03/21/2026
We work with them on a regular basis ** Come talk to us if you truly want to change. You are not alone !!
A couple of weeks ago I shared this story about Chris Smith about his recovery process and ultimate redemption. I spent about an hour and a half with him that morning. Listening to Chris talk about the advantages he didn’t have growing up was a very humbling experience. One that reminded me that my life could have very well turned out much differently. Here is the full text from that article:
Chris Smith Shares His Story of Recovery and Redemption
Ken Atkinson
Staff Writer
“It’s scary when you accept a life you weren’t created for,” said Chris Smith of Huntingdon. “Because you don’t know how to fight for the one you were meant to have.”
Smith talked about just that in an early-morning interview over breakfast at AJ’s AllStar Cafe where his wife, Tonya, works. His story today could easily be described as that of a successful motivational speaker, second chance advocate, mentor and recovery advisor. But he didn’t get there through conventional education methods. He did it through life experiences.
Smith grew up poor and cites his earliest memory as watching his father walk out the door when he was only four years old. A sense of rejection and desire to be accepted, Smith said, seemed to shape everything that followed.
“I had no identity,” Smith said. “So I found myself people-pleasing. My rebellion came from that lack of identity and just wanting to be seen.”
Smith said he was exposed to drugs and crime at a very young age, taking his first drink at just nine years old. By 11, he had already tried co***ne. He eventually dropped out of school and entered a cycle of addiction and incarceration that would dominate his early adulthood.
“I didn’t realize how much pain I was carrying,” Smith said.
Methamphetamine, he said, felt like the answer at first.
“It gave me pleasure and it numbed the pain,” Smith said. “I thought I found the love of my life.”
Instead, he said, it led him deeper into the criminal justice system. His sentences escalated from three years, to five years, to eight years, and eventually 16. He cycled through seven treatment centers and even spent time in a mental health institution.
“I tried and tried and tried,” Smith said. “But I couldn’t get it right. This was just my life. And the scary thing is, I had finally accepted it.”
Smith said help would soon arrive in the form of someone he had once done time with. When he first met the man while sharing a jail cell, the man told him he was going to change his life — that he was going to beat his addiction this time.
“I just started laughing,” Smith said. “Because I’d tried to do just that many times.”
Smith said he saw the man again about a year and a half later and immediately knew something was different.
“What’s crazy is that in addiction, you can tell when somebody is in it,” Smith said. “It’s just all over them. But you can’t hide sobriety either. You can’t hide a changed life.”
Smith said, unbeknownst to him, the man had been calling his wife, Tonya, and checking on him regularly.
“I was missing my PO meetings, I wasn’t coming in,” Smith said. “They were calling and texting, and I wasn’t answering.”
The moment of reckoning, Smith said, finally came on the morning of July 20, 2017. Smith was living in Huntingdon and washing dishes at that very same cafe where his wife works today. After 41 arrests, multiple overdoses, 13 felony convictions and a 16-year sentence, Smith was alone and running out of options.
Feeling humbled and broken that July morning at 5 a.m., Smith said he uttered three words: “God help me.”
“I never meant something so much in my life,” Smith said.
Smith said that not five minutes later, he received a knock on his window. It was the same man he had shared the cell with — the same man who had once told him he was going to change his life. That morning, the man said God had told him to come check on him.
“We had done time together, we had done dirt together,” Smith said. “I saw his change and it impacted me in a way that I had never been touched before. It gave me hope.”
Smith said the man helped him get into a rehab center that night in Columbia, Tennessee. Though Smith had been to rehab multiple times before, he truly hoped this time would be different.
Smith said he was two and a half months into treatment when something happened that would change the course of his life for good — a tent revival and identical messages from three different pastors that allowed him to truly feel what it was like to be broken, but also to have the opportunity to heal.
“That day, I truly surrendered my life to Christ,” Smith said. “That’s the day rejection left and acceptance came.”
From there, Smith said he had nothing material, but everything internally. He began working at the rehab center and later as a fitness instructor before returning home to Huntingdon.
Smith eventually joined the Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services as a Lifeline Coordinator, where he helped thousands of individuals access treatment, housing and support services. Over time, he helped create multiple reentry programs and support groups spanning several states.
Smith later served as director for the 24th Judicial District Recovery Court before returning to the department as a Faith-Based Coordinator, training congregations to better support individuals struggling with addiction and mental illness.
Today, Smith serves as Chief Growth Strategist for Alliance Housing in Milan, Tennessee, working with justice-involved men rebuilding their lives. He also serves on the board of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) and participates on Tennessee’s Opioid Abatement Council advisory panel.
In 2024, Smith was recognized by the Governor’s Office for his work across the state and was asked to serve on an advisory council focused on justice-involved individuals and recovery policy.
“It’s surreal,” Smith said. “I went from being arrested by officers in this county to advising state leadership.”
Smith said if he could leave people with one message, it would be this:
“As long as there is breath in your lungs, there is hope — hope to overcome anything you may be facing. Because if I can do it, so can you.”
