The rain fell. But sweltering heat pounded every inch of Brett Mills’ 6-foot-5-inch frame as he spun around in an old, abandoned car.
She felt wet. Homeless Broken.
The young addict had passed out the night before under the awning of a church with his only companion: a small stash of drugs.
“Towards the end I had no one. I had no goal. Nothing,” said Mills, 29. “I was really lost.”
That’s when he hit Mills. Maybe he had hit rock bottom.
But the worst was yet to come.
Or maybe the best was yet to come…tucked away quietly inside a cold tan, red brick building in Norman.
outside
Mills worked his way up from soft drugs to the hard stuff.
“Once you cross the threshold of ‘We drink and smoke weed,’ you enter the world of hard drugs,” he said.
“It’s everywhere. Everybody knows everybody. Somebody knows somebody. . . Next thing you know, there’s all kinds of people you’re calling for all kinds of different things. You know people doing the things you’re doing Mills said.
“And,” he said, “leave.”
Mills took his first hit of harmless weed at age 16. He soon began using the anti-anxiety drug, Xanax, before moving on to methamphetamine and heroin at age 18.
Mills racked up about a decade of drug use in his mid-20s. He said his addicted ex-girlfriend often took shots with him.
“She was spending over $2,000 every three or four days for me and her,” Mills said.
This covered food, cigarettes, hotel rooms, gas and their all-consuming drugs.
At first, Mills held a good job. He had a house, a truck and a sense of security. But meth and heroin slowly wrested normalcy from his grip.
When he lost his job and then his truck to a DUI charge, he couldn’t take his drug habits anymore. His life fell apart.
And he left…
Drugs: It takes one to know one
As he began to erase life on the streets, Mills developed a kind of third eye.
He learned how to walk into a convenience store and see customers in a way that the average person would miss.
“Within minutes I would know who the drug addicts were and I could get drugs within minutes,” he said.
He laughed ruefully.
“Like networking, but you’re doing it for the drugs,” Mills said.
Street crimes
Life on the streets wasn’t much of a life for Mills. Initially, when he wasn’t running all night, he crashed in hotel rooms and friends’ houses.
“I was kind of bouncing around. That was my life for a long time,” he said.
“It was fueled by crime,” Mills said. “Stealing from businesses and credit card fraud.”
Did merchants and law enforcement take notice? Better believe it.
“I was in so much trouble legally, I didn’t know there was a way out,” Mills said. “I didn’t know if I would ever breathe sober. I was a broken and lost human.”
Mills was arrested and sent to jail 15 times, including many trips to the Norman jail.
“It was in and out. In and out,” Mills said.
The intervention: Not so fast
In 2017, the founders of Hope is Alive Ministries held an intervention for Mills. That action led to his oh-so-brief year of sobriety. Then he took a small sip.
“I just burned everything to the ground,” Mills said.
Titus Carey, with Hope is Alive Ministries in Oklahoma City, said people in the program can end up back on the streets “one more time” and often end up overdosing, sometimes even dying. Although Mills was luckier at the time, he fell in line with the 40% to 60% of addicts who relapse.
Bigger problems lurked around the bend.
My skin is on fire
Mills once again walked the rougher streets of Norman and Oklahoma City. He was always planning his next big hit. And each high was harder and harder to hit.
“Especially in the last year, I was doing drugs just to get drugs,” he said.
Before his addiction, Mills seemed like the boy next door. Ultimately, as her photograph reveals, the drugs not only ravaged her body, but her face as well.
“Common signs of any addict or alcoholic can include changes in appetite … changes from good to bad hygiene and general appearance,” said Mark Woodward, spokesman for the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drug Enforcement.
Some addicts develop acne and may have sores or scabs on their face, arms and legs, Woodward said. Addicts scratch themselves while hallucinating about bugs crawling over and under their skin.
For Mills, his rough appearance was nothing compared to the pain of heroin withdrawal. He described the agony in excruciating detail.
“I feel like my bones are breaking and my skin is on fire,” Mills said as if reliving the withdrawal.
He said the drug looked like a life-saving medicine. But the withdrawals made him feel like he was dying.
“I feel like real death,” Mills said, “if I don’t have this drug.”
The worst. Or is it the best?
The drugs made him act in ways he never would have otherwise, Mills said.
“I was facing about 20 years in prison,” he said.
In fact, in 2019 he was busted for felony theft in Norman and Oklahoma City after stealing from businesses and selling the products for drug money.
That same year, records show Mills was charged in Oklahoma County with possession of a controlled substance.
Before long, he racked up uncompleted probation programs, 16 warrants and about 12 misdemeanors.
“We’re done with you,” he said county officials told him. “And we’ll send you to jail.”
But Mills’ lawyer convinced the judge to give his client one more chance to turn his life around. Instead of prison, Mills was ordered to complete drug court.
“I don’t know if you’re familiar with this program — drug court? It’s not very easy,” Mills said.
But as difficult as it was, drug court, located in that cold, red brick building north of Norman, turned out to be the best thing for Mills. He is free after completing all tests and programs, including his self-styled Hope program.
Never give up
Today, Mills is the Senior Director of Programs at Hope is Alive Ministries. Help addicts beat their addiction. Like other counselors and advocates, he’s working even harder as fentanyl tears through Oklahoma.
Fresh-faced Els Molins has been sober for almost four years.
“I’ve been blessed,” Mills said. “I spend my whole life dedicated to drug addicts and alcoholics.”
It encourages addicts and those who love them to never give up.
“If I can do it,” Mills said, “everybody else can.”
