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“I didn’t want to die in that bathroom,” Kamilya says. “I didn’t like that face I saw in the mirror.”

It wasn’t the rehab or her own halting attempts to get clean that helped Kamilya Marsh win her fight against cocaine addiction. It was the realization that if she followed her current trajectory, her children would find her dead from an overdose in their home.

A mother at 14

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Kamilya’s battles began after she became pregnant when she was 14 years old. Her parents—ashamed and embarrassed—pulled her out of Cleveland School of the Arts, where she was studying ballet, and enrolled her at a school for pregnant girls. Her church wouldn’t let her sing in the choir and asked her to sit in the back of the auditorium.

“That’s where my struggle started. They taught me the wrong thing about God,” Kamilya says, pausing to clear her throat and wipe her eyes. “They made me believe that you had to be perfect—you’ve gotta be clean—to serve the Lord.”

Kamilya returned to church once her daughter was born. Determined and driven, she also found a job, continued high school, and graduated four years later—no small feat for an 18-year-old single mother.

But at 19, pregnant again, the cycle restarted. And this time when she left church, Kamilya didn’t go back.

“It was just so much shame. I found myself in a life of rebelliousness,” Kamilya remembers. “Not even just turning my back on God, just turning my back on the church and people and everybody that claimed they loved God.”

‘Poof!—I lost it all’

Bound to prove that she could still make something of herself, Kamilya held different jobs to take care of her family, adding a third child when she was 22. She worked in construction, always doing the next thing to climb the ladder and searching for value in her career.

She worked hard and earned her CDL to finally land her dream job: operating heavy equipment.

“I drive those big yellow tiger trucks like you see on the side of the road,” Kamilya says. “I started at the bottom and worked my way all the way to the top of the totem pole.”

But Kamilya’s home life didn’t tell the same success story. Without support from family or a church, Kamilya’s own daughter followed in her mother’s footsteps, making Kamilya a grandmother at 30 years old.

And when her daughter left in rebellion and didn’t come home for a year, everything spiraled out of control.

“I was really down and out about my daughter being missing,” Kamilya remembers.

With little support and lots of money, she looked for an answer. So when her boyfriend at the time shared his answer—drugs—she took it hook, line, and sinker. “I developed an addiction for cocaine, then I just—poof!—lost it all.”
In her heart, Kamilya knew it was the wrong solution. She immediately signed herself up for rehab and cried out for help, but nothing stuck.

“When you're not doing it, you're like, I'm not going to do it. But then, somehow, someway, you end up doing it because everyone else around you is doing it,” Kamilya says, talking about how she tried to run from drugs, but she always came back. “Every time I attempted to do something on my own—without praying, without including God—nothing ever worked.”

‘I didn’t want to die in that bathroom’

In 2020, in the bathroom about to get high again, Kamilya saw the cold, hard truth. If she kept using drugs, she was going to die, and her children would lose their mom.

“I didn’t like that face I saw in the mirror,” Kamilya remembers. “I’m like, ‘I don’t want to get high no more, Lord.’ I realized I couldn’t fix me. I started trusting in God.”

She begged for help from the One who had always been waiting for her to ask. She became more serious about rehab, and she opened the Bible her mother had given her in first grade. She also started searching for good influences—starting with the radio.

“Everything on the radio was trash,” Kamilya says. “When something changed in me, it changed my desires, like, I don't desire to listen to rap music, so I’ve gotta find something good that's on the radio.”

And that’s when she found Moody Radio.

“God started to speak to me through Moody Radio . . . through sermons and songs and through announcers,” Kamilya says. “He told me everything that I needed to do, and He guided me. He held my hand, and He walked me through terrible things.”

One at a time, she dropped her toxic habits—smoking, drinking, drug use—and she moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee, to distance herself from the negative influences in her life.

A life restored

As soon as she moved, Kamilya found Moody on the radio again and continued to be an avid listener. In 2022, she met Tabi Upton from Mornings with Tom and Tabi.

“Kamilya heard me talk about starting a Women Build team for Habitat for Humanity,” Tabi says. “I asked women listeners to text me if they were interested, and afterwards I called them to follow up. When I called Kamilya, we just hit it off.”

When Tabi learned Kamilya was a single mother, she invited her to a single moms event at her church. There, Kamilya shared her story and after that began attending church. Soon, her circle of friends grew.

“Kamilya is funny, warm and loving. She is also vulnerable and teachable,” Tabi says. “When I asked who could support her as she raised money for Habitat, she cried and said she had no one. She felt alone in the world. I didn't know at that time she had suffered from lots of rejection, homelessness, and addiction.”

But as Tabi learned more of Kamilya’s story, she became a friend and held Kamilya accountable through her recovery after a relapse.

“On my birthday, she made sure to go out with me after church and to pay for my lunch,” Tabi says. “She told me she wanted to appreciate the influence I've had in her life.”

Overcomer

Kamilya’s story isn’t over yet—but for now she’s not alone anymore. She’s building a community of friends who love her and will support her in her walk with Jesus, and she’s trusting God, knowing He has proved Himself to her over and over again.

“God loves me so much,” Kamilya says. “Everything that's come against me, everything that I've been up against, God has helped me to battle it, and I've overcome it.”