Recovering addict earns recognition at Columbus Tech

Not long ago, Natalie Miller was in the throes of drug addiction, to the point that she lost custody of her daughter.

Today, she is Columbus Technical College’s 2017 Exceptional Adult Georgian in Literacy Education award winner.

The 35-year-old mother was in the grasp of severe drug addiction for eight years. But after just four months clean, Miller enrolled in the Adult Education’s GED program at Columbus Tech.

Today Miller is a graduate of that program and enrolled full time at the college in hopes of eventually entering the nursing field. She sees healthcare as the perfect opportunity to pay it forward.

“I want to make my way through college starting with my associate’s degree in the Health Science program,” Miller wrote in her EAGLE application. “I would love to reach out to women who have been on drugs or are still currently on drugs and don’t know which direction they are going in. I would like to give them hope, like I was given hope.”

Miller is adamant about continuing not only to build herself up to reach her personal goals but also to build a healthy relationship with her now 16-year-old daughter.

This March, Natalie Miller will compete with EAGLE winners from other colleges in the Technical College System of Georgia. Miller says if she is chosen as the state winner, she would travel Georgia touting the importance of adult education especially reaching out to those “who may feel that they have no future because of their past.”

This story was originally published December 23, 2016 at 8:47 AM with the headline "Recovering addict earns recognition at Columbus Tech."