Mom of 4 Wants to Tell Others About Hope for Addiction

Looking back on her lengthy addiction to pain pills, Mandi Sims wishes that early on she would have reached out to her family, a friend, or even to the surgeon who prescribed her painkillers in the first place.

“If I had reached out back when this started, even called the doctor who had done that ankle surgery … If someone would have said, ‘You might be addicted, here’s what to do,’ that might have changed everything, ” she said. “I was the only one in my family that had ever struggled with addiction, and my biggest fear was having to tell my family. I felt like I was completely alone.”

Today Sims is 10 years clean and sober, a successful car saleswoman in Salina, Kansas, and the single mother of four great kids. Addiction is far behind her now, but she is eager to tell her story, hoping she might help someone else. “I would love to go back to that prison I spent years in and speak to those women,” she said, referring to time served on drug-related charges. “People can relate to someone who’s done it, who came out on top.”

Sims did come out on top, but not without trials and tribulations. Though she had repeatedly tried to get clean on her own, it was when she found Dr. Greg Lakin and one of his medication-assisted treatment centers that everything changed. She still visits Center for Change in Wichita every 90 days and remains on a very low dose of Suboxone, a prescription medicine used to treat opioid addiction in adults. “Suboxone was a life-saver for me,” she said. “Dr. Lakin may not realize how much he changed my life. I probably would have ended up back in prison or dead.”

An Addiction Begins

Growing up in Mankato, Kansas, Sims had a great childhood in a family that didn’t struggle with addiction. When she was 24 she underwent reconstructive surgery on her ankle from an old injury sustained in a car accident, and was prescribed narcotics for recovery pain. After three months the doctor took her off pain meds and declared her “good to go.” But she didn’t realize the extreme illness that followed was because of addiction withdrawal.

Her boyfriend at the time had some leftover pain pills from a dental procedure and gave her one. “I felt phenomenal,” she recalled. “I realized, oh my gosh, as long as I’m taking these I feel great! That’s where my addiction started.”

For seven years she crafted reasons to get more painkillers from doctors. When she would run out of pills or try to get clean, she was debilitatingly sick for weeks at a time, motivating her to get more narcotics. “The fear of getting sick is what kept me addicted,” she said.

At age 31 and pregnant, Sims tried to break into the pharmacy where her mom worked, got caught and went to prison. While the two-year sentence seemed grim, it forced her into sobriety and saved her life and that of her son, who was born in prison nonaddicted and went to live with Sims’s mom. “When I got out I hit the ground running. Within a year I had a job, a house, a car and full custody of my three kids. Things were great,” she said.

But four years later when she underwent another surgery and was prescribed narcotics, she once again became addicted. Pregnant with her fourth child and a year into a renewed addiction, Sims was referred to Dr. Lakin who practiced at Valley Hope at that time. Bound and determined to get clean, and with only a week until her daughter was to have a tonsillectomy, Sims entered the program. “I was there seven days and that was 10 years ago,” she said.

She continued to see Dr. Lakin throughout her pregnancy, and after the birth of her daughter headed straight to his office. “I have a picture of him holding her the day we got out of the hospital, with her curly red hair,” she said. “It’s not going to be a perfect road; you’ll have struggles, but if you do it sober you’ll make it through. But people can’t be afraid to ask for help. There is a better way.”