Meth, Witchcraft and the Escort Industry | Valerie's Recovery Story

Valerie shares her story of growing up around meth addiction, childhood abuse, foster care, witchcraft, the escort industry, and finding recovery after nearly losing her life. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

The third time I went to the hospital, the doctor told me, You will never be able to drink or do drugs again. We know you're using demons were walking with me. They were literally around me. Like if you haven't ever done drugs, don't even start. All it does is hurt you. And um, you know, money and power and and and witchcraft, uh, those chains held me for over 15 years. This is Hard Knox Talks.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Valerie, welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 0:29

Thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Let's jump right into it. Uh, where did substances get started in your life?

SPEAKER_02 0:35

Right. So um, I had a mother and a stepfather who were highly addicted to methamphetamine when I was a little girl, my earliest memories. So I can remember them crawling on the floor looking for um government bugs because we were being bugged by the government. Um I remember moving to different states, Arizona one time, um, because aliens who were conspiring with the government were after us. I actually remember being locked in a closet, huh?

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Isn't moving to Arizona because aliens are after you, isn't that bad? Like, isn't that where aliens go? Isn't like Area 51 out there?

SPEAKER_02 1:14

I mean, I mean, no, Area 51's in Nevada. And my mom was was married a Native American and they're very open. So we always had aliens in the government. I'm so glad I can laugh now because it was not funny as a kid. As a kid, I would like have a hard time sleeping, looking out the window. I was like, why don't the aliens talk to me, mom? Like one time we had to hide in the closet for a couple days, literally. Um, I just remember holding my brother because um aliens were mad and they were after us. And right after that, we moved to Arizona from California. Um, but they were strung out, you know. My mom thought she had breast cancer because the TV Oprah told her on TV, talking to the TV. And um, I just remember being really scared of my parents because they they were crazy. And um, I just always said I never want to do anything that they do. But you get used to being in the closet and and every night it's something different, you know, in my childhood. Um, very strange. We man, when we drove to Arizona hiding from the aliens and the government, um no, I think the aliens were our friends, but it was the government that wanted to know about the aliens. It was a lot. So, so we, my mom was close to the aliens. The aliens were a big part of our life. Me and my brother never saw them. Um, although we would hear screams and weird stuff, weird demonic stuff. I can't say that we didn't. And um, I would always see shadows and things running around us and weird, weird stuff. It was a I had a very creepy childhood. Um, I'd wake up and my my dad would be outside my window, like casting or calling on demons to come inside me, um, into my body. Just crazy stuff. They were very strong out. But I remember driving on the back roads to Arizona. We couldn't use the regular roads for some reason. And we ended up getting a flat tire from being stranded for a long time. I hate to laugh, but it was such a crazy, crazy time in my life. There was no stability. Um, and and uh they my family was really scared of the government. So before that, my mom was a cop and worked for corrections, but that was before she got strung out. So when she got with my stepdad um on the Native American reservation that I grew up on, which was the Paiute tribe, they did a lot of methamphetamine and a lot of alcohol. And our parents would be gone literally. Like we all had these tribal homes. So my cousins lived five minutes or ten minutes, but on the same big, huge land. Our parents would be gone for like a month or two, like literally, and we could just go from home to home and and play. And um, us kids just kind of connected together, but our parents would go have to get more drugs and sell drugs and do drug stuff, look for aliens. I'm not sure. But they would leave us for months at a time. And um, none of us, like, we would see drugs all the time.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

And and you would you would just like sort of go from house to house and just sort of be transient at the time.

SPEAKER_02 4:24

Yeah, because all of the houses, it was really fun, honestly. All of the houses were tribal, so it was like cousins and and uncles. They would all the adults would get together. So we we were just happy they weren't there because they were crazy. But I mean, there was times where like I broke into a store to get us food once. I was the oldest, and um, we would all share food. That would be scary as a kid, you know. But um, we would make the best of it because our parents were so crazy and scary. I mean, on the reservation, there, they're and I don't want to say all reservations because the Native American culture is beautiful. I'm just saying where I was at in my personal experience. I don't want to be disrespectful, but there was a lot of drinking. So there would be one time I came home and my stepdad stabbed my my um his nephew and and cut his neck, and and they were belligerently crazy. They were they were strung out, they were drinking. There was a lot of death on the reservation that I grew up on. There was a lot of of violence. So when our parents were gone, you weren't, I wasn't really scared of ghosts and things like that at that time. We were more scared of our parents, even the aliens. We were like, Mom, can I talk to them? I used to say, Can I talk to the aliens? I don't really want to move. Um, why is the government so mad at us? Like, I remember getting to the point where I was like, you know, my my friend Shelly doesn't ever have to worry about aliens. Why do I? Like, yeah, on the reservation, there's absolutely no law or rules or police. On the tribe that I grew up on, we are free people. So kids don't say, Mom, I'm gonna go play and I'll be home at two or whatever. I don't even know how other kids grew up, but we just do whatever we want. I was around a lot of sexual abuse. Um, starting with with I was molested by my grandfather, my stepdad, which was my mom's husband, all the time, and then and then different members of the community. So I was sexually abused for many different people. It wasn't even when I was protecting my own self because we were just with kids. Um, I wasn't abused during that time, but whenever my stepdad would be home, he would sexually abuse me. And um, I finally got the courage to tell my mom, I believed my mom didn't didn't know. Um, but when I told her she beat me up and told me that I was a liar, and within six months I was in foster care from that. So I had a lot of scars. Um, even till this day, like I'm better, but I I uh sex is a very hard topic for me. It's not, I was never an open person or I was never comfortable. Um, and that's something that I struggled with really, really hard. Well, yeah, a lot of those things I feel like led to my addiction for sure.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

Okay, so you went into foster care then what?

SPEAKER_02 7:06

I was abused in foster care too. So foster care, I just went from home to home to home. I was in a um a small country town uh who grew up on a reservation. So by the time I was 18, I had like 30 warrants. I was constantly in trouble because I would leave. When you have absolutely no rules, my mom never, one time I didn't come home for one year and I was 12. My mom never told me you have to come home, you have to go to bed at a certain time, you eat food. This was not our lifestyle, and that's kind of hard for people to understand, but that's not how we were raised. So when I got in foster care, having someone tell me you have to go to school every day was crazy. I hated eating dinner with a strange family at the same time every day. I thought that I thought that the people were nuts. I just felt so crazy. So I I would be I was my regular self. I wouldn't come home for several days. I I stayed how I was, which got me warrant after warrant after warrant and in trouble. So the judge knew me very well, and he would randomly put me in jail. And um, I started learning the law actually, like when you're a foster kid, uh, you can't just be thrown in jail. So, like you either have to be on probation or something. So I started learning the penal codes and standing up and fighting against the judge and saying, and they were about to put me on probation just because of how much trouble I was getting. But I really wanted to stay in foster care and not go into that system because I knew it was a lot harsher, you know? And I was already having such a hard time with the rules anyway. When when you don't have them, you know, on the reservation, we're taught that the man, like that's the government, I guess, is um is after you and wants to take all of your freedom away. And so, like when I went into foster care, it looked like they were right. Like, oh wow, we have no freedom, we have to do this, and we're appointed to do certain things, and you don't live like that on the reservation at all.

SPEAKER_00 9:01

So you mentioned at 26 is when things got started. Was there was there like drinking or anything before 26?

SPEAKER_02 9:08

Mm-mm.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

Really?

SPEAKER_02 9:10

Which is kind of scary. Maybe I mean at a couple quincenas, I I would because I'm full-blooded Hispanic. My mom just married a Native American when I was a child. Um, when I got into foster care, I started meeting Hispanics and I started going to like quintess, which are which are like 15-year-old uh sweet 15, like sweet 16, but for 15. And um, I would have like a beer, maybe like a half a beer. I hated how alcohol tasted. Um, so it wasn't it wasn't really my thing. I didn't I didn't like it at all. Till this day, the only time I ever drank, because I got addicted to vodka, but only when I was on methamphetamine. So I've never even like ordered a drink outside of that.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

Okay, so so tell me then um what were the circumstances around your using for the first time.

SPEAKER_02 9:57

Okay, so I was on my second boyfriend that I ever had in my whole life. I was 26, very uncomfortable with my body, and I lived in Orange County, California, and I had just started being a booker for strippers. I had this boyfriend that um he was such a bad guy. He was like a gang member, and he was like our neighbor, and he would always follow me around, and he became like my boyfriend. But it was just a guy that that wanted to hook up with me, really. And um, he kept asking me for almost a year to try to try this drug in meth. And he was like, You'll be more open and you'll be more calm. Because I also had panic attacks, severe anxiety. And finally, I'd said, I'll just try it. Like, what can it hurt? So I tried it. When I tried it for the first time in my life, I felt this euphoric feeling. But instead of having like all these, you know, three or four racing thoughts at the same time, I had one clear, calm thought, which was crazy to me for always being ADHD and OCD and you know, very paranoid. And it made me feel calm. And I won't ever forget that feeling. That was a very scary feeling because I never feel calm. I always feel anxious and worried. And that was the calmest that I had ever felt in my life. My addiction didn't start every day right then. I mean, it took years to where it was like, you know, I would do it recreationally or periodically, and it went with my lifestyle, you know. So I told you I was booking those strippers, and after that, um, one of the girls got beat up by one of the clients, and I remember being very mad that they didn't go help the girl, like they didn't care about the girl. And I was a girl that nobody cared about growing up. So I was like, um, I quit. I got mad and I quit. And I was like, I'm not gonna watch girls get hurt or be in bad situations. And the girls kept coming to me from Siren Entertainment, from that entertainment industry, and asking me to book them clients and to just screen the clients. Man, within one year, I had the goddess entertainment. I started my whole own um goddess entertainment company, and um it was it turned into full escorts, and I screened them myself, and and I ended up doing that for almost 20 years. Wow. So addiction went, I know, I know. I did that until I was 37. It's a very psychological thing, like for someone who my therapist actually finally made me see, like, oh wow, like all the years of being abused and having no say in in this, I had say of everything. If you even yelled at a woman who worked for me, I would, you know, cut you off and ban you for years. And and I just felt like I was protecting them in the sick way that nobody protected me, and I took it to a whole nother level. So I was pretty abusive to these people. I'm not gonna lie or sugarcoat my story. I was mean to the men. Um, the women I loved and I did everything for them, but I had so much hatred and unhealed trauma that I treated the men horribly, and that fed me. It fed all that sickness inside of me, that that, you know, that unhealed wounds.

SPEAKER_00 13:10

So tell me, um when did you you mentioned earlier in your story that that you did see shadows and hear demonic voices and stuff like that. Did that continue on through all of this? Like, is this is this happening while you Often on as a child, it was it was a lot.

SPEAKER_02 13:30

Like, I remember this is gonna sound so crazy, but for people who are addicts, they'll know. But I wasn't even on drugs at this time. My parents were though, and they were doing a lot of satanic stuff. Um, because it comes with the culture, the native culture, no disrespect, but it does. You know, when you're calling on demons and dancing around fires, that's kind of demonic. So um, I would see the shower turn into spider legs, the water coming down from the shower turn into spider legs. I remember that so vividly. I would see uh just demons running around my room and circling my room, and I would fall asleep just like so scared and so much fear. That was all the time when I was with my parents, I seen a lot of things. I had hear a lot of things. Um, when I became an adult for the first maybe five or ten years, I didn't really have that many experiences. I was already accepting of a lot of things, so it wasn't scary to see shadows and and hear stuff or at all.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

Right now, in your story, we're at a place where you started goddess entertainment and you were you did very well and you were mean to men. Yeah. Was there and you were dabbling in meth. Was there any sort of manifestations of that darkness during that time?

SPEAKER_02 14:45

I think it was dark in a different way, manipulating women, having a ton of women sell their bodies. That's super demonic. You know what I mean? So it was like a different form. I wasn't really seeing shadows and hearing screaming at that time, but I was a hundred percent working for the dark side. I was completely controlled. And, you know, imagine I had a huge following. So hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of women came to me and I helped them to sleep with men to, you know, put them together. So that's horrible. If you think about that, I was a hundred percent working for the other side, the dark side, I would say. Um, at that time, though, I wasn't seeing demons and spirits. Um it to it turned into my my full-blown when I was once I started using every day on a daily, you know, a few times a day, and it consumed my life, then it was a whole portal opens up. And somehow as a child, I was able to see this when I wasn't on drugs and alcohol, but my parents were doing it every day. And so I knew all of this was real. Like I believe when you see shadows and this and that, that that's real. You're opening up a portal to the demonic side, which which we have portals everywhere, we just can't see them, you know. In the natural, we we don't really see them unless you know how to channel or you know how to um open that up. But with meth, what through my experience, you open up those portals and those demonic realms. And and so when my substance abuse was at an everyday um, which was some very hard times, I would grab people's guns and point it at them and say, What is that? Like, I'm surprised I didn't get killed. I had a lot of gang members around me. I had a lot of violence around me. I started the prostitution ring at a high-end level. It wasn't like walking on the street. I had it in in like the Hilton, the Hyatt with rich sugar daddy type men. So that left out a lot of the drama. Now, all the places where I would get my drugs were through gang members. I for some reason I felt safe with that. Um, I lived in Anaheim, Santa Ana, which is like gang infested. And um, they were accepting of me with my with my lifestyle and and you know, with what I was doing. So um I would usually live in a nice area because I could afford it, but I would be 10 minutes from a bad area. Now, in my profession, I would be in a lot of high-end places and I would try to make it the most, the best um, you know, nice high-end hotels, customers who were not street people, because I didn't want that in my profession. I couldn't protect a woman from gang members. I could protect them from a businessman. I wasn't scared of a businessman. And and that's kind of crazy, but I wasn't. They a lot of those men were were scared of me. That life felt very normal for me, you know, just traveling a lot, different. Um, I worked with many, I mean, hundreds and hundreds of prostitutes. Now, around 35, my addiction got real to where I was extremely lonely and extremely sad. And I feel like a lot of those demons just kind of got heavier and heavier and heavier. I was at a point where like I remember this gorilla pimp that I helped a girl get away from him.

SPEAKER_01 18:06

I don't know what that means.

SPEAKER_02 18:07

A gorilla pimp is someone who will physically take a woman and kidnap her and force her to be with people. So there's people like that. I only met one or two, but um, he kept telling me he was gonna kill me because I helped the woman get away from him. And um, I was like, join the club of people who wanted to kill me. Like I had no fear, I didn't care, but that's because of how unhappy I was in my life. So um my addiction got stronger and stronger, and I started throwing up blood and throwing up blood. I had made the conscious decision that um God, I remember this day I started seeing demons and shadows and hearing voices all over my room, right? Like circling my room, and and I was throwing up blood, and I could physically feel them on top of me, not just see them, but feel them, you know. Usually they are like at a distance, like in the corner or moving around, but I could feel it on me. And and it's just a disgusting, uh, gross feeling that I don't know really how to explain. It's like being molested. It feels like that. It's such a dirty, yucky feeling. But um, I had made the conscious decision that I wasn't gonna just go murder myself, but I was going to make sure that I did not take care of myself so that I would die. I didn't think that you could just throw up blood um and not die. I felt like, how much blood can you lose before you die? That happened for an entire year. Then one day I was in this um with this Filipino gang member, and he kept giving me a ton of drugs, way more than I had ever used. And I started fainting, like passing out. Now I want to say that every time that I was physically sick, I would see these demons, these spirits. You could literally see them growing in front of you. Like they will grow and manifest, and and like first you'll just see little shadows, but um it would fully manifest in front of me. It was super scary. I knew that it was coming from from my body, and and I was okay with it because I just wanted to die, but this was longed and dragged out. So after a year of throwing up blood, there was a breaking point where um I fainted three times in one week. Every time that I fainted, as I was going out, I would see these shadows and demonic spirits above me. Like they wanted to take me, right? So I fainted and I woke up in an ambulance. Um, when I went to the hospital the third time, they told me that I had burned a hole in my esophagus and like a big hole right here. And um, that's why I kept throwing up blood. I couldn't keep anything down, and I was bleeding from a lot of different areas. It was very crazy and scary, but that was all demonic. Because at that time, demons were walking with me. They were literally around me every day, like taunting me. They would laugh at me, they would, um, it was very scary. It was just scary. But you're so out of it, right? Because I'm on meth, I'm I'm drinking, but I know what's going on. So the third time I went to the hospital, the doctor told me, you will never be able to drink or do drugs again. We know you're using what it's in your blood system. We we know, you know, it's not some big uh surprise. And I was shocked that they even knew, but they knew. And um, they repaired my esophagus and then they told me, if you drink or use again, you're going to die. And uh, I went home and I took some of the medication and I drank and used again because I I was at the point where I wanted to die. They were trying to get me to sign papers, like I had to do, they had to do an emergency blood transfusion because I had lost so much blood through all that time. And I was like, ew, I don't want other people's blood in me. Like, I'll use methane and drink alcohol and sleep on the garage floor, but I don't want someone else's blood in me. Like it was just crazy. But the demons were very strong at that time. Um, the person that I was getting my drugs from started beating me in the garage. And um, because we would meet up in the garage and do drugs and stuff like that. And he started beating me and and um I walked away and I went into a sober living for the first time in my life. Like my only goal at this time was to get sober for a minute. Like I didn't think long term. I thought I need to get sober for a couple months, you know. I'm literally seeing these demons manifest in front of me. This has gotten really far. Let me clear my mind, get back to the prostitution ring because I hadn't done it for a couple months. And I had never done that in my whole life, taken off a couple months. I wouldn't even take off a day, let alone a couple months. So I thought I'll clear my mind, go back to the prostitution ring. You know, the girls want me to come back and I'll go back and I'll get an apartment and I'll be my normal lonely, miserable self like I've been. Um, but for the moment I wanted to get away from the people that I was around and what I was around. When I went into the sober living, I was mandated to do 30 meetings in 30 days of AA and NA meetings. And um, so I did it. It's a requirement. I did it, and um, I started working the steps, and you know, they do that serenity prayer where you're praying to God, you know. And um little by little I actually started changing, which was which was so crazy to me. Um, the first year was the hardest year of my life, um, because I had been on meth for 15 years, and alcohol really does something to my body that I think alcohol is poison from the devil and very demonic, and so is meth. But the things that it did to my body, like the pain of withdrawing from alcohol, I didn't know at that time could actually kill me. Um, but the withdrawal was the worst withdrawal ever. It feels like I'm being actually stabbed, and I've been cut, so I know what it feels like, and it feels like that. Um, but that first year I fell, I relapsed like five or six times in one of those relapse during that year. I got pulled over for driving recklessly, and um, I got while I was getting pulled over, I got charged with pimping and pandering. So they pulled me over on a red light, yeah. And the DA had been watching me for several years, and I consider this to be the best thing that ever happened to me, but I didn't know it at the time um because I couldn't stop relapsing. So even though I'd get sober for four months, I never made it past four months in the first year. I needed more than that. So um I get pulled over for driving recklessly and going on a red light, and and they they take me to jail, they tow my car, and then they tell me that I'm being charged with pimping and pandering. And I thought, what? Because it had been a whole year by this point that I had left that industry, been getting a regular get well job and trying so hard, but like I know that it was the demons and the demonic chains that really kept me. Like, it was hard to walk away. I was huge into witchcraft, so I forgot to mention that. Um, I was very I I yeah, I know. Um, I was very into tarot card reading, so I always needed to know the future. I always had a team of full-blown witches around me to call on when I wanted to know anything, or mostly it was about knowing the future. I was obsessed with knowing the future. Which girl was gonna work out, what wasn't gonna last? This guy makes me feel a certain way. Can I get more money from this person? Weird stuff, but this is what I was into. And this, they're very open on the native in the Native American culture. They they read like the water and the trees and the leaf. So by the time I got a chance, even before I started doing drugs, I went to tarot readers the second I got a chance. And um, the first time I did it, I was utterly obsessed with it. The fact that this person, like people say that it's not real, that is a lie. Like there were several strangers who told me about my past, who told me things in my life, and who told me about the future. So not everything was 100% correct, but there's no way that that isn't real. I'm always amazed when people think that that's not real. I spent thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars. I was just as close as to those witches as I was to the prostitutes that were around me every single day. I'd go to some of their houses and eat food with them. I was very close to them.

SPEAKER_00 26:18

So when you got away from that lifestyle, like did it try to claw you back in? Like, did people try to come and find you?

SPEAKER_02 26:23

Very hard.

SPEAKER_00 26:24

Like, what did that look like?

SPEAKER_02 26:27

So when I everyone just kind of laughed and waited, like I got offered cars, you know. That's when I kept relapsing. So I kept relapsing because I was struggling so bad. Of like the lifestyle was just as hard to leave as the drugs, maybe a little bit harder, and the witchcraft. They all were together in a bowl, and I had done that all for over 15 years. So that was my entire life. It wasn't like it was my entire life, right? And so um, a lot of people like I would be implementing myself, so people weren't worried about me telling on them. I did it for so long that they knew that they could trust with that, but but I brought a lot to the table, and so I did get many and many, many offers. Now, when I went to jail, um, because by this time I knew everybody and a lot of different organizations. So when I went to jail, I was actually a lawyer, a celebrity lawyer, I won't ever forget, came to me and said, We will get you out today. And he told me all the people that he was working, he was working with Leonardo DiCaprio, and they hired him, this attorney, to come get me off this case because I was facing seven years in prison, which is the minimum mandatory for pimping and pandering. It's an organized crime, right? So um in jail, everybody expected me to break, and that's actually when I had the most peace, and I changed my life in jail. But this attorney came to me and said, you know, the organizations that you've worked with um will pay for everything. Um, if you want me to be your attorney and if you are willing to go back, you know what I mean? Um, at least be in cahoots with them. I had made the decision though, once I got there, I was done with my life. Like it had gotten me, I mean from my health to to everything, you know, guns to my head, all the demons, the the crazy witchcraft. I was done with that life. So what what broke the straw was me getting arrested. So at first my bail was 5,000. They didn't have a lot of charges on me. The DA rejected me three times and they wouldn't let me out. By that Monday at my third court, my bail went up to a million dollars. And they put, yeah, they were trying to get me with all kinds of other charges, but I saw the desperation in me was like, okay, now you're really having real consequences. I had a real chance away from the drugs, the witchcraft, although there was a lot of drugs in there, I got separated and put in my own cell. Um, because I joined a drug program in jail. Um for that moment, I didn't have anybody tempting me, telling me I was with my own thoughts, I was sober, and I was the most broken I had ever been. So I had made the conscious decision that I'm gonna at least give this one real chance because I was trying hard to get sober for those four months, but the industry was pulling me back and they would throw cars at me. I'm in sober living with three women in one room. You think I don't miss having my nice house on the beach? Like I do, you know? So it was hard to leave that lifestyle. And every couple months I'd get drunk, call those people and be like, all right, I'll go back. Like I couldn't let go until I went to jail. Faced with the real fact that I'm gonna do seven years in prison, that I'm dying and I'm in my late 30s. You know what I mean? Um, I'm miserable, I'm lonely. That's when I very first called on God. He reached out to me, and for the first time in my life, I felt the Holy Spirit, which is like an unconditional. I'm used to feeling demons and this dirty molestation feeling. And I felt this overwhelming feeling of love in jail, unconditional love from the Holy Spirit, which doesn't feel anything like the aliens or the portals or or you know, the scary feeling that I had felt for so many years. And so I decided then that I was gonna give my life to God. And that that time was the most peaceful time of my life. So drugs were coming at me, people knew who I was from the streets, and they were offering me to run this tank and get money in there and all this stuff. And I I asked God for a way to get out, and I found a program, a drug program inside jail that if you take classes during the day, they'll give you your own cell and they'll separate you from the main crowd, which if I'm in the main crowd, I'm the party. So I got out of that. And those six months, um, I read and studied and studied and studied and did AA every day, did NA every day, did these classes. And um, by my 14th court, I was praying out to God. And on my 14th court, um, the judge decided because I had never been in trouble before ever. Like in all that stuff I went through, I had never been in trouble because I was low key, you know, I was at nice high-end places. I was, I somehow I managed to be low key. And so um, he gave me two years of probation with the fact that if I got in trouble once during that time, I would do my full seven years in jail. And um, through that, I was able to change. Through that.

SPEAKER_00 31:30

Hey, if you're a parent in recovery, this might be for you. Rebuilding trust with a partner, a co-parent, or the people you love after the chaos of addiction can feel overwhelming, sometimes even impossible. You're not alone. Donna and I have lived it. And out of that experience, we built parenting in the storm. Work created for parents who are trying to rebuild connection without shame, and model healthier relationships for the next generation. It started as retreat-style workshops in communities across Saskatchewan, but very quickly demand has grown far beyond what we can offer in person. So, depending on when you're hearing this, there may already be digital resources or tools available through the link in the show notes. And if there isn't any yet, I assure you they are coming soon. If any of this resonates, you're welcome to explore it at your own pace. No pressure, just support. Since 2008, 1,500 workers have stood up for themselves and won their union with SEIU West. Workers came together and won better conditions for health and safety, better pay, respect on the job, it's your turn to win. Canada deserves better, workers deserve better, you deserve better. Visit SEIU West.ca, link in the show notes, and click on contact so we can help you and your co-workers win your union. Wellness News Choice for Healthy Living is a local resource that works to connect people to health and wellness-related products, services, and expert advice from industry professionals locally allowing us to connect and engage. Check out wellnessnews.ca or skwellnesshub.ca today to learn more. If you want to support the channel, there are a few ways. By becoming a paid member right here on YouTube and get early access to new episodes, you can buy us a coffee or you can pick up some merch. Links to all that stuff is in the show notes below. And of course, always remember to give us a like, leave us a comment, and if you're new, a sub to the channel would mean the world to us because it all helps us keep getting louder.

SPEAKER_02 33:21

They were slipping so much money to me in jail that by the time I got out, I had thousands of dollars. They wanted me to go back to that industry. Um, I remember waking up with receipts under my under my door, and it would be a name that I never heard, and it was the industry they send people to do the work for them because they have really big names and they don't want people to use their names. So I was getting so much money and to be offered, I turned down that celebrity lawyer, and I decided that it was in God's hands. And I was kind of like, this is gonna sound horrible, but I was kind of happy to do the seven years because I knew I had done the crime, but I wanted to get away from the world I had created for so long that I felt like seven years was a sufficient amount of time for people to forget me and for me to be able to move on. And since it was so hard, even the witches were reaching out to me in jail. I mean, people knew me, you know, and so I don't think if anything else happened, like if I didn't get that six months time completely away from everything and studying and learning and calling on God and begging for help from God, I don't think I would have stopped that. I don't, I needed to be fully out and fully away.

SPEAKER_00 34:35

So, what did your first year look like then? Like on the other side of that? What did recovery?

SPEAKER_02 34:40

Once I got out of jail, my first year, I went and lived with people from a church that kept visiting me, cross point church. God placed all the people into my life the right way. So, like I had only gone to this church for a little while through AA, you know, and those people came and they sought me and they they told me that God told them that I'm their daughter. God knew that I wasn't gonna have good, healthy support. I was gonna have everything trying to lead me the other way. So he placed those people in my life. So I lived with Christian people. I went to instead of AA and NA because I loved it, but I had too many ties in it with uh too many people that I knew from the streets in that old life. So I went to celebrate recovery, which was God-based, but it was still AA type, and I was so grateful for that. I got a sober, normal job, and it wasn't a get-well job. I started working for a tech company. Um, I'd only have a seventh grade diploma. I've only gone to seventh grade school. So I just prayed and and God opened up a lot of doors for me. Um, the temptation did come a year into my sobriety. Um, I went to a trap house one time and I started gambling, and I gambled $10,000 of my hard-earned work money. I learned that even gambling, I have to be careful for. I walked away from that after two months. That was my only real struggle. Um, but I went to normal life. I met my fiance at a church and he runs a recovery ministry in Hawaii, Texas, Oklahoma, all over the US. They get people into treatment. And um my whole life is different. I just wrote a book about my struggle with addiction and my crazy life, and um, that's being edited right now. Yeah, so life has changed. One thing I would say is addiction, witchcraft, power, like I really cared about power and money. All those things are serious things that that I was very naive to. And before I realized it, it was my entire life. It completely consumed me. And I was willing to die for the industry that I worked in, for the power that I wanted, uh, for the witchcraft that I believed in. And those things are all really, really, really sick and scary and very real. You know, addiction is very real. Witchcraft is very real. Don't ever underestimate it. Um, because it's real. And um, I would just say to be careful, like if you haven't ever done drugs, don't even start. You know, don't even start. There's no reason. All it does is hurt you. And um, you know, money and power and and and witchcraft, uh, those chains held me for over 15 years. And and only by the grace of God, they didn't take my life. So I would just want to warn people um, you know, that there's so much more to life than that. And, you know, I spent most of my life thinking that's all life was, you know, not even feeling joy. Like I feel joy now for absolutely nothing. You know what I mean? I feel peace now. And and I never had any of those things. To go into your early 40s to where you very first feel love or you have one healthy relationship, or you know what I mean? That's that's crazy. Like, um, so I just want to warn, I would just want to warn people.

SPEAKER_00 37:58

Do you ever go back to your home community? Do you ever see your parents? Do you ever like do you have family?

SPEAKER_02 38:06

Um, I started relationships, so my dad just died of cancer, and I actually helped him through that, which was all because I was sober, thank God. And um, my mother, she's a Christian now, and our relationship is getting better and better. She still has a hard time admitting, like she, if she even knew I did this podcast and talked the truth about her, she would be very upset and probably stop talking to me. But we're working on our relationship and she's starting to see her faults and her wrongs. And I just want to have a relationship with her now. I don't want to hold her, she has her own abuse and her own struggle. I I just appreciate that we have a relationship. Um, I have a really good relationship with my daughter. Um, mostly my church friends and the people that I help is my community. I have a drastically different community. I think community and support is super important. I love to pray. Um, I love to share my story and my testimony. At first, I felt a lot of shame from the things that I had done, you know, when you sell people, if you think about that, that's what I did. That carried a lot of guilt for me. Um, but now God has told me, and I see how it helps other people to say, look, this is the depths of where my addiction and my problems got me. And like you can change too.

SPEAKER_00 39:18

Do you ever go back home?

SPEAKER_02 39:19

I'm really grateful for. No, because I feel um I will sometime, but I went home to home to home to home to home. Nothing, it doesn't feel like a home to me. I was in different cities all the time. I think the reservation would feel more like a home. And since I was sexually abused there a lot, and from my stepdad who still lives there, I really don't want to go there. Um, I think that is part of my healing. So maybe in time I will, but I'm not at a point where I really want to go there. I have reached out to some of the communities there and let them know that if they need help with recovery, that I'm willing to help. But, you know, I don't really want to see my stepdad. I forgive what he's done. I don't really, you know, a lot of those people were really evil and really mean to me. And I don't think it's good to open up those doors. You know, I haven't seen a demon in years, in years. And that was a big part of my life. You know, I'm not dabbling in witchcraft or anything like that. I do still get an urge to know the future. I won't lie. You know, I get an urge to do that, but I won't pick up tarot cards because I know what that brings. I don't want to open up those portals. I'm a very spiritual person, so I was gonna be on a side either way. And and when I was on that side, I was I was fighting for evil and for wrong, you know. You don't help people get into prostitution for God. That's for sure. You know what I mean? And so, either way, um, now my life is all for God. Everything that I do, you know, I I made the conscious decision to die, and and God had a different plan for me. And so I'm grateful for that because you know, I know what it's like to be at the my lowest for sure.

SPEAKER_00 40:58

Do you think God had anything to do with with putting you in places to experience those things for a higher ultimate good?

SPEAKER_02 41:08

I was just thinking about this, and that's such a good question because I chose, I loved the tarot and all of that. I I mean I've I've said that. I think that like he allowed me to get to that point to show me how real it is, and it's not a joke or a game, or like, oh, I want to know about my boyfriend, and you call a psychic, and because that's what it started. It started as like, oh, this is cool, this is fun, this is different. But what it ended with, you know, me grabbing a gun and putting a gun to a gang member, and he's a high-level person's head with his family there. I am so lucky to be alive. You know what I mean? Super lucky, and a lot of those gang members believe in Santa Muerte, they believe they pray to different demonic realms, and you know what I mean? They're pretty heavy in that. So, like, people don't mess around. I do believe that he allowed me to see how sick and ugly this is to where I hated it.

SPEAKER_00 42:03

So, do you give all grace to God or do you it's like I do for me, for me, um my like I I can't not take any credit. Like, I have a relationship with the higher power, right? So, like um, and and and creator, God, whatever you choose to call that, right? Um, it puts opportunities in my path. Now, whether it's saving me from things that I'm not aware of, I I can't say that's true or false, right? But I do know that opportunities get put in my path, and I believe they get put there for a reason, but it's on me to make that decision and take action. Do you agree?

SPEAKER_02 42:39

100%. And I do give myself some credit, but I just know when I did it on my own, like, man, I fought to stay sober. I fought so hard. That first year was an emotional roller coaster every single day. And no matter what I did, demons and and that side came to me 24-7. They fight hard. Um, you know, so it like I could just be doing laundry and someone I this literally happened. Someone came up to me with meth and was blowing meth in my face while I was doing a load of laundry in sober living. It was a never-ending cycle, and I didn't physically have the strength to get out myself. So I believe he put me in jail. I believe he did all of those things to get me the help. So um, yeah, I give myself some credit, you know, because I wanted that change and I did that change, but without a supernatural higher power, I didn't have the strength.

SPEAKER_00 43:32

When's your book coming out?

SPEAKER_02 43:35

Couple more months. So they're editing right now. It'll be on Amazon probably within a month. I'm I'm gonna fight for it within a month. It's called Hustler to Holy, from being a straight hustler to having a holy life. And um, I'm really excited for it. Yeah, it'll be sold on Amazon. I just can't wait. Like when I was in there, I read when I was in jail, I read 24-7. That's what helped me, and it gave me hope. Like, and I know people don't most people don't get six months and they get out on probation. There's people that are fighting for their whole life forever or never get out. And so I got into this um inmate program where I buy Bibles now, leather-bound Bibles for inmates across the world. And um, I just want to share hope to people. Like they have tablets in jail. If you're in jail or in prison, you can watch podcasts and stuff. And so I'm I try to get into those podcasts and I try to give hope and I hope that my book will be in the jails and just show that there is hope. Like feeling hopeless, like all those years I felt so hopeless. Like, this was my life, and this was the best I can do. The best I can do is have a lot of money selling other people. That doesn't feel that good inside my soul. You know what I mean? It doesn't feel good, and so like the fact that I can do something else and try to bring people hope, that gives me so much joy.

SPEAKER_00 44:52

That's beautiful. Uh, Valerie, thank you uh so much for joining me today. Uh, this has been an adventure walking walking with you through your journey. And uh and and I suppose that's it for now. Take good care, my friend.

SPEAKER_02 45:05

Yeah, well, thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking the time.

SPEAKER_00 45:09

Hold up. If this hit home or made you think, help us get these stories out there, smash that like button, drop a comment, and before you go, check out another episode. The more you engage, the more the algorithm shares these voices with the people who need to hear them. Big shout out to SEIU West, our official equipment sponsor, improving the lives of working people and their families and leading the way to a more just and humane society. Find their link in the show notes. Say, this is Hard Knox Talks.