From the Edge of Death to the running the Bema: The Redemption of Sarah Jacobs

For years, Sarah Jacobs was lost to the streets, trapped in a brutal cycle of heroin addiction, arrests, and heartbreak. She spent her days chasing a high and her nights in jail cells or treatment centers—each time vowing it would be the last, and each time falling again. She lost everything: her freedom, her dignity, and the most devastating of all—custody of her three children.

But this is not a story of defeat. This is the story of what happens when one woman finds a sliver of grace in the darkest night of the soul.

In this gripping and deeply human episode, we follow Sarah’s journey from overdoses and prison walls to the pulpit of Beit T’Shuvah, a community where addiction, faith, and recovery collide. Today, Sarah is not only sober—she’s the congregation leader, helping others reclaim their lives from the same darkness that nearly swallowed her whole. She speaks with raw honesty about what it means to lose everything and then rebuild a life not just worth living, but worth sharing.

This episode will break your heart—and then piece it back together. Sarah Jacobs was dying. Now she gives life to others. This is her resurrection story.

Sicker Than Others is bought to you by Pink Cloud Coffee. Pink Cloud Coffee is an award-winning coffee company based in Los Angeles with the primary purpose of helping addicts and alcoholics through scholarships and work programs. Sicker Than Others listeners get 10% off their first order. Go to pinkcloudcoffee.com and use promo code sick10 for 10% off any beans or merchandise.

For more information on Beit T’Shuvah please go to www.beittshuvah.org.

For more information on the program of Alcoholics Anonymous go to www.aa.org.

Host: Seb Webber

Engineered and Produced by: Ted Greenberg

Producers: Laura Bagish, Jesse Solomon, and Chris Hendrickson

Executive Producer: Seb Webber

Intro Theme by Rich Daytona

Recorded live at: Beit T’Shuvah, 8831 Venice Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90034.

To reach the production team, please email: seb@magick-arts.com

Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

Ah, that's the sound of pink cloud coffee and their exceptional Columbian roast. Pink cloud coffee is an award winning Coffee Company based in Los Angeles with the primary purpose of helping addicts and alcoholics through scholarships and work programs. Sicker than others, listeners get 10% off their first order. Go to pink cloudcoffee.com and use promo code sick 10 for 10% off any beans or merchandise sicker than others, is a podcast on the ups and downs of recovery brought to you from within a treatment center in Los Angeles. This podcast does not reflect the views or opinions of beta shuva or any of its subsidiary businesses or partners sicker than others. Neither speaks for AA or recovery as a whole, but you'll find some useful links on both if you'd like to find out more information sicker than others, touches on subjects and situations that some listeners might find offensive, or, If you're lucky, triggering you have been warned. David Luke, gave it Hi, welcome to sicker than others. The podcast brought to you from within a residential treatment center in sunny Los Angeles. My guest today is somebody that I hold very dear, a big light in this community, as a gentle soul and somebody's smile that you want to see when you arrive right in here. Sarah, welcome to the show. Hi, hi. I've been trying to get you to come do this for a minute. I know, I know. I keep backing out. I'm gonna, I'm an avoider. Avoidance, yeah, thing now let's get, let's get into is, do you avoid it? Because do you find these things hard to talk about? Or you i Yes, and I think I get nervous, and I just, you know, tend to avoid anything that makes me a little bit uncomfortable, yeah, but that's the stuff we need to lean into. Well, I'm really grateful that you're here today, so why don't we start a little differently than how we traditionally start? Why don't you tell us a little bit about what you do here, because it's an interesting role before we get into your story. Okay, I am the temple coordinator for beit Sheva, which is a Jewish treatment center and also a synagogue. And what I do is I engage with the membership and members of our community and try to pull them in as temple members and keep our temple going with alumni and community members. And really just, I really, just want to bring people in to see the wonderful work that we do. And I think that anybody coming to Shabbat is going to see and feel the spirit that I felt my first Shabbat here. Yeah, you're like the guest list person, the bouncer, the production coordinator, the production manager. You plan out we all, all of us that volunteer or work here on a Friday, we get set lists that you and Laura put together. It's very, very tight operation. Very tight. Yeah, yeah, very you reach out to the people that have birthdays. You make sure that they come because we have a big tradition here. Well, in blah, blah, blah. We have a big tradition here where birthday people come and light the Shabbat candles, right? So there's a lot of, like, talking to alumni. And do you find that you like, I'm curious, right? Because you are on, like, the front lines of the alum live that obviously there's two types of people. I think there's three types of people. There's three types of people. There's people that leave and probably don't come back. There's people that leave and stay in contact, but probably don't come here for many Shabbats. Or there's people like me who kind of come here a lot, yes, right? So you have to, I mean, that's interesting. So you have to reach out to the alumni and be like, Oh, are you taking a cake all the time? Yeah. I mean, anytime I see somebody right on their their birthday comes up on Facebook or Instagram, I'm like, When are you coming to Shabbat? Do you have to have a log of all people? We do have a lot, kind of great. Yeah. That's great, yeah. And, you know, being an alumni here is a for me. It's a really big, it's a huge fucking part of my sober life now, like somebody asked me, was like, Why do you spend so much time on beethove still? And I'm like, you don't get it like they don't get it. They don't get it like you have to. I read with guys here. I still take people to meetings twice a week. Sometimes help with Shabbat. I do it, don't get me wrong. I do it for selfish reasons. Yeah, do it because I don't know why this thing worked, but I'm not gonna start picking off things and trying to evaluate what this worked. That's why I still cover. I still come here and I'm like, I am so afraid to give up one thing in case that's the thing that fucking takes me out. Absolutely. I think that's why I continue to work here. Yeah, it fills my spiritual bank account every time I step into work here, even if I don't want to come to work. And I think the Beit Sheva community is like a key part of sobriety for me and for many other people. Yeah, I had something happen to me on Friday, I took a resident here to a job interview, right? Just, just took them out, just took them driving down there, wait outside, and they got the job. I have never felt, yeah, that much fucking, like, I dropped him off and I, like, cried in the car on the way home. Absolutely, I was like, Dude, I don't know what this is, yeah. Like, I don't know what this feeling is. Also, I'm like, Who the fuck is this person? Yeah, yeah, where is this guy been forever, exactly and, like, those are the things that just okay, this is the community. Yeah, this is the community. That's exactly what it's about. That is what that is, what keeps most of us going around here, the the feeling of seeing somebody take that year, when I saw you take your year cake and cried with you while you were, you know, saying your birthday speech. I mean that to see people stay continually sober, when I know how hard it was for me to stay, to stay sober, it like and achieve these milestones in their life. It's, it's, it's everything, yeah, all right, so now I've got you warmed up. Uh, tell us. Tell us how you got here. Because it was a rough ride. It was a rough ride. Where do I start from? Like the beginning? I'll go through the beginning quickly. Imagine pitching at a meeting. Yeah? So I grew up. I was born and raised in Los Angeles. My parents divorced when I was two. My mom is I'm just gonna say this. My mom is Latina and Native American, and my dad is Ashkenazi, Jewish. And I say that because it was so much of a identity thing for me growing up like, you know, I felt more Jewish, but I didn't. I was kind of embarrassed of that at the time growing up. So, I mean, it was a big push and pull where I grew up, in Burbank, and my dad is a as a former heroin addict, and he got sober when before I was born, and then he got sober off of everything when I was two. So I grew up going to meetings, and, you know, I was a little kid in the back of the meetings pretending to smoke, because that's when you could smoke inside the meetings, you know, with the stir coffee stirs. And instead of being afraid of what they were talking about, I was completely intrigued and loved it. I loved hearing what my dad's friends spoke about. I loved going to coffee and food, you know, after the meetings and hearing them bullshit and talk shit, and I loved being around them. So, yeah, I grew up with all that, and I wasn't really afraid, because when you're little, you don't really, you don't, you don't know, right? You don't know, like, the pain that they go through trying to get sober. You don't know the addiction part. Yet, my childhood was, you know, a lot of back and forth between my parents and a lot of fighting a lot of custody battles trauma, you know, a lot of not knowing who I really wanted to be with or not being able to be with the parent that I really wanted to be with. And I'd say, around 1314, years old, I really started, um, hanging out with the wrong people, or whatever, you know, people that I felt comfortable with, because I feel like the the people that are really doing good in school didn't like me anyways. So I tended, you know, to go towards the bad kids, or whatever, the Cholas and the the Cholos, and I thought I was one, and so life got pretty crazy around 14. There's something that that happened to me around 14 with somebody close to me that kind of, I would say, you know, damaged me a bit, and I took it that was I was a freshman in high school, and I took that, and that was my excuse for not going to school for smoking weed every day with my friends. At that time, my dad had relapsed. I was around 15 or 16, and so he kind of didn't really care. I didn't really have a curfew, you know, I had, like, a lot of freedom, and I basically thought I was an adult already at 14 and around 17, I think I got injured, or, I don't know if I was injured or I just made something up, but I started taking painkillers with my dad, and that turned into within 30 days, within the first month or whatever, I remember knocking on my dad's door every single night for two Norco like I just remember that feeling like I couldn't get through a night. I needed that. I needed the two Norco so I could smoke my cigarettes and watch a movie and. To eat something, and it was just like a whole, you know, routine, and you know how it goes. And that went on for many years. My dad got sober again when I was about 21 I think I was about 21 he went into treatment. Finally got sober, and thank God, because he he would have died. He was taking like, 100 Norco a day. It was crazy. And I had tried to get clean and sober. I tried to go to the meetings. I knew I had an issue. You know, I was also working, and then I wasn't working, and then I was living here with this person and traveling, and then I'd come right back to my addiction, and I just couldn't live without opiates. And around, uh, 27 I think I had, um, this boyfriend who gave me an ultimatum. He I was on methadone, and he told me, you need to get off methadone if you're gonna stay with me. So I went into Tarzana treatment center, and in Tarzana treatment center, in the detox, I fell in love, you know, met the man of my dreams in detox there, and he was just out of prison and a heroin addict. And for the next 30 days in there, I fantasized about leaving with him, and, you know, using heroin. And so they were trying to separate us. In Tarzana treatment center, there's two different sides of the detox, and you know, they can separate you. And I, you know, threw a fit and said, I'm leaving. Are you coming with me? And I packed my bags. He packed his bags, and we left, and we went to the AMPM on the corner, and we had sold 60 bucks, and we went straight downtown Skid Row, bought heroin, and he shot me up for the first time. And that was, that was it. I mean, that was the next step in the ultimate feeling of being on an opiate, right? Was heroin and shooting it and shooting it, yeah, and, you know, we made out in the courtyard of the Midnight mission and got kicked out. And it was so romantic. And, and we went to where he's from, which is Hawthorne, and stayed the night in his mom's car. And that led me on to the next few years of being on the streets, learning how to adapt on the streets. You know, I ended up going to jail for the first time a couple years later. And then once you go to jail one time, that's it. You're just like, in and out. You're on probation. You're getting holds put on you. You're stealing, you know, you're I did everything you can think of for money, right? Things that you would hear in meetings, and you're like, Yeah, whatever. And then you end up being that person, and it's wild and and around five years into that relationship, in and out of treatment. And so you did try and go back to treatment in that period, I did, oh, yeah, I was in and out of treatment, because every time he would go to jail, before I started going to jail, I would have, like, my ex boyfriend pick me up off the street and take me right to a treatment center, or beg my parents to help me get into a you know, let me stay with them for a night so I can go into Tarzana or Red Gate, whatever, treatments, county treatment center. Then, what is it? Four years, four years into the relationship, me and him went to go sign up at Tarzana together, and they finally agreed to let us both in at the same time. And that night, I took a pregnancy test, and we were living in this hotel in Hawthorne, and I discovered I was pregnant, and I thought, This is it, this is my time. This is it. I'm having this baby, and there's no way that I'm going to continue this life. And I think we had, like, a week before we went into treatment that time, and I ended up getting arrested and going to county jail, pregnant, Dope Sick and, oh, I remember being so sick in County because I was pregnant with being dope sick, and it was like the ultimate terrible experience. How do they treat pregnant people in County? So in County, they do put you on methadone, or they did then, I'm sure they still do now, or Suboxone or whatever, but it was like Martin Luther King weekend, so there was no doctor, so I didn't get any medication for like, three or four days, and I was, you know, throwing up and just so ill. And finally, they took me to the US. See a hospital with the sheriffs, and that was an experience, because I remember going into that hospital and they have you shackled, and you're going in through the main part of the hospital, and your county blues shackled up, and it's and you're just, I, you know, I was probably like 120 pounds, like, I was just looking like crazy. And I remember feeling very like, I cannot believe this is me. You know, I had many moments like that, but they're not like, if you're pregnant, you're not, you obviously the methadone, that makes sense, but they're not. You're not going to see like, an OB, GYN or anything, right? No, they, they did an ultrasound. Okay, all right, you're pregnant, yes. All right, go back to cell exactly, holy shit. And they gave me morphine, and then they sent me back. And the next day I got, like, a dose of methadone, I remember, and then that was it back up again. You know, I was feeling great again. And I get out of county, and I go straight to Tarzana, and I know I need to lie to them and tell them I'm not pregnant, and I got because they wouldn't let you in at a certain stage of your pregnancy, so I got somebody's pee, and I fake peed, and anyways, they found out, and it all worked out, thank God. But you know, I was still sneaking and lying. Yes, exactly, junky drive, yeah. And they put me on a low dose of methadone, and I slowly decreased while I was there, I was about six months pregnant, and I think I had just maybe taken my last dose of methadone, and I wanted to use. I wanted, I knew I wanted to use, like I wasn't using just then, but within a few days, I remember, I was on my way to group with another mom who was there to get her kids back, and she took me to her room, and she pulled out a pipe, a meth pipe, you know, in front of me, and smoked. And I think I'm like, six and a half, seven months pregnant at the time, and she asked me if I wanted to hit and wouldn't, without even thinking, you know, of course, and you know, because this thing that I thought would happen didn't happen to me. It didn't the pregnancy didn't connect, like, like I thought it would, like this your life changes, and like, you have this human being inside of you, and God, you know you would never do that to your baby, you know you would not harm your baby. And I definitely probably judged moms in the past or, you know, like, how could they hurt this unborn baby? And here I was, I was doing it like, and it just didn't even compute, because my addiction was just so strong, like and within a day or two, I was calling my, you know, my homie, to come bring me a shot of heroin to the rehab. And I was using heroin and meth in the rehab, and they caught on, and they told me I could stay, but I was dope sick when they told me I could stay, and I said, Fuck this. I'm not staying because I knew I needed to go get loaded. Yeah, and I left, and I went to go get loaded. And within a couple weeks, I ended up going into a sober living and going on methadone again and getting clean. But the sober living wasn't like a sober living. It was like moms. It was a friend of ours who opened it up to some moms with their children, and, you know, pregnant women, and one of the moms ended up using again, and I ended up using with her about two or three weeks before my baby was born, and I thought it was going to be one time, and it was meth, and which takes a minute to get out your system. Yeah, and it wasn't just one time I smoked until, like, two days before I went and you still had meth in your system when the baby, yes, okay, and yeah. So I went in and they told me they were gonna induce me. I was two weeks late, you know, so they induced me, and my family was there, and nobody knows I'm using because I've been really good, and everybody thinks I'm doing really good still. And they came in, and my mom was there, and they they told me that my my P tested positive for methamphetamine. And after the baby was born, they would call the social workers, and I just, I just, I don't know what I was thinking beforehand. I don't know like, if I thought it wouldn't happen to me, like, maybe I could get away with it, but it didn't. So I gave birth to my daughter. I was in labor, maybe about 24 hours, and my mom was next to me. My dad was in the room. My best friend Shannon was in the room, and I pushed this human being out of me, and I saw her for the first time. And like the love and the emotion and shame and the guilt. And like, all of it was all in one instance. Like, I just couldn't believe that that was my baby. And like, God, I love this baby. And I connected, like, that immediate connection, like, it was just amazing that moment. And like, it's crazy because I see that moment on TV with people like, or I see people giving birth, and I see that moment, and I know that moment so well. Like, and they handed her to me, and she was, you know, eight pounds or eight pounds, nine ounces, I believe. And she was very healthy, yeah. And I held her for the first time, and I said to myself, like, this is it? This is this is my baby, and nothing's gonna happen. You know, I'm not this is nobody's taking this baby away from me like I am meant to be her mom. And about three days into being there, the social workers came to see me, and she assessed me, and my daughter was in my arms, and I was thinking, I'm just gonna let this woman know, like, I am ready to be this mom and like, of course they're gonna let me keep her. Well, that wasn't the case. They they called me a little bit later, and they told me that they were sending four social workers over to take her from me at the hospital. And they came in, and I couldn't even hand her. I couldn't hand her to them. I didn't want to let her go. I think I had to put her on the bed, because I just couldn't give her to them. And they took her from me, and within 20 minutes, I was calling my friend to bring me a shot of heroin, right? Because it was either that or a bullet in my head at the time. You know? Yeah. So I did heroin. I left the hospital that night, and they called me, I think later on, they told me they were going to be keeping her in the hospital because she was starting to show signs of withdrawal from the methadone. And I was like, No fucking way. She's not, you know, like she's been she's normal, she's perfect, like, there's no like, I it took me so many years to realize, like, they were right, and you know, what was I fighting against? Like, this is what I did, and let the hospital help her. So she stayed in the hospital, and I was with her every day in the hospital, and that first, she was there for like, about a month, and the NICU is very like pro mother, like, wanting you to be there with your kid no matter what's happening. So I was able to do that, and the nurses were great, and my baby, dad's mom ended up taking custody of her, and I tried to get clean, and I was unable to get clean. Well, that's like another traumatic event. It's so traumatic, like it is, I don't know how you could, you know what I mean? I know because no amount of for me, no amount of, like, I understand that the I had the same feeling when Stella was born, and I've said this before, but like, there's two days to remember, October 25 when she was born, and then November 1, when I was smoking meth, and I realized that not even that little girl was gonna save me, right? I mean, I get it, but that alone for me, so it was a traumatic event for me, you know? So I can't imagine having these people come and be like, Oh, well, you know, we're gonna make your decisions. Now, you're not fit to make your decisions. Yeah, you know, that's got to that spin anyway. That might even now sober, my first instinct would be, get high. Yeah, the fuck out. How am I supposed to deal with that? I know so, um, so she's in the hospital for a month, yeah? And what's that process? What do they do after, like, you, they give the custody, I don't really know how it works, but they give you go to Children's Court and, like, they find a suitable person to take care of her. And luckily, it was a family member on her right. And I had visitations twice a week. You know, my visitations were twice a week for like, two hours at a time, just not enough. No, absolutely not. And I just couldn't do it. I couldn't, I couldn't. And her dad was in jail at the time. He got out during the time when his mom got custody of her start, was immediately using with me when he got out, and then he went back in, and I met somebody else, because I was out there on drugs, and I met somebody else, moved in with him, and I was trying to reason with myself and and I don't know what I was doing at the time, and I don't know why it was like that, other than the traumatic experience of everything that happened, but I wasn't done, you know, like I wasn't done. I don't even know if that made sense, but I wasn't done, and I but also in my head, I knew that I was going to be her mom no matter what, like, I would get clean, yeah, like, this is not going to happen. There's no way I'm not going to have this little girl not with me, right? But I wasn't able to stay in a fucking treatment center, and I wasn't able to to stay clean, but I. Knew, like she was gonna be mine, like I hadn't, you know, like it didn't snap in, like they could take her from me forever, you know. And as the months went on and I ended up getting pregnant again, this new guy, and wasn't able to be clean with my next one, while I was fighting for custody for this one, you know, and, and I'm sure it's kind of like jail, right, once you're in their system, once you once you're in the system, you're in the system right now. And there was moments where I tried to be clean, and then, you know, very I just couldn't, I couldn't like, I just wasn't ready to, like, I talk about it all the time, like, I don't know why I'm so done now, and why wasn't I done 12 years ago? Like, what? I don't know what the difference is, and I don't know why. And I hate it sometimes. Well, I hate it a lot. You know that it wasn't 12 years ago when my first daughter was born, but you know I'm I, I'm grateful to be clean. And anyways, I had my daughter, and they, they took, they took her from me within like three months, I was pregnant again, so now I'm pregnant three times, and I had my son, same guy, same guy, and that was a traumatic experience. I was not healthy at all. I didn't even try with my son. I think I was three or four months when I found out I found out I was pregnant. Yeah, I've seen pictures of you when you were using and I think they're probably this. It's probably the completely unreco You're completely unrecognizable, yeah, yeah, I know. And I was thinking I was looking all cute in these pictures, like, you know, like this, like, sunken face with this, these big eyes and thinking, going to my visits like that, yeah, you know, going to my children's visits and having to use heroin in the bathroom at Children's at the DCFS office, just so I could play with My kids for the next two hours. You know, you given up enough, yeah. And so I was doing heroin in the shooting heroin, and the kids, you know, in the DCFS office, well, that's what drugs do to us. I mean, they not being able to show up, yeah, yeah, right, because I was didn't have enough dope to get me through. That's how incestuous This shit is, is you have to do the shit to do the stuff you love, yeah, not even to, like, pay bills or, like, I remember Same deal, I'd have to get hired to exactly the things I really cared about, right, the things I loved, yeah, things I love to do. Yeah, that's what's so fucked up about this shit. It doesn't it when people say it takes everything. It's not just material. It takes every part of you. Yeah, completely rewires and changes who you are. It's crazy. So you're three kids down. Three kids down. I was also, you know, with the baby, with my second kid's father. I was in a very abusive, toxic, toxic relationship, and, you know, I'd be with my son, I'd be eight months pregnant, and he'd kick me out at two o'clock in the morning with all my stuff, you know, and I'd be walking with this big belly down the street to some tweaker pad down the street, and I lived like that. And then I'd be begging and apologizing to come back right now, always. And I gave I went into labor, and I remember he was upset with me about something, and I couldn't go get my my dope. So starting to get dope sick, and I didn't want to bother him. And I thought, like, Okay, I've been in labor before. I think I have some time, you know. Like, I'll just wait, let him sleep a little bit, you know? And around six in the morning it was, it like that was, I was literally going into labor at six o'clock in the morning, and I was still there, and I woke him up, and he drove me to the hospital, and within about a half an hour, I pushed my son out, wow. And he was like, nine pounds, right? I mean, the the miracle of, like, life is so crazy because I was so skinny and unhealthy, and I had this nine pound baby, like, who probably took every little bit of goodness that I had and and he was miracle. I think I almost died giving birth to him, no epidural, no dope, you know? I mean, it was, it was a traumatic and also he was beautiful and and then I had to live with the guilt of him being, you know, a little he got, he went into withdrawals a little bit as I was in the hospital holding him, I could see that he was uncomfortable. And I did everything in my head, like I fought with myself, like, do I call the nurses and what am I doing? Like, is this really happening in front of me? Did I do this? And I did. I called the nurses in I said, You need to help him now. And that was probably one of the hardest things I've done in my life, just not getting him help. But like, admitting to myself that I did. This, because probably so important for you, so important, so important for me to do that. Yes, it was. I was having faith like even in this moment I'm having faith. You know, I came through Beethoven, we have spiritual counselors, and I had Rabbi Carrie as my spiritual counselor, and I had to write in detail about all this, the birth of my kid, and the drugs that I took, and when he started not looking right to me, and I had to read it out loud to her, kind of like, what you do with a sponsor I did with Rabbi Carrie. And she goes, Sarah, you didn't even know, but you were having faith then. And I'm like, what? Yeah, faith. Like, what does that even I like, I had no idea. I didn't ever think about it like that. And that was such a pivotal moment in my in my stay here, in my sobriety and, like, turning shit around a little bit, right? So what got you here? So after I lost the rights to my kids about a year later, because obviously I didn't get clean, and I had to go to Children's Court and sign my rights over. That was it for me. I gave up. I said, I'm just gonna die, right? Like there's no reason for me to get clean. I can't even be the mother that you know I thought I was gonna be. And mind you, like my entire life. I wanted to be a mom. Since I was a little girl, I had baby dolls and I played house, and I knew I was going to be the best mom, like I was born to be a mother like when that didn't obviously work out. I went back out on the streets. And I started using again while I was continuing to use, and I just said, Fuck it. And I stayed out there, and I was going to jail, in and out of county jail. And the last time I got busted in a raid in this house I was living in, and they gave me a little more time than they usually give me, and I was in there about six and a half months, which is in a long time compared to some people. But to me, that was a long time, and I called my dad. My dad is the only one who really kind of answers the phone when I'm in jail. He sends me packages once in a while, you know, he told me, you need to try to get back into beit. Sheva, I had been here once for two days in the past. I was like, Yeah, okay, I'll try. He goes, No, if you don't get back into Bay, teshuva, I don't ever want to talk to you again. And usually that wouldn't have mattered to me, right? But for whatever the last person on Earth, when it's the last person on Earth, yeah, and, and you don't want to disappoint him, all of a sudden I felt this, like feeling inside of me that I didn't want to hurt him, you know, like something shifted. And also, I was able to call my mom for the first time, she answered her phone, which was amazing. And something shifted. And I tried to get back into Beth Sheva, Rabbi denied me coming back. I almost gave up, and I ended up writing a letter. And, you know, in the letter, I basically said, If I don't get in, I will die like this is, this is life or death. I need, I need you guys. And they approved my letter, and are they approved me to come back in. So when I got out, they picked me up right from jail. They were right on the other side of the fucking door, and Carrie. It wasn't Carrie as Michael Rosenfeld at the time. He was my guy, and I came back in, and I walked through these doors, and I was in gratitude, like, you know, like I was just so I had been dreaming about Beijing, but my best friend, Shannon, who I talked about, who was at the birth, you know, I she's the first person I ever did heroin with, and she got clean here in 2006 Wow. And so I knew it worked for her, like it has to work for me too, like she was a crazy dope Fien, you know. And I came in and, you know, I I jumped right in, but I didn't jump right in, like I was still lying, I was still sneaking around. I was, you know, doing things with people I shouldn't be doing. And but there was, that's the great story. But that's the thing here that sets this place off, separate from other places. It's an individualized program, absolutely, so long as it's not fucking final fentanyl, yes, right? Exactly like they take everybody's Yeah, and it takes it just the kicking of the drugs is the easy bit. Yeah, in my opinion, the behavior change takes time. The behavior change totally takes time. And you don't learn that in jail, and by the way, there's no timeline on that. No some people need, I know some people here that have made total 180s and it was in like fucking a month. And some people in like nine months. It just takes people time, yeah, absolutely, you know. And I get it. I when I first landed here, I had some bad behaviors that just took a minute to for me to go. And that's not we're gonna fly here, yeah, you know. But I've been to other stricter institutions where it's like, yeah, and I would have either bounced or been kicked out. A long time ago, absolutely. Well, I think that's the thing with beit Sheva is like, when you do get caught on those behaviors and they call you out, you can either own up to it and try to change make teshuva, which is something that we learned here, and try to rewire yourself, or you can continue, right, like, not hear anything, like, we don't care what you've done, yeah, we don't care who you've done it with, yeah, we don't care what you were. We just care about what you want to be, right? And you've got to show that's the way you're successful here. You show that you're willing to do those things, yeah, you know. And in my experience, those are the people that do well here, absolutely right? Who? Yeah, who know they need to change something? Yeah. No one comes here knowing shit. No, you you want, if you're coming in here thinking, you know shit, you ain't gonna last long, absolutely not. No. I think that's yeah. That goes with Yeah, anything. And I think that's, that's one of the best things about be true. But I mean, and it's in the program, right? Like, yeah, but it's in the it's in the program, but it's also in the community. There's a magic here. Of you can emulate what you see. Yeah, right. People can tell me shit all day long. I could be in groups about why drugs are bad until I'm blue in the face. But the my change came by seeing other people change Absolutely. That's what that's that's literally what happened. This thing wouldn't work if that. I think it's such a key component here, that's just like, that's what makes this place 10 times better than other places, in my opinion. And you see that, you see that with people that work here, still totally Laura and via like, people that went through these, this program, Zach, like, and it's crazy when I interview them, or, like, with these or talk to them. And I'm like, How the fuck was Zach a junkie? How the fuck was it beer? Yeah, yeah. Like, when I interviewed Bradley on this thing, like, I'm like, this isn't what this isn't you. It's like you were this crazy relapser Who would like, lie and cheat and like, steal and and I'm like, Dude, that's just not who you are. It's fucking amazing, isn't it, our biggest promotional assets, right? If that's even a thing, are the people? Yeah, no, totally, totally. It's like, dude, nothing, no amount of like press or media or any of that shit will will change the stories of our stories Exactly. You know, hey, we'll be right back. But before we do please consider helping us grow this podcast. You could do that a number of different ways. You can hit follow on, Spotify. You can rate us, review us. But what would be really awesome would be if you could share this with one other addict or alcoholic that you think could get something out this podcast. If everyone did that, we would grow this thing tremendously. But as always, thank you for listening, and thank you for your support. So we ask every guest this, as we come to the end, what would you say to Little Sarah? Today, you knew this thing was coming anyway. I was hoping that I wasn't gonna get this question. It happens every week. Sorry. What would I say to Little Sarah? I don't I think what I would say to Little Sarah is I would just give her a big hug and tell her, I love her. I don't think there's anything too complicated that or in depth that I would need to say and and Little Sarah always had a lot of love, but I want to show her self love, you know. And I would just hug her and tell her, I love her. We love you. Love you. Thanks for coming in today. Thanks.