Kelsee Ficker, '24 MA

Uinta County Wyoming Herald article - by Amanda Manchester - EVANSTON - Kelsee Ficker's journey to become Uinta County's newest drug court provider has been anything but conventional. Once a court-ordered recipient of the services herself, Ficker crawled her way back up from rock bottom to help others from the depths of theirs. The Herald recently met with Ficker to discuss her incredible story from addict to addictions therapist in observance of National Recovery Month, which is September.

"It's been wonderful. They love that I've been through it and that I understand," she said of her relationship with her clientele. "This is where I'm supposed to be. This is my dream career. This program really does help people."

Ficker, a native and lifelong Evanstonian, calls her childhood "dysfunctional," and says "there was trauma."

She said that, as a child, she was sexually abused by kids in her neighborhood. "It took me a long time to process it through therapy and EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing)," she told the Herald.

She admitted to dabbling with unlawful activity at a young age. Shortly after she started smoking in fifth grade, she was drinking alcohol. She received her first minor-in-possession citation at age 14, then she began smoking marijuana. 

At the beginning of her freshman year, Ficker says she was sexually assaulted by an upperclassman and that the subsequent gossip and social fallout from it exacerbated her pain.

"After that is when I started to have suicidal ideations," she said. "I never really attempted, but there was a lot of thought."

She started using pills from her parents' medicine cabinet - "mostly benzos (benzodiazepines), Valium, Xanax and OxyContin."

"I just fell into the crowd that I felt accepted me," Ficker said. She started attending raves in the Salt Lake City area, which introduced her and her friend group to "older people that preyed on us." 

By her junior year, she was smoking heroin, which she would do in the bathrooms and the parking lot of the high school - until, one day in April 2011, "they brought the dogs to school," she said. While several others from her friend group did get arrested, "I didn't get caught with anything then, but I never went back." 

Ficker dropped out of Evanston High School (EHS) but initiated her application to the BOOST program at Uinta BOCES #1, which enabled her to finish her GED in December 2011.

Despite her motivation to finish school on her terms, Ficker admits to having continued smoking heroin in the bathroom during the BOOST class periods. She said she even funded her habit with the Workforce Services-funded stipend paid to students who participate in high school equivalency educational program.

She was 18 at the time of her first serious run-in with law enforcement in 2012. Someone called in a tip about suspicious activity in a parked vehicle, and she was arrested for misdemeanor possession of paraphernalia.

"That's when I discovered what heroin withdrawals were," she said. The older inmates from her pod took care of her, but still, "it was miserable. At that moment, I realized I had an addiction and I was sick."

Upon her release from jail, she immediately began using again.

"I was a part of a group I was accepted in," Ficker said. "At first it was fun. We would party, we would do these things - it was good bonding."

At 19, she starting incorporating smoking methamphetamine alongside her regular consumption of heroin. Unable to keep employment, she began stealing from her family, pawning things from their home and forging their checks to fund her habit. 

"It was a full-blown addiction," she said, "full-blown dependency, and it was getting to the point I needed to use just to feel normal, just to function."

Her parents issued an ultimatum - go to rehab or they would turn her into law enforcement. She chose a rehab facility in Murietta, California. On the way there, she continued to use drugs in the airport.

"I'm sitting there with my lighter and tin foil, because I didn't want to waste it," she said, of the desire to use her leftover heroin. "I saw dogs walking through the airport and it was sheer panic and paranoia."

Four weeks later, including a five-day carefully-monitored tapered withdrawal, Ficker successfully completed rehab, but said, "I didn't go wanting to succeed." She said she was just trying to satisfy her parents' ultimatum demands.

"The day that I get home, I met up with my friends, and that is the day I started shooting up heroin - the day I got home from rehab," she said. "I started shooting up meth, too," an act that included sharing needles with other users and escalated to sleeping with people to obtain drugs.

"You just don't care at the time," she said. "There is no reasoning at all."

"I'm an open book," she continued. "I've processed all of this, and I think it makes it more real to share this because this is the life of addiction."

Homeless by 19, Ficker began living in a friend's grandparents' shed - without electricity, plumbing or the property owner's awareness or permission. She managed to stay there undetected for nine months until she grew hungry and desperate enough to return home.

Her parents welcomed her back so she could eat and rest.

"Then I woke up to a tap on my foot," she said. "It was the cops."

Arrested and charged with four counts of felony forgery, Ficker again experienced severe drug withdrawals. It was behind bars that she learned that, during a massive bust, one of her "friends" mentioned her name during an investigation and that she would be facing two additional felony counts - conspiracy to deliver heroin and delivery of heroin.

"As our addictions grew worse, the lying, the manipulating, the backstabbing, stealing, it broke everyone up," Ficker said. "As they got caught, they would all turn on each other."

Facing up to 60 years behind bars, Ficker accepted a deferred sentence often offered to first-time offenders.

Ficker was ordered to complete drug court, which entails six weeks of in-patient therapy at the jail, followed by two weeks of intensive outpatient therapy, then a minimum year of weekly group sessions - essentially rehab through furloughed incarceration. Every charge would be downgraded to misdemeanors upon successful completion of her sentence. 

During weekly-mandated group sessions, Ficker began socializing with other drug-court members.

"When you have a bunch of addicts hanging out with each other, you could influence each other for the good, or... We started drinking again," she said. "Then using."

"Once you start making bad choices," she said, "other bad choices are there just knocking on the door."

She started using meth again.

"We had a system. We were such criminals that we would just figure out and plan crazy scenarios how we were going to manage [to get away with drug use while on probation]," she said. "I was spending so much time trying to figure out how to hide my using," though it was obvious to several drug court providers, she said.

Drug Court Officer Aaron Hutchinson ordered urine analysis for several members of Ficker's group, which they subsequently failed and were immediately remanded back into custody. 

During this incarceration, Ficker discovered she was pregnant.

"I was 20 years old, facing prison and pregnant ... this is real," she told the Herald.

"Aaron (Hutchinson) held that mirror up to me and gave me one of the realest talks of my life," she said, admitting her fears of the imminent consequences. "I remember bawling and realizing this is not what I want. That was my rock bottom moment. I broke down in tears and said to myself 'I will not do that to a baby. I'm done.'" 

The judge gave her one more chance.

"I took it and ran with it," Ficker said.

Sober since Nov. 5, 2014, the same day she learned about her pregnancy, she successfully completed her second drug court stint in 2016.

"I didn't hang out with my group members," she said. "I cut off all my friends, got off social media. I got rid of everybody," including enforcing limited contact with her family.

Four of the felony charges were dropped and two were downgraded to misdemeanors.

"I had to do a lot," she said of the hoops she had to jump through. "I had to take parenting classes, I had to go do DVR (Department of Vocational Rehabilitation), I had to do group every night, UAs (urine analysis) randomly and pay fines. It was very strict."

She served two separate probations under two separate officers with two different sets of strict parameters.

"It was just me and my daughter. I started working, I kept to myself," Ficker said.

Waitressing at the Purple Sage Golf Course restaurant helped her get on her feet. She moved into her own apartment with only an inflatable mattress and two lawn chairs to her name, "but it was peace," she said.

She started taking Western Wyoming Community College classes at BOCES in 2016, working on an associate's degree in psychology, which was inspired by her drug court mentors.

"I want to do that," she said of her chosen path. "I think somebody that went through this needs to be doing this program."

Ficker met her husband, Brian, online and they relocated to Colorado for a while, eventually adding a second daughter to their family. She worked for Larimer County, Colorado, while working on her bachelor's degree at Colorado State University. After she graduated in 2023 with an interdisciplinary liberal arts degree with a minor emphasis in sociology, the family returned to Evanston.

She finished her Master's of Sociology with a graduate certificate in addiction and substance abuse-related disorders through the Arizona State University online in December 2024.

After an employment stint with Wyoming Workforce Services, she applied for her provisional license through the state, receiving it in March of 2025. Just two weeks later, High Country Behavioral Health notified her of an opening for drug court therapist, which she was hired for in April.

Hutchinson proudly introduced Ficker to the public at the June 17 Uinta County Commission meeting.
“Kelsee’s story is rather unique. … She’s one of our great success stories,” Hutchinson said. “We’re really excited to have her.” Commission Chair Mark Anderson replied directly to Ficker, saying, “It’s one of the best programs out there, and it’s people like you that make it possible.” Ficker’s office is located at the Uinta County Jail, where she still sees members of her former crowd. “I know at least eight people that I used to use with that have passed away [from drug abuse],” Ficker said. “Recovery is possible with resilience,” she said, acknowledging that her particular outcome is rare. “There’s a better life out there.”