Former Miss USA and recovery advocate Tara Conner penned an op-ed Wednesday thanking President Trump for helping her get through 10 years of sobriety.

Ms. Conner sparked controversy after her 2006 pageant win when reports surfaced that she tested positive for cocaine. Mr. Trump, then-owner of the Miss USA competition, allowed her to keep her crown on the condition that she enter drug rehab.

“I became famous as ‘Mess USA’ when my boss — now the president of the United States — tossed me into rehab after I tested positive for cocaine,” Ms. Conner wrote for USA Today. “Rather than strip me of my crown or add to the negative press with a humiliation campaign, Donald Trump surprised me, and shocked the world, when he held a news conference and declared: ‘Tara is going to be given a second chance.’

“It was 10 years ago that I got out of treatment, and I thank him for my 10 years of recovery,” she said. “I will always be profoundly grateful. He saved my life and, essentially, made me great again.”

Ms. Conner said Mr. Trump, whose brother Freddy died of alcoholism at age 43, knows firsthand the damage addiction can do to families.

“The president vowed in his speech to Congress that ‘we will stop the drugs from pouring into our country and poisoning our youth — and we will expand treatment for those who have become so badly addicted,’” she wrote. “I am confident he will keep his promises. As is the case with one in every three American households, substance use disorders impacted his own family, and he now has the power to help millions.”

Ms. Conner called substance abuse “the most urgent health crisis of our time” and urged the president to “hear the voices of the 23 million people in long-term recovery — my brothers and sisters — and maybe even hire some of them.”

“He should also heed the call for expanding public health services for the 21 million Americans and their families currently facing addiction,” she added.

Ms. Conner concluded by saying she is committed to supporting the president “in any way” she can.

“It is the least I can do considering what he did for me,” she wrote.