As her addiction worsened, Cain resorted to crime to get money for drugs. At times, she prostituted for drug money.
When she learned she was pregnant with her fifth child in 2004 — three had been adopted and one lived with his father — she was incarcerated in the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women in Jessup. Because she didn’t want to give up another child, she received help from Tamar Inc., an organization that helps recently paroled women raise their children.
Cain was the subject of the 2010 documentary “Healing Neen,” where she reflected on her childhood in Annapolis and how the cycle of child abuse resulted in her addiction to drugs. In 2014, she wrote a book about overcoming trauma and addiction.
Now, Cain travels around the country as a trauma expert and advocate. She works with prisons on reform and has started several nonprofits.
On Monday, Cain plans to talk about the importance of addiction programs understanding the root of the issue. She turned to drugs and alcohol as a coping mechanism for the abuse she faced as a child and in relationships.
Despite being in and out of programs for about two decades, it wasn’t until she was paroled and started going to therapy that she realized the impact of her childhood trauma.
“They were lazy gardeners, they weren’t getting to the root,” Cain said of her counselors.
Substance abuse programs need to provide resources to teach people how to be productive members of society, she said. As someone who had been arrested 83 times, was homeless and addicted to drugs in a span of almost 20 years, Cain said she didn’t know how to take care of a home or find a job.
“We say you need to change your people, places and things,” she said. “We don’t tell them how to find these people. (They) go back to drug-infested neighbors. People don’t have a chance.”
Christopher McCabe, Chrysalis House’s executive director, said the organization wanted to feature a speaker who could “spread a message of hope to the broader community.”
“I’m hopeful that the community will recognize that this disease can impact anyone and not just people who may come from certain neighborhoods in our community,” he said.
In Anne Arundel County, heroin-related overdose deaths rose by 95 percent between 2010 and 2013. In 2014, the county ranked the third-highest in the state in the number of deaths due to opioid misuse.
Cain wasn’t surprised to see the spike in Anne Arundel.
“The fact is that when you see it in one place, it trickles down to the next,” she said. “Anne Arundel County is in a better position to get a better handle on it. We’re a small county, but we’re not a poor county.”
Following her talk Monday, Cain has no plans of slowing down. Cain is hosting her first national conference about child trauma later this month. She recently signed a contract for her own television show, where she’ll work with people coming out of correctional institutions.
“Everything I do is connected to my story,” she said.
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