YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) – WKBN 27 First News reporter Cameron O’Brien met with a local woman to discuss her struggle with heroin and how she broke free of her addiction.

Kelly McGuire says heroin has taken her to Hell and back. Now, she is finally on the outside, looking in.

McGuire took O’Brien on a trip to her past, first taking her to a lot on Evergreen Street, where her addiction began at the house that once stood there.

She spent most of her life addicted to drugs, first using cocaine and alcohol, then picking up heroin at 28 years old.

“I feel like I’m at the cemetery, looking at a grave site,” McGuire said of the empty lot.

She described how she would be cooped up for days at a time, snorting line after line of heroin. Not bathing, not seeing her mother or her children and keeping trash bags on the windows to block out the light.

“I was just engulfed in heroin and the addiction,” she said.

McGuire then led O’Brien to Club Deja Vu in Youngstown, a nightclub on Market Street.

She explained that, compelled by the fear of withdrawal sickness, she would go to the club to do what whatever it took to be able to buy her next fix.

“I’ll give you sex, you give me money — that’s how we gonna roll,” McGuire said.

They then traveled to the St. James Church of God in Christ, a place she found shelter in when she hit rock bottom.

“This is where my life began, in this church, five years ago,” she said.

After years of drug abuse, failed rehab attempts and time in jail, McGuire said she was finally sick of being sick.

“I said, ‘Pastor, please pray that God takes the taste of the drugs and alcohol out of my mouth. I’m tired,'” she said.

Shortly after, she was finally getting the treatment that she needed. And unlike the several other times she got help, this time she stayed in treatment, and has since stayed clean.

Five years later, McGuire credits God and her church community with her new beginning.

“I’m still learning me, that’s just life. But thus far, I like who Kelly is,” she said.

Now, McGuire can be found in church on Sundays and is fully dedicated to helping people like her break the cycle of addiction.Watch WKBN 27 First News’ hour-long special, “27 Investigates: Heroin Crisis,” to see how heroin is impacting the courts and police, and which laws might have to change. It also shares the stories of recovering addicts who are rebuilding their lives.

.