Mistena & Shannon | Meth Recovery, Domestic Abuse & Generational Healing

Shannon Hughes and her daughter, Mistena Renteria-Elliott, share a raw and harrowing journey through the depths of methamphetamine addiction, domestic abuse, and the long road to generational healing. Shannon opens up about using substances to cope with severe anxiety while trapped in a manipulative and abusive relationship with a stepfather who controlled every aspect of their lives. Mistena reflects on a childhood defined by survival mode, moving constantly, and the trauma of watching her mother disappear into addiction and homelessness.

The turning point came during a high-stakes crisis involving a psych ward hold and a last-chance family trip to the Florida coast. They discuss the complexities of meth recovery, the reality of childhood trauma, and how medication like Zoloft and supportive school counselors eventually saved Mistena's life. Now over a year sober, Shannon and Mistena are navigating the messy, beautiful process of getting to know each other again as mother and daughter.

Find mental health and addiction treatment near you: https://recovery.com/

This episode is a testament to the fact that you can heal, no matter how broken the relationship seems. Whether you are struggling with substance use disorders or are a loved one setting boundaries, this conversation offers a roadmap from defeat to hope.

Subscribe to Recoverycast for more authentic stories of sobriety and mental health transformation.

⏱️ Chapters:

00:00 – Identifying the Struggle: Methamphetamine and Family Impact

03:31 – The Intersection of Anxiety, Abuse, and Early Addiction

06:05 – Domestic Violence and the Cycle of Manipulation

11:01 – CPS Failures and Navigating Childhood Trauma

14:48 – Coping Mechanisms: Music and School as a Safe Haven

20:13 – Breaking the Stigma: Mental Health Medication and Support

26:27 – Rock Bottom: Homelessness and the Arkansas Psych Ward

30:28 – The Last Chance: A Life-Saving Trip to the Ocean

38:47 – What We Get Wrong About Loving an Addict

45:18 – Rebuilding the Mother-Daughter Bond in Recovery

50:12 – Advice for Families Losing Hope

❓ Questions the Video Answers:

How does methamphetamine addiction affect the mother-daughter bond?

What are the signs of emotional and domestic abuse in an addicted household?

How can children cope with the trauma of a parent's addiction?

What happens during a mandatory 72-hour psych ward hold for addiction?

Can the ocean or nature assist in the early stages of detox and healing?

How do you set boundaries with a parent struggling with homelessness?

Is Zoloft effective for treating trauma-related anxiety in teenagers?

Why do people stay in abusive relationships while struggling with substances?

How can school counselors help students living in high-risk environments?

What are the chances of long-term recovery after meth addiction?

How do you rebuild trust after ten years of toxic communication?

Why is "survival mode" a common experience for families in addiction?

#MethRecovery #GenerationalHealing #SobrietyStories

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What substances were you struggling with?

SPEAKER_05 0:02

The mess is what I was doing.

SPEAKER_03 0:04

Yeah. They said that they don't believe in counseling and that if I need somebody to talk to, that their phones are available.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

If I'm calling you now, you're not much helpful.

SPEAKER_03 0:12

Like literally.

SPEAKER_02 0:20

So before we dive in, what do you hope that people get from your story?

SPEAKER_04 0:25

I just hope that they can not be defeated before they try. For the loved ones, I hope that you don't push too hard, that you break your relationship and that you can't heal. I want you to know you can heal. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 0:43

And we're all human and people make mistakes. And I think you're right, family is the most important thing. And the thing that we can do when our families are struggling is extend grace and also have our own boundaries so that they know that they are loved unconditionally. But we also protect ourselves through things. Thank you so much for sharing that. Yeah. Um, so when you think back to your earliest memories together, what did your mother-daughter relationship look like in the beginning before addiction began to kind of creep in?

SPEAKER_03 1:15

Age eight to eleven, she and I were pretty close, but it was not good. When we lived in Omaha, which you remember, it was the but those were the best years. There was about three, three really, really good years. I mean, she was a great mom. She was ironing our clothes every day for school. We were going to church. Um, every time I'd come home from school, we would have snacks prepared for us on the table. I mean, she was kicking butt as a mom and as a wife, from what I knew at the time. We were very young. It was just me and my brother, and then my little sister at that time. She was doing really good. I don't know what changed, but then we moved a lot. Like, I can't count how many times we've moved or how many times I've transferred schools. It changed to where my stepdad was so terrible that she and I would have like a deal. Like, I would get her what she wanted and she'd get me what I wanted. I'd do something for her that she wasn't supposed to do where I'd cover for her in some way, and then she'd cover for me. She'd let me talk to my boyfriend on the phone and I'd get her some pills from somebody. Or I'd keep the door open at night so she could sneak out and do something, whatever it was. I didn't care. And I would just keep my mouth shut because I knew I would get something out of it. So then it became like just our like we were like really close in that regard. After I left it to move in with my boyfriend at 14, she was doing her own thing and she basically cut me out at that point, telling me that it was for the best. So we went quiet with each other for a little while. And I just kept trying. You know, I was I would hunt her down. I would go knock on strangers' doors in the middle of the night in these crazy neighborhoods. I'm like, where's my mom? Where's my mom? Do you know where my mom is? Because she never had a phone, she never had an address, she never had a car. She was sleeping on the streets, and I was so worried about her. And even though she would tell me to stay away, it's for the best. I would still hunt her down every once in a while, make sure she's eaten, and try to get her to get clean.

SPEAKER_02 3:19

It never worked until it did, but so the same time then, let's start at the same time when she's young, you're kicking ass as a mom, you're making snacks, you're taking the kids' places. What's going on with you? Because that sounds like a lot and kind of overwhelming.

SPEAKER_05 3:31

Well, it was. I just really had um I had really hard time with anxiety. Um, I just literally, it was like always having to have my ex take care of the kids and then his mother help us take care of the kids because it's like I could not function very good. I like I would get really mad and we would have lots of fights over the fact that I'd want to go to the doctor and he would tell me that I was fine. And I would tell him, No, not. I need to go to the hospital because my heart's gonna blow up right now, you know. And he would not be, he wasn't very kind back to me. So I like tried to jump out of the car once and he's like wanting me to go to see psychiatrist now, saying that I was mentally unstable because I wanted to jump out of the car. But in my mind, all I wanted to do was go to the hospital because I cared about I didn't want to die, you know. And when your heart's going 200 beats a minute, you know, that's scary. Yeah. And so if he was ever, if if he would have just been like, okay, you know, because I guess when I think about love or think about those things, it's like if I were in the situation changed back, I would be like, okay, I'll take you to the hospital, you know, whatever you want. I mean, if I was with somebody who was having that problem and be like, okay, let's go. Yeah. I don't care how many times it'd be like the same thing every time. If you want to go, let's go. My memory fails me a lot whenever I go back to trying to think about these days with her because it's really hard.

SPEAKER_07 4:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 4:58

You have to just say to yourself, you know, I made a choice. I did drugs. My reasoning for doing drugs was to get through my day because at the time I was trying to take care of my kids, and I thought, well, I have to do this in order to get through my day because I can't go to the hospital and do it that way. You know, I went to the doctors, took all the medicine they told me to take, started going to all these psychiatrists, and they put me on so much medicine that I couldn't function. I was, you know, sleeping and falling asleep on the toilet, and I just couldn't function. So I went to the church and we prayed and believed that I got healed from it, you know. So I flushed all my medicine down at lots of times.

SPEAKER_02 5:41

Um your medication that had been prescribed to you?

SPEAKER_05 5:45

Because I really felt like I really have a hard time with it because I don't believe that that's God's ultimate desire for me to be stuck on medicine, you know. I didn't stick up for my kids like I should have. I did try to go to the counselors at church and try to tell them that I believed that my family was in an abusive situation. I said, I believe that my husband is being abusive to my children and I need somebody to help me because I literally have nowhere to go. And um he was telling me that me and my mother had a dystopic relationship. So I wasn't allowed to be around my mom. And so any of my friends that would come to visit me, he didn't want me to go around them. And so he was like saying, You go around people and then you do whatever they want you to do. And I was, and he's like, and I'm not gonna have my kids around that, you know. And so I was staying away from them and do what I felt like the Lord wanted me to do, which was obey my husband. As time went by, he had told Mistina that she was grounded off of her phone. Whenever I would leave the house, I didn't feel comfortable with them having no way of contacting me, you know. So I told her that she could use this iPod that I got her to talk to me and let her keep it and hide it, and I hid it from him. Well, his mother-in-law found out about it somehow and went and told him. And so um he's asking me if I knew about it, and I'm like, no. Self-preservation, yeah, it's a scary thing to have to. And then I was like just having to leave her out to dry, and I'm like, oh brother, I'm not gonna do this. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna tell, you know, that I knew about it, thinking that it would help her and not be kicked out, you know. But no, he's still like trying to pack her stuff and she's 14. She's 13 at the time. She's 13 years old.

SPEAKER_03 7:34

My entire room up in trash bags and threw it outside.

SPEAKER_05 7:36

Yeah, it was hard. I had nowhere to go. I literally had no idea what to do. I was in this, I mean, he had done this brainwash on me somehow where I just couldn't, I was way too scared to try to go off by myself. You know, I would I would try to leave him and then wind up going back. And then that vicious cycle happened all the time.

SPEAKER_02 7:59

But it sounds like the cycles of emotional abuse in that relationship stacked on top of anxiety, which is a mom. Like, I know that that's really rough. It can prevent us from taking our kids out of the house, from you getting out of the bed during the day. From getting over the thought, the repeating thoughts of just like what I have to do and how overwhelming that is. So I can imagine that that's an extremely stressful situation for anybody. And then it kind of collides at this one point, and you end up having to leave, and you're kind of stuck in this situation where I'm not really well myself, and I have this person who's got a bit too much control over what's going on. Um, and at that time, were you using? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:40

The stuff she was putting in her body at that time, like what was very much clouding her judgment. Yeah. I wound up staying with, I luckily have an uncle. He is not well. Him and his wife have a terrible, terrible relationship too. And anyways, I went to live with them. They lived a city over. So for several weeks, I was either missing school or he was driving me all the way to and from.

SPEAKER_05 9:08

And when did you move again? Then you moved back.

SPEAKER_03 9:10

And then I moved back in. Yeah. And then so I moved back in with her and my stepdad, transferred again. That went on for a little while. And then just the back and forth and stuff. And then she decided, okay, I'm gonna leave him for good because he did something terrible. And so we all moved in with his mother. We lived there for a little while, and I started another school, and it that school was absolutely terrible. Then she went back and left us kids there with her, with grandma, and it was miserable. And so then I moved in with my boyfriend and his family, and luckily graduated high school, and that was like my biggest, biggest goal was like, just get me through high school. Let me at least get through high school. So, like seventh grade, I went to the counselor to tell on my stepdad because of what he had done. And the counselor was like, Well, you've told me too much. Like, I have to report this. And I'm like, Mandatory reports. I will not be back tomorrow or the next day. And she was like, I'm sorry, I have to. So I go home, CPS is already there at the house, we're all interviewed and everything else. And he kept us out of school for the rest of the year. And nobody looked into it, nobody did anything. And he was able to say, like, they're homeschooled. That's really scary.

SPEAKER_00 10:27

Anything CPS was supposed to be there because of something said, and then they came to the city.

SPEAKER_03 10:31

And I mean, how many times did CPS get involved? And they never did anything. Which, granted, we were very, very much told to be very careful what we say.

SPEAKER_02 10:41

But um It's also something scary to navigate. Like, yes, you're like 13, 14, 15, but you're still a child. And you have a younger sibling and an older sibling as well. Two older. Okay, so you have two younger six.

SPEAKER_03 10:53

Three younger.

SPEAKER_02 10:54

Okay, so you've got three younger siblings trying to navigate like the I mean CPS. It's not exactly the easiest.

SPEAKER_05 11:01

And I'm trying to figure out how I can put my foot down and say, like, no, she's not going to have to move out. And I'm like, on what ground? I'm like, I don't pay the bills. I have three other kids that are here, all young. I'm like, what am I supposed to do? You know, I'm just like, I'm just gonna have to let this happen, then go pray and go try to talk to the count somebody about it. And I'm like, I don't know what what to do. She wasn't even allowed to have a bank account.

SPEAKER_02 11:28

It sounds like a really kind of helpless situation on your end. Yeah. What was it like for you on good days in the house? And what was that in contrast to the bad days? And then same for you when you're like, I've got it together for this streak, and then maybe it starts slipping away.

SPEAKER_03 11:48

There was never a full good day. Ever. It and and if if it started to be a good day, you were scared because something was gonna happen. Somebody's going to do something, somebody's gonna get hit, somebody's gonna get grounded, somebody's gonna get yelled at, somebody's gonna get sent to their room. And then if you get too comfortable and you think it's gonna be a good day, then you're going to incriminate yourself somehow. Like, oh, we're just jamming with dad with music, and because he was always, you cannot listen to um secular music, you cannot watch secular TV, no secular books. Like, I got grounded for bringing Captain Underpants home. We weren't allowed to watch SpongeBob, like stuff like that. Um, and he'd be like taking me out to have a good time, and everything would be fine. And he would let me play my music of choice and play whatever you want, you know, and and then I would play it and we'd be jamming and having a good time, and I would have he I would be singing all the words. And so then he's like, hmm. How do you know these words? How do you know these words? So you've been, you know, disobeying and and so then it just is a vicious cycle. And um that's a manipulation cycle. Yeah. Dinner time was absolutely terrible to this day. I do not eat dinner at my dinner table.

SPEAKER_05 13:06

Why just for looks? All I wanted was to have 15 minutes a day with everybody sitting down and nobody fighting and nobody having trouble. And I literally would ask my husband, please, please do not fight with the kids. Just sit here, be at the head, eat your dinner first, be served first, let them see that you're the man of the house, and let's just try to have a good time. Because I spent two hours making dinner every night and every time. Food would go thrown over here.

SPEAKER_03 13:40

You say one thing, you can't just do anything. I mean, it was like he would just pick at us until somebody said something that he didn't like, and then you'd wear your food. Like, and it would happen in the morning, like before school. We would be sitting down for breakfast, getting ready to go get on a bus, and somebody would do something, or he'd say something, or I would scoff or something, and we would be wearing our cereal, and then he'd be like, Go take a shower, you're not going to school, you're doing chores all day. And like the car that we drove, the top of the car was like every color you could imagine. Because when we'd be driving, he'd be yelling, and he it was her getting soda thrown on her, us kids getting caprice done squirted on us, or if he couldn't reach us with something, he was gonna throw food at us, or whatever he could reach.

SPEAKER_02 14:30

How are you navigating a mom dealing with addiction and an abusive stepfather in the house? It was really bad. Like, how did you like mentally cope with that? Or even if you're like, I didn't see this as coping, but this is what I did to get through those days.

SPEAKER_03 14:48

Gosh, I don't even know. I I I wrote songs. My brother and I would, we loved music, and he was very good at the drums, and I liked to sing. And that was one really fun thing that I liked to do. We lived in this house that had one of those old-fashioned bathtubs. Oh, like the cloth one? Yes. Yeah, neat. And the bathroom had such good like echo. Yeah. And I we would write songs together, you know, deep, dark songs. And we would go sit in the bathroom and I'd sit on the toilet and he'd sit inside the bathtub and he would drum and I would sing these songs, and we would create music out of it. And I loved doing that. But other than that, I mean, the way I coped was school. Yeah. I think the one biggest thing that he could do to hurt me was to make me stay home. And um we weren't allowed to have alarm clocks, we weren't allowed to have cell phones, we weren't allowed to have any means of being woke up.

SPEAKER_02 15:51

It's very much happening to you in that moment when you're a kid and looking. And all I could do is be mad. Finding answers. It's like the why. You're like, why? You're just doing these things to me and it's horrible, and you're a horrible person. I'm just angry. Yeah as a as an adult and as a mother now. What are your views on what happened?

SPEAKER_03 16:08

Here's here's the thing. I I know my mom loved her kids. Like, that's not the question. I have an amazing husband. And I think that that's the the biggest difference for me and the way that things work for my for me because I still have terrible mental health and terrible anxiety, and I have so much trauma. But like my kids are everything to me. So I would just never, I don't care what it would take. Like, I just don't. I would just I would never ever let anybody hurt them. I think that in the moments my mom was so brainwashed. She met my stepdad when I was three months old. She didn't even want to have me because of the situation. I mean, she got knocked up by a dude that was already in a relationship. And so he knocks her up with me, and then he dips and goes back to his other woman. So then she's alone to have me. And then she has my my grandma, you know, that's so that's where we all live with was my grandma. And um, so she's depressed. She finds this this dude when I'm three months old, and he's just this knight in shiny armor, right? Snit her off her feet. They're very um highfalutin, they're very high class and you know, pinky out and don't have a southern draw.

SPEAKER_02 17:35

Feels amazing at the time when it happens because you're like, I'm saved. Yeah, I'm saved. This is how I can get out of this. This is someone to help.

SPEAKER_03 17:42

His mom at the at the beginning was like, She's white trash. You need to get away from her. Do not have a kid with her. And so she wanted to prove it wrong. She wanted to show that that wasn't the case and that she could be what he needed and fulfill his needs and desires and give him a family and prove her wrong.

SPEAKER_02 18:01

That you could somehow be deserving of it. Yeah. No one deserved that.

SPEAKER_03 18:07

As time went on, I think that my mom was so slowly put into such a position that with no resources, no friends, no contacts, she couldn't send a text message without it ringing to his phone. We weren't allowed to have Wi-Fi passwords. I mean, she didn't have a bank account, she didn't have a credit card, she didn't have anything. She doesn't have a credit score. Like she, she just, I think that she was so scared of him too. And so I don't know. I I was really mad at her for a really long time. And I still am. I just still have some animosity that I'm trying to work through. But I see things so differently now as an adult because I'm like, wow, what would I have done in that situation? I don't know. I don't know. There were nights that me and my brother would cry and just beg my mom to please just take us anywhere that we would live in a car. We didn't care. We would, we would go anywhere with her just to please get us out of this house. Like, please. So it was very, it's very hard to understand, even as an adult, why she wouldn't have done that. But at the same time, she also wasn't thinking clearly.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:16

You know, it got really bad near the end where she was locking herself in the bathroom all day long and leaving us kids out. And I was trying to cover for her because I didn't want them to be fighting and then him taking it out on us. And yeah, it was really, it was really bad. But I think that we were all in survival mode. Like I think we really were all in survival mode. I just felt so lost and I had nobody because I had no family, I had no friends. I had to go to school and you know, put on this fake show because I couldn't let anybody know I couldn't let anybody know what was going on because then I ran the risk of getting pulled out of school, which was my only safe place.

SPEAKER_02 20:05

You're like, I can control this environment to an extent, and I know what this is like. This is familiar, but if somebody takes us out of this, what then?

SPEAKER_03 20:13

So I wound up actually becoming very close with the counselors at the school. Um, in Nixa, um, a gentleman, Ty Heinrichs, he will always have a piece of my heart. I think he uh made it to like he I was self-harming in that time, and I had told him about it. And he was just, man, he was he got me through, I think. And um and then whenever I moved to Ozark, I was having such bad panic attacks. And um they were to the point where I would just I I couldn't move, I couldn't breathe, I I couldn't function. So I was spending a lot of the time in the nurse's office, just laying there, having panic attacks. And so I got really close with my nurse too. And she actually was the one who convinced me because I I was so set on I'm not taking medicine, I'm not taking anything, I'm going to stay as far away from that as possible because everybody in my family has been addicted to something or on a daily medicine. And so I had a really bad outlook on it. You know, my stepdad growing up, he's always like, the Bible can fix you, the Bible could can, you know, solve any problems. Any problems you have, give it to God. You don't need to rely on man, this and that. Like that was what was pounded into our brains. My nurse wound up having a big talk with me, and I told her about what my doctor wanted to put me on, which was Zoloft. I was like, what, 14? And um, my nurse sat me down and was like, I just wanted to tell you. She was like, Um, I I've I recently went through something really traumatic, and I got put on that. And she goes, and it doesn't have to be forever. She was like, but You're going through a lot right now. And if it's just something to help you in this time, it's not anything to be ashamed of. And um, I just want to let you know that that medicine specifically, I was on and I've been on, and it's helped me tremendously, this and that. And so I went ahead and went with it and it wound up literally saving my life.

SPEAKER_02 22:17

That's so huge of her to say that. And I'm so happy that she took the opportunity to open up and be like, I've done it. It's okay. Yeah. Because you would never go up to somebody in a cancer ward and be like, God has a different plan for you. You should get off that medication. Like there's something in your body that is not right. You need to just deal with it. No more. Exactly. These things are there to save our lives, honestly.

SPEAKER_03 22:38

But I'm still on it. Yeah, good for you. Good for you.

SPEAKER_02 22:41

And I don't know what I would do without it. Yeah, honestly. And it's okay. It's okay if she said you don't have to be on it forever and you're on it forever. That's okay. That is how you are able to get through the days. And that's great. And I'm happy that you're on it.

SPEAKER_03 22:54

Yeah. Man, it was tough though. I I basically relied on people. There, there, a lot of the people that I went to high school with, like um the principals and the nurses and the counselors and stuff, they knew what I went through. Um, so they would always go easy on me. They'd pull me out of class and check on me. And I finally found a really good group that I just relay relied on. Um, there was this one woman. Okay, so I had a computer class, and the gentleman who ran the computer class had a friend who was a counselor. Well, I wanted counseling so bad at this point. Okay. I was like, please, just I need help.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:31

So I reached out to my real dad because I didn't have health insurance.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

Oh, to see if he did.

SPEAKER_03 23:36

And I was like, please, I need a counselor. Like, I need somebody to talk to, I need help to get through this. And they told me no. They said that they don't believe in counseling and that if I need somebody to talk to, that their phones are available.

SPEAKER_01 23:49

She's like, I'm calling you now, you're not much help.

SPEAKER_03 23:52

Literally, I'm like, kidding me. Wow. So I don't even know how we got to it, but the computer guy had a good friend and he she was a counselor, and I mean, oh my gosh, the most amazing woman. And every single time I would come to his class, he would let me skip the class and go sit with her in another room. And he just let me have an A. And I would just get my therapy sessions from her, and like she made a huge difference. Like I love her so much. She came and nothing against you. Okay. But like you didn't come when my first daughter was born, and Julia did. And she made this beautiful picture of my daughter's name and what it means, and it's still hanging on my daughter's wall. So that was a really hard time to, you know. But I found people throughout it that that did get me through. They did. They did help.

SPEAKER_02 24:56

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SPEAKER_03 25:21

My boyfriend's mom was also a big rock for me, which it's it's a messed up dynamic. I was a kid living with my boyfriend and looking back, like I would never let my kid live with her boyfriend. But the situation's very different. Yeah. And she was a rock for me. I don't know what I would have done without her. I would bet everything that I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for her taking me in and giving me some sort of I had never had stability my whole life. I didn't know what stability looked like. I didn't know what a functional family looked like or love. I didn't know what love looked like. And so I was able to get that through that family. And I think that was a big pivoting point to put me in in a better direction. Because all my other siblings I won't speak on it, but they didn't get they didn't get that. And they're suffering from it. You know, you take my box.

SPEAKER_02 26:14

Damn it. So you had mentioned before that you had been like, I just don't come. It's not good for you to be here, and it is best for you to be there. What is happening at that time where you just think it's best for her to be somewhere else?

SPEAKER_05 26:28

I just I didn't want her to ever wonder if she was loved or if she had anybody that cared about her. I did not want you to know that I was I was totally had nowhere for you to go. And I couldn't come get you. I was by myself and um living on the streets. I mean, I didn't have anything.

SPEAKER_00 26:50

You were unhoused at that time. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 26:52

And I didn't have anywhere to go. I knew if she saw me like that, I knew that she would be okay once I got on my feet and got on top of my game. I knew that she would be okay and better. But as long as I was struggling like I was, I knew that it would just break her down and make her have a horrible time.

SPEAKER_00 27:11

What substances were you struggling with?

SPEAKER_05 27:14

Um, just um meth is what I was doing.

SPEAKER_02 27:17

Shannon, your rock bottom was really public and really painful. Can you tell us about that and why at that time, why didn't sobriety feel like it it could stick?

SPEAKER_05 27:31

Pretty much everybody knew about it. And um I really just didn't care because I had my daughter in my life. So I I was kind of like, I knew that I was never gonna touch anything again because I would lose her. And I knew that she wasn't messing around, you know. She's like, this is your one chance, and that's it. And I knew that that was it too. So I was like, there is no way I'm gonna mess up now.

SPEAKER_02 27:56

When your mom finally said she was ready to get sober, what's going through your head? What's the first thing you felt? And was it like hope or fear?

SPEAKER_03 28:05

Um, let me give you a little backstory a little bit. So we've been through this time and time again, my mom and I, of her almost getting clean and then going back. My hopes had been up multiple times in the past, and it never worked. This time with my grandma, I went against my husband and I brought my grandma into my house and let her live on my couch to sober up. And it was really not a good decision of mine. I shouldn't have done that. She did detox at your house. She detoxed at my house. It was traumatic. It's rough on everybody. It was bad on my everybody. And it was terrible. My kids were terrified of her. Um, anyways, we made it through that, got her home place, you know. So I go to take my mom, McDonald's, to her house to check on her, like I do all the time. When I got there, she wasn't there. And that's not like her because my mom doesn't leave her house. She's she's terrified to leave her house. So I'm like, well, that's really weird. Um, I knock on the door, somebody answers, and they're like, Yeah, your mom was taken by ambulance um three or four days ago.

SPEAKER_07 29:13

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 29:13

And I'm like trying to figure out where she's at. They said that they didn't know who where she was at. So I'm calling all the hospitals, going to all the hospitals. They have no record of her. And um, then finally I reach out to somebody and they're like, Well, we're not really obliged, like, we can't really tell you anything about her. She doesn't have anybody on her paperwork, so we can't tell you anything. Luckily, I I've just got so happened to found the right person, and they were like, they transferred her to a psych unit in Arkansas. And I was like, holy cow. Is this a different state than you guys are living in? Yes. Yeah. Yes, a different state. So she did four days at the hospital, and then they transferred her to Arkansas for a 72-hour mandatory hold in the psych unit. After the 72-hour hold was up, they still didn't want to let her go. So they went in for another 72-hour hold, and they were actually trying to mandate rehab, and the judge denied it. This is all going on as we're packing for our family vacation from a break to because we needed a break from all the stuff that had happened from my grandma.

SPEAKER_02 30:17

You're like, I was just trying to drop off McDonald's.

SPEAKER_03 30:19

Literally. So we're packing, and I'm talking to the lady that is in charge of my mom's hold and stuff. And I'm like, I have to leave in the morning. Like, and it's a three and a half hour drive to get her. Three and a half hours there, three and a half hours back. I'm like, I'm leaving in the morning for vacation. My mom has no teeth. Her hair is orange. And I told my husband she's coming on vacation with us. I'm gonna go pick her up. It's in the middle of the night. By the time she gets the kids wake up and stuff, I'll have her looking presentable as I possibly can. We went and bought a boxed hair dye. I dyed her hair dark brown, got rid of all the orange, got her new clothes, new shoes. Couldn't do anything about the teeth yet. But um he was like, he was about to leave me at home. He's like, No, we're not doing that. You're crazy. We're gonna go take her to Florida and she's gonna be a freaking mess detoxing in front of the kids. You already did it to them once. Like, I'm like, this is it. And I looked at him and I go, I promise you, this is my last chance. This is the last time I'm gonna do this to you. This is the last time I'm gonna do this to this family. If she doesn't stick with it this time, I promise I will wash my hands because it wasn't worth it to put us through that, right? So I told him, I was like, I promise, let let me just do this one last time. If she comes back home and runs right back to that situation, then I will wash my hands. I promise. So we talked him into it and I hit the road and went and picked her up. And um, yeah, she she did really good. She we had to go to the emergency room one time while we were in Florida, and they gave her some Atavan, calmed her down, and she did it, she did awesome. She she didn't really have much withdrawal. I think she had gone through the majority of the while she was there because she had she had like eight days or nine days of sobriety or of not using before she came to me. So the majority of the ugliness had been done with good for you. And then the beach. I'm like telling, I'm telling my husband, I'm like, the beach heals me. Like, I go to the beach twice, three times a year because it it's mandatory for my mental health. So I'm like, my mom has been to the beach one time in her entire life. Oh, she needs some grounding. I'm like, she needs that ocean, she needs the sand between her toes. It will heal her. And so we just got her out there. Got she got sunburnt for the first time in like 12 years. Haven't left the house. That'll happen real quick. And um, it was good. And then we came home and she was like, this is it. And I was like, okay, this is it. And so we went from there. And I mean, I honestly didn't get hopeful for a little while. I was very reserved.

SPEAKER_00 32:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:56

I was terrified that I was gonna actually have to wash my hands of my mom. And like that was gonna absolutely kill me because I had already mourned her multiple times and I had already been through so much. And like I would let her run me through the mud before I had kids. And then after I had kids, I definitely changed a little bit and put my foot down more and wouldn't allow that to affect me so much. Because you have a safe space with them, and like you've created yes, you've created them so bad. I want them to have everything I didn't have and not have everything I did have. And I want so bad them to know her. Yeah, you know, like I want that so bad, but not to the point where I would allow them to be hurt like I was hurt, you know? So I I think I I started getting hopeful when she hit her year mark. Like once she hit once she hit her year mark, I'm like, okay, because I'm a Google guru. Okay. I'm like, what are the chances here of my mom lasting? Like, what are the chances with this substance for this duration and with this baggage? Like, what am I like? What's realistic for me to be hopeful for?

SPEAKER_00 34:04

You didn't want to get your hopes up and be disappointed.

SPEAKER_03 34:07

Yeah. But now, like, I could confidently say that if it was offered to her, she wouldn't touch it.

SPEAKER_02 34:14

Girl, that's awesome. What was that experience like on the other end for you? Like, so yeah, you end up in the psych ward for a few days and then detoxing, and then your daughter comes and swoops you up. She's like, All right, we're gonna dye your hair, we're gonna get you cleaned up. I'm taking you to Florida. It's like 2 a.m. We're leaving it like 6 a.m. Oh my gosh, what's going through your head? I'm like, Were you believing in yourself at that moment? No, no, no, no, not at all.

SPEAKER_05 34:42

I was just like, okay, take whatever gets me out of the psyche.

SPEAKER_02 34:48

When did it switch from I just wanted to get out to I'll I'm willing to take this a minute at a time to get through this?

SPEAKER_05 34:54

Well, every day. Yeah. You know, and then the next day we were like busy doing stuff, and I was like, this is kind of easy and fun, and I like this and this.

SPEAKER_02 35:06

I'm present. I'm not like worrying about this stuff in the back of my mind that disconnects me from my family. I was just like, there's voids being filled, and I was less letting them happen. That's amazing. Yeah. So how long were you guys in Florida?

SPEAKER_03 35:19

Eight days. We stayed an extra day just because eight or nine days we were we had our scheduled thing, but then it was going so well that we added an additional day or two at another place because we didn't want to leave. I wanted to keep her far away for as long as possible.

SPEAKER_02 35:34

I had kind of created this like beautiful little like dream. So let's just stay here. I mean, you can though. Sometimes people are like, I just need to get this person away and it'll be good.

SPEAKER_03 35:43

And it's like drugs are everywhere. She was like, I she's like, I have so much energy, I need to go to the gym. So she started going to the gym there at the resort. And so we're like, is she going to the gym to try to find substances? Or is she just like energy to get out? Yeah. Yeah. Miss So she was just like on the tricycle thingy in the gym, just going hands. Your body sweating. Yeah, just like I gotta go to the gym home. She's like, I cannot hold still. She could not hold still. She was, I mean, she was walking back and forth. There would have been a hole burnt in that floor.

SPEAKER_02 36:17

Well, it's because for how long you have like a substance that's the thing that's like giving you all of your like dopamine hits. And then when you don't have that anymore, your body's just like, ah, misplaced, like what am I doing to this? Like that, that, yeah. And you have to find somewhere to put it. And if you find somewhere like productive to put it in the very beginning, oh, that's so great. I'm so glad you got to do that. Um, what is something that you think people get wrong or misunderstand or don't get about loving somebody that has an addiction?

SPEAKER_03 36:48

Um, I actually didn't get that until after mom got sober. And it's and it's a big deal because for so many years I told myself my mom doesn't love me enough. For so many years, I wasn't enough for my mom. But it's so much bigger than that. And they are fighting so many battles. They don't do it out of spite for somebody else, I promise. Um, they are doing it for reasons that probably somebody would never even know or understand. The biggest thing that I could say that I believe for so long is that my mom didn't love me, and that's why she chose to continue doing the drugs. And that's just not the case. Um, the other thing is you cannot force somebody to get sober as bad as I wanted to. I threatened things. I I tried buying her. I I told you, I told her, Mom, I'll pay you a thousand dollars a month. Just come live on my couch. I will cater to you and wait on you hand in foot. I you don't have to work. Like, I will do whatever I need to do. Um, even whenever I lived with my my boyfriend, his parents would go back and forth with her saying, Hey, we can put you up in a hotel. Like we tried everything. And it's just the the truth is they have to be ready. Yeah. And it's gonna be at the most unexpected time. I when I started my TikTok account, I had zero anticipation of her getting clean. Uh that wasn't my goal. My goal was to try to help me because I was at my wit's end.

SPEAKER_02 38:16

To feel helpless and the only thing I know how to do now is to just reach out to online and see who else can connect with me that way.

SPEAKER_03 38:23

I felt so alone and so angry, and I was just hoping to find a community um or show from a different perspective what it does when you decide to go down that path. When you decide to pick it up for the first time, and when you decide to choose it, it is going to have wrath. And and it affects the loved your loved ones more than they can understand because they're numb to it, right? The other thing is like our entire family fell apart, right? I lost everything I ever knew. And I went through all of that hurting so terribly and alone.

SPEAKER_01 39:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:02

And so I had a lot of animosity because my mom didn't want to feel it. I was like, she just she doesn't want to feel her mistakes. She made all these mistakes and she doesn't want to feel it. It's just, it's so much deeper. And I've just done so much diving and digging, and she's continuing to heal every single day. I mean, I I went 10 years without having a conversation, like a a normal conversation with my mom. It was, it was the most toxic thing you'd ever seen. Like we, it was so bad. And so now, even now, I'll like have something going on with myself and I'll I'll be like, oh my gosh, I can talk to my mom about that. And even that is still not there yet. Because I'm just like, it doesn't feel natural to try to go to my mom for anything because she hasn't been there for so long. And it's always been me taking care of her. And it is still me taking care of her. But at the same time, she, I get something back. Yeah. For what trust is being built out of the way. I'm getting something back out of it now. But yeah, so I I don't know if I answered that correctly, but it's just, you know, for somebody who loves an addict, I will say that a lot of people have boundaries that I never was able to obtain. And I commend them for that because their mental health is probably a whole lot better than mine. But for me, my kids was what made me put boundaries. I didn't and never did it for myself.

SPEAKER_07 40:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:28

So I don't know if if that hurt me or helped me in the long run.

SPEAKER_07 40:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:32

While helping your mom and grandma, you're also kind of healing yourself though. It's true. Yeah. That's true. Um, how did your own recovery shape in as you're supporting them?

SPEAKER_03 40:42

I don't know. I'm still really, really in the works of my recovery. Yeah. Yeah. I'm still still really in the works of it. Um I think that it stays so busy that I don't have time to worry about that kind of thing. I don't know if that makes sense, but like definitely with my grandma, like it was always, there was just always something I had to do, some place I had to take her. Some like I had I've always I've got so much to do all the time. So I mean, I I take my medicine every day, and that's that's all I can really say. I'm just I I I haven't recovered yet myself. Like it's a journey.

SPEAKER_02 41:20

It's I don't think there's like a like a yellow thing. We all like sprint through and we're like, you're recovered, it's all done. And it's just like a lifeline thing. But yeah, it's something you just progress. You feel like I I kind of got it now. And then two months from now, you're like, it's just kind of a new door we're opening, or I have to figure out how to heal this part. Exactly. But it sounds like a really great part was honestly knowing that you were loved. You were loved this whole time. Yeah. It's just hard for people that also struggled with being loved.

SPEAKER_03 41:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:52

To yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:53

Yeah, that's a big one. Big one. I always abandonment issues. God knows so bad.

SPEAKER_07 41:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:59

And just never feeling like I was ever first pick. I grew up a stepchild of three other kids that were blood related and I was the black sheep. There were lots of reasons that I felt unloved and you know, fifth choice. But I do know without a shadow of a doubt, you know, now especially that she did love me. She just had it was just a lot. It was just a lot. Um, my yeah, my my recovery is definitely. I I recover in the summer. Yeah. When it's I kind of don't get me started on don't recover at all. I kind of take five steps backwards in the winter time. Yeah. This cold and the sun going down early.

SPEAKER_02 42:40

Do you recognize that with yourself though? Because I had to reach out to my doctor and be like, hey, so I know I get seasonal depression and now I have to Oh yeah. Like I get upped on my goal off. When it comes to your recovery, like it's great being in Florida and kind of getting this like bubble picturesque, like first few weeks and being taken out of the situation to kind of like de-stress from it. But that's been a while now. Like, how what does your day-to-day look like where you like are able to maintain your sobriety?

SPEAKER_05 43:08

Just every day I I slowly started doing something to start getting some income. Yeah. Because I knew I couldn't just get somebody to pay everything for me forever. But the opportunity came up for me to make jewelry. And so um we started making jewelry and it started providing a little bit of income for me. But then I'm like, I really want a job, job, job, you know. And I'm like, really got scared and I was like, I don't know if I can do people thing. I don't know if I can talk that well, and and I'm really bad about picking out friends, and I want to pick out the same kind of friends, and yeah, it's a lot to worry about. Yeah. So I started trying to learn each day a little bit of something about how to have a good relationship.

SPEAKER_02 43:51

Do you ever come across days that are more stressful than the others?

SPEAKER_05 43:54

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 43:55

Yeah. I think they I just wake up that way and just know it from the day From the second I wake up that it's gonna be a bad one, you know. I just literally cry like from the time I wake up to the time I go to bed, you know. Regardless, I have to I have to work or I'm gonna lose my house and I'm not gonna put any more stress on on my daughter than what it has to be, you know, and I'm gonna make her proud of me, you know, and I'm gonna be a really good person in our society.

SPEAKER_02 44:26

I love that because when people struggle with anxiety, it's not easy, but it's kind of like the go-to route to be like, I don't want to, I'm not going to, I don't have to leave the house. And we'll just wait till everything kind of crumbles around and someone has to pull me out of this space. But you're like addressing things head on now. I have to go to work because I have to pay for this and I have to have this life. I'm not going to because I want to have a relationship with my daughter and my family, and I want to show up for them. It's like it's not even an option for you anymore. And I love that and I commend you for it. I'm really proud of you.

SPEAKER_03 45:00

There's been like two or three times where she's like, I'm gonna call in, I'm gonna call in, I can't do it. No, she doesn't do it. She gets up and she goes anyways.

SPEAKER_02 45:08

Oh, that's beautiful. And now that you're on the other side of recovery, what does like the day-to-day look like for you guys and separately and together?

SPEAKER_03 45:18

Just keeping yourself busy, really right now. And just, you know, coming into the winter time and stuff for me, it's like just don't stay stagnant. Yeah. Um, I am just, I'm trying to, you know, really maximize our social media. Yep. You know, I'm always telling everybody if I ever become a millionaire and my mom isn't working, like we're gonna do something else. We're gonna create our own business. I want to give into the community so bad somehow.

SPEAKER_02 45:42

This is though, I hope you realize that sharing these stories, this is giving back to people because it lets people feel less alone. It encourages people to look for help. It encourages people. It's like, I didn't know, I didn't know if I had the courage to talk to my mom about it. I didn't know if I had the courage to talk to my dad. I'm not sure if you're not dead like that.

SPEAKER_03 45:59

And that does help. I just I we want to make an impact so bad. That's all we want to do. Like, we want to help people, and that is our mission, period. I don't know how we how we're gonna end up doing that, but somehow we're going to. Recovery for me right now is just trying to get to know her. Yeah, too. Like, I've not had a relationship with my mom ever that was a real relationship, mother, daughter. And even now it's like kind of like best friends more than mother and daughter. And I kind of take care of you a lot, but yeah, we're getting to know each other.

SPEAKER_02 46:31

Yeah, having conversations outside of addiction and like how I can do this for you. And oh my gosh, you're so frustrating. It's like getting really getting to know each other.

SPEAKER_03 46:38

I'm like, mom, please come stay the night with me because I miss you. And we never got to do that kind of stuff, you know. And I'm like, please don't leave. And then I love cooking for dinner and I love cooking for her. And on top of that, you know, she really lost herself to the addiction when she was like young 30s. Like she really tanked then, right? I'm 27. I am dealing with such bad mental health problems and such severe anxiety. So I'm actually using her to try to learn how to cope and maneuver through these things that she wishes she would have done differently. Yeah. You know, in in that time frame because I'm dealing with things and I'm like, mom, is this normal? What do I do about this? And she was like, honey, I went through it. Like, you're gonna be okay, I promise. Like, and it means a lot more coming from her that's been through the exact same thing, telling me, Hey, you're gonna be okay. Like, you you're gonna get through this than some random person that's never been through it, and they're just like, You'll be fine. Yeah, you're fine. It's just in your head. It's not validating. Yeah, yeah. So that's been super nice. And yeah, just just learning her, um, getting to see her come over and my kids run and jump and scream and and they're so excited to see her. Can you come play with us? Can you come play with us? Like, I never thought that was gonna happen. Yeah, I that's that's healing something in me that I didn't even know, you know, and then communication. We we we're both bad communicators, truly, um, when it comes to ourselves. So we're learning how to do that. And sometimes it's not so pretty. But at the end of the day, we both have made it very clear that we love each other so much and that we want this to continue to grow and flourish and we forgive each other. And like I said, we've never really had these conversations with each other because it's hard for us to be so vulnerable and open. Yeah. Um, because we're just ball bags and we just cry. Just a bag of water. But you know, yeah. So that's kind of what micro recovery looks like. What's your your what's your recovery look like right now?

SPEAKER_05 48:42

I think it's just that recovery because it does last every day. Right. And it's almost like the Bible because you know, you open up the Bible and you can find something in there that speaks to you. Usually, that's why it's the living word. Because you can pick it up anytime and just find something in there and it feels like it is talking to you and sometimes even to your situation. But in recovery, I'm learning too that listening to other people's stories that they're they're sometimes inspiring me. Yeah, you know, and I was just like wow, I needed to hear that, you know. There are days that I try not to go back to my past and think about it, but I do realize know that there's gonna be times that I'm going to have to. So I at least try to be prepared for it, you know. Like this being the first time that we've actually been able to talk about it. Um, I was pretty scared. But I think recovery looks like good to me. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 49:46

Even if it's messy and cry at times and like sad and different every single day, it's still beautiful. Like look at where you two are at now compared to 20 years ago. It's honestly it's beautiful and incredible hearing where you are at and your recovery journeys now and where you are at today is so different and so, so incredibly opposite of where you were in the beginning of this story. And now you're able to communicate with each other and lean on each other. You're able to look to each other for help in your daily lives and like really, really lean on each other. Um, so what would you say to a family who feels like they're losing hope because you've already lived that moment?

SPEAKER_03 50:29

I would just say to know that they love you. Like, don't ever feel like they don't love you. Like hold on to the fact that they do love you and it's not anything to do with you, and it's not out of spite for you, and don't lose yourself by trying to save somebody else. And I I I am thankful I didn't because it worked out, but it doesn't always work out.

SPEAKER_01 50:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:51

You know, people have to have their boundaries, and it's a really hard place to be. Just just know that it's not because of you, it's not your fault. Right. Don't ever feel guilty for it because I felt guilty a long time. And ultimately there was nothing that I could have done at all. Yeah. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:11

And for you, what is something that you would like to give hope to people that are like, I don't know if I can do this, I don't know if I can go a day without using, I don't know if I can make it back into my family's lives. What would you tell them to give them hope?

SPEAKER_05 51:25

That I'm living proofs that there is a way to. I don't want somebody to get lost in this terrible thing where they think that nobody cares about them, you know, and they feel like their family's just being mean to them because they want them to quit doing drugs, you know. Because that's really not the way it is. That's just the way you're looking at it because you're doing drugs.

SPEAKER_02 51:46

Thank you both so much for coming here and being so open and vulnerable about your story and your recovery. I'm so happy that we got to share this story with people. I'm very good, good, and thank you. Yes, good. I'm I'm really grateful for this conversation. And I'm grateful for you all watching. Thank you so much, and we'll see you next time.