Shelby mother shares story of addiction and redemption

Malory Chapman is excited to spend Mother’s Day with her two sons, Noah and Nick.

This is the first Mother's Day she will be celebrating with her children after regaining full custody and isn't something she takes for granted.

Chapman has walked a long road of struggle, failure and redemption to get to where she is today, and it took hitting rock bottom - and the loss of her children - to encourage her to change and be the mother she is today.

Not too long ago, she said she remembers sitting in the Walmart parking lot, watching mothers with their kids walking into the store together, while she sat along in her car, crying.

Born and raised in Shelby, she described her childhood as similar to one as depicted on the show Shameless, a Showtime series about a dysfunctional family of six children who have parents with drug addictions and have to raise themselves. 

Chapman said her mother is sober now and they have a good relationship, but her childhood was rocky.

She was 13 the first time she took a pill that wasn't hers and 15 when she began smoking weed and drinking.

She remembers stealing her mom's Xanax in middle school and taking them so she would feel more confident talking to boys on the phone.

"It didn't seem extreme at the time," she said. "And nobody did anything."

But it was after her oldest son, Noah, was born, that she became hooked on pills after her emergency C-section.

Chapman has two siblings, and she said her dad was in prison for much of her childhood. She said trauma he endured as a child was never dealt with ,and it manifested as addictions. Her mother was an alcoholic. 

Growing up, Chapman became the caretaker for her brother and sister.

“I became the mom, the caretaker, I had to cook for them. I didn't get to be a kid. I was dealing with grownup things as a kid,” she said. 

Although her mom worked, once she got home she would start drinking leaving them to fend for themselves.

“Everything in that time period was just bad. Growing up I didn't have the best examples of stable adults. Everybody in my life was an addict. That's how the grownups dealt with issues.”

She said a break-up, a bad day or any other problem was handled by drinking or doing coke or pills.

“That was just normal,” she said. “I was a drug addict long before I did drugs because I was so broken, and it was so normal around me.”

She said she was also stuck in a vicious cycle of mental and physical abuse.

In 2016, Chapman’s dad, who had congestive heart failure and kidney failure, moved in with her after losing his place in Gaffney, South Carolina.

“I moved him into the middle of the chaos I had going on. I was so stuck in survival mode trying to survive and take care of him," she said.

After her best friend died of a drug overdose followed by her dad's death a week before her birthday, she said she entered a dark period. She said she got into bed and couldn’t get back out. 

Department of Social Services was called after a police officer saw her son, who wandered out of the house, out by the road. 

Although she begged to keep her children, she said DSS saved her life, and it eventually started her on the road to healing.

Her mother took in her older son and her aunt the younger.

When her boyfriend terrorized her, refusing to let her sleep for three days, threatening her, and then stealing her keys and some of their power bill money to buy drugs, she finally had enough and left with the clothes on her back and ended up sleeping in her car in the McDonald’s parking lot for several days.

Chapman said at this point, DSS had closed her case and transferred guardianship to her aunt and mom because she had failed to follow through with their requirements.

She said at that point, she decided to focus on work and getting her life together. 

"By the end of 2017, I met the guy I'm engaged to now, and we've been together ever since and some day I'm like ‘pinch me,’ that's how good he is.”

She said now, her younger son voluntarily calls him dad.

She said her journey to sobriety has been a little different from others because she is not religious and Alcoholics and Narcotics anonymous both encourage finding a higher power. 

“I have a lot of church trauma, this is not something that helps my sobriety," she said.

Chapman said when DSS closed her case, her mom and her aunt began allowing her sons to spend weekends with her, and she gradually slipped back into the role of mother.

After Chapman and her fiancé moved to Lawndale in 2022 so her kids wouldn’t have to switch schools, her kids were back living with her. She said it was the first time she was a sober parent, and she had to figure it out as she went. 

"I had to will myself into that," she said. "I had to teach myself. I learned along the way."

She said it truly took hitting rock bottom and not being able to see her kids to bring about her transformation.

"I don't think I was mentally in a place where I realized all the chaos I caused," she said. "Getting to see them only an hour a week launched me."

She said she realized she either had to get it together or addiction and a limited relationship with her kids would be her life from then on out.

She said growing up, DSS was at her house, but she and her siblings were told to lie about their mom's drinking.

Chapman said she refused to lie to DSS any longer as a parent herself.

"I'm not going to fix myself if I cant be honest about my life and what's going on. I was brutally honest with them but I knew if I didn't do that, how am I going to break the cycle," she said.

She said she is open and honest with her kids and talks about the dangers of fentanyl and drugs all the time with them.

Chapman said today, she has a close and loving relationship with her children. There are many, ordinary things she now does with her kids that she never takes for granted. Signing in at the school and having lunch, picking them up from school and other every day things still mean everything to her.

When they wake up in the morning, she said they all say something nice to each other. They listen to music in the car on the way to school, and Chapman said she tries to start their day off on a positive note.

Chapman said she has a good relationship with her mom now, and her mom has beat her own addictions but the past still has an impact.

"I try to give them things I didn't get growing up. I'm trying to undo all that generational trauma," she said.

Chapman said her dad had an influence on her life as well, and she said before his death he was her biggest cheerleader, and she has learned how to not only be her own cheerleader but now her kids.

"One of the beautiful things about both of my kids, my kids befriend the broken kids. They love making friends with the kids who struggle in school and who have a bad home life," she said.

She said those kids want to be at her house and feel safe there.

"I don't have a word for how that feels. It makes all the bad stuff worth it. That made everything worth it," she said.

She said now, she feels if she gets parenting right, everything else will fall into place.

She has taught her kids how to communicate, and she recognizes how precious time is with them.

"It's more than I just got off drugs. You have to change your entire life," she said. "I have so much to say where my life is now versus then. I make better choices. I was a lot more fun and outgoing back then, but it was detrimental to me. I couldn't recognize the people who I shouldn't be around. I don't associate with anybody from that point in my life. I had to completely remove myself from what I had created and start all the way over."

She said sometimes she talks to people who say they want to get sober but don't know where to start,

"You have to say I'm tired of living like this. You just start. You don't have to have a plan," Chapman said. "Getting off drugs is kind of like that you just have to stat the process and just do it. You don't have to make sense of it."

She said her kids are her best friends now, and they know they can talk to her about anything. She is loving and attentive to their needs and said she will do everything she can to meet those needs. She also wants them to see her strength and for them to know if she could beat her addictions, they can also face any challenge life throws at them.

"I still don't have it all figured out all the way yet," she said. "But I have a good idea."

Reach reporter Rebecca Sitzes at rsitzes@gannett.com.