After graduating from high school in 1983, Butler attended Jacksonville State University, where she studied engineering—it’s also where she tried cocaine, which led to an addiction that lasted for a decade and frequent trips to treatment centers.
Butler ended up in southwest Birmingham’s Pearson Hall, a short-term crisis stabilization treatment and indigent detoxification program.
Butler’s next stop was in 1993 at Birmingham Fellowship House, which provides residential treatment and transitional housing for adults dealing with addiction.
Butler enrolled at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) in 1998 and started working at a treatment center at UAB Hospital.
Butler remembers being pointed in the right direction by Sarah Harkless, director of substance abuse treatment and development at the Alabama Department of Mental Health.
