The Hard Work of an Ordinary Life

Some people describe Cayden as a kind-hearted 22-year-old West Virginian who wants to use his upbeat energy and knack for hands-on work to become a carpenter.

Others know Cayden is a young adult in recovery. 

Growing up, Cayden was in and out of foster care. By the time he was 4 years old, he relocated from Wheeling to Huntington, West Virginia, with his two new adoptive fathers. 

Cayden remembers being an angry kid. He had been through a lot. By the age of 14, he was prescribed around half a milligram of Xanax for his anxiety, anger and insomnia. At 16, his prescription wasn’t being refilled, and he turned to the streets to find what would calm the internal noise of his nervous system.

However, substance use began to affect other parts of his life. He was caught with drugs at school, faced possession and other charges, spent time in and out of jail and eventually experienced homelessness. 

“I didn't know what was going to happen the next minute,” he admitted.

It can be hard for people to recognize their problems. For some, it may be spending more than nine hours a day on a phone to avoid chores or ignoring the tight ball of anxiety in their chest. For Cayden, that problem was prescription misuse. He was taking twice the prescribed amount to find relief.

He didn’t think about his situation as a problem, much less realizing it was addiction. Cayden was thinking about where to lay his head, experiencing the nauseating sickness from withdrawal for the first time and how many pills he would need to take it all away.  

So, what changed for him? While on family vacation, one of his fathers found his bag of substances and threw them all away. At only 17 years old, Cayden combed through every trash can on every level in the hotel before finding them.  

“And I had overdosed.”  

He woke to the shadows of paramedics and his father stretching across his vision. His father’s eyes were wet as he cried,  “I’m going to lose you.”

That was the time Cayden realized he had a problem.  

But it wasn’t the overdose that started his recovery journey. To Cayden, it felt like something he had to say and do. Yet, after some time, he liked the environment of support he was in.

“This might help me out,” he said.

He finished detoxing and found himself in Mark’s House, one of YSS’s residential recovery homes, as one of the youngest residents there. 

He valued the wisdom and encouragement of his peers, which helped inspire him to continue on his path of recovery. His next stop brought him to YSS’s Recovery Residence for Young Adults (RRYA), located within the McCrary Center in Wheeling. In 2025, YSS received State Opioid Response (SOR) funding for the Recovery Residence Young Adult Expansion, leading to the development of the first WVARR-Certified Recovery Residence for Young Adults in West Virginia specifically focused on serving young adults ages 18–24. 

For someone who had spent much of his life moving between facilities, psychiatric hospitals and rehabilitation programs, moving again wasn't necessarily something he wanted.  
However, the McCrary Center gave him more freedom, something he hadn't had much of before. “And it's nice to have a little bit more freedom because my whole life, I've been in and out of facilities, been locked up,” he said.  

It also gave him people his own age. At Mark's House, the people who helped him get started were more like uncles. Some were close to his father’s age.  

It wasn’t that Mark’s House didn’t support Cayden. Rather, the relationships were different. “I've been able to make friendships, been able to call people my brothers and my sisters,” he said. “It's been nice.”  

Cayden is the first young adult to participate in the RRYA Program, and the significance of that isn't lost on him. His biological mother was one of the first people to graduate from YWCA Wheeling’s WIND recovery program, something Cayden said made the opportunity at McCrary feel more than a coincidence. His eyes lit up at the thought.

“Maybe that could be me one day.” 

What keeps Cayden on track is having a better connection with his mother, three sisters and adoptive fathers.

For him, recovery is a new way of life. “It means putting down one thing and picking up another.”  

That idea of putting down one thing and picking up another has become part of how Cayden views recovery. He talks about being connected with his family, having a job and eventually having a car—things someone cannot do when they pick up substance use.  

When asked what Cayden likes to do in his spare time, his answer isn’t “drugs.” It’s to be outside, hang out with friends, ride his bike and help out where needed. He believes people can change if they put their mind to it, and he credits the environment and support system around him for helping him believe that about himself.  

Cayden wakes up and chooses sobriety. Now, he thinks about the day ahead and not the next fix. He is working toward a career, his license and most of all, the relationships he wants to gain back again.  

There is still work to do. There are relationships to rebuild and a future to figure out.  

But Cayden has one thing to ask of you, too: See what he’s doing now. “Don't always look at the addict,” he started.

“Look at how they're changing.”