‘I hated myself’: Woman’s dog helped lead her from addiction, death

Through addiction and her best friend’s recent death, one Birmingham woman says her dog Hank is the one that kept her on the right path.

“I hated myself for so long, normal life was so foreign to me. Hank taught me about unconditional love,” Lacy Brenner said.

The Michigan transplant was addicted to opioids for 16 years. She had only been sober and living back on her own for several months when she met her pit bull-Weimaraner mix Hank in October 2018.

She never looked back—not to life without Hank, or to life on drugs. The dog was especially helpful to her when her best friend and Trussville native Paighton Houston was found dead in January, weeks after being reported missing after she was last seen at a Lakeview bar.

Earlier this month, Brenner said she was having a moment of grief over her friend and considered buying drugs. “I really almost got high over it,” she said. “I just laid in the bed and held Hank… I don’t know what would have happened the other night if he wasn’t right there.”

The deep end

Brenner was in the military when in 2002, she broke her pelvis and was prescribed pain killers. She left active duty in 2005 and entered Michigan’s National Guard. “When I came home, I was just kind of lost,” she said. She got a DUI during this time, but Brenner said she wasn’t “super bad” yet. She was drinking heavily, but she thought she could control it.

Just two years later, Brenner was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. She came back from deployment early though, after learning her mom was ill. “When I came home, everything took a turn,” she said.

Brenner was diagnosed with insomnia and post-traumatic stress disorder. The problem for people with PTSD who just got back from overseas was doctors were quick to prescribe whatever they thought might help, she said.

It didn’t help. It created a monster.

“I hung on for a while,” she said, describing her trips to therapy and doctors. “(But) it was just a really good excuse to get whatever I wanted.”

In January 2013, Brenner’s mom died. “That’s when I really lost my mind,” she said. “That’s when things really went off the deep end.”

There was the crack for about six months. Then, the night terrors were so horrible, she turned to Adderall to stay awake. Then, there was crystal meth. There were the daily opioids, too. Brenner was kicked out of her family and friend’s houses and often slept in her car. She kept her federal job—she still doesn’t know how—but she knew it couldn’t last forever.

The last straw

Everything changed in January 2018. “That was really the last straw,” she said.

Brenner was arrested on charges of drug paraphernalia, possession of drugs, and several additional misdemeanors. She called her sister, who was living in Montgomery, and came clean about everything.

Her sister said: Resign from your job, move to Alabama, and get help.

“She’s always been my saving grace,” Brenner said. Brenner followed her sister’s instructions: She resigned from her military job, packed up a trailer, and drove to Alabama. When she arrived, she was 90 pounds and still addicted. “I was just so out of everything,” Brenner said, laughing that she must have accidentally added hours to the trip because of driving through unnecessary states.

She detoxed at her sister’s house for two days, then went to Bradford Health Services. She agreed to stay two weeks—but ended up staying for 12. “I stayed as long as they would let me,” she said.

When she got out of rehab that May, Brenner moved to a sober living facility. She left that facility in mid-June, and started living life on her own.

In October 2018, just a few days before her birthday, Brenner thought she would just take a look at the Greater Birmingham Humane Society’s dogs. She went to the Snow Drive facility and saw Hank walking through the hall with a staffer, and she knew. “He’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen,” she said. She learned while playing with Hank that he was slated to be transferred to a facility in Texas.

“I said ‘Nope, he’s coming with me.’ I left that day with Hank and he’s been with me ever since.”

Hank has “absolutely” helped Brenner stay sober, she said. “He knows when I’m upset. If I have a nightmare, he’s there. Hank and I just have a soul connection.”

“They used to call Hank the AA dog because he would come to meetings and sit in the car.”

In September 2019, Brenner and her boyfriend rescued a second dog, a puppy they named Arya. Houston went with Brenner to pick up the filthy, flea and worm-ridden puppy from a job site where Brenner’s boyfriend where was working. Brenner expected to find her a home, but Arya never left. “They’re like my whole life. I don’t trust anyone else,” Brenner said.

Missing Paighton

That love and trust was crucial at a time in Brenner’s life when she needed it most: When her co-worker and friend Houston went missing on Dec. 20, 2019, and whose body was found buried in the backyard of a Hueytown home Jan. 3. Authorities ruled Houston’s death to be of an accidental drug overdose.

During those weeks of searching for 29-year-old Houston, Brenner said her dogs got her through the pain. “There were a lot of rough days. But, who would take care of them if I was addicted?” she said. “Once I start, it’s over. That’s where all my money goes. It really hurts my heart to imagine these dogs being hungry or not having what they need.” Brenner held onto that thought when she needed to curb temptation, and it worked.

Houston loved dogs, Brenner said, including Hank and Arya. Hank was the unofficial mascot of Houston and Brenner’s softball team, and he sometimes came to work at their office where they worked as freight brokers and dispatchers. “She loved dogs,” Brenner said.

The pain didn’t just end though after Houston’s body was found, though. “I brought Hank everywhere with me,” Brenner said about the time after Jan. 3. “I’m just more comfortable when he’s around.”

Brenner, who worked with Houston closely and in a similar role, was asked to take over her late friend’s desk and her clients. Hank came to work with Brenner and calmed her through that process, something she said was vital to the transition. Some of Houston’s things still sit on Brenner’s desk.

Brenner is two years sober, with a full-time job she loves and speaks with other recovering addicts and at sober living facilities whenever she can. She also volunteers with a dog rescue, Allie’s Hope For Paws. “You never know who you might help," Brenner said-- which goes for humans and dogs alike.

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