Kayla Hulett: Finding Freedom After Addiction

“Looking back, it feels like a dream. All the statistics were against me, and I should have died.”

That’s how Kayla Hulett describes most of her life growing up in Tupelo before she got sober in 2012. One of her earliest memories as a child was of her mother giving her narcotics to help her sleep. Her father was in and out of jail most of her life, and Kayla, at times, was placed by the Department of Human Services with other family members.

“Growing up I didn’t realize my life was different from others,” she said. “It was difficult, but I just thought that’s how it was,” she said.

At 16 Kayla began using crystal meth with her parents.

The throes of addiction were strong in her home as a child, and Kayla knew no different. Her parents were struggling themselves, and Kayla’s drug use intensified.

“I was still doing OK in school,” she said, “and then I started using IV drugs.”

The chokehold of addiction on her family grew even more suffocating. Kayla’s mother tragically overdosed when Kayla was only 18, and her younger sister was just 3.

“I started spiraling out of control,” Kayla said. “I tried rehab multiple times because I wanted to get better for my sister. I didn’t know how to live a successful life. I wanted different, but I just didn’t know how.”

During that time Kayla was charged with a felony while riding around Oxford.

“It was 3 a.m. and I was pulled over by the police because the lights on the car were off,” she said. “The story was crazy. I was riding around in a stolen vehicle because I had escaped being held hostage by the guy I was with. I took the car to get away.”

The police searched the car and found meth, bath salts and paraphernalia.

“God saved my life that night because I had been up for days and should have died,” she said.

Kayla was arrested and taken to jail where she found herself in an environment that she had never experienced before.

 “I was in jail with people who were in for some serious crimes. At age 18 it was very scary,” she said.

Kayla spent about a month in jail before she was sentenced to a long-term, faith-based rehabilitation program in Brandon called Saving Grace Women’s Home.

“The first thing they tell you is to change your people, places, and things. Well, that’s not always easy,” she said.

Kayla had bounced around times before trying to get clean but was unsuccessful.

“If you have nowhere to go and no opportunities, then you go back into the same unhealthy home like I did in the same town where it’s too difficult to stay clean. I had to get away and focus on myself and building a relationship with Christ.”

Kayla cut off contact with her dad, who was still struggling with addiction, when she went to the Saving Grace Women’s Home. Once she entered the program, she said, the Lord began to work on her.

“I couldn’t wait to tell my dad so he could find freedom. He wasn’t a bad person. He had just been dealt a rough hand.”

Kayla graduated from the program and was offered a job to work at the home in 2013. She got custody of her sister, who was 6 at the time. Kayla was 22.

“I didn’t know how to pay a bill. I knew nothing,” she said, “but I knew I wanted my sister’s life to be different, and God made a way for us.”

Kayla was also able to get her record expunged.

“That was huge,” she said, “because it wasn’t holding me back anymore. I was able to go to college and have a career. I remember thinking when I got that felony that my life was over, but that was not true. There are second chances.”

Kayla shared her faith with her dad and began to see transformation in his life as well.

“God saved my dad, and he went to the men’s program in Crystal Springs,” she said. “It’s been so beautiful to see how God has blessed me. I was able to graduate college and start a family all because of the goodness of God.”

Kayla still works with the Saving Grace Home for Women in an operational role.

“I oversee fundraising events, but one of my favorite things to do still is to share with the women who are there now what God has done in my life and let them see that it is possible. It’s so rewarding to see them find hope and fall in love with Jesus. It’s a huge blessing to get to see them restored with their kids and their family.”

That same restoration came for Kayla. Today, she lives in Braxton with her husband Donovan and Kayla’s sister who is 17 as well as Kayla and Donovan’s two children.

“My dad lives right across the street, and we go to church together and he is able to be a part of my kids’ lives. He loves God, and it’s a miracle to see him go from cooking meth to raising his hands at the altar.”

Kayla’s message for those struggling with addiction is that there is always hope.

“We can’t throw the book at people and then throw them away. People have to have hope. It takes some people more than one or two times to get it right, and people learn that in different ways. They don’t have to accept who they are in the midst of their addiction, and it’s up to us to give them that opportunity to get it right.”