A sober woman shared graphic pictures from her days as an addict to send a message

Warning: The photos in this article may be graphic to some readers.

A woman took a brave step by sharing her own personal story about past addiction.

“I have NEVER shared these before,” Melissa Lee Matos of West Virginia explained on Facebook. “I’m not sure I ever intended to. This is extremely hard for me in so many ways. However, too many people are dying.”

Mator shared powerful pictures of what she looked like while addicted to drugs and what she looked like after she got clean:

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She explained her before pictures:

Below, you will find extremely disturbing images of me while in active addiction. This was what I looked like, daily, for years. This is what my husband dealt with. This is what my little girls walked in on. This is what my family and friends saw, on the rare occasions I left the house. I was SICK. I was DYING. I was so far gone I thought I could NEVER recover. I was so lost I couldn’t imagine a life without using. I just wanted to die. I didn’t realize I was hardly alive.

She ended with a plea to those who were addicted to drugs.

“If you are reading this and are going through the same pain I did, I am begging you to reach out,” she wrote. She also provided a phone number and an email address for anyone searching for help.

Matos was also happy to report that she’s been sober for “about a year and five months” now.

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