“Stop selling yourself short”: Former Addict’s Recovery Photo Goes Viral

• Virginia Burton, 48, shared her before-and-after photo on Facebook, being a full-blown drug addict to a political science graduate at Washington State.
• Virginia hopes that it will inspire people to overcome the same struggle.
• “You don’t know what tomorrow might bring so you might consider starting today,” she said.

No one is too broken for redemption.

This exactly resembles the inspiring story of Virginia Burton, 48, who started using marijuana at six and became a “full-blown addict” by the age of 15.

Virginia was even incarcerated three times, twice with her mother.

Life seemed over for her, just waiting for the moment to be taken off this earth. She “honestly thought [she’d] die on a park bench with a needle in [her] arm or by gunshot to the head,” until things have drastically changed.

Virginia finally found sobriety after getting arrested.

“If not for the police, I wouldn’t be where I am today. They gave me an opportunity to change my life when they arrested me,” she wrote on Facebook. “On my own, I wouldn’t have stopped,” she added, admitting that there came a point she desperately wanted to stop, but she just couldn’t.

She posted her before-and-after photo on Facebook, hoping that it’d give hopes to people who are going through the same struggle.

From someone strung out on heroin and cocaine in 2005, she is now a political science graduate from Washington State. She was even awarded the prestigious Truman Scholarship last year, which recognizes future leaders driven to make change at the policy level.

 “How’s that for motivation?” she captioned the photo. “…I would’ve never in a million years thought my life would look the way it does today.”

Virginia is an avid mountaineer, and this influences her perspective. For her, each task in life should be handled the way she approaches a summit.

“Making the decision to return to school so late in life was a challenge for me,” she said. “I thought I might be too old to start my life over again and that learning might be harder than I imagined. I decided that I would tackle each challenge I faced with the same drive I tackle mountains. There is no excuse to stop moving forward. If I want to reach the summit, I must keep climbing.”

The 48-year-old has been freed from this addiction for over eight years, five months and counting now. She hopes that her miraculous transformation will show people that nothing is impossible.

“I want people to know that there is hope,” she wrote on Facebook. “No one is disposable. You don’t have to die in addiction. You can stop using, lose the desire, and find a new way to live. There are so many of us out here willing to help.”

She aims to pursue a master’s degree to help change the prison system and change more lives.

“Stop selling yourself short,” she wrote. “You don’t know what tomorrow might bring so you might consider starting today.”

Source: UPWORTHY