On the morning of March 14, an employee at Alder Creek Middle School in Milwaukie called police after spotting drug paraphernalia inside a teacher's parked car.

Brynne Fletcher, a 34-year-old special education teacher, had no visible signs of an addiction, no prior criminal record. But that day, Clackamas County sheriff's deputies found heroin and meth inside her vehicle. Her arrest mugshot flashed across the evening news.

Her yearslong secret became painfully public.

"I was so afraid of talking about it," Fletcher said this week from the front porch of a sober living house in Canby. "But as difficult as all the media attention was, I kind of felt free once that was all out there. Everything was out in the open, and it just kind of became, unapologetically, this is who I am and what I've been through."

A mugshot, of course, doesn't tell the whole story.

Fletcher is still facing criminal charges from her arrest, but she shared her story with The Oregonian/Oregonlive -because brutal honesty is part of her healing. She also believes talking about addiction might help others going through similar struggles.

Fletcher traces the root of her addiction to abuse she experienced at age 13. The trauma set her up for a lifetime of self-doubt, shame and secret keeping.

She discovered heroin the same way 75 percent of users do - by first abusing prescription opioids. In her early 20s, a boyfriend shared with her his prescription pills. Within a few months, she was hooked.

"I was incredibly naive, I had no idea that prescription medication could be so addicting," she said. "And it just took one person to say, 'Hey, you can get heroin, it's much cheaper.'"

For more than a decade, Fletcher kept her addiction relatively private. She said she never used with friends so it was easy to detach her drug use from the rest of her life.

"I got my masters, I got married, we were traveling, I started working. Life looked pretty great on the outside," she said. "And that's what was so jarring for people, especially my own family. They knew I had some struggles with pills in the past, but they had no idea it was heroin or the extent of it."

Fletcher was hired by North Clackamas School District as an instructional assistant in 2012 and became a special needs teacher in 2014.

"I loved the challenge of it, I loved working with different techniques to work with their behaviors and really getting to know these kids," she said. "Especially because I know so many people get uncomfortable around kids with special needs or who act a little differently."

For years, she cycled between periods of using heroin and then using Suboxone, prescribed to treat addicts by redirecting their craving for opioids. But getting off Suboxone itself is difficult, she said, causing withdrawal symptoms not unlike quitting heroin.

Last year, things started to fall apart. Fletcher's husband of three years discovered drugs in the house, and she lied about it.

They divorced in April 2016.

By December, Fletcher had blown through most of the money she'd gotten after the divorce and was evicted from her apartment. Over winter break, she was depressed, miserable and using more frequently.

Before her arrest, Fletcher had already submitted her resignation letter effective at the end of the school year. She said she planned to detox by herself over spring break. Until then, she was using heroin so she wouldn't feel sick and smoking meth for enough energy to make it through the day.

When deputies found the drugs in her car, Fletcher finally stopped lying.

"I think, looking back, in a lot of ways, I really wanted an out," she said. "I wanted help, and I had tried so many times on my own."

After her release from jail, Fletcher checked into an inpatient treatment center in Newberg. She's now working at her mother's restaurant in Lake Oswego, attending support group meetings in Portland, and, she said, living sober.

A jury trial is scheduled for September on Fletcher's charges of possession of heroin and methamphetamine. It's unclear how the outcome of her case could affect her ability to teach - something she would like to return to someday.

"The fact that my addiction had any effect on my students and their families is something that I will carry with me for the rest of my life," Fletcher said. "My heart hurts for putting any additional stress, fear, or worry into their lives, and I am deeply sorry."

Fletcher's case comes as public perception and public policy around opioid addiction are starting to change.

The President's Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis this week urged President Trump to declare a national emergency over the opioid epidemic. The move would, in part, make more Medicaid recipients eligible for addiction treatment.

"Drug overdoses now kill more people than gun homicides and car

crashes combined," commission members wrote. "In 2015, nearly two-thirds of drug overdoses were linked to opioids like Percocet, OxyContin, heroin, and fentanyl."

This session, Oregon lawmakers passed a bill to make certain first-time drug possession crimes a misdemeanor rather than a felony. The move puts an emphasis on treatment over punishment, and aims to address concerns about racial profiling. Studies have shown that minorities are convicted of drug crimes at higher rates than white defendants.

Fletcher agrees on the need for consequences for illegal drug use, but those consequences should be paired with opportunities for treatment. It should be less costly, less shameful, to seek help for addiction.

-- Samantha Swindler

@editorswindler / 503-294-4031

sswindler@oregonian.com