DENVER (KDVR) — A Colorado native who battled drug and alcohol addiction most of her life is now a survivor. She’s using her own recovery to help others struggling with addiction and mental health by opening up a treatment center in the River North Art District.
Kristabell Stansbury started using as a child and that carried on through her teens, 20s and early 30s. She’s now almost 40, sober and the CEO of her own treatment center. On International Women’s Day, she’s sharing her inspiring story of beating the odds.
On Tuesday, Stansbury showed FOX31 pictures of her from childhood until adulthood, and what you don’t see behind the smiles and blonde hair is the pain she says she’s endured.
“I started using substances as a way to fill that need, to kind of numb out to everything that was going on around me,” Stansbury explained.
She shared that she grew up in Conifer and from childhood trauma, anxiety and depression found comfort in alcohol and drugs. Stansbury said she started using at just 11 years old.
“Alcohol, marijuana and then quickly I went into methamphetamines,” Stansbury said. “I was addicted.”
From a preteen to adulthood, Stansbury fought addiction and said the underlying issues were not healing from her trauma or finding tools to cope with it.
“There was a time in my use that I didn’t want to be on this planet anymore. I would walk over bridges, and I would just want to jump off the bridge. I was hoping the police would arrest me because I couldn’t stop. I would overdose because I just couldn’t stop,” Stansbury said.
Trying for so many years to get clean, Stansbury was in and out of sobriety and said a big reason was the birth of her child and choosing to love herself. Stansbury has been clean for nearly five years now with no relapses, and a big part of that is healing and finding her purpose while living out her passion.
She did this by opening Chrysalis Continuing CARE, an outpatient mental health and substance use treatment center on Larimer Street. The busy entrepreneur and mother walked FOX31 through the center on Tuesday and it was filled with butterflies, symbolizing transformation.
Stansbury said it is “beautiful” and “priceless” to watch clients improve, open up and reinvent their lives.
“We’re all so complex and different. We all come from all these different backgrounds, and we have different things happen to us in our lives and so we’re not all the same,” Stansbury said. “Just don’t stop trying to get help. Even if you’ve fallen down 100 times. If you’re still alive and breathing, keep going.”
The now healthy and happy CEO is using her own battle and recovery to offer specialized care to those in need, with a personalized touch — she’s been through it. Stansbury turned her life around against all odds and is serving as an example that it can be done.
If you’d like to explore Chrysalis’s services, click here or call 1-800-910-3896.
“The fact that I’m here and breathing I’m just so grateful,” Stansbury said.
Battling addiction, the Colorado native is no stranger to adversity. She laughed telling FOX31 that she opened the treatment center in November of 2020, right in the middle of the pandemic, and it’s now thriving.
