Ashley Messier is the co-chair of the Corrections Monitoring Committee in the Vermont Legislature, and she’s the reentry services program manager for Vermont Works for Women. She grew up in Essex with an abusive father and with little money, and she found herself repeating the cycle in early adulthood. This is a story about multigenerational poverty and abuse, and the temporary relief of opiates.

"What class are you?" is an occasional series from Vermont Public reporter Erica Heilman. In it, she talks with people from all sorts of backgrounds about money and class and privilege.