More Than One Miracle.

Marissa's story is proof that recovery isn't a single moment—it's a lifetime of choosing to keep climbing.

After years of addiction, living on the streets of San Francisco, countless attempts to get sober, and believing she still needed "one more weekend" before she was ready, Marissa finally reached the point every addict hopes to find: complete surrender.

What followed wasn't just sobriety. It was years of growth, healing, setbacks, resilience, and discovering that recovery continues long after the drugs and alcohol are gone.

In one of the most thoughtful conversations on Sicker Than Others, Marissa reflects on what it's like to look back after decades in recovery. She talks openly about trauma, relationships, grief, spirituality, parenting, community, and why recovery eventually becomes less about staying sober and more about learning how to truly live.

Her description of recovery as climbing a mountain is one you'll remember long after the episode ends. The climb never stops, but over time the steep peaks become wide plateaus, the falls become shorter, and life becomes something worth protecting.

This isn't just a story about getting sober.

It's a story about what happens when you keep showing up, one day at a time.

Produced by Jesse Solomon.

Resources

Beit T’Shuvah – Recovery, community, and treatment
https://www.beittshuvah.org

Support Beit T’Shuvah
https://beittshuvah.org/support/donate/

Alcoholics Anonymous
https://www.aa.org

Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (SLAA)
https://slaafws.org/newcomers/

Credits

Host: Seb Webber
Executive Producer: Jesse Solomon
Intro Theme: Jesse Solomon

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

Production inquiries:
seb@magick-arts.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:00

Sticker Than Others is a podcast on the ups and downs of recovery. This podcast does not reflect the views or opinions of Betushuva or any of its subsidiary businesses or partners. Sticker Than Others neither speaks for AI or recovery as a whole, but you'll find some useful links below if you want to find out more. Sticker Than Others touches on subjects and situations that some listeners may find offensive or if you're lucky, triggering. You have been warned.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

I love to hike, so I can I hike this mountain. And sometimes the hike is a lot easier than other times. And you go up this mountain and it's so challenging to get to the top, and then you get up to the top. And when I was earlier in recovery, I would get to the top and there'd be this little tiny peak, and then I'd come back down. And the down part I would either tumble down or I would roll, fall, the leaves, the branches, the trees, taking everything with me. Other times I would hike slowly down, but over time when I got to the bottom and then I would hike up again, is that the peak ended up becoming more of a plateau. And over the years the plateau has gotten bigger and bigger and bigger. And so when I get to the other side of it, the falls may not be as big, or the recovery, the or the down may be hard, but I'm not falling with leaves in my hair.

SPEAKER_02 1:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:15

Not to say that there hasn't been those, because I'm sure there sure has. And then I get to the bottom, I'm like, huh, I'm gonna hike up this hill again.

SPEAKER_05 1:40

The podcast brought to you from within a treatment center in Culver City, I think Webber, and this is our guest today, Marissa. Marissa, say hi.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

Hi everybody.

SPEAKER_05 1:48

Um this is super exciting for me because for a couple reasons. One, this is the first time that we've had somebody that went through BTS a long time ago. So I think there's some really interesting perspectives for that. And a community member, because you know, Jesse and I started this to kind of get the stories out from the staff that work here and um some other people that we'd like to meet along the way, maybe some residents once they graduate. Um, but I think it's really interesting that you're here. Thank you for coming.

SPEAKER_01 2:16

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_05 2:16

So the get down is pretty simple. I just want to know what it what what it was like, what happened, and what it's like now.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Yeah. I mean, that's a much longer story than probably what we have time for. Um, my my what it's like now is obviously a much longer story at this point in my life than the what it was like and what happened.

SPEAKER_03 2:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

Um, you know, and I think with with many of us in recovery and addiction and alcoholism and whatever we're struggling with, there's this moment where we hit bottom. Yeah. Um and for me it was very much like I was tired.

SPEAKER_04 2:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

I was tired, um, but I wasn't done and I wasn't ready.

SPEAKER_03 3:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

And and kind of the way that it that looking back on like that transition in my life into recovery was when I was done and I had this moment where I was ready to listen.

SPEAKER_02 3:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

And luckily those two things aligned at the same time that I could get into a treatment center and and get the gift of of being touched with recovery and being touched with the desire to no longer drink or use. And you know, that's where the transition happened.

SPEAKER_05 3:29

Yeah. Was it slow or was it instant?

SPEAKER_01 3:33

I mean, there were multiple treatment attempts, but again, I wasn't ready. And I and I came, you know, the last treatment center I was in, I was there twice. Yeah. Um, and when I I left and I went back to the street, and and life was exactly the same. Yeah. I was I was tired and I was living on the street, and this time I wasn't with my partner, and it was just me and some of the other girls out there. And and it was exhausting.

SPEAKER_04 4:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

And and when I tried to come back, the entire staff met with me, and they were like, Yeah, you're not ready. And I was like, I'm ready, but I need I need the weekend.

SPEAKER_05 4:14

Yeah, let me go high first.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

And they said, Well, you're not coming back. And I was like, Oh, I'll be back.

SPEAKER_05 4:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

And and then I had to call every day.

SPEAKER_05 4:21

Good.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

Until they let me come back.

SPEAKER_05 4:23

And I I think the when you're ready thing is a really interesting thing because it's something that you can only really understand in hindsight, because I same was the multiple treatment attempts, same treatment centres multiple times. But I can tell you that when I went into different treatment I I felt like I wanted to change. You know, like at least initially, like I wanted that. It's why I don't give up on nuke, it's why I don't give up on relapses, right? Yeah. Because I was one for 14 years, and the truth of the matter is, as much as this place changed my life, the day I walked in, I didn't feel any different than I had done any other time I'd walked into treatment, right? That's why I also hindsight. For me, I didn't realize it was working, which was I think which is so special about this place until three, four months in. I then realized there was things that were starting to change, you know?

SPEAKER_01 5:13

Yeah. The shift.

SPEAKER_05 5:14

The shift. Um so they let you back in.

SPEAKER_01 5:18

They let me back in. And they said, cut off your dreadlocks, stop dressing the way that you dress. Okay. You cannot see your cat. Okay. You cannot talk to your family unless it's on Friday nights.

SPEAKER_05 5:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

And you do what we tell you to do.

SPEAKER_05 5:34

Yeah. And you were so ready that you And I said, Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

And they said I couldn't talk to my my partner, and I said no um to that one. Okay. Um, but he was on his way to I think I don't remember if he was on his way to jail or prison at that point, but he was on it on his way um somewhere for a while. And and so they agreed that I could at least write letters.

unknown 5:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 5:57

Was it a different time back then? Like with this, like obviously there was a different era of Beit Shiva?

SPEAKER_01 6:03

Yeah, a very different time. I mean, when I came in, we I was just talking about this recently. We the whole house was on non-com, so the I support that. Yeah, the men and women were not allowed to talk. There were no relationships at all. If you got caught doing something, you were out. And you were out for, I think it was like 30 days, where you were, in a sense, it's like with these Jewish traditions, you're like shunned from the community with for 30 days, but then you were welcome back in. Um and I mean it was funny because we were on non-com, but we our tables, they put them like this. So you'd have a table that was attached to a table. There was a sign up on the wall of how your plate and your silverware had to be. And that's how so you could get away with sitting next to somebody of the opposite sex because you were at different tables, but the tables were rushed together.

SPEAKER_05 6:51

Got it.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

Um But yeah, I mean it was it was I want to say probably a much simpler program.

SPEAKER_04 6:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

Because we didn't have a lot of the other stuff that exists now.

SPEAKER_05 7:02

Yeah. And a longer program too.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

And it w yeah, I was here, I moved out uh I like the week of my first birthday, and I had been here longer than a year because I had changed my sobriety date at one point.

unknown 7:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 7:16

You want to talk about that?

SPEAKER_01 7:17

Oh, I took I took a pill. I took my my roommate was on sleep pills and she took an extra one, snuck an extra one one night, and I took it with a handful of melatonin and cava cava for a desired effect.

SPEAKER_04 7:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

And so when I hit six months, I was actually on a vacation. I was I was in uh Maryland and I went to go to bed and I went, oh my god, that was a relapse.

SPEAKER_04 7:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

And I I called my sponsor, I told her, I called Rabbi, called talked to one of the counselors, and and changed my sobriety date.

SPEAKER_05 7:52

Which is so great to hear because that to me is more important than actually just what happened, the fact that you can it's like the action of being like, hey, I fucked up.

SPEAKER_02 8:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 8:00

It's so much more powerful than any actual fucking up.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 8:04

Well, arguably now with fentanyl and things like that, the fuck-ups are the the stakes are way, way higher.

SPEAKER_02 8:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 8:10

But you know, and I tell all my sponsees or anyone that I I guide, whether that's in official sponsorship capacity or that we're undisciplined. Like I was really interested that you when you just said that the plates and things you were told how things were laid out. Because I think that the I so all my guys have to call me at seven in the morning. Yep. Right? I'm not gonna pick up. It's not the action of picking up. I will pick up sometimes. It's about you doing shit you don't want to do. Yep. Right. And my theory is that if you can't spend 23 seconds a day doing that, why am I gonna spend 45 minutes a week reading with you? And then how are you gonna spend three hours doing a fourth step? Right. And it's and I really feel that we're undisciplined people when we first get sober, you know? And so we need those. We need the the at least from my experience, I need to be told how my plate is. And yeah, for me, it was simple actions like um arriving at breakfast at the right time. That was my my capacity for discipline was so small that I needed those really simple lunches at 12, dinners at five, breakfasts at seven. I needed those.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

And Harold, who you know many people know, he I would get very overwhelmed with the things that needed to be done. And he was like, let's make a list, let's put a checkbox, and it's still what I use today. Yeah. It is still the system I use today, it is what helps me function the most. Many years before when I was short-term doing meth, it's still a system I used then, but I had forgotten that that was a system that worked for me and worked for me in sobriety. And and it was, it was, I didn't know how to brush my teeth, wash my hair, show up for breakfast at the same time. What felt like the same time, and then go to groups and share with my whole heart.

SPEAKER_05 9:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

Which I didn't even know what that was at the time.

SPEAKER_05 9:55

No. No, it takes a at least from my experience on that was it took me a good cut. This is again why this special this program is so special, is that like I personally just don't, but I I don't think there's anything wrong. I think if you can go into treatment, this great. Go into treatment anyway. If you have the opportunity to go into treatment, fucking do it.

SPEAKER_02 10:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 10:13

But 30, 60 days, I just I've I've I did that shuffle for so long. I didn't even know how I was, I didn't even know what I was feeling until month four or five.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 10:22

Let alone how to like talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

I mean, I say it this a lot, that like the first year is learning how to not pick up or use. The second year is really like, oh, this is not just drugs, this is about actually how do I go about living. And then the third year, it's like when a when a young child, like a three-year-old, says, you ask them how old they are, they say, I'm free, because they can't say the th part yet. They can't say th. And so they go, I'm free. And I felt like when I hit three is when I finally started to have like that sense of freedom that comes with being sober.

SPEAKER_05 11:00

Yeah. It's almost like a a th three or three, however you do. Free. Free.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

Free.

SPEAKER_05 11:08

Uh it's like deciding who you want to be at that point, right? You're like the the the chains are hopefully off. And now you can think about the person you want to be rather than just surviving.

SPEAKER_03 11:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 11:20

Um that's really, really interesting. You so you have 25 years?

SPEAKER_01 11:23

I do.

SPEAKER_05 11:24

That's fucking amazing.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

It's wild.

SPEAKER_05 11:26

I just uh that's incomprehensible still to me.

SPEAKER_01 11:29

Still to me as well.

SPEAKER_05 11:30

Really?

SPEAKER_01 11:31

Yeah. Oh, understand. So what kind of I don't want to go too much into what type of drug addict you are, but I'm really curious now because you're Yeah, I mean listen, the very the very short of it is like I had trauma as a young child, nobody knew about it. I also I want to say was undiagnosed ADHD, um, although my mother recently told me I was diagnosed when I was younger. Um I've been recently diagnosed in my adult life. And you know, so combined with this trauma, this history of trauma, ADHD, Marissa could do better if she applies herself, talks too much in class, negative attention, negative seeking attention, seeking negative attention. I ended up then when I was, you know, like everybody else smoking pot and drinking, I wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary in high school. And I just I hate at school, busted through, figured out how to graduate early with all of my classes. And then when I was 18, I got brutally attacked and beaten. And I had a really bad concussion, I lost a lot of memory, I had a lot of physical ailments from getting attacked, and ended up getting taking muscle relaxers for the pain that we bought in Mexico. And it gave me this release where I could breathe again. And I and I ended up like moving to San Francisco to go to art school. And when I was up there, I met some ballerinas and they were really into crystal meth. And it progressed. You know, I did crystal meth for a few years. It was not my drug of choice, but it was the drug that was in front of me: ecstasy, lots of alcohol, mushrooms, some LSD in there, and I always kind of dealt drugs so that I could get them for free. And at some point, living in the Hate Ashbury of San Francisco in the 90s was a really wild place. And so San Francisco in general in the 90s was an incredible place. It was the height of the dot com. The city was on fire with just so much energy. Um, and I I lived and worked on Hate Ashbury, and there were all these homeless kids, and I became really good friends with a lot of them and sold them a lot of drugs. And met a couple who were heroin addicts, and we became very good friends, and over time they split up, he became my best friend and moved in with me at some point, later became my boyfriend, um, and to this day is still the love of my life.

SPEAKER_05 14:02

Oh, amazing.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

Uh he has since passed. But um and and he was a heroin addict.

unknown 14:09

Right.

SPEAKER_01 14:09

You know, and and so one day I told him I wanted to try heroin. And it was a very quick progression for me. Um so from trying it, eventually injecting it, him leaving me because he didn't want to see what was happening, me injecting it, um, I had my first overdose, was brought down to Los Angeles when my parents found out, put into my first treatment center, and then left there and went to the street, and then spent the next like year, year and a half on the street.

SPEAKER_05 14:41

And heroin was was was my downfall.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

Yeah, heroin and injection cocaine and alcohol.

SPEAKER_05 14:47

It's funny you say the crystal meth thing. I'm crystal meth addict too. And um I also really believe that we find the drugs that we need at the time, right? And you had the undiagnosed AD ADHD, and it's like I could see how that I'm not I'm not a doctor, but um same with me. I I I actually did have a AD, I got diagnosed and I I got put on all the pills, and um yeah, if you'd have told me twenty years ago I was going to end up a crystal meth addict, I would have been like, there's no fucking way I would have a crystal meth addict. So it's just kind of interesting to me.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

Well, and it's interesting because now since I was recently diagnosed when I tell my story, I'm like, light bulb, light bulb, light bulb. This was untreated ADHD.

SPEAKER_05 15:28

Yeah, which is also kind of crazy because from what I understand about ADHD is it it a lot of people grow out of it and it's kind of hard to get diagnosed over 30. This is what my shrink told me. It was like a pretty hard. It's also something I'm I'm I'm dealing with now because my nine-year-old just got diagnosed about it.

SPEAKER_01 15:44

And then you have to go through what about it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 15:50

And um she has it.

SPEAKER_01 15:52

Yeah. And how do you support her?

SPEAKER_05 15:55

How do I support her? But I have this um gut-wrenching, crippling fear that that she's gonna end up the way I did. And I have to give my kid concerto in the morning now, and it's really difficult, really, really hard.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

And she doesn't have to end up like you because we know a lot more. We know a lot more.

SPEAKER_04 16:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:19

We know a lot more than our parents did. Yeah. Because there is a lot more out there for us to know.

SPEAKER_04 16:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:27

And so we can support our children in a better way than our parents had the ability to support us. And that's not in a negative sense. They didn't have the same kind of knowledge base that we have today. No. The same kind of science technology, the same kind of research that's been done, the same kind of knowing and understanding meditation and mindfulness.

SPEAKER_03 16:48

Right.

SPEAKER_01 16:49

And these nervous system tools that that we have as sober adults. That again, people didn't talk about then.

SPEAKER_05 16:57

Yeah, it's still terrifying. Yeah. Right. Um Yeah, it's still still something that's that's still kind of a hard thing for me to swallow. Um although you are right, you know, it's like ADHD coupled with therapy, and and she's she does additional stuff, like she does r really not intense therapy, which she meets with a therapist once a week. I've I've noticed like rapid changes in she comes to Shabbat. She it's working. I just get scared. At what point does she maybe think, oh, two of the you know, it's just like it's just something that I have to prepare myself for if that happens, right? And if that's her journey, that's her journey. That's her journey.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 17:34

It's really hard. Um what have you what have you learned in the last what tell me about some of the the highlights of this? Because I want to talk about what you're like now, because it's so much more important than what you were. Um what have you learned?

SPEAKER_01 17:52

I mean, I think probably like the primary thing I've learned is the just one step at a time. Like I just keep putting one foot in front of the other no matter what. And there has definitely been years or situations or challenges that I've walked through where I feel like I've been thrown back a million steps or fallen, but I just get up. And like the analogy that I like to use is I love to hike, so I can I hike this mountain. And sometimes the hike is a lot easier than other times. And you go up this mountain, and it's so challenging to get to the top, and then you get up to the top. And when I was earlier in recovery, I would get to the top and there'd be this little tiny peak, and then I'd come back down. And the down part, I would either tumble down or I would roll, fall, the leaves, the branches, the trees, taking everything with me. Other times I would hike slowly down, but over time when I got to the bottom and then I would hike up again, is that the peak ended up becoming more of a plateau. And over the years the plateau has gotten bigger and bigger and bigger. And so when I get to the other side of it, the falls may not be as big or the recovery, the hard or the the down may be hard, but I'm not falling with leaves in my hair.

SPEAKER_02 19:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:15

Not to say that there hasn't been those, because I'm sure there sure has. And then I get to the bottom, I'm like, oh, I'm gonna hike up this hill again, because I know I have all the tools that help me hike up when it's the steepest. You know, and so that's kind of how I've operated all these years, because a lot more hard things have happened in my sobriety than before.

SPEAKER_04 19:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

And I just keep going.

SPEAKER_04 19:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:39

You know, and I think that's kind of like the basis, like the foundation, like building the house, right? We have this strong foundation, so when these storms come, also like my foundation's there. It's not going anywhere.

SPEAKER_05 19:50

Yeah. Um period. Like, what was one of the if if you feel comfortable, what was one of the hardest things you had to deal with in those 25 years?

SPEAKER_01 20:01

Oh, to pick one. Um I think probably the hardest thing was um my partner when I got sober, his name was Shane, is that when he died, it destroyed me. Um still does. Um and and him and I were not together, but he was my person. Yeah. And he never got to find this gift. Um then I didn't realize it for for quite for probably about six months that I was in deep grief. And I shared at a meeting, and someone said, You're in grief. And and I and I hit a point, I had never really suffered from deep mental health stuff that that really just wasn't my story. I mean depression here and there. Um but I hit this really dark depression um where I just didn't want to be here anymore. And when he initially died, like I didn't care if I was sober or not, but I didn't have a desire to drink or use, so I I just didn't, and I wasn't able, like I I grew up in this program of you thank God every night for keeping you sober, and I couldn't do that anymore. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered. And then about six months into it, I had a thought that I wanted that I didn't want to be here. Um and I thought about who my animals could go to and I reached out for help, and that kind of backfired on me in in such an extreme way that you know, I had a I had a pretty high powered job at the time. Um and the medical provider that I was with at the time, they called the police on me and they sent them to my work. And they put me in handcuffs and they walked me out of my work. handcuffs and took me to the police station down the street from here and locked me up in a cell and then hospitalized me at a county psych facility um in the schizophrenic unit and it was so traumatizing for me for anybody for anybody um and it shook me it changed it changed him dying changed forever has changed who I am and then that that response to me being in deep grief also deeply affected me um and I spent a year after that in grief therapy and I've had a lot of death in my life and in my work and you know in recovery we see a lot of death um yeah and but that one was different. Yeah um and it and it took a long time it took years and years and years to to get through it. In some years his anniversary comes and I'm okay and other years it comes and I'm not yeah that's okay. And I'm not and that's how grief works.

SPEAKER_05 23:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:09

Um and I acknowledge it for what it is and allow myself the space to feel.

SPEAKER_05 23:16

What do you attribute that sound is sounds terrible what what do you can what do you contribute to like what kept you sober though? What what was the what what do you think it was that allowed you to not default to something that you know would automatically fix the way you felt? Or do you just not feel like that anymore? I don't think I don't feel like that anymore. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:39

Yeah so at that point in my life like again I ha I'm someone not everybody gets this gift. The desired drinking use has been lifted from me.

SPEAKER_03 23:46

Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

Um I've had a handful of times in the 25 years where I'm like oh a drink probably could fix this. This would be really good. But it is this like passing thought it's not like an obsession that stays in front of me. And so it like I said when I when that happened I just didn't care if I was sober but I didn't ha it wasn't gonna fix anything.

SPEAKER_05 24:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

There was no part of me that thought if I drank or used some it was going to fix me.

SPEAKER_05 24:09

How sober were you when this happened? Well how many?

SPEAKER_01 24:12

It was like eleven and a half years ago so whatever the math is yeah can't work that out but you had yeah. So I had I had enough time that I had a lot of tools. But again the tools at that point i I think that was like where me having this strong foundation is what helped me make it through that.

unknown 24:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 24:35

You know and what what what are you what do you do now? Like what how what's your program like with uh well not your what your program like I'm not gonna ask about that but what what what are the things that you do now for your recovery that maybe you didn't do around that time?

SPEAKER_01 24:51

Yeah I mean I think it's still all kind of I do things like this. I mean it's I think it's still autopilot. It's you know I I don't get my daily prayers in for sure anymore um since becoming a mom.

SPEAKER_05 25:07

Yeah let's talk about what you don't do.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

That is much more challenging than becoming a mom because I don't wake up on my own and like say my prayers in this very peaceful like environment I wake up with a young child like hitting me in the face. I get it I get it I'm I'm with you 100% yeah um you know and or I get up before him so that I can hurry up and get ready and get him ready for school you know and um but I I have a very deep connection with nature with the ocean with solid people in my life with people who love me, depend on me, where we cherish each other's love and relationships. You know I there's there's a the very deep I don't know if they still kind of teach it here is the the Abraham Joshua Heschel the practice of like looking at the way that your fingers move right or the way a squirrel like climbs up of a up a tree.

SPEAKER_03 26:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:09

The way a leaf moves.

SPEAKER_03 26:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:11

And so it all is mindfulness. It's these sublime wonders of the world right it is incredible what it takes for our fingers to move.

SPEAKER_04 26:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

And so it's really really deeply having the connection to that that I can sit in my house that I can look out or listen and hear the birds that I can watch a hawk go by that at night I can hear the owls.

SPEAKER_04 26:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:34

Um and just being in that I also like still go to my home group. I do still have a sponsor I just actually changed sponsors after 25 years. Oh what was the reason behind that the sponsor that I had for 25 years she probably should not have been my sponsor for the last 15 but I so deeply love her. Yeah and it was connected with her and felt safe with her and she knew everything and she knew Shane but it wasn't somebody that I was growing with. And in terms of sponsorship at this point like if I'm going through something then I'll call my sponsor but it's not a daily thing.

SPEAKER_05 27:10

Right. That's interesting. I think um the home group thing is super important. For me that's been the foundation that's been really different this time is I had this this thought I go to I I I personally sorry I'm Jesse headed out um I had a c when I was here I decided I was just gonna go to men's meetings. For me I was just like I just it I I needed to have really healthy relationships with men and I the one thing I love about my home group is um I learned pretty early on that I don't know how to navigate almost anything and that I really don't know anything. And so I go to a men's group to learn so there's somebody in the I just like I just moved in with my girlfriend. Like I haven't done that in 10 years. I don't know how and sober.

SPEAKER_01 28:01

And sober.

SPEAKER_05 28:01

And I had to live my life in consultation. I had to be like I'm about to do this thing and I'd have no fucking idea how to do it. And the great thing about having a home group which I don't think enough people talk about is if you go to a home group enough you get to know people chances are there is somebody in that home group that is going through the exact same thing or has done.

SPEAKER_02 28:22

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 28:23

I think that's uh yeah home groups are uh home groups are the bomb well and it's you know when you asked about what's the hardest thing I mean I all I've also had cancer in recovery while pregnant. What? While pregnant and the people who showed up for me who came to my house and would sit in the backyard and have a meeting with me or would pick me up and take me to meetings were people from my home group home group. Someone from here who I wasn't even close with it was just someone who I knew through being connected to BTS who would come and pick me up and take me to meetings.

unknown 28:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:58

It's like someone that my dad worked with who was sober who I I I'm friends with from West Side meetings but her and another person threw me like a bye-bye boob party when I had my mastectomy like these were the people that showed up in my life. And there's definitely people that fell off sober non-sober sober non-alcoholic addict that that fell out of my life but there were these other people that just showed up because it's what we do. And when you're connected especially my home group people they just showed up they just showed up because we know each other. We may not even if we don't talk we know each other. Yeah and so that's who circled around me.

SPEAKER_05 29:42

That's incredible that must have been in that must have been incredibly difficult.

SPEAKER_01 29:47

Yeah it was really horrific um I didn't know that you could cry in your sleep oh that's fucking yeah yeah okay um I didn't know you yeah I would wake up with tears streaming down my face.

SPEAKER_05 30:11

Okay um and you're healthy? I am healthy ish yeah okay I have no cancer that's fantastic um sorry I don't really I'm just I'm just like I'm a little bit I d I just don't know how you wow that is uh seeing what someone goes through while they're pregnant was one of the um well I was also getting high at the time so I wasn't like the most in tune but I can tell you that I uh my kid's mum who I'm really good friends with today even though she shouldn't be you know even though I did should put her through hell uh watching a a woman in pregnancy especially the last four months was one of the craziest things I've ever seen. Yeah. And I can't imagine what that would have been like.

SPEAKER_01 31:02

I will say that pregnancy did not make it that far. I did I lost that pregnancy. Not because of the cancer. And I will say it was probably the best thing that could happen because I was pregnant with my then partner. And I am extremely grateful to not have a child with him.

SPEAKER_05 31:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 31:23

All right so and the baby was the baby was actually sick and I did not have to make a decision as to what to do. My body made the decision made the decision. But it was obviously a very stressful time with having the cancer diagnosis um which I got a week after I found out I was pregnant. Yeah well we're certainly not going to have a lack of sound bites for this episode that's for fucking sure um okay okay um holy moly but you do have a son now I do have a son now on my own okay let's let's how how did how did that how did that happen how did that happen so how did science um so the the kind of short of it is so I I was pregnant with my partner it was a very beautiful magical time and a week later I was diagnosed and then found out that that baby had Down syndrome and when I went in for further testing on him after having 64 specimens taken of biopsies while I was pregnant um found out that he had actually passed away inside of me. So it was a very kind of quick I had to have surgery to have him remove that same week I met with the breast surgeon and the plastic surgeon who said when I said I want to get pregnant again and they said you need to deal with the cancer first. And the treatment for me was supposed to be a lumpectomy when I hit my second trimester and then after I had the baby radiation for six weeks and then five years of medication that would put me in menopause. And at 41 years old if I did that I wouldn't have been able to have a baby. So I ended up having a mastectomy had major complications from having a mastectomy um which I'm still dealing with today. That's why I'm I don't have cancer I'm okay ish but I'm still dealing with that today. And my partner left during that time and I left left left left okay um back and forth but left and I really wanted a child and every month that went by it hurt my being to not have a child. And I had my last surgery in January of 20 it's not my last but my last at that time in January of 2020 and my fertility doctor I had frozen my eggs year be year a few years before and he a couple years before and he said give yourself a few months to heal from the January surgery and then we'll look at what we need to do to move forward. And then COVID hit. Yeah I was about to I was doing the math in my head I'm like okay COVID hit and all of the fertility clinics shut down I'm a nurse so I became a nurse in recovery um spent 20 years working in homeless social services and I was like now what? Now what so and it's and it's a it this is a much longer story than what we have time for. I let the dude back um during that time but I ended up finding a fertility clinic that was open and moved forward. And I had one night working COVID frontline COVID my medical director at the time shared her experience with becoming a single mother. Wow and I bought sperm that day from the sperm bank and my ex didn't come home one night and I moved forward that same week with the sperm donor and you know however many weeks later I don't remember how it's pretty when you use when you do it with science you find out pretty quickly when you're pregnant um because they monitor you a lot and and I got pregnant my first like round of what's called IUI.

unknown 35:32

Right.

SPEAKER_05 35:33

Which that's not common right?

SPEAKER_01 35:34

No my doctor was like this is the shortest relationship I've ever had and I it's and I don't say this because people who really want kids that don't get them like this is not to shame that but like he was my son was the way that I believe it he was waiting and he was waiting a long time to drop down and to be my son.

SPEAKER_03 35:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:52

And I deeply believe that that shame that his spirit came back in through my son so that he could have the mother that he deserved to have all those years. And and there's some really intimate things between my son that he has said to me that were of my our previous life together. And this little boy like dropped in and I got to be his mother and it is so hard. I mean number one I had him like C-section like at home during COVID by myself with him. It was extremely traumatic um beginnings um just being so isolated during COVID. And then also just being a parent alone is is really hard. And I walked away from my career at that point in homeless services and you know have did some you know um just kind of 1099 nursing stuff here and there and and then went on to build a coaching business.

SPEAKER_05 37:00

Oh yeah okay first of all that was incredible but also I'm just thinking well I'm so glad it did because you deserve definitely deserved to have a win. Yeah right like at that point I'm I'm glad that happened right um what's your coaching business? Tell me about that.

SPEAKER_01 37:17

So I'm integrative wellness coach so it incorporates body mind spirit and health so include I've been in I've been a nurse for 18 years. 19 years? 19 years I've been an RN for 19 years. I have a lot of experience with obviously the medical component of things and case management and mental health was a director built a ton of programs that exist but there's something that we miss in medical which is also this full mind-body spirit part of it I'm also Reiki practitioner and breath work practitioner NLP practic you know trained and so I truly believe that working with people on all aspects of their life is what helps transform them and that ended up becoming this working primarily with women who are in what I call the now what phase of life, right? So after you've walked through life's child a life challenge, whether it's cancer or grief or loss or relationships ending or becoming a parent or an empty nester just when you're in your life and you go long-term recovery or at recovery at some point where you go, what am I doing? It's not the early stages it's not when you're first getting sober it's not when you're going through cancer because you're busy fighting for your life it's this aftermath of of what am I doing now? Who am I? And it's really just down to basics goal setting visioning but it every session incorporates Reiki, breath work, mindfulness, meditation, NLP, like everything to kind of help break through some of those old stuck patterns so that you can find who you are again, set boundaries, realign and rediscover like who you are.

SPEAKER_05 38:59

Breath works is in I um have a little experience with breath work. I was definitely not somebody that would take it seriously and then I did it and I wept the hardest I've ever wept. I was in the fetal position and my I was clamping. I was clamped like this. I've never experienced something that was just disabling. I was absolutely it was the most freeing but it was it was um yeah I continue to do it now and it's been one of the things that that is one of my go-tos now when things are just a bit too much. Yeah I can just reset a little whim hof for me. Yeah a little bit of that you know a little bit of breathing in the morning but but but um I was incredibly sur I don't want to say surprised because that makes me sound naive but it is but it but it it is it was incredible.

SPEAKER_01 39:56

It is and I've taken through people through and they've come out and been like I've done ayahuasca before and this was more powerful. You know and that's the first time someone said that to me because I've never done ayahuasca I was like oh wow and I've I've seen past lives in breast in breath work I've had my entire plan laid out for me step by step of what I needed to do in my life. And these were all the things that all of those things that I went through all the tools that I teach and use are things that I've used that help me get through. So it's like when you ask what do you do and it's like I just keep going. Yeah but I keep going with all these tools that I now have in my toolbox.

SPEAKER_05 40:39

Yeah. And you're helping a lot of people. And I help a lot of people which is the greatest gift of all yeah