Conversations with My Sisters' Keepers
TRIGGER WARNING -
THIS PODCAST CONTAINS THE STORIES & EXPERIENCES OF THOSE WITH LIVED EXPERIENCES OF GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE. CONTENT MAY BE TRIGGERING.
Welcome to "Conversations with my Sisters' Keepers," dedicated to normalizing the trauma recovery experience of survivors of complex trauma and gender-based violence (GBV). We bring awareness, share stories, and promote healing-centered conversations for lived experience professionals and allies in the gender-based violence and recovery sectors. By sharing authentic stories and experiences, we hope to break down stigma, promote understanding, and celebrate the self-discovery within healing.
Together, we’ll explore strategies, resources, and insights to support wellness, recovery, and leadership. Join us as we challenge stigma, celebrate autonomy, and normalize the healing journey.
Let’s build a community of understanding and empowerment—one conversation at a time.
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Conversations with My Sisters' Keepers
Dr. Lauren Casey: Rethinking Healing for Sex Workers (Part 1)
This episode explores the complexities of recovery for survivors of the sex industry, emphasizing the importance of lived experiences and challenging the stigma surrounding healing processes. Dr. Lauren Casey shares insights into the intersections of mental health, identity, and community support while advocating for survivor-led initiatives and programs.
• Importance of shifting narratives from trauma-informed to healing-centered perspectives
• Recognition of stigma and its impact on individual journeys
• Goals of Canadian G100 Anti-Human Trafficking initiatives
• The role of lived experiences in shaping effective programs
• Overview of the SWAT program addressing unique needs of sex workers
• Navigating loss of identity and building a new life post-exit
• Impact of addiction on recovery and identity formation
• The significance of community support in the healing process
• Discussions on privilege and systemic issues related to recovery
• Closing reflections on empowerment and the reshaping of personal narratives
Welcome to Conversations with My Sisters' Keepers, the podcast where we bring awareness, share stories, and promote healing-centered conversations for lived experience professionals and allies in the gender-based violence and recovery sectors.
I'm Shamin Brown, and together, we’ll explore strategies, resources, and insights to support wellness, recovery, and leadership. Join us as we challenge stigma, celebrate autonomy, and normalize the healing journey.
Thank you for joining us. We have our sister's keeper, Dr Lauren Casey. Dr Lauren Casey possesses over two decades of experience collaborating with regional, national and international organizations dedicated to mitigating health disparities among sex workers. As a preeminent authority on the North American sex industry, she has contributed extensively to scholarly literature, including publications with Springer Publishing, Rootledge International, University of Toronto Press and leading journals such as the Journal of Addiction Research and Therapy and Qualitative Health Research. Dr Casey has delivered over 100 presentations globally, encompassing academic and professional forums, where she integrates her empirical research with personal insights from her lived experience in the sex industry. Welcome, Lauren, I'm so happy to have you here.
Speaker 2:Good to be here. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and to all of you listening, thank you for joining us today. Conversations with my sister's keepers are crucial for survivors and survivor leaders everywhere. It's time to advance beyond trauma-informed and resilience-based narratives of surviving, thriving and leading, and to embrace a healing-centered focus on wellness and recovery. Today, we aim to challenge the stigma and judgment that many survivors encounter during their healing process. By sharing insights into our own recovery and wellness journeys, I believe we can normalize the ongoing and cyclical nature of the recovery experience. What are your thoughts, Lauren?
Speaker 2:I agree. I think it's important to take away labels, first of all, and the stigma that comes from one's lived experience, and really focus on the individual as a person with agency but also, you know, on a journey of healing, whatever that looks like, because you know recovery is a lifelong journey and to support somebody on that journey is key right. Journey is key right, whether it's just letting the individual process without fear of judgment or, you know, narratives trying to be twisted onto the individuals, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1:So those are my preliminary thoughts. I love that, thank you. Yeah, that's beautiful. Just going to tell you a little bit about the goals of the Canadian G100 anti-human trafficking wing over the next three years and I'd love to hear how you feel about it, if there's any gaps, barriers, strengths, highlights or other things to consider that you'd like to throw your hat on. So over the next three years, we aim to promote the leadership and autonomy of lived experience people, support the wellness of lived experience staff, develop survivor-led, informed and facilitated prevention and intervention programs and identify all ally organizations that are invested in survivor leadership.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I support all of those goals. Obviously, I'll just share openly about my own experience, both lived experience and also working with individuals who have been involved in the industry in whatever capacity. So I think, first and foremost, it's important to put individuals at the lead who have this lived experience. Informed decisions come from that and I share that just from the work I've done in Canada when I conducted research across Canada with sex workers, by and for people who are in the industry in whatever capacity, and just getting the voices on the forefront to be able to go to the Canadian government and say these are the things going on, how can we work together to identify and address some of these issues? So, for sake of conversation, one of the research papers was specifically on those who may be dealing with substance use disorders and or mental health and what's lacking in the service right and to be able to go and do focus groups and speak with those who have had this experience. This lived experience became the catalyst to actually develop programs and services geared towards this right.
Speaker 2:Some of the issues that came up were I don't want to be identified in a group setting in a residential treatment center as a sex worker because every time I am, or if I've had, experience in the industry, there's judgment. I shut down, I don't want to talk about it. They started talking about things that don't traditionally come up in residential treatment, such as the process of moving out of the industry. That's not just an overnight thing, right? So what does that look like? And everybody's got a unique experience, and so all of these voices that we gathered and the research conducted led to the development of this beautiful model. It's across Canada, it's in Africa now.
Speaker 1:That is really cool. And sorry, Lauren, is this the sex workers addressing treatment?
Speaker 2:that you're speaking of Sex workers addressing treatment. Yeah, thank you, yes, yeah, yeah, the SWAT program, yeah, and so that is in Africa as well now. That's exciting. I was flown out to Africa. Gosh, this would have been 2011. And I led a dissemination of the model in Ethiopia wow, those who were often underage. You know these are survival workers, right, not knowingly going into the industry. And you know it resonated across all cultures and across all forms. I had a translator and it was beautiful, you know it was beautiful.
Speaker 1:What are some of the things that the model kind of explores that are, you know, out of the ordinary from a regular treatment for someone who hasn't experienced time in the sex industry?
Speaker 2:hasn't experienced time in the sex industry. Well, I think some of the main factors that came up were, again, you know, having this loss of identity when transitioning out like who am I. That's a huge factor because of the stigma and the labels. Often it's very secretive, right? So?
Speaker 2:people don't talk about it, and that's it's keeping secrets. And how does that impact our ability to heal right? Right, even myself, and I was not trafficked into it. I worked as an escort and I went to college, but I never told anybody about my profession because of that fear of stigma, judgment, society. You know the labels, all of that. So you know loss of identity, the keeping secrets, the fierce sense of independence because, knowing nobody's going to help me, I'm going to do it on my own. I've got this right like that, got this right like that. Um, you know other things like just adjusting to a new living, a new life, but, like I said, that's a lifelong journey. So I think you know. To cap it, like they do in the US right, that insurance will cover you for 30 days.
Speaker 2:You can go to the dentist and then off you go. Well, it doesn't work that way right.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think what often comes to mind for me is, if we look at addiction, a lot of folks think well, when you stop using, you've done the work, but the reason that you started using is still there, those feelings, those beliefs, those internalized messages about your worth. And it's the same thing for sex trafficking or sexual exploitation, right, or even the sex industry, I would imagine, if you're pro sex, so you're coming out and you're carrying these different things that you've had to hide, that you've had to deal with on your own, or whatever the case is, whatever your story looks like.
Speaker 1:But because that activity has stopped doesn't mean that some of those other things and I mean, hey, for those who are pro-choice, it could be something as simple as financial instability, like that, hasn't gone away yet.
Speaker 2:That was very difficult for me Learning how to like when you're used to having all this money coming all the time, all the time. And then you're in a new country and you're like, ok, now what Right?
Speaker 1:So yeah it's a big adjustment. Yeah, well, and I'll be honest, right, I've been exited for over 20 years and there are times where things become really difficult, uh, financially, and it's always still a thought I mean it's attached.
Speaker 1:Now to the consequences. Again, you know, in addictions they say play the tape to the end. I know what damage that's going to do to me spiritually and psychologically Me as an individual not talking about other people, because this impacts everyone differently but I know that. Yeah, it's quick money, but it's not easy money, not for me, right. And it can lead to addictions and it can lead to all of the things that I've worked so hard to move away from yeah, but it's that it's the initial like.
Speaker 1:You open the fridge and it's empty and your gut squeezes with anxiety and you're flooded with memories of being unhoused, you know, and you're you kind of go into that space of like, yeah, I know how to solve this right.
Speaker 2:Well, I think it's probably one of the hardest things is to, no matter what your experience is, right is to to really. I mean, I know people that have stayed in it for that reason right, when these are people that are putting themselves through. I mean, I was getting master's degrees and stuff right, paying for it through my work. On the flip side, I was also living a life of excess champagne and cocaine, and then there I am at the end of it all, sitting in a crack house, right. So, and that's a big change to go from there Always going, going, going and having all these identities right, I was a drug user, I was a university student. I mean, I had all these different roles that I was playing. So that's another workshop, just loss of identity like who am I?
Speaker 2:how do?
Speaker 1:you, how do you get?
Speaker 2:find yourself through that. Yeah, what do I? Even like what do I want to do?
Speaker 1:what you know, and removing those layers right, it takes a long time and and countering the culture, right, because, even as you're saying, what do I want to do, what's important to me? I'm thinking about how, when invested in the industry or when involved in the industry, there's this culture, there's these people that are around you, um, and if you're not there by force, of course, right, if you're there, maybe by persuasion or manipulation, those sorts of things you take on that culture and you want what will get you approval and acceptance and belonging and protection and safety, right, and so separating what they wanted for you, that you kind of were conditioned to believe was what you wanted from what you actually want, and also that piece of believing that you're worth what you want, that you can accomplish what you want right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was very much the different roles that I played in the world, you know. So you remove all that right. There's the drugs and these set of friends that are not these set of friends that I'm going to university with right, sometimes they'd interact, but not very often. And then there's more. They don't know right, they don't know what's going on, so I've got a different persona there. So it's like, yeah, different hats juggling. And when all of it was removed, the drugs went away, the dealers went away, the university went away, because I wasn't capable of even going anymore.
Speaker 1:I mean, I was at that point right Been there, done that. Yeah, oh yeah, all those things went away.
Speaker 2:So then, it's this huge sense of avoid a loss that we have to grieve, because, good, bad or indifferent, when you're giving something up and you're walking away into something brand new and scary, there's going to be a grieving process.
Speaker 1:Well, you're grieving familiarity, you're grieving predictability, right? A lot of folks who have exited there's still this addiction to chaos. In a sense, right, bad relationships, bad lifestyle choices or, and I say bad lightly, but um, in terms of bad for you, right, not bad, yeah across the world.
Speaker 1:You know generally um, they want to be careful not to to pigeonhole choices, um, but you know, moving into that space where you know how to survive in crises, so continually creating crises or allowing crises to happen so that you can feel in control again, because that's what you know, and when things are good and when things are comfortable and things are safe and people are healthy, it feels scary to trust that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because that's how for some, that's how they ended up in the trade in the first place right is trusting that yeah yeah, yeah. And and also the isolation. You know the isolation that can happen just as a direct result of not feeling safe or comfortable to share yeah, yeah, the truthful, and difficult things right yeah, being authentic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, where is there a space for you to just be, yeah, instead of wearing a hat and a mask and paints? Yeah, yeah, um, you know, so there's a couple things, okay, uh, so you have said sex worker a few times, um, and then you've uh, you know, talked about having been engaged by choice, but you're involved in some really interesting work making the sex workers, addressing treatment curriculum and kind of looking at some of the healing that has to do in the harm, that has to do there. And I'm just like so curious how, for you, pro-choice beliefs and language and models kind of fit into anti-human trafficking or rather don't but like what's the alignment for you it's really interesting because and that's what I grapple with, right like I think how do I fit into this?
Speaker 2:how do I fit in? And the reality is, even though I haven't experienced it, I've seen it, right like I'll give you an example when I went to Africa and I was in Nairobi and we did the three university prong research project and it was literally going into the Kibera slums they call them informal settlements. Now, bless you and interviewing women who live there, talking to them about.
Speaker 1:How do they?
Speaker 2:navigate their own safety. In these really I mean photos of what the conditions of living, right, Nevermind homelessness in North America. We're talking like running water. We're talking like just extreme, extreme, extreme poverty. So I didn't interview this particular woman, but I met her and she was there with her little baby and this baby was at the time, four months old and she you know these women, they didn't have choice, Not like my experience. I'm a white woman from North America, right, and I've had a very different experience and long story short.
Speaker 2:This young baby has now become my adopted daughter. Yeah, she's going to be moving when she turns 18. She's now 13. Going to be moving when she turns 18. She's now 13. She's the product of a John Okay, and her mom has had so much trauma over many, many, many years. And when I was interviewing these women, that's when my eyes really opened, okay, okay. Then, through the work I've done, because, I've done a lot of activism, but I've also done a lot of work, for example in los angeles, right I've met people in la.
Speaker 2:I did a lot of work in prisons and jails. So again, you know a lot of women who had been trafficked and had been pimped when they were really young. Right so that kind of scenario. So the thing I don't want to confuse is to put all of that into the industry as a whole.
Speaker 2:Yes and really honor my experience but also give voice to other who have not had the experiences I've had. So it has caused me to really look at what's going on. Another thing was I moved to Victoria right around the time the Picton that happened and I talked to a lot of families and these were survival workers, you know.
Speaker 1:Can I just get you to give our audience some cold notes on Picton?
Speaker 2:Sure. So Robert Picton was charged with the murder of I mean, there were more that he actually killed but they couldn't find the evidence. But he had a pig farm in Coquitlam, which is outside of Vancouver, and he was picking up heavily drug addicted workers in Hastings right, which is a very vulnerable spot for a lot of people. I mean people survived there. But this guy was going and and I know a woman that that actually picked him up and his thing was you know, I've got these great drugs come with me. He looked non threatening right, he seemed like, and he was ending up taking these women to his farm and murdering them and killing them, and they found remains of many, many bodies.
Speaker 2:I don't have the exact number, but of these women that had been murdered, missing and murdered women.
Speaker 1:So and his pigs were eating their remains as well, I believe, right. So that's why there's a little bit of a weird. We can't really get a great count. So thank you for that, just so that folks kind of have some context.
Speaker 2:And and so you were saying that while you were in abc around the time that that was happening, you'd spoken with some folks yeah, I'd spoken with plenty of folks and I'd spoken with indigenous missing and, like, talking about this is what's happening in my, in my territory. This is going on and they were overlooked by the police because of well, you know, they use drugs. They're probably gone on another run right, like, and I realized like that could have actually been me and I'll fast forward to when.
Speaker 2:I ended up in California, which is ultimately where I reached the bottom of my addiction, and I was in like a motel in a really rough area, right I mean it was. It was bad and the police came knocking on the door and they asked me have you seen, Miranda? I thought they were coming to arrest everyone because, you know, we're in the middle of this crazy, but they told me. They said that women are going missing from this area and taken to Tijuana and they are never seen again wow, they are never seen again their families like so this is real, this does happen and so it's about
Speaker 1:standing up for anybody who's you know yeah, yeah, and I'm let me just say too, like that's another thing that, um, I struggle with. It seems that the more sober, the longer that I've been exited um, and the more that I've done this work. It's like I'm almost carrying um. I don't't know, I'm afraid, I'm afraid to travel like I love traveling and I will do it. But there's always a great deal of anxiety because I think, you know, I can get trafficked, people can get trafficked. Maybe the cops will shoot me in the states, I don't know. It's like this leftover stuff, because I've seen and heard so much that, unlike other people who will say to me, you know, oh, don't worry about that, like the chances, the odds are so low and I'm like, well, I spent over 10 years as one of those odds.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's interesting, though, how people expect that because you've exited there is nothing left, there is no response to you know, certain stimuli or triggers yeah, sure yeah.
Speaker 2:And I can share one example where this wasn't even a paid client, this wasn't even somebody who was seeing me, but I was working out of a hotel and I was studying and I went down to get a sandwich at the restaurant to take back to my room because I was going to have lunch, continue writing my papers.
Speaker 2:Okay, there was a knock on the door and there was this guy who I saw sitting down in the restaurant and he said I want to see you and I said no and he literally pushed me through the door and he grabbed me from behind and he pulled out an exacto knife and it was on my neck on your neck. This was not a client. This was not a customer. This was a guy that knew what I was doing. He knew he wanted to see me. He was violent. So, long story short, he had that exacto knife. I'll never forget it. I have PTSD from it to this day, absolutely. Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I managed to get. You know, they say when you're in, you get like adrenaline just takes over, right. I was able to get out of his grip and I ran and the cleaning people were in the hall and I'm like, you know, help me, this guy's attacking me. And the police came and it turned out that this guy was wanted. Wow, and that's. I mean, that's not even that's just somebody I was, was didn't even have as a customer yeah it's just a random, just a random.
Speaker 1:Wow, thank you for sharing that. I would like to actually ask you if there's anything else that you want to share around. You know some of the lived experience and you've shared so much already that you know. If there's nothing that comes to mind, it's okay. We can definitely move on. But some of the lived experiences that you've had with abuse or trauma or addictions or mental health, anything that you know you're comfortable sharing, that you've had with abuse or trauma or addictions or mental health, anything that you know you're comfortable sharing, that you've already shared, that you know, that you feel is maybe valuable for folks to understand, because your story is quite unique and different. And one of the things I want to say is that I applaud you for recognizing how your story is different and not saying well, because I wasn't that this industry isn't exploitive or harmful, but also being able to kind of acknowledge your privilege, and what I'm hearing is using that privilege to make changes in the areas that you feel or that you're seeing folks are being impacted in, and I think that's very powerful.
Speaker 1:And I think it's important to have lived experience, people with a vast array of experiences. Something that I say often is that I don't really feel that it matters if you're there by choice or not, because what I know is that when you exit, there's healing to do, no matter how you got there right, because you can't share your body with people you don't know and be open to violence and belittling behavior and demeaning behavior in language, and then sometimes, in some cases, having to keep secrets and not having support systems to share those things with, and then walk away from that and have nothing that you need to work through Right.
Speaker 1:So that's kind of my stance is, you know, regardless of how you got there, if you're choosing to leave, there's going to be work to do, there's going to be some.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's like anything, right If you're, if you're getting clean from an addiction, there's going to be work to do. You know, just walk out and oh, I'm clean now. You know that's right. Yeah, don't just walk out and oh, I'm clean now yes change of life. It's a whole.
Speaker 1:I mean it's foreign, you know, yeah, so, yeah, yeah. So what about the lived experience, anything else around your lived experience that you'd like to share with us?
Speaker 2:I mean, I can tell you honestly I did not experience violence by any the hands of any of my clientele, so I can't speak to that. I think the thing that almost killed me was the stigma because of fear of arrest, fear of what people think, fear of being found out, fear of like all of that.
Speaker 2:that is trauma in its own right um, so, so that definitely affected me, and those are the main takeaways I want to give, but I also want to express that I do believe in helping everyone, whatever your experience is generally when you hear a story from a lived experience person, because they have a very different entry point.
Speaker 1:You hear a history of family addictions or neglect or cfs or you know and um, which creates a vulnerability to being manipulated by some external creditor source. What does that look like for someone who's like how did you find out about it? How did you like what? Well, I was an adult.
Speaker 2:First and foremost, I was, you know, almost 20.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:I was already living in my own apartment and you know, back when I was 14, when I had my first drink, I was attracted to the wild side, right Like I wanted to get out of the suburbs because I grew up in suburbia and so when I started getting wild in alcohol, right, I was actually introduced by a mutual friend.
Speaker 2:I was not pimped, I actually was with her and I was so naive and she was like, dressed, and she was going out to the stroll I mean, I'm giving my age now, but yeah, I was like well, do you work as a secretary? Yeah, I didn't know right. I said what are your hours? She said, whatever I want them to be, she's the one that introduced me to it. I wasn't like tricked into it or pimped into it. That led to going from there. To going indoors.
Speaker 2:I started there and then I went indoors. So what was my experience growing up? I would say my experience growing up was I was not sexually abused. I was not physically abused. There was a lot of organized religion. You know Christian science, which is a very religion where doctors aren't. You know christian science, which is a very uh, religion where doctors aren't you know, my parents did the best they could. They were for all intents and purposes.
Speaker 2:They raised me well growing up in that weird kind of like. That was an experience that made me feel different than everyone yeah, sounds like a little bit of an oppressive space. Yeah, like I'd go to school and you know all the kids are getting their shots Not me. I got to know so I'd see these huge. You know, when they were doing the vaccinations they were like massive.
Speaker 2:And I'd be like, thank God it's not me, yeah, that. And then you know my dad. He passed when I was quite young, I was 19. When he passed away, that was a huge loss, huge loss. Yeah, yeah, he ended up getting cancer and passed away. So you know, loss of that there was loss, of course, right, I can't be sure, but yeah, yeah, um.
Speaker 2:Well, I was in it for 15 years and most of my work was inside and what happened was, I'd say, in the last couple of years I was making more money than I knew what to do with ever. I was an independent worker, so I had my own. At that time it was cell phone and I'd advertised paper. But by that point, through all of the years, like you know, living hard, like fast, so fast I was introduced to cocaine. Obviously in the 80s it was, it was everywhere right, and so you know I loved it. It was like champagne and cocaine. But, as I earlier, what happened was my addiction started taking over and it got to the point where, you know, ultimately I ended up going through like five rehabs and then finally, the last year, I ended up in California and went through rehab there and then ultimately hit my bottom in California and then started getting clean, and so when I started getting clean, I knew I was in the middle of this program. It was very much consumed my life and it didn't involve any sex work.
Speaker 2:I was removed from it because I was from Canada to the U S, so I just said you know what that's it? You know I'm like late 30s by that point and really focused on getting clean, so I left it all at the same time. Okay, good for you.
Speaker 1:And that was hard. It was hard and I cleaned houses my first year because I didn't have.
Speaker 2:at that time I was legally in the US, but I didn't have my social security number. Now I'm dual citizen, so I had to find work that I could do where I could get cash right, Because I was using cash in the hand.
Speaker 2:Now it's all cash app. So I was scrubbing toilets and I'm like why am I doing this? I pay people. But it was the best thing that happened to me, Cause I literally started over ground zero, and the hardest thing, like I said, was learning to just change one thing in my life and that was everything in my life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a domino effect, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, it's a domino effect, right? Yeah, yeah yeah, it sounds like in your early career or your early experience, we'll say there was less with addictions and so perhaps less vulnerability. Later on, prior to your exit, there was more addictions and therefore likely more vulnerability. What did the experience of you know as sex worker? Did it change at all?
Speaker 2:well, do you know, it's interesting, I'm one of the sex workers that never worked high right. What I would do is work, make all my money and then shut the phone off. Okay, right. So again, my experience was quite different right when I was using, I had all of my friends that I would be with, but they weren't the the work when your addiction was at its peak, were you able to still separate work from play in that way?
Speaker 1:yeah, wow, wow. Good for you it is.
Speaker 2:It's very much a whole other identity. So that's why I had the hardest time coming to find out who I am, because I mean when you were sober, you were working and the rest of the time it sounds like you were partying, so yeah, I was trying to do my master's, my master's program. I couldn't show up for life by that point, right Like I was. The addiction had gone so far that I'd be gone for days and then I'd crash.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then I you know come to and then start it all over again. So it became this crazy wheel that I was running.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow, what a powerful story, though, to have made so much change right, left so much behind. I think for folks who identify as having been exploited or trapped, it makes sense in some ways for them to transition into this kind of work Someone who's had a more empowering experience. It's almost like doing a complete 360 to do this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly it's. It's incredible when I look back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what helped you the most in your recovery?
Speaker 2:I'd say probably being surrounded by an army of people that really understood and got me. They really supported me through that first year, especially so I had a lot of people. California is the place I needed to be, because the meetings I was going to were 200 plus people. I mean, I'm so grateful, like that. They say you end up where you're supposed to be and that's where it all started for me and where I am today actually you know, I'm sorry meetings.
Speaker 1:Which meetings were you attending? I was doing 12-step meetings you were doing 12-step meetings, okay, and how did these folks that were surrounding you, what were some of the things that they did that were meaningful in your recovery?
Speaker 2:talked about their own experiences. Talked about their own experience, strength and hope, talked about you know the things they were recovering from. You know I met other women who had been in the industry. I worked part time at a residential place where there were adult film people coming through. So we bonded and connected because we had that experience and also I didn't feel safe with women in the beginning, so I interestingly enough, my first sponsor was actually a male, and he was he had as much sobriety as I was old he was like really like light and just emanated this.
Speaker 2:You know incredible, seren, but he called me on shit, which is what I needed. He did a guy to call me on shit because my MO was, I'll give you that. So I'm coming up to six months of sobriety and there's a where everyone's going to Hawaii. There's a big convention, right, an AA convention, uh, so I went to my sponsor and I was like I really wish I could go, you know, thinking he's just gonna like write a check and you can go, and it was the best thing that ever happened.
Speaker 2:I cleaned for the first time I didn't rely on that thing. That I did, naturally, and it was very empowering right like that's one example of so many.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that yeah, then get off your ass and clean some more houses, yeah so being challenged to. You know, take ownership of your own your, your own goals, your own dreams work hard and things can get accomplished, and that was the beginning of a whole new life. Yeah, I remember hiking up um diamond head in the morning. It was like a sunrise hike. Just sitting there looking at the sunrise and thinking, wow, you know what I didn't? I didn't have to do sex work to get here, like yeah yeah, well, you know, so yeah so there's some.
Speaker 1:There's some strengthening of identity, there's some pride, there's some self-worth that is gained yeah, and when you're making that much money, I didn't respect money.
Speaker 2:It just came and went right like I just blew it I. I didn't have a thing to show for it now.
Speaker 1:I think it's really interesting that you can sit here with me and you can say I was a sex worker, I chose to do that. It paid for school. There was no abuse. I have no history of trauma that would have made me vulnerable. I had more money than I could do with and I still chose to exit and I still chose to advocate against exploitation. I think that says a lot about all the learnings and all of the self-development that occurred for you after exiting which is very powerful is very powerful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, beautiful. Um, I'd just like to give you a little bit of space here before we close up to share with folks that are listening what you do and how folks can I work individually with people that are trying to heal or trying to figure out where to go next.
Speaker 2:I do private recovery, coaching and support, and the best way to reach me is my email and my website. My website is laurencaseycom. I also have an Instagram. It's laurencaseyphd. That's more kind of like the life stuff that I do, so it's gives an idea of the things I like to do, which I help others.
Speaker 1:Is there anything you'd like to say before we say goodbye to our listeners?
Speaker 2:Just thank you, you're amazing.
Speaker 1:It's good to see you. Thank you for including me Well and thank you for rising to the call. Rising to the call. This is real women, real lives, real talk. Thank you for joining casual conversations with our sisters. Keepers, until next time, take care.
