One last option

Long road finally led to Drug Court, recovery

Posted

Editor’s note: This is the second story in a two-part series about Brookings County Drug Court graduate Tiffany Heyduk. The story contains explicit language and subject matter.

BROOKINGS – Tiffany Heyduk maintained a drug habit for 30 years, all while raising two sons and working full-time and volunteering in her community. 

She enjoyed using methamphetamines, and not even a confrontation with and confession to her son prompted a change. It seemed nothing could convince her to stop – not going through treatment, felony arrests, or even prison. Then she was offered a chance to go through the Drug Court program and took it.

It’s not that Heyduk wanted to get clean.

“I was tired of living in institutions, and jail, and in prison. I never want to go back and sleep in a jail bed again in my life, or go live in a house with 30 women. I was tired of it. I was done,” Heyduk said. 

Her moment of inspiration came when she had to get to her new job and defiantly rode her bike, against the suggestion of her Court Services Officer.

“That bike ride and that job saved my life,” Heyduk said.

On Nov. 9, she became the first graduate of the Third Judicial Court’s Drug Court in Brookings County.

Getting caught

Heyduk had hidden her addiction for years, even from her family, but that was about to change.

“I got an ingestion charge that day. I had a pipe in the car,” she said. There were also bullets in the car, and she confessed to the officers that she had a gun at her house, which was found.

“The feds came in and gave me a federal felony,” she said. “They wanted me to tell more – but I wouldn’t. They probably thought I knew a lot … I wasn’t gonna say where anything came from.

“While on probation, I got another ingestion charge,” Heyduk said.

She was sent to prison.

“They didn’t want to send me to prison; they just didn’t know what to do with me,” she added.

She found out firsthand that prison is not how Hollywood portrays it.

“It’s not like ‘Orange is the New Black’ … you do not get to walk around with your friends,” Heyduk said.

“It was a horrible, horrible place. But you know what? I made it through it, and it made me stronger. You know why? Because I was used to being the new girl,” she said, referring to her childhood as a military brat constantly on the move.

She said it wasn’t her fellow prisoners that made it bad.

“The guards were terrible. That was the worst part of the whole thing was the guards, calling us names and being cruel to us,” Heyduk said. 

“I was only in there two months; two months too long,” she said. “But you know what? Nobody can pay for the education that I got in that two months.”

Prison did not deter her from doing drugs, and Heyduk firmly believes being incarcerated doesn’t help any addict.

“It made me angry,” Heyduk said. “I used three days after I got out of prison because I was angry.”

‘Worst night of my life’

It was not to be her last run-in with the law. She was arrested again in 2011 by Sgt. Dana Rogers of the Brookings Police Department.

“It was the worst night of my life,” Heyduk said.

Something Rogers said to her did make an impression.

At one point, she asked him why he disliked her.

“And he goes, ‘I don’t dislike you. I don’t want that s--- on the streets for my kids to get a hold of.’ And I never, ever forgot him saying that because I thought, ‘I want grandchildren some day, and I don’t want my grandchildren doing that,’” Heyduk said.

Heyduk still saw Rogers as the enemy; he questioned her “many times afterwards,” which didn’t help her antagonism toward him.

She admitted during her graduation speech that she hated Rogers for a long time, but no longer does.

“I’m not sure when that changed,” she said.

More steps

Rogers wasn’t the only one Heyduk was fighting. She was in the grips of the criminal justice system now.

“That is one thing I did not like was to pee in that cup,” she said at graduation.

Heyduk also didn’t like Glory House, a residential re-entry program. She kept using drugs, and her Court Services Officer Molly Ramlo kept sending her back so she didn’t have to go to prison. Heyduk was on a merry-go-round she couldn’t get off.

“I just kept staying on probation. I got off federal probation because they said they had bigger fish to fry than I was,” she said.

Drug Court wasn’t available here at that time, but finally her lawyer’s wish was granted and Brookings County got the 16th Drug Court program in South Dakota. 

Heyduk was not thrilled when they offered her a chance to join the program because she still didn’t want to stop taking drugs. She agreed because she had no other options.

“I was finally sick and tired of being in trouble,” she said.

Shifting gears

Heyduk stuck to the Drug Court program.

“I got a job with Sioux Falls Park and Rec; (they) hired me with three felonies because I was honest and told them,” she said.

There was still one problem: Ramlo wouldn’t let Heyduk have her car to drive to work. Ramlo suggested the bus, and Heyduk refused to do it.

“I’d been asking God to help me lose weight, to get me a good job and he did that,” she said. There was one hitch to God’s plan: “‘You just have to ride your bike 18 miles a day to work.’”  “I rode an hour to work on the bike, talked to God the whole way. I said, ‘If you’re gonna put me on here, you’re gonna listen to me, too.’ And I prayed and talked the whole way there and the whole way home.”

She enjoyed the ride so much she biked to Falls Park on her days off work, and somehow her attitude shifted.

“I don’t know when it was … but somewhere in that bike ride, something changed,” Heyduk said.

She realized a few things.

“I didn’t really think I had a problem. I thought they had a problem. Everybody else was giving me a problem. But I was still breaking the law and I wasn’t looking at it like that,” she said of her attitude going into Drug Court.

“The thing about it is you get mad over the time you get in trouble, but we all seem to forget all the times that we did stuff and we didn’t get in trouble,” she said. “If I would’ve got picked up on several other occasions, I would’ve been in major trouble.”

Looking ahead

She thinks all that she went through added up to where she is now.

“I’m 55 years old. I have used for over 30 years,” she said. “Drug Court works because I felt like I had to show them I could do this. With all the help they’ve given me, the treatment, the patience, just believing in me. I knew that I had to get it right this time.

“I just asked God for help this time, where before I didn’t have that. I always thought God was mad at me all my life, then I realized he wasn’t and he loved me as much as everybody else. And that was a life-changer for me.”

Two of the people who stuck by her were Ramlo and Rogers, both of whom Heyduk thanked during her graduation ceremony.

“You have gone above and beyond, Molly Ramlo. I don’t know what you saw in me, but you saw something,” Heyduk said. Ramlo stood up for her and kept her from going back to prison several times, she said.

She realizes now that Rogers arresting her was a blessing in disguise.

“He saved my life. Because, who knows, the next shot could’ve been the one that killed me,” Heyduk said.

There are others who have supported her, too.

“I have a little friend in Drug Court,” Heyduk said of the woman who introduced her at the graduation ceremony. “She’s helped me. They think I’ve helped her; she’s helped me.”

Heyduk has a lot to be thankful for, including her sons, with whom she’s never lost touch. One made it to her graduation, but the other son and daughter-in-law couldn’t attend. There were plenty of other family members there, including her mom, who came in from California, three sisters, and Heyduk’s former mother-in-law.

“We’re like best friends. She’s amazing,” she said.

The graduation ceremony was special to Heyduk.

“Drug Court’s given me a lot. They gave me a forever family, like a little lost dog that finally got her forever family,” she said.

Graduation is not the end; it’s the beginning, as far as Heyduk’s concerned.

“I love my life,” she said. “I’m going to gym. I’m going to Bible Study with older ladies, like in their 90s. I pick them up. They depend on me.

“I just always look for the good in everything. There’s always good and bad, no matter what. Today my days are filled with so much more good,” Heyduk said.

She wants to share that goodness with those who shared a dark time in her life.

As much as she hated prison, she intends to go back, just not in cuffs.

“I’d like to be a voice for the prison at some point in my life, go back there,” Heyduk said. “There’s girls in there that I’ll never forget that were kind to me (who) will never leave that place.”

She thinks she could do it if she was part of a church ministry group.

“I want to go back to show the girls there’s hope,” Heyduk said. “Be a voice for the prison and be a voice for the ladies because they need somebody to speak up and speak out.”

For now, she’s taking stock of where she’s been and looking forward to a future.

“Most addicts don’t use that long. I used to be really proud to be an addict … But now I’m very proud to be a recovering addict,” Heyduk said. 

She thinks she can go the distance.

“I got too much to look forward to and too many good things that’ll happen. No going back from here,” Heyduk said.

Contact Jodelle Greiner at jgreiner@brookingsregister.com.