How a former client reclaimed their life and now helps others find their path to recovery.
Aloha House Certified Substance Abuse Counselor, Spring Taylor, sharing her recovery journey with Maui Behavioral Health Resources Board of Directors.
As a child, Spring learned what it meant to survive.
Growing up in a home marked by violence, she watched her mother make the difficult decision to take her children and leave her abusive father behind. She remembers having bruises from head to toe and living in constant fear. Yet even in the midst of hardship, there were glimpses of the person she would one day become.
“My mom always told me that I carried a light with me. Somehow, I was always very positive.”
As she grew older, the pain and trauma she had carried for years led her down a difficult path of substance use. Addiction took hold of her life, costing her relationships and, eventually, custody of her children.
Then came the moment that changed everything.
“I lost my kids. Then I went to jail,” Spring says. “It saved my life. If it wasn’t for that, I wouldn’t be clean.”
The day she was arrested could have easily been the day she died.
“The day the cops picked me up, I had used a bad needle,” she remembers. “I should have died that day. They had to cut it out of my hand so the infection wouldn’t go to my heart.”
What initially felt like the end of everything became the beginning of something new.
After being released from jail, Spring entered treatment at Malama Family Recovery Center, where she found the support, structure, and compassion she needed to begin rebuilding her life. As a mother separated from her children, she was given the opportunity to heal while working toward reunification with her family.
Years later, Spring returned to Malama Family Recovery Center, not as a client, but as a member of the team. She began working as a Program Assistant, using her lived experience to encourage women who found themselves where she had once been. The place that helped save her life became the place where she helped others reclaim theirs. Today, Spring has been sober for eight years.
As she recently shared her story with the Board of Directors at Maui Behavioral Health Resources, emotion filled the room as she reflected on what recovery has taught her. “All the things I want to run from, I let myself feel it,” she said through tears. “And that’s okay. That’s what we teach our clients, that it’s okay.”
For years, Spring had done everything she could to avoid pain. Recovery showed her another way: that healing doesn’t come from running from difficult emotions, but from learning how to move through them.
“The blessing of recovery has given me my children,” she shared.
One of Spring’s proudest moments came this year as she celebrated not only her own graduation, but her son’s as well.
“My son had experienced every version of me and still chooses to love me,” she said. “And now he’s graduating high school, and I’m graduating college, and we have a photo of us in our caps and gowns together.” For Spring, this photograph represents more than academic achievement. It captures redemption, perseverance, and the healing of a family that addiction once threatened to tear apart.
Spring now serves as a Certified Substance Abuse Counselor for Drug Court (CSAC) under Aloha House , helping individuals navigate the same challenges she once faced herself.
“I feel like I don’t even work because I love what I do,” she says. “I get to relay all of the good things to my clients,” Spring said. “And it’s because of the programs here that we change lives.”
Spring’s journey took her from surviving childhood trauma to battling addiction, losing custody of her children, and facing incarceration. Today, she is reunited with her family, a college graduate, a recovery professional, and a source of encouragement for countless individuals.
The little girl who carried a light through unimaginable circumstances still carries it today. Only now, she uses it to help others find their way back to themselves, and to the people they love.
