I first heard about trudging a few weeks ago. I was working on a story with police – I was in the car riding along with officers when I saw a wave of people walking in an unusual place. There were all of these women and men walking through the middle of Beecher Terrace Public Housing Complex. They were holding books, notebooks even pulling suitcases behind them. I asked the officers ‘who are they?’ I knew right away they didn’t live there. They told me they were trudging. Recovering addicts take the mile walk they call trudging from their residence hall to their addiction classes everyday.
It’s part of their recovery. They have to face their temptations and walk through areas they could buy drugs.

I worked with one of the coordinators at the Healing Place with this story. The Healing Place is a drug recovery center in downtown Louisville. She connected me with the woman I interviewed in the story PJ. She was so nervous at first but by the end of the interview she forgot the camera was rolling. What a woman! She was strong and kind and she seemed to really want to turn her life around. She started using drugs when she was a teenager. At first it was pain pills then she moved on to crack. She said she loved the way crack made her feel. At least in the beginning but then she said she was just tired and needed to stop. She said she was tired of living with nothing. She said she didn’t even have enough money for necessities like food and toilet paper.

One of the great things about this job is that I get to meet people like PJ and walk in her shoes for a day. It was hot even at 8:30 in the morning while we were trudging. The walk was amazing. Listening to all these women’s stories of survival was inspiration to say the least. Some of the women told me of their children, how their lives have changed and what the walk meant to them. Some of the woman had taken the walk many, many times. For several of the women it was their third, fourth, or ninth time in the program. They say each time they thought they were ready to change but say they hope this is it. They have seen their friends die and have nightmares about the women they see wheeled out of The Healing Place in the middle of the night that never came back to the center.

PJ said something that struck me as we walked and talked. She said ‘what is normal?’ She said the only thing that is normal is a setting on washing machine. I thought that was great. She asked me if I thought I was normal. Up until that minute I always thought I was. Maybe she is more normal than me. I don’t know – but I know the next time I see the wave of people trudging through Beecher Terrace I will think to myself ‘there’s a group of people just like me trying to make it in this world.’