Atlanta – After revealing in a book she had been a methamphetamine addict, the woman hailed for arranging the peaceful surrender of a suspected courthouse gunman said being held hostage was the “miracle” that made her kick her habit.
“I don’t really wish that it didn’t happen because it has changed my life so much,” Ashley Smith said in an interview Wednesday. “If it didn’t happen, I don’t know if I ever would have waken up.” Smith’s life has certainly changed since shooting suspect Brian Nichols forced her at gunpoint into her suburban Atlanta apartment.
He held her captive for seven hours on March 11, the night following the courthouse shooting rampage that left four dead. A struggling widowed mother, Smith said she could hold a job only long enough to support her drug habit, but is now planning to use her fame to become a model for people looking to change their ways.
And since her book “Unlikely Angel” was released Tuesday, Smith said, she is also hoping for a television or movie deal so she can reach more people like her.
Police said Nichols took Smith hostage in her apartment, and she says she talked about her faith to persuade him to release her. In her book, she discloses that she also gave Nichols methamphetamine, a detail she did not share with authorities at the time.
But investigators said she came clean about the drugs when they interviewed her months later. They said they have no plans to charge her with drug possession.
Wanting to stop doing drugs but not knowing how, Smith said her breakthrough moment came when she refused to snort meth with Nichols. Smith said she hasn’t used drugs since the night before her run-in with Nichols.
“If I can say no to somebody that has a gun in my face, then I’ll never do them again,” Smith said. “And not only will I not do them again, I’m going to fight against them for those people that can’t stop doing them, to show them, ‘Look, you can.”‘
Smith said she struggles with reconciling the national publicity with the first real chance to lead a normal life with her 6-year-old daughter, Paige.
Even immediately after Nichols’ surrender, Smith didn’t see her daughter for two days, finding time instead to hire an attorney to handle her public appearances, including several TV interviews.
“I could go speak to people for the next three years every day if I wanted to, but I’m not going to make my child do that,” Smith said.
