+
Well Being

Woman shares startling before-and-after photo to give recovering addicts hope

Woman shares startling before-and-after photo to give recovering addicts hope
via V Ginny Burton / Facebook

Virginia Burton, 48, has over eight years and five months of sobriety under her belt and that's the longest stretch she's gone without using. She was first introduced to marijuana at the age of six and by the age of 15 was a "full-blown addict."

She was incarcerated three times, twice with her mother.

She desperately wanted to stop, but couldn't do it on her own. But finally, she found sobriety after getting arrested. "If not for the police, I wouldn't be where I am today. They gave me an opportunity to change my life when they arrested me," she wrote on Facebook. "On my own, I wouldn't have stopped."


"I honestly thought I'd die on a park bench with a needle in my arm or by gunshot to the head," she wrote. "I would've never in a million years thought my life would look the way it does today."

However, things have changed.

A photo she shared on Facebook is going viral for showing the dramatic change she's gone through. The photo on the left is of her strung out on heroin and cocaine in 2005. The right, Burton after recently graduating with a political science degree from Washington State.

"How's that for motivation?" she captioned the photo.

Last year, as a junior, she was awarded the prestigious Truman Scholarship which recognizes future leaders driven to make change at the policy level.

An avid mountaineer, she told the University of Washington that she tackles each task in life like she approaches a summit.

"Making the decision to return to school so late in life was a challenge for me," she said. "I thought I might be too old to start my life over again and that learning might be harder than I imagined. I decided that I would tackle each challenge I faced with the same drive I tackle mountains. There is no excuse to stop moving forward. If I want to reach the summit, I must keep climbing."

Burton hopes her miraculous transformation will show people that anything is possible. "Stop selling yourself short," she wrote. "You don't know what tomorrow might bring so you might consider starting today."

Recovery Talk with Ginny Burtonwww.youtube.com

"If you would have told me that my life would look like it does today eight and a half years ago, I would have called you a liar," Burton told 10 TV's Bryant Somerville.

Burton hopes her transformation will show people that even in the direst of situations it is possible to turn one's life around.

"I want people to know that there is hope," she wrote on Facebook. "No one is disposable. You don't have to die in addiction. You can stop using, lose the desire, and find a new way to live. There are so many of us out here willing to help."

The post has clearly done its job. It's been seen by people as far as the Middle East, Switzerland, and Spain, and her inbox has been filled with countless messages from people thanking her for her hope and perseverance.

"I can't tell you how grateful I am to share my life out loud," she wrote.

Burton is looking forward to changing more lives by pursuing a master's degree at the Evans School of Public Policy in Seattle so that she can help change the prison system. Since 2011, she has worked as a volunteer with the Post Prison education program which works to support former prisoners.

Her long-term goals are to realize her childhood dream of becoming a lawyer, run for elected office, and to restructure prison time. Given how she's approached life for the past eight years, I wouldn't bet against her.

All photos courtesy of The Coca-Cola Company

Behind the Scenes Making Recycled Records with Mark Ronson

True

You’re walking down the sidewalk, earbuds in, listening to your favorite hip-hop beats. As your head bobs to the sounds, the sun warms your back. It’s a perfect day.

When the chorus hits, the empty Sprite bottle in your hand becomes a drumstick, passing traffic becomes a sea of concertgoers, and the concrete beneath your feet is suddenly a stage. Spinning on your heels, you close out the song with your face to the sky and hands in the air.

Keep ReadingShow less
@penslucero/TikTok

Pency Lucero taking in the Northern Lights

Seeing the northern lights is a common bucket list adventure for many people. After all, it ticks a lot of boxes—being a dazzling light show, rich historical experience and scientific phenomenon all rolled into one. Plus there’s the uncertainty of it all, never quite knowing if you’ll witness a vivid streak of otherworldly colors dance across the sky…or simply see an oddly colored cloud. It’s nature’s slot machine, if you will.

Traveler and content creator Pency Lucero was willing to take that gamble. After thorough research, she stumbled upon an Airbnb in Rörbäck, Sweden with an actual picture of the northern lights shining above the cabin in the listing. With that kind of photo evidence, she felt good about her odds.

However, as soon as she landed, snow began falling so hard that the entire sky was “barely visible,” she told Upworthy. Martin, the Airbnb host, was nonetheless determined to do everything he could to ensure his guests got to see the spectacle, even offering to wake Lucero up in the middle of the night if he saw anything.

Then one night, the knock came.

Keep ReadingShow less
Democracy

Reporter reveals she's a school shooting survivor on air and offers advice to Covenant parents

Even while struggling through her own grief, she was able to provide guidance to parents.

Photo by Heather Mount on Unsplash

Tennessee reporter and school shooting survivor gives advice to parents.

On March 27, the Covenant School, a private elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee, experienced a school shooting where three 9-year-old children and three staff members lost their lives. The news of the event took over the airwaves as more details were released.

But for one reporter covering the shooting live, the event hit close to home in more than one way. Joylyn Bukovac, a local reporter for WSMV 4, was reporting live from the scene at the Covenant School when she revealed that she was a survivor of a school shooting herself. Bukovac explained that when she was in the eighth grade, someone opened fire at her school.

"About 380 school shootings have happened since Columbine, my middle school being one of them, this school being one of them," she said. "Some people have been reaching out to me saying, 'Enough's enough. When is all of this gun violence going to change?'"

Keep ReadingShow less

Delivering packages AND safety.

Amazon delivery drivers don’t have the easiest job in the world. Sitting through traffic, working in extreme temperatures, hauling boxes … not exactly a fun time. So when a driver goes out of their way to be extra considerate—people notice.

One delivery driver has gone viral for the way she delivered a little bit of safety education, along with some lighthearted advice. The TikTok video of the encounter, which now has more than 4 million views, was shared by Jessica Huseman, who had only recently moved into her new house.

Keep ReadingShow less
Education

Germany's most famous castle isn't a real castle. It's an elaborate 'work of fan fiction.'

Though it looks medieval, it was built in the 19th century by an eccentric "fairy tale king" who spent much of his life constructing his own elaborate fantasy world.

Neuschwanstein Castle sits atop a rock ledge in the Bavarian Alps.

Even if you haven't heard of Neuschwanstein Castle, there's a good chance you've at least seen pictures of it. Set atop a tree-covered rock ledge in the Bavarian Alps, the picturesque castle looks like it was conjured straight out of a fairy tale. In fact, it served as inspiration for Disney Imagineers as they designed "Sleeping Beauty's Castle" in Disneyland, and it's regularly named the top castle to visit in Germany.

There are estimated to be around 25,000 castles in Germany, but Neuschwanstein is unique among them. Most notably, it's not a real castle and never was. While it bears the look and feel of a well-preserved medieval castle, it was actually built in the 19th century, and rather than serving as a fortress, it served as the fantasy castle of an eccentric king obsessed with Richard Wagner's operas and medieval mythology.

Ludwig II came to the Bavarian throne in 1864 at age 18 with no experience in government or politics. Two years later, Prussia conquered Austria and Bavaria, and Ludwig's powerful status as king was greatly diminished. Not that he was particularly interested in governance anyway; he was more drawn to the romantic idea of having his own kingdom.

Keep ReadingShow less
Image by sasint/Canva

Surgeons prepared to separate 3-year-old conjoined twins in Brazil using virtual reality.

The things human beings have figured out how to do boggles the mind sometimes, especially in the realm of medicine.

It wasn't terribly long ago that people with a severe injury had to liquor up, bite a stick, have a body part sewn up or sawed off and hope for the best. (Sorry for the visual, but it's true.) The discoveries of antibiotics and anesthesia alone have completely revolutionized human existence, but we've gone well beyond that with what our best surgeons can accomplish.

Surgeries can range from fairly simple to incredibly complex, but few surgeries are more complicated than separating conjoined twins with combined major organs. That's why the recent surgical separation of conjoined twin boys with fused brains in Brazil is so incredible.

Keep ReadingShow less
Pop Culture

People share the 18 things that are a 'subtle sign' someone is really smart

"They effortlessly communicate complex concepts in a simple way."

Albert Einstein

One of the strangest things about being human is that people of lesser intelligence tend to overestimate how smart they are and people who are highly intelligent tend to underestimate how smart they are.

This is called the Dunning-Kruger effect and it’s proven every time you log onto Facebook and see someone from high school who thinks they know more about vaccines than a doctor.

The interesting thing is that even though people are poor judges of their own smarts, we’ve evolved to be pretty good at judging the intelligence of others.

Keep ReadingShow less