A Tennessee couple who overcame meth addiction together have gone viral after posting inspiring before and after photos, proving that recovery is indeed possible, People reported.
Brent shared the side-by-side comparison photos of himself and his wife, Ashley, on Facebook which quickly went viral.
Brent, 30, admitted he was just nine years old when he first started smoking, and just 12 when he started drinking and smoking marijuana.
He told Today that three years later, he was experimenting with harder drugs.
His addiction didn’t become a serious problem until about 10 years ago after he lost his brother, Jess, in a fatal car accident.
“That is when I went to the hard drugs and tried meth for the first time,” Brent said.
A year later, he met his future wife, Ashley, and the two initially had a toxic on-again/off-again relationship.
Brent said they frequently fought with each other and were regularly doing meth together.
In 2016, he was released from prison after serving two years of a 10-year sentence.
And although he and Ashley continued to get high, he began to fear that he would fail his urine tests, ultimately leading to him before thrown back in prison.
In December of 2016, Brent approached Ashley about making a serious change in both of their lives for the better.
As Brent explained, “I said to Ashley, ‘I want to build a life,’ and I asked her to come with me and she said, ‘Yeah, I’ll go.’”
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Thirty days after agreeing to become sober, Brent and Ashley got married.
They spent their first year as newlyweds simultaneously battling the ups and downs of recovery and marriage, but had each other to lean on.
“We just fed off each other. If I was having a bad day and craving she would help talk me out of it and vice versa,” Brent said.
“We blocked and erased every friend we had who did drugs.”
Together they created better, more fulfilling lives for themselves.
Brent went back to school and obtained his GED while Ashley earned her nurse’s assistant certification.
Now, as the pair approach the three year anniversary of their sobriety, they are living radically different lives than before.
Brent now works at a local steel plant and also does some heating, ventilation and air conditioning work on the side.
His wife, Ashley, works as a nurse in their hospital’s intensive care unit.
They’re also working on bettering their credit in the hopes of one day buying a house together.
On July 26, Brent created a Facebook post showing the pair in two different photos to celebrate being nearly three years sober.
The first, he explained in the post , was taken way back in December 2016 when the pair first decided they would get sober together. The second was taken just last month showing a visibly more put-together and happier couple.
“I hope that my transformation can encourage a addict somewhere,” Brent wrote. “It is possible to recover!”
The post now has over 200,000 reactions and has been shared nearly 150,000 times.
People in the comments have not only extended congratulations to the sober couple, but have also expressed how inspiring the pair are for others who might be struggling to overcome their own addiction.
“It takes a strong will to do this,” one person wrote. “May God continue to bless you both and use your story to give hope to those who feel hopeless.”
Brent said both he and Ashley are stunned by the incredible response their post has received online.
“It blew our minds,” Brent said. “I had a bunch of people who told me that our story has encouraged them to get help and check into rehab.”
He added, “Whenever I was an addict I thought that because I had ruined my life there was no way to turn it around. It just had to stay that way. You don’t have to live like that forever. You can have a better life.”
