Candice Mueller had fought substance abuse for more than two decades when she spent 105 days in jail, altering her life’s path.

Husband and wife Candice and Ed Mueller take a break during a free community dinner held by the nonprofit they volunteer for in Hillsboro, Ohio, on June 29, 2025. Candice Mueller has dedicated herself to service after having recovered from drug addiction. Jeff Louderback/Epoch Times

By Jeff Louderback

July 19, 2025

HILLSBORO, Ohio—Sitting in a jail cell alone, separated from her husband and teenage son, Candice Mueller said she was confronted with a decision that would alter the rest of her life: Make changes, or likely face an early death.

Mueller had battled substance abuse for more than two decades. In 2021, she was convicted of operating a vehicle while impaired and never completed the assigned treatments, so there were warrants for her arrest. Before her scheduled court appearance, Mueller recalls, she asked God for grace.

“I said to Him, ‘I don’t know what it’s going to take. I don’t know how you’re going to change my life, but I cannot do this anymore.’ And when I went to court that morning, the judge said, ‘I’ve watched you go downhill, and I’m not going to watch you die on my watch,’” Mueller recalled.

Mueller received a jail sentence in Cincinnati, underwent treatment while incarcerated, and fully turned to her faith.

“God sat me down where I was unable to run anymore. I couldn’t go anywhere to get drugs. I had to face my addiction head on, and that’s when I surrendered to the Lord,” she said.

“In a cell all alone, I was able to spend a lot of time reading the Bible, praying, and examining my life. I started to see God heal me and change my desires.”

Mueller was 38 at the time. She vowed to lead a better life for her teenage son and her husband.

“Most people didn’t know that I had a problem with pills. They didn’t know that I had a problem with drugs. I hid that as well as someone can, until I couldn’t, until life was completely unmanageable and out of control,” Mueller said.

“I was dealing with the stigma of not wanting people to know, and dealing with anxiety and depression. That is the furthest I’ve ever been away from God. I didn’t want to lose my son. I was the mom who volunteered at school and coached basketball. I didn’t want people to look at me differently. I was hiding from myself to escape the person I had become.”

Mueller said she started drinking when she was 12 to escape family problems.

She stopped drinking at 22 when she was pregnant with her son, but after her son was delivered, she was prescribed opioid medication.

“I didn’t think about how it would affect me, having been an alcoholic and how I was prone to addiction,” Mueller said.

“I was on pills from the time he was a baby, and I struggled off and on until he was 10—and then it led to heroin and fentanyl,” she said. “With addiction, you’re trying to escape something. Alcohol was my escape from trauma, and I didn’t confront that trauma, so I had the same result with pills.”

Mueller became physically dependent on the pills at first, she said. Then it impacted her emotionally and mentally.