Toni Vermelle Griffin Curry

National Association of Social Workers member Toni Vermelle Griffin Curry, who died from cancer on April 28 at age 72,  lost custody of her children in the 1970s due to alcoholism.

She got sober in 1975, earned a master’s degree in social work, and gained a reputation in the Atlanta area and nationally for helping thousands of others beat addictions, according to this obituary in the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

One of the people she saved was one of her own daughters, Catherine Curry.

 “It is only because of her that I stand here today,” Catherine Curry said. “She brought me back from the depths of hell and gave my daughters back their mother.”