Editor’s Note: Jordan Bryant's story is the third in the three-part series, “The Other Side of Addiction.”

CINCINNATI — Jordan Bryant died when she was 28 years old.

She was lying on the floor and had overdosed on crack cocaine and fentanyl. Everything was happening to her in slow motion, as she woke up to the defibrillators resuscitating her.

She was revived.

"When I was coming to, I just thinking about how big of a failure I was as a mother. Like, I had a baby sitting at my 80-year-old grandma's house and here I am dying on the floor for what?"

“That was my 'aha' moment. Like, that was when I woke the f--k up,” Bryant said.

It was then, the young mother had to decide if she wanted to live or die.

She chose to live.

"I was just done. I was done,” she said.

The now-30-year-old mom, daughter, granddaughter, fiancé and new homeowner know that none of those titles would have been possible if she had not survived that overdose and recovered from her addiction.

She has moved through her journey to the other side of addiction one day and one step at a time, and that is what she teaches others, finding their path to recovery, as a peer counselor.

Growing up without her mom, who died when she was just 1-year-old, really started to plague her in her teenage years, she said.

She wasn’t a bad kid, she said. She played soccer, grew up in Reading and had a “normal” life. But her freshman year, her dad moved her to Milford to get away from drugs in Reading. But that is when her addiction began.

At 14 years old, she started drinking and taking her dad's Xanax to ease her pain and the void her loss left inside of her, she said.

"I just didn't get drunk (and) just like hang out with friends, like, I had to get like completely intoxicated. I used to say, ‘If I don't remember last night, then it didn't happen.’"

By the time she was 20, she started shooting up heroin, and with that, for her, it was “off to the races.”

Her addiction escalated when Bryant started taking Benzodiazepines -- a sedative known as “Benzos" -- to forget and to feel nothing.

She started stealing from stores to get money to buy drugs and spending a lot of her time behind bars.

“I was just living wrong,” she said.

Sitting inside her house, as a proud new homeowner, with her tan, micro Pomeranian, Mister, nipping at her fingers, she talks, while she feverishly smoking a cigarette to calm her nerves, as she simultaneously fidgets with her bejeweled phone case, snapping it on and off her iPhone.

She recounts her journey to the other side of addiction which started with a police chase and ultimate arrest by Newtown Police Chief Tom Synan nearly six years ago.

One night, while she was "dope sick” and craving her next high, she stood in the middle of the street arguing with her boyfriend.

"He was abusive. He was physically, emotionally abusive to me. He fed off my addiction,” she said.

During their heated argument, she remembered, she walked out in front of a black, unmarked Charger. It reminded her of the Batmobile.

The lights came on and a man exited the black car.

When the man from the police car approached the couple, Bryant handed him a Tennessee ID. Bryant said she had found it on the ground somewhere, but tried convincing the cop that the girl in the photo was her.

“He looked at me and he said, ‘Really?’ And I said, ‘It's me… I've lost weight and I dyed my hair blonde.’”

The man she was desperately trying to reassure was Synan.

He searched her purse and pulled out a ticket with a name on it. Synan asked her who Jordan Bryant is.

She knew if they looked up her name, the warrants out on her would pop up and she would be arrested, she said.

He told her to put her hands behind her back. Instead, she bolted.

"I just took off running and he was right behind me,” she remembered.

When Synan dove at her feet, trying to catch her, he fell to the ground, she said. However, another officer was in pursuit and tackled her.

They put handcuffs on her and took her back to the police station.

"I still continued to lie,” she said. "I lied to him and I told him that I had ingested like 25 Xanax and I needed to go to the hospital. I slammed my face on the table.”

And she remembered, he told her, "Nice try. You're not going to the hospital. You’re going to the jail.”

However, Synan also said something to her that she will never forget: “One day, you'll realize your worth."  

The police chief's words stuck with her, although not immediately.

She credits Synan for ultimately saving her life — and saving countless others.

“I think that he's great. And he's like, a big part of my life,” she said.

In fact, when she was trying to buy her house with her criminal background, Synan wrote a letter of recommendation for her.

But, Synan’s words would not sink in for her yet.

She continued her addiction for a few more years.

"If I got high enough, it didn't feel like anything. I didn't feel anything. Addiction is broken. It's just misery. Addiction is like bit it being in the middle of a war zone,” she said.

While fighting her inner battle, Bryant was arrested time and time again over the next few years.

But soon, her addiction wouldn't just affect her anymore.

She found out that she was pregnant in 2017.

"You just prepare yourself for situations that are going to be life-changing. And they're going to show up and they're going to work. But I did not prepare myself,” she admitted.

And after giving birth to her son, she relapsed and her grandmother cared for Bryant's infant son.

“Addiction doesn't just touch us. It touches everything around us,” she said.

Tearing up, she recalled the day she watched her son through a window as she left him at her grandmother’s house to get high.  

"I just remember seeing him sit in my grandma's window when he was a tiny baby, like, just like barely old enough to hold himself up. I ran out the door with her wallet and I would pretend like I didn't want to look. But every time I look over, there was my child standing in that f--king window, screaming for me.”

To her, she said, it didn’t matter at the time. She was possessed by her own mind and her addiction.

What finally broke that spell, she said, was dying on her grandmother’s floor, and realizing that she wanted to be her son’s mother — and live.

Her near-death experience, she said, changed her. And she heard Synan’s words echoing in her head.

"I realized that I did have a worth. I did realize that I was better than abusive men. I did realize that I was better than drugs. And I realized that very moment, like I just knew that, like, I just was different,” she said. "I'm who I've always been… except I'm not searching for death.”

“I don’t know how I’m alive,” she admitted. "I'm grateful. I'm a survivor."

Helping her clients on their road to recovery as a sober housing program manager, she said, helps her stay sober as well. And her goal is to get her degree in social work to continue to help others.

“I’m not giving up. I’ve got something to say. I’ve lived it. I want to advocate,” she said about helping others with her story.  

“I just want to show them some hope. I don't hide my disease from my clients. I don't hide it because, like, if I can do it, they can do it,” she said. “If I can walk through that war zone and come home, then they can do it. Like, it's possible. It's just you have to believe in yourself.”

Bryant is most grateful to have made it to the other side of addiction for her 3-year-old son.

“My son is just everything. I just want to be a mommy. I just want to teach my son. I want to give him a better life than I give myself,” she said.

And remembering every detail from her journey, even the heartbreaking moments, like her son crying for her at the window, is what keeps her in recovery.

And today, she wants to live.

“Life is just good. It’s just not worth throwing away,” she said.

But recovery is a lifelong journey to stay on the other side of addiction.

“I’m not gonna lie, like, I'm an addict. There's no cure for my disease. Do I think do I think about getting high? Absolutely. Do I work through it? Absolutely,” she said. “I had enough problems all my life, like, there's only one solution and that's a lifetime of stable recoveries.”

Today, she has a purpose.

"My purpose is to live,” she said. “When you're in active addiction, it's like your whole world is like slow motion… It's like you're slowly dying and you just won't die. I just want to be alive."

If you or someone you know needs help with addiction, visit https://www.hamiltoncountyohio.gov/government/open_hamilton_county/projects/addiction_response_coalition.