Keep Comin'
This is a podcast about recovery from substance abuse. Each episode will feature a new person from the recovery community telling their story in an in depth, guided manner. This is intentionally NOT the format and "rules" typically associated with 12 step meetings. You'll hear swearing and talk of drug and alcohol use that is not part of the standard AA or NA meeting format.
Keep Comin'
Episode 7: Heather J.
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Heather grew up in a home where both parents were in AA and her father was abusing her — and still found her way to the rooms of recovery years later, almost a decade sober and still learning she's been wrong in the best ways.
February 2003. That's when my life changed. My name is John Knowles, and this is Keep Coming, a podcast about recovery from substance abuse. In the 12-step room, you get to share your story or you sit and listen. That's the format, and it works. But there's something missing. The conversation. The questions no one gets to ask. This is that conversation. It's great to see you. It's been a while since I've seen you, actually. We used to see each other in person at meetings in Providence back in the day, probably COVID or even pre-COVID.
SPEAKER_03That is true. It's good to see you too.
SPEAKER_02Thanks. And where are you these days?
SPEAKER_03I am in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
SPEAKER_02What took you out of our lives in Providence, at least in person, not virtually? What took you out to Green Bay?
SPEAKER_03There were several life changes happening at the same time. One was I got laid off. Two was the place I was living, they were raising the rent astronomically. And three, I had finally graduated college after a few semesters off. And I started looking for jobs and looking for places to live. And I have always, I had always lived in Rhode Island. And so I was like, you know what? Why don't I like widen the lens a little bit? And I started looking at cost of living and also uh been a huge Green Bay Packers fan for a long time. And so just on a whim, I was like, what's Green Bay like? And I saw that it was very affordable. And so I came out to visit in August of 2024. And I I immediately fell in love. There's so much open space. People are not on top of each other. There's the whole Midwest kindness thing. It was one of those things where I hadn't even been here 24 hours and I said, this is where I'm gonna live.
SPEAKER_02Compared to Providence, how's the recovery community for you?
SPEAKER_03That is a great question that I feel I can't honestly answer without saying that I have not really done a good job about being a part of the recovery community here until recently. I stuck to my online meetings and would go to an in-person meeting here, go to an in-person meeting there, but I did not jump in really with two feet until a few months ago, quite frankly. And now that I am here, I've made really great connections. I've met some incredible women, and it's just it's just really funny to be halfway across the country and in an AA meeting and still hear the same things, the same stories, similar problems, similar issues.
SPEAKER_02Some might hear you say when you've mentioned the meetings out there, you're hearing similar stories, the same types of things and challenges and concerns. And and some might think, what wow, how boring to move halfway across the country and hear the same stories in Wisconsin as you were here in Rhode Island. So what might you say to someone who's, you know, just doesn't know much about recovery and might hear that and be like, ugh, that doesn't sound great. Why do you why is that a good thing for you?
SPEAKER_03It is imperative for me because when I am in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, I feel like I belong. And people think like me, and people have done ridiculous things like I have. And then I go to work with like, you know, quote unquote normal people, and I catch myself having to stop myself saying some very revealing or they would be concerned if I spoke the way at work that I do in meetings. And I get to feel like I am a part of and not alone. I get to feel like that I'm not a complete fuck up, that I haven't just completely ruined everything. I hear people say, you know, I came to AA and I I realized, you know, I wasn't alone. And for me to feel comfortable not feeling alone is paramount because when I first came to AA, I when I heard people say, you never have to be alone again, I'm like, well, I want to be alone. So that is of no comfort to me. But now I feel I feel differently. And there's a real camaraderie and a real, a real connection between people who have gone through similar life events. And it it's not all the same. I have never never been arrested. I've I didn't lose a lot of things as a result of my drinking, physical things and relationship-wise, uh, but I definitely lost my mind. And that is something that a lot of people in the rooms can relate to. And also hearing different stories reminds me that if I pick up a drink again, that's a possibility.
SPEAKER_02You just referenced it twice, but I'm gonna ask it anyway. What is it that you're recovering from?
SPEAKER_03Oh, I am recovering from alcoholism, but I have not picked up a drink since, well, my sobriety date is August 21st, 2016.
SPEAKER_02So you're coming up on 10 years if my big boy math is working correctly.
SPEAKER_03It's one of the reasons why I tried to get really more involved in the local AA scene here, because I feel like I hear time and time again, uh, I had five years and I went back out. I almost had five years and I went back out. I had 10 years and I went back out. I almost had 10 years and I went back out. And I was thinking, I do not want that to be me.
SPEAKER_02Well, yeah, the closest I came to relapse was 12 years sober. And I've been going to meetings and, you know, luckily had a strong recovery program at that point. It can sneak up and get you.
SPEAKER_03It seems like those milestones to just really rock people. And if I'm gonna get rocked, I want to be on solid ground.
SPEAKER_02What was the last week of drinking like for you?
SPEAKER_03So the last week of drinking for me was not how I typically drank. I was in an intensive outpatient program, and it was probably my fourth week in the program that time around. I had been in the outpatient program earlier in the summer. I went in for them to fix my head. I said, I am going crazy, and it's because I have post-traumatic stress disorder. So I need you to help me figure out whatever it is I need to do to not feel this way. I was seeing things, I was hearing things, I was paranoid, I was hiding in my apartment. It was dark, it was really dark. During the intake process, uh, they asked me, Do I drink? And I said, Yes. And for the first time ever, ever, ever, when they asked me how much do you drink? I was honest. I had never been honest to a medical professional about how much I drank. And I told them. And they said, Well, that's a problem. And I said, Nope, it is not. And they said, Well, do you understand that drinking that much can lead to these types of psychiatric symptoms that you're talking about? I said, I no, I have post-traumatic stress disorder. That's what they're from. And like, well, it can make them worse. And I said, Nope, if I don't drink, they are worse. They said, Well, we're gonna we're gonna try to work with you on that. And I said, That's not what I'm here for. And then, as you can imagine, no matter how much work I did on uh the trauma, on developing coping skills and talk therapy and exposure therapy, since I was still drinking, I wasn't really making any progress. So they started working with me on reducing how much I drank, which I know is not a very popular approach, but well, I know for me it worked. And I I know it's because I was a hundred percent convinced that I could never live without drinking. And so I think they were helping to show me that maybe, maybe it is a possibility. And all along the while they're suggesting that I go to AA, and I tell them that they can take their AA and shove it where the sun doesn't shine. My last week of drinking, they had gotten me down to, or I had agreed to, you know, I'll I'll take ownership of it. Um, I wasn't drinking during the week. I had made a promise that I would not drink the night before I went into the program. And the program was from 7 a.m. to 7:30 to 1.30 or 2 o'clock or something like that. So Sunday through Thursday, I did not drink. And it was tough and it was hard. So then Friday and Saturday, I could drink. Uh, so I was allowed, I was quote unquote allowed to drink Friday and Saturday. So I'm an alcoholic. I had to make up for lost time, and the reduction in drinking did not apply on Friday and Saturday in my own mind. Uh, my last week of drinking, I only drank on Friday and Saturday, and I drank a lot.
SPEAKER_02What was your beverage of choice or your class of beverage?
SPEAKER_03Hard liquor was my class of choice, specifically whiskey and more specifically bourbon. I couldn't wait for stuff to kick in. I needed to get buzzed quickly. Also, uh, if I was going out partying, which was not frequent in the end, I was a Rummin diet coat girl. Rum did something to my brain that made me even more uninhibited, uninhibited than alcohol normally did. And I was the standing up on the speaker in the club, like climbing up on people's cars as we're leaving. I mean, now I can't even I can't even imagine. That's not who I am.
SPEAKER_02You were when you were doing the outpatient, a couple questions there. The outpatient was for mental health, not substance use. That you were going there to get your PTSD fixed, not alcohol, correct? Right. When you weren't drinking from Sunday to Thursday, did you have withdrawal symptoms?
SPEAKER_03No, I did not because before I got to that point, they worked with me. So I was drinking about a handle of bourbon every few days. And they had gotten me down to at one point a six-pack of beer and like a half a pint of bourbon, and then a six-pack and no bourbon, which at that point I'm like, what is even the freaking point here? Like just drinking a six-pack a night, that's pointless. But I was agreeing to do what they said because I was actually starting to feel better. You know, not waking up feeling like total crap and having to run to the bathroom and vomit, uh, not having my head split. And but those weren't benefits that really ever occurred to me before cutting down. I probably avoided having to go to Talks by cutting back slowly. And I was also going to a team of medical professionals every day. So they were keeping an eye on me.
SPEAKER_02Let's get into the PTSD. So what is behind that?
SPEAKER_03This also ties into why I absolutely did not want to go to AA. When I was little, a little kid, I remember my parents being sober, going to AA meetings. I remember my mom meeting with sponsees. I remember having babysitters so they could go to meetings. And my father was my biological father, even though he was sober, he was a sick and suffering man. And there was childhood sexual abuse starting at a really young age that continued up until I was 12 years old. It wasn't just that going on in the house, it was just absolute chaos and mayhem, even though my parents were sober, even though they were going to AA. And I lived a double life because I was, you know, told, you can't tell anybody, you can't act like anything's wrong. So on the outside, I was like, everything is fine, and nobody had any idea. But then, you know, at home at night, I was terrified. I was just so scared all the time. What happened was my father decided for some god unknown reason to bring me to his therapist appointment where he had been working with his therapist about it. He got me to go because he promised me that I could get a C D Walkman if I went. And I was like, well, I need a CB Walkman, obviously. Those were a hot commodity, they were pretty new, and I I wanted one, so sure. And I didn't know why we were doing this. And I ended up talking with his therapist, and my side of the story of what was going on was and I and I laugh and joke, but and it's not funny, but I have to laugh at the absurdity of it all. Otherwise, I'll just go insane. I have to laugh at the absurdity of it all. The version I was I told the therapist was a little bit worse than what he had been telling his therapist. No surprise there. Uh, I j I again, I just I don't know what his angle was with this, but then the brilliant therapist called him into the office and said, It's very concerning what she said. You know, he had told her that he was sexually abusing me, but he had done like sexual abuse delight. And and she said, Heather, why don't you tell your father what you just told me and talk about a complete shutdown? Like I couldn't even talk. I was like, uh uh what I can't. And she said, Okay, well, since you said what you said, I have to report this. And she told my father that she was gonna have to tell my mother, and he said, I think it's better if I tell her. Again, what? Why? Uh, because he was a very, very, very mentally ill man. And I don't know if he got some sort of joy out of telling my mother. I don't know. Uh I wasn't there when he told her, but he called her and apparently told her very point blank, straight out, this is what's been going on. This is what I've been doing to Heather. And I told the therapist, and we're both here now, and she's calling DCYF. I'm so lucky, I'm so lucky. My mom a hundred percent believed him and believed me. And she said, I'm going to go get Heather, tell me where she is right now, and you better be gone when I get there. Otherwise, I'm going to fucking kill you. And my mom showed up, and I was like, I'm so sorry. I was just devastated. And she always believed me, she always stood by me. Come to find out. At this point, she had stopped going to meetings. She was, she had hadn't been to a meeting in I don't know how long. She had no network, she had no fellowship. We found out a few years later that that night, once we all got back home and settled down, she picked up a drink again. So that is the nature of the post-traumatic stress disorder, which I didn't know I had until my mid-early to mid-thirties.
SPEAKER_02When you were in that therapy appointment and the therapist heard your version of events and then confronted your father about it, did he call your mother from that appointment?
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_02And told her in front of you? No. So you didn't hear what he told your mother?
SPEAKER_03No. She told me later.
SPEAKER_02Gotcha. And it matched your uh recollection of events, so it wasn't like he he minimized it to your mother. Your mother heard as close to the real story as probably your father was capable of telling.
SPEAKER_03He gave again the the bare roots. You know, he just said, I'm at the therapist's office, Heather's here, we're talking to the therapist because I've been sexually abusing Heather.
SPEAKER_02Aaron Ross Powell That night is one of the single biggest, most impactful nights of your entire life.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yep. Pretty much. Is it fair to say that that was the start of your life getting better, or was it just the beginning of things? Uh because obviously you you went into addiction and alcoholism, or it sounds like it's a good event because it might be the beginning of the end of that, but it's also opening a door into a whole other realization.
SPEAKER_03That is a hundred percent correct. In hindsight, now after doing a lot of work, that night was one of the most freeing and liberating nights of my life. However, my father being who he was, uh really couldn't let that go. And he really was not happy with the fact that he had been kicked out of the house and couldn't see me. She I have a brother, she wouldn't let him see him. He was terrified that we were gonna go to the cops. I don't know why DCYF didn't pursue anything. I I don't understand that I did get interviewed by DCYF, and that was the time where I first first found out that prior to my father marrying my mother, he had been married previously, and I he had three children with that marriage, and I have a half-sister and two half-brothers, and later found out that he had done to his daughter in his first marriage what he had done to me. I I didn't even know they existed. That was kept from me and my brother, and it also set off a whole other chain of events because, like I said, my mom started drinking again that night, and so she was off, but I just assumed it was because of what she had learned, which in a large part, of course, it was. There was just this back and forth of, you know, what are we gonna do? How are we gonna handle this? Obviously, you know, I'm gonna divorce him, but what's gonna happen to the house? What's gonna happen to you kids? It was, it was just it was a whole other level of chaos. He would just randomly show up. Um, he would come into the house when we weren't there. I was still just as afraid as I was when he was there, because at any moment he could be there. Really, the tipping point in that situation was when he had started dating a woman, and my mom had pursued a no restraining order. And so he was not allowed to reside in the same town in which we resided. And so he got an apartment literally like 300 feet past the town line and moved in. And again, I'm like smiling and laughing because of just the absurdity of it all. And he moved into an apartment with a woman about 500 feet over the town line, and then I found out that the woman he was living with, uh, her five-year-old granddaughter was living with her, and I lost it. Um, I was inconsolable, crying, couldn't sleep. I was pacing the floors, and my mom suggested that maybe the only way I would feel better is if I went to the police and told them what had happened. And so I did. And I was in autopilot. Now I know I had just completely dissociated. Uh, my mind was not in my body, and I said what I had to say and pursued legal action, which set off an again another whole chain of chaotic events. He was not happy that I had done that. And there were a lot of violent outbursts in public when push came to shove, and it was. The court date, he ended up pleading no low, which means he doesn't admit that he did it, but he doesn't he doesn't deny that he did it. And he got he got 25 years, 10 served, 15 suspended, and he ended up being out in four years. But those were the best four years of my life up until that point.
SPEAKER_01How old were you when you went to the police? I was 15.
SPEAKER_02What age were you when you had your first drink?
SPEAKER_0316.
SPEAKER_02I sense there's a correlation there. Uh did you seek out alcohol? What did you know about alcohol before your first drink and what it could do?
SPEAKER_03Well, my first impression of alcohol was that it was bad. Contrary to how I lived the rest of my life up until I got sober. I always wanted to be the good kid. And so I followed the rules and I got good grades in school and I listened to my mom and I did what I was supposed to do. So I knew that drinking was bad. You're not supposed to drink until you're 21. So I'm not going to do it. I'm going to get in a lot of trouble. And there was one person in my life who was my biggest advocate, my strongest ally, and that was my grandmother. I seriously could do no wrong in my grandmother's eyes. The perfect example of how much my grandmother loved me is that when I was growing up and still now, my favorite color was green, is green. And my favorite candy is MMs. And before I came up for a visit one time, she bought a gigantic three-pound bag of MMs and separated all the green ones for me. That's how spoiled I was. And I, I, you know what? I don't care. I feel like every kid needs a relative in their life that thinks they can do no wrong and that they're wonderful. And that was my grandmother to me. She passed away when I was 16. And it was at that point that I was like, well, my mom's off the rails. My father's, I think he was in jail at that point. My extended family, they're all crazy too. Like, who am I being good for? So some friends and I got a bottle and I tried it. And the magic that I experienced with that, not even that first drink, that first bottle, but really, you know, the first drink was holy crap, what have I been holding out on? Like this, this is it. This is how I'm gonna survive. This is how I'll get through everything.
SPEAKER_02You got drunk that night? Yes. So there's a lot going on with how you might be able to perceive alcohol with two alcoholic parents. What did you know about alcohol abuse at that point? It sounds like maybe more so than your average bear for a 12-year-old when your father stopped abusing you and your mother relapsed. Did you know your mother relapsed that night, or did you only learn that years and years later?
SPEAKER_03We did not know that she had relapsed. She hit it really well. But what I knew about alcoholism was pretty much nothing because my parents were sober my entire life. And while I knew they went to meetings and my grandparents were sober, and while I knew they all went to meetings and they were alcoholic, I had no idea what that meant.
SPEAKER_02Do you hate your father at this point after age 12 or le Probably not because you're a child, you might have think that that's normal. That's what's supposed to happen. That's what daddy loves me, and this is how he chose it, or whatever that might have been. As time went on, I would imagine you were able to determine that this isn't the right thing for a father to do with their daughter or to their daughter. Was there a crossover period for you where it was sort of like, yeah, fuck you, dad. I I know what's up.
SPEAKER_03I don't remember that exact moment, but there definitely was a shift of being able to also like getting older, like I was able to fight him off better. When I started to learn that this is not what is normal, it wasn't that I hated him. It was that I I took it upon myself that it was my responsibility to protect myself from him. And I it was just always fear of him, always fear. And also, you know, like a true predator, there were perks to not talking like the C.D. Walkman. I think part of the reason that he went to a therapist to talk about whatever and told my mom was because he didn't think he was gonna have the consequences that he did. And I think he wanted to be the one to blow the whistle because I was starting to drop little hints that I know this is wrong and I've got you over a barrel because if you don't give me what I want to stay quiet, I'm gonna blow the whistle. And I didn't say it in those words or those terms. I didn't have the vocabulary to say that. You know, he was very tight with the budget, except for when it came to my brother. He would spend anything and everything on my brother. Meanwhile, I have tennis shoes that are so small my toes are poking out, and my mom asks for money to get me new shoes, and he flips out on her. So I started to leverage that information to get what I needed.
SPEAKER_02So that's a dynamic shift. Was that a a conscious dynamic shift or an innocent kid's using uh just sort of like doing the math and it and it was just sort of like, oh, I I could I I have a little bit of power here, but you didn't even almost know it.
SPEAKER_03No, I didn't know it. I didn't know it. I just knew that I needed to meet my basic needs. And this was obviously something he did not want me to talk about. And if I even made any sort of mention of it, he would flip out. And so at one point I remember saying to my asking my mom for something, and she's like, I don't know if we can get that. Like, I'll have to ask your father for money for that. And I said, Well, then I'll ask him for it. And she told him that I said that, and he was pissed because he realized I had made that connection.
SPEAKER_02Your mother starts drinking that night that your father You were 14 then. Okay. So at 14 that happened. So you're probably savvy enough, maybe. Is your mother's behavior changing? Did you say, like, hey, mom's being weird lately, or was she hiding it really well?
SPEAKER_03Well, she was hiding the actual alcohol really well, but her behavior was way off. But my brother and I thought it was just because, you know, her world had been completely rocked. I can only im I I don't even want to imagine how I would react if I had found out something like that had happened to my child, let alone in my own home by my husband. So I just thought she was going cuckoo mazuku because of what she had learned. I did not know it was also related to alcohol.
SPEAKER_02Your brother older or younger? Younger. How did he hear of what your father did? Was it years later because it was that much younger?
SPEAKER_03He was three years younger than I was, and I was so ashamed and embarrassed about what had happened. I was just filled with guilt, shame, because this was the early 90s, so not a hot topic of discussion. Not that it is now, but it really, really, really wasn't then. And so I begged my mother not to tell him because I was so embarrassed and ashamed. And I thought he would hate me for being the cause of the separation. Finally, when it got to the point where I was going to press charges, my mom said, We have to tell your brother. We have to tell him. Like, there's no way around it. And when I told him, he was mad that I hadn't told him earlier.
SPEAKER_01How old was he when you told him? So if I was fifteen, he was twelve.
SPEAKER_02Twelve-year-old in the midst of puberty and you know lots of other things. And then on top of that, he learns that his sister's experience in life has been very different than what he thought it was. How did he express empathy or anger? What what was his mode of handling this?
SPEAKER_03I'm not really sure, to be quite blunt. He was always the funniest person in the room. So he would he would make jokes and do really funny, funny things to make my mom and I laugh, to make me laugh. I'm not gonna go too much into my brother's story because he is his own person and he he has his own story and it's not mine to tell. But I will say that he had his own troubles when we were children, and they were excused and endorsed by my father, and this situation did not make that any better. It's a family disease. I'm just gonna I'm just gonna leave it at that. He's my brother, and I love him. And I, while we might not have a relationship now, I love him enough to protect his anonymity.
SPEAKER_02So let's jump back to so you got drunk that night. It was amazing. I can relate. The first time I got drunk, it was just like, okay, this is the new me. This is what I do now.
SPEAKER_03I mean, that's that's why we keep chasing that, right? It's because that first drink, that it does it. It's nothing better in the world.
SPEAKER_02When was the next time you got drunk after that?
SPEAKER_03Maybe the next weekend. That became my goal as a teenager every weekend. How do I get booze? Where are we going? Who's getting the booze? How are we getting the booze? Where are we gonna drink the booze? And I started hanging out with people that I had not previously hung out with, and they were they were fun. They were really fun, and I had a lot of good times, and I think that's that's part of the hook for me is that I felt great, I wasn't afraid anymore, and I was having fun. There were definitely consequences I would not come home and my mom would take away the keys for a week. But then I would just sneak out of the house with one of my friends who would pick me up. I made some really poor choices. And while I never got arrested, there were situations in which police were involved.
SPEAKER_02My experience was that I drank and had fun like that for a really long time. But during that time, at age 15, and you know, maybe even that same summer where we binge drank that entire summer, jokingly, amongst us 15-year-olds, we would say, Oh my God, are we alcoholics? But we didn't mean that because we didn't know what that meant really. But we knew we were drinking a lot and we knew that alcoholism was related to drinking. What was your first experience, real experience with uh-oh. If there's an alcoholic behavior or feeling going on, I think I just experienced it.
SPEAKER_03Can I mirror that that question back to you to kind of spark a memory for me?
SPEAKER_02I would say a lot longer than it should have been because I didn't really have consequences. I didn't get DUIs. Yeah. I mean, honestly, if I started drinking at 15, I would say it wasn't until I guess the honest answer would be not until I was sober and doing step work and reflecting back on my behaviors did I realize that alcohol was a problem earlier than actually than I thought it was.
SPEAKER_03There were a few people in my life who mentioned my alcohol drinking. One person was a good friend of mine in high school. I would sometimes, on occasion, become a sloppy drunk that needed attending. And I think she, even though she was out drinking with me, I think she got sick of having to be my caretaker and brought it to my attention one time when I wasn't drinking. She's like, I think you drink too much, and I think you really need to take a look at that. And I'm like, Oh, shut up. I'm like, you drink as much as I do. I think she even said something like it can go down the wrong path. But I was young and dumb, and I was like, not me, I'm smarter than that. And then there was I was dating someone and he brought it to my attention that my drinking bothered him. So I said, Okay, alright. And then I did the only thing I knew how to logically do, which was then because I also smoke pot a lot. So I didn't drink as much, but I smoked more pot. So I switched one for the other. And so I would get high as a kite before I went out with him. So I didn't have to drink so much. But there was always the goal of obtaining some sort of level of semi-consciousness in order to function in society. I did not think I could live without a drink. I knew it was a problem. I was like, there's no way I can live without drinking. There's absolutely no way. You're crazy. And I was also under this delusion that if I could just figure out my mental health issues, then I wouldn't have to drink so much. And they told me that's not how it works. And I was like, I'm gonna show you. I'm the exception to that rule. Just fix what's between my ears, and I won't have to drink that much. And there were times in my early sobriety where I was starting to feel better and I considered drinking again because I said, see, like I'm working on all my issues, so I can probably drink again. And luckily, I had really smart people in my corner who were like, well, maybe it's the mental health help, maybe it's the medication, maybe it's the talk therapy, or maybe it's AA, maybe it's that you haven't picked up a drink in six months. Like, do you really want to take the chance that it's one or the other and not both? Do you really want to go back to how you were feeling?
SPEAKER_02Who was most negatively impacted by your drinking?
SPEAKER_03Easily my good friends and my family. At that point, I I had several nieces and nephews with whom I was very close. Actually, at one point, my nephew said something. He wanted some ice cream, and so I went in the freezer and I was like, oh no, you can't have this ice cream. This is mine. And he's like, Why? Because there's vodka in it. And I was like, what an odd thing for him to say. Why would there be vodka in ice cream? And like it wasn't until later that I was able to make that connection that he knew that there were things he couldn't access because they had booze in them. But that was not obvious to me. I also, during the time that my father, my father had been incarcerated for four years. He was let out early. During that time, I got pregnant, and I simultaneously knew this child had to be, and I had to know him or her. I didn't know at the time. I had to know this child, and that I couldn't be the one to do it. Like I had to get this child out of this situation because this was a bad situation. I was young and dumb, but smart enough to know that. And so shortly after I got pregnant, I started working with an adoption agency to find a family for my child. And I had heard about open adoption. I was more keen on open adoption than a closed adoption. And they're all different level levels of open. And I ended up finding a couple who was really willing to go the open route. And so I not so I got to pick them and meet them, and they got to meet some of my family, and I ended up having just the most beautiful relationship with all of them, and I still have a relationship with them to this day, and that was uh his birthday is in a couple weeks, a week and a half, and he is going to be 27.
SPEAKER_02I can't believe it. So you got pregnant before you got married. Yes. Had the child, I placed him, placed him for adoption. Does he know you're his mother uh today?
SPEAKER_03He knows I'm his birthday. Yep. His mom and dad, whom I chose, they had such an amazing outlook about the whole situation and being honest with him that there were gonna be no surprises, that it wasn't gonna be, you know, on his 18th birthday, oh, you know, that woman that comes to visit every once in a while, that's really your birth mother. They're amazing, amazing human beings. And he has known all along that I'm his birth mother. And in fact, it was really a beautiful moment one time when I went to visit. He grew up in New York City and I was in Rhode Island, so it was only, you know, a few hours away. I went to go visit and we were at the playground. He was probably five or six. As we're walking into the playground, he runs into one of his friends and he's like, you know, hey, so-and-so. This is my mom, and this is my dad, and this is my birth mother, Heather. You want to go on the swings? And then they just like run it. So it was just very normalized for him. I'm very grateful that that's that's how that all worked out so beautifully.
SPEAKER_01Marriage. Marriage. You were married? I was. You're not married now. No.
SPEAKER_03Dating was always very difficult because trust issues with men, always in and out of therapy and work trying to work on myself and getting better as much as I could without putting down the drink or being honest about my drinking. And I had this dual this conflict in my brain that I was not a bad person, that it wasn't my fault, what had happened to me wasn't my fault. And I also knew the overall general consensus on what people thought about women who were girls that these things have happened to, and that if I could get anybody to stay with me, I was really, really lucky because who would take on such a burden? Dating was difficult because I was an alcoholic and I drank alcoholically. And I also had issues that I hadn't yet dealt with, you know, control issues, trust issues, but I found someone who tolerated my drinking and also used other substances, and we could go out and party. And so it wasn't really so much dating as it was I found someone to party with and sleep with for a long time. And we didn't call each other out on any of our BS. And my mom was also of the opinion that I was so lucky to have found someone who wanted to stay with me. So it kind of reinforced that a little bit. We ended up getting, we dated for a few years, moved in together, got married. We hadn't been married very long before the dynamic really started to change, and I started to notice. I don't know which was which, but two people who are abusing substances and have control issues, not the greatest compatibility factor. I don't like being controlled or told what to do. That's a common thing I hear people in the rooms talk about. Uh, go ahead and tell me I can't do something is the easiest way to get me to do something. The the good times were fewer and further between, and the times of uh conflict were getting much, much longer. At one point in our marriage, I started becoming really, really paranoid that he was cheating on me. Uh, at what point was this, you might ask, John? Oh, this was the point where I had found out that my mother was dying of cancer and he and I had moved in with her. And so I'm in my childhood home taking care of my mother who was dying. There's a lot going on between these two ears at that time. Shortly after she passed, I went through one of his old phones and found out that that my suspicions were correct. And this was only a few months after my mom had passed. And so I I confronted him on it and I had every intention of leaving him, but it was just too much at that time. I couldn't do it. I was unemployed. My mom had just passed away. I was the executrix of her state. I was trying to figure that out. My brother is living his own story, and so it took me two more years to finally leave him. When I decided to do so, it was after months and months and months of contemplation. Like, I can't keep living like this. I have to do something. I suggested that we go to therapy. We tried not drinking one night a week, and that was miserable. So finally, one day, I said, I can't do this anymore. And he said, What? Drink? Drinking? Are you talking about drinking? And I said, No, this marriage. I can't do this marriage anymore. That really was it.
SPEAKER_02Did your mother ever get sober again?
SPEAKER_03Yes. Yes, she did. There was a A fateful night in which she had been at a bar drinking and left the bar, went to the liquor store, misjudged where the pocket parking spot started and ended, and ended up crashing into the vending machine outside the liquor store. She panicked, put the car in reverse, and drove home. My brother and his then wife and their two kids were living with my mom at the time. And this is just one of those is it odd or is it god situations where she drove home, all of a sudden my niece says to my sister-in-law, mommy, there are police in the driveway. My sister-in-law looks out the window and sees this going on. My mom had gotten out of the car and passed out in the driveway. And it was like March or April. It was cold. It was rainy. And so, like, if she hadn't crashed into the liquor store, oh, how did they find her? When she crashed into the liquor store, her license plate fell off. And so they just looked up the license plate and came to the house. And there she was, passed out in the driveway and almost hypothermic. So she ended up going into the hospital. This was not the first time I had visited her in the hospital as a result of her drinking. I just said, I'm done. I can't do this anymore. I was like, you're on your own and I'm not bringing you home. And I talked to the nurses and said, like, can you hold her? Like, can you make her go to detox? They're like, we can't. And so the next day, I was actually at her house when a taxi dropped her off. And here I am living the life that I'm living, drinking every night, sitting there telling my mom she has to get help because she's the one with the problem, John, not me. I'm handling my shit. She has lost it. Again, my parents had gone to AA. They met in AA, and she's like, I can't go back to AA. And I said, I understand that, but there's a hundred other things you can do. And so she ended up getting into a similar but different 12-step program. And so she had been sober six or seven years before she passed away.
SPEAKER_02So jumping back to you're outpatient, they're telling you you gotta get sober. Uh, you're saying no, they we they wean you down off the drinking, you finally stopped drinking. How long before your last drink and your first AA meeting?
SPEAKER_03It was about four or five days. So I went on my typical weekend vendor. Then on a Sunday, I wasn't drinking, and I had a complete and utter psychiatric break. And I decided that's it. I can't do this anymore. I can't live with, you know, and I'm not like a big book bumper, but I've earmarked a page in book Alcoholics Anonymous because when one of my first meetings, they were reading from the book, and this this is what got me. He will presently try the old game again where he isn't happy about his sobriety. He cannot picture life without alcohol. Someday he will be be unable to imagine life either with alcohol or without it. Then he will know loneliness such as few do. He will be at the jumping off place. He will wish for the end. And when that was read in a meeting, I was like, oh my God, that is me. Because that's exactly where I was that day. I was like, I cannot do this anymore. I'm gonna take matters into my own hands. I'm done. And I went into the partial hospitalization program the next day. And I said, I'm ready to do something. I don't want to be here anymore. And they said, Okay, what do you want to do? I was like, I need more medication. And the psychiatrist was just wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. And he said, Did you drink this weekend? I said, Of course I drank this weekend. And he said, I cannot ethically prescribe you any medication, knowing you're drinking this much. And I left his office fuming, went to my therapist complaining about the psychiatrist. And she's like, if you're not willing to stop drinking on your own, maybe finally going to AA will help. And I'm like, what is up with these people? Like, it's not gonna work for me. I know what AA is, it's a room of people like my parents. Like, why would I go there? So I I agreed to go to AA just to get them off my back. I'm like, I'll show them that this is not gonna work for me. And so the weekend was approaching, and we were gonna try the first weekend without me drinking. She said, I'd really like to look at some meetings and have you can you promise to at least try two meetings this weekend? So on Friday, I went to my first meeting, and I, you know, hadn't had a drink in four days. I was shaking from head to toe, sweating profusely. I mean, it was August and I didn't have a car, so I was walking and taking the bus everywhere. I went into the meeting and sat down. There were like 20 men and one woman. And I'm like, in 30 seconds, I'm out of here. In 30 seconds, I'm out of here, in 30 seconds, I'm out of here. And then a group of women from a treatment program came in and I was like, Okay, okay. And we went around the room and introduced ourselves, and it was the first time I said, Hi, my name is Heather. I'm an alcoholic. And I said it just because everybody else was saying it. But as soon as I said it, I knew it was true. As soon as the meeting was over, I ran out of there. And I think I shook for about three hours after I got home from fear. Then the next night I went to a meeting, and I don't again like talk about in the rooms, you know, that our higher power will do for us what we can't do for ourselves. I think this is one of those moments. I just turned to the person next to me and said, I'm new and I don't know what I'm doing. And he jumped out of his seat and he's like, Oh, women, you need women. And he just started running around like, hey, this this girl's new. She needs you. Then all of a sudden, I was just surrounded by a group of women. Hi, here are my here's my number. Call me. And one of those women invited me to a women's meeting the next day. She came and picked me up and brought me. And I have not had a drink since.
SPEAKER_02I love the jump to action by the the guy in that meeting, knowing, like, okay, this is I like out of my comfort zone. He's been told probably enough that don't interact with women that are new. It's super cool that that guy just sort of was like, yep, I let me find you some women that can help you out because I am not the one you should be talking to.
SPEAKER_03Exactly. And and it was so reassuring to me that a man in that situation would do the right thing.
SPEAKER_02What is the magic of it for you as we talk about how you stay sober all this time?
SPEAKER_03The magic of it for me is that despite my own beliefs, I'm proven time and time again that I'm wrong in the best ways. I might be a hundred percent convinced that something is true, and then I hear someone share about something, or I read a story or read a piece of the literature, or I have a sponsor in the program, I talk with her. She offers an alternative explanation, and then I try something different, and it works. I don't always want to do the new different thing. Quite frankly, most often I don't want to do the new scary thing. But I have almost 10 years of proof now that when I do the hard, scary thing that I am 100% convinced is not going to work, it usually works, and things usually work out better than I anticipated. That's the magic of it to me, is that I get to be shown a whole different way of doing life, and it's pretty damn awesome, even when it's really, really hard.
SPEAKER_02What haven't we talked about today that you feel like is important for listeners to know?
SPEAKER_03I feel that I would be remiss if I didn't mention the spiritual side of the program that has been really important to me. So when I first came into the program, even though I was no longer practicing a religion, I have always had a sense of a higher power. It was just that at that point in my life, I had no sufficient evidence in my own mind that a power greater than myself believed in me or really wanted what was best for me. And then I started hearing about people other people's spiritual experiences, and that kind of opened my eyes, like, oh, wait a minute. You know, when I was in this situation, this happened, or I felt this, or I had that intuitive thought that I acted on that was really not my own. And I think my higher power has a really good sense of humor, like I do. And so in early sobriety, there were just moments that were so meaningful to me, it solidified that, oh wait, maybe there is something conspiring on my behalf, not against me. I started to accumulate a lot of instances in which things were happening that were, for lack of better terms, just awesome. And I don't mean, you know, winning the lottery or a beautiful new car falling from the sky right in my driveway. I mean things like being at a bus stop and realizing I had forgotten my money at home. And then some teenager shows up next to me and says, Do you need a bus pass? I have an extra one. And I look up and there's like a hawk circling above me. And I'm I just start crying and I'm like, now you're just being a show off firepower. Like, this is like, come on, really. And so maintaining a conscious contact with a power grade and myself has kept me sober through some really challenging and dark times. I practice gratitude regularly, and what a game changer that is for me. Because, yeah, a lot of really shitty things happened to me in my life that were completely out of my control and I had nothing to do with. And some really incredible, wonderful things have happened to me that were completely out of my control and that I had nothing to do with. And for those things, I just say thank you because they're gifts.
SPEAKER_02Heather, you've shared some really personal and powerful and emotional things with us tonight. I want to thank you for your candid answers and trusting me with this personal information. I I really uh enjoyed this conversation tonight.
SPEAKER_03Thank you, John, for the opportunity to share my story as we stay in recovery.