if need be and help them with getting positions and with employers. And we hire people in recovery and we're very proud of that. And I think it all goes back to your policies and procedures. If you drug test regularly, which we do, if you have an employee that tests positive for a substance, we send them for an assessment and they go and once the assessment is done they have to follow the recommendation of the substance use counselor, whether it be residential treatment, be counseling and that keeps their job. We are in the business to help clients while wouldn't we be in the business to help our employees. I spoke with Ashley McCarty, a recovering addict who is now almost seven years clean as she describes her struggle with addiction and how she managed to once again become successful and sober. Well I am so passionate about this because on July 20th 2013 I was given a new life. So I actually have six and a half years in recovery, in long term recovery. And I was a pharmaceutical sales representative for about seven, eight years. I got addicted to paying pills, I actually lived in Prestonsburg, so up the road. At first they made me feel like superwoman, they made me feel good, you know. And that's why people get addicted, you know it's not because you don't get sick the first time you take them if you have that addictive gene in your body, they made me feel on top of the world. But then I was going to places like Italy and Paris and Hawaii and I was the number five sales representative out of 10,000 in the nation and then my performance started to slip. I started going in to see doctors and my speech was slurred and I wasn't meeting my goals, I was missing work, I was taking off days, multiple days and eventually I lost my career, I lost it. I was on a business trip in Las Vegas and I tried to take my own life, I tried to commit suicide on that business trip. So after I lost my career I moved back to London, Kentucky and that's when I got addicted to methamphetamines and that's when everything went downhill. I started living in my car, living in a metal building, bumming people to take showers, using the bathroom and a bucket, things like that. And I got arrested, went to jail, went to rehab for a year and came home, sat down on my couch and thought what do I do now? Nobody's going to hire me. I've got a record, I've got charges on my record, everything. But that girl, who I no longer know today, made me the strong woman that I am today. So being able to share that story with employers and watch the walls being torn down and the stigma being reduced, it just feels amazing. It's so good for me and my recovery and I just love talking about it with employers and sharing my story. When we offer new services or anyone offers new services to the community, everybody gets better. The community gets better, your employees get better, the employer gets better. So it's just kind of a cycle there. So it's very beneficial to everyone to help people stay in recovery and what better way than to employ them and be there and offer support. If you just stop and listen to those people or if you reach out for help because I promise there is hope, there is hope because I never ever thought six and a half years ago living in my car that I would be working for the Kentucky Chamber and standing here talking to you, you know? I never thought this would happen. I have to pinch myself and I'm not unique. I'm not the only person that's going to happen today. There's other people, other people can do this. So just ask for help or listen to others and just accept help, accept help.