Finding Renewal After Decades of Substance Abuse, Prison Time: Courtney Trankle

Courtney Trankle says she always felt different from her family. When her father, a combat veteran, retired and moved their family from Fort Huachuca, Ariz., to the small town of Marble Hill, Mo., Trankle felt even more uncomfortable and alienated. To cope with her emotions, she started experimenting with drugs and alcohol when she was 14 years old.

“This is pretty typical of people that I know with substance abuse disorder. My friends … could drink on the weekend and then be fine. I was the one who kept on and kept on and kept on. I could not stop,” Trankle says. “I just never stopped for 25 years.”

At the age of 16 years old, Trankle started using meth. Then, she started cooking and selling it. When her peers talked about their dreams for the future, Trankle says she just wanted drugs and to keep “living that criminal lifestyle.”

“All those things that I said would never happen were happening,” Trankle says. “My bottom just kept getting lower and lower. My standards kept getting lower and lower.”

During those 25 years of addiction, Trankle had two children and a marriage that ended. In 2017, she was charged with drug trafficking, along with possession charges across multiple counties in Southeast Missouri. Trankle says she continued using and selling drugs, so her bonds got revoked, and she ended up in a high-speed chase with police. Once caught, Trankle was taken to Scott County Jail, where she snuck drugs into the pod with her.

The police brought a drug dog into jail the next morning. Instead of fighting or denying any wrongdoing like she had done before, Trankle surrendered the drugs to the police. The date was March 30, 2017 — the last time she ever touched a drug.

“Any career criminal will tell you, we don’t cave to the cops. You just deny, deny, deny. And something in my gut and in my soul, it wasn’t like an audible voice, but something told me to just quit running. Just give up. Just surrender,” Trankle says. “That obsession to use was just lifted from me. Don’t get me wrong, there was a lot of work involved after that, but that lifelong obsession to use [drugs] was gone.”

Trankle spent the next two and a half years in prison. There, she attended voluntary Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings and joined a Christian discipleship ministry called Beauty for Ashes, where participants study and read the entire Bible — sometimes for eight to 12 hours a day. Trankle says her recovery was very “spiritually fueled,” as her new faith helped ground her daily actions.

Trankle says prison can be a “cesspool” of negativity, and it’s not much different from street life; there is still fighting, manipulation and drug use.

“Here I am sitting in prison [and] wanting to do something different. And you’re watching these holidays come and go,” Trankle says. “In the midst of that, I just had this real feeling of peace, which is the craziest thing, ‘cause I’d never had that in life.”

Trankle used this time in prison without bills, cell phones and childcare responsibilities to evaluate her life and create a better future for herself and her family. Originally, she was upset with her release date, because it seemed too far away, but this time allowed her to take classes and complete her practicum hours for her Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) license. She was released from prison three weeks after finishing her practicum hours at an assisted living facility.

“I would tell anyone [who is recently released from prison] just to sit in that uncomfortableness and pause. Always pause. Don’t act on that impulse. And find community,” Trankle says. “Community is essential for recovery. You have to have people you can lean on and reach out to.”

Her first day out of prison, Trankle told her kids — who were 12 and 21 years old at the time — she would love nothing more than to spend the evening with them after not seeing them for two and a half years. Instead, she attended an AA meeting; She wanted to show them she had changed, not just say she had changed. She went to AA meetings every night following her release from prison. On her fifth day out of prison, she decided to get a job.

She walked into an assisted living facility in Cape Girardeau and told them she was straight out of prison, but determined to live differently with two and a half years of sobriety. She said she just needed an opportunity to prove herself. The assisted living facility hired Trankle that same day.

Trankle says two of the biggest challenges for individuals just released from prison are finding employment and finding a landlord willing to rent to them, which Trankle says she fortunately did not struggle with. She believes being upfront and honest about her past, coupled with a willingness to change, went a long way.

Trankle worked at the assisted living facility for three years, earned her license as a certified medication technician and started working in the Gibson Center for Behavioral Change’s detox department. Now, she is a peer support specialist for the Gibson Center, which she loves because she “gets to model recovery” for those who are struggling with substance abuse and looking to create new lives for themselves, too.

Trankle works part-time as LaCroix Church’s nursery and weeknight childcare coordinator and is involved with Alpha USA’s prison ministry as a state advisor. She has shared her story in Alpha trainings and at national conferences.

Trankle is vice president of the advisory board for the We Do Recover Community Center in Cape Girardeau. Through the center, Trankle and program manager Lezlie Fox host a monthly Zoom call with the women on pre-release at the correctional facility in Vandalia, Mo. One of the more recent Zoom calls fell on July 25, the date Trankle was released from the same prison four years ago.

“I got to tell the women, I literally walked out of those gates four years ago today, and let me tell you what a beautiful life I have today because of my recovery,” Trankle says. “It helps me as much as I hope it helps them. I never want to give this feeling up that I have now.”

Trankle is continually amazed at the way recovery has changed every aspect of her life: Her relationships with family have improved, her career is blossoming and she gets to help others through the same struggles she went through.

“I just get giddy inside, butterflies in my chest just thinking about … the way God has just directed all my steps with a willing heart. That’s the key is to have willingness to do something different. It makes me so excited. If this is what has happened in over four years of being out of prison, I can’t imagine what 14 or 40 is going to do.”