Healing, Hope, and Transformation: Life After Meth Addiction

I got to Teen Challenge well Jessica I'm excited to meet you and thank you so much for being willing to jump on the rebuilding life after addiction podcast and as we were talking offline a little bit Our Hope with this entire show is to just share the story the story of overcoming but really get a real look at the work that goes in right to rebuilding on rebuilding life after addiction and for those of us who have been through residential programs and done the rehab thing and all of that like I think for Rob and I Rob is my co-host he's not on tonight but for him and I talking about it's like man when we finally got on the other side of that recovery program it was like boom life smacks you in the face and so the Hope here is just to provide some encouragement and stuff along the way and so you want to take a moment and introduce yourself and we'll just roll from there like you said my name is Jessica I am the program director for Saving Grace women's home I've been here for three years in Texas I come from Teen challenge in California I went through the program myself in 2014 and so and I stayed with them for six years before coming on to with saving grace wow fantastic so 2014 what part of California in the Bay Area okay awesome well fantastic so you did s you were at Teen Challenge serving for six years prior to coming to direct the program at project hope yes for Saving Grace that's fantastic so you've been around the ministry for a while yes yeah good stuff so tell us a little bit about your journey right to all of that like this is a podcast about addiction and did you go through Teen Challenge prior to becoming a staff member there yes I did no I was just gonna say so what led you to Teen Challenge all those years ago I obviously had a drug addiction I struggled with meth since I was 13 years old my addiction was for 15 years ended up going to prison and when I went to prison I had told myself that I didn't want to live that way anymore that I was going to do everything that I could to try to change my life from the guys that I dated to the things the neighborhoods that I kicked it in or whatever and so I took advantage of everything prison had to offer classes College whatever I can do there to better myself and so when I got out I was living in a halfway house and met my husband well met my now husband and so and that was in back in 2009 and so I met my husband and it's funny because I told one of my friends in prison that when I got out that I was gonna meet a white guy and marry a white guy and she was like you're crazy and of course I met my husband and he's a white guy and we were doing really well I got my daughter back we were we worked we had an apartment he like taught me how to pay bills be responsible grocery shop I never knew any of those things I knew how to take care of myself but not to the extent of having our own place and knowing how to take care of our own home and so got my daughter back we were doing really well for about five years we met we were both in recovery and we ended up relapsing and so in our relapse we obviously lost our home we we had just gotten a house lost it we had lost our cars we almost lost our marriage we both parted ways during the relapse and I did my own thing and he was doing his own thing and then I lost my grandma and then so in 2014 September 2014 I lost my grandma and and during this time I was living in Arizona and so my family called me and said your grandma's funeral's coming up they knew something was wrong because my husband was blasting it all over Facebook and calling my family and telling them that I that I was on drugs and all that stuff and of course they were asking me and at that time I was lying and so when I lost my grandma I finally got honest with them because I was going to go to the funeral and they definitely would have known that something was wrong when I showed up and so I went to the funeral and flew back to California to go to the funeral and my aunt my family only bought me a one-way ticket and so I flew out for the funeral and I literally got there like on a Sunday it was Monday was the Wake Tuesday was the funeral and then Wednesday my family literally sat me down and was like look you need help and either we you can get the help and we'll support you along the way or we can put you back on a plane back to Arizona and we're just done and so of course I chose to get help and at that time me and my husband were still trying to decide if we wanted to get a divorce what we were going to do and I just remember telling him well I have to go to a program that's the F the options my family have given me have gave me and I'm choosing to go to a program and so I said I'm gon to find a program and if by the time I'm done with it if you haven't helped yourself then we just can't be together so was he still active in addiction during this period had he relaps okay and so so I told him that we had to do something either we were going to make it work or we weren't and and so he actually suggested Teen Challenge he said why don't you see if there's a Teen Challenge where you're at because I'm already back in California and he's still in Arizona and so I looked it up and found a Teen Challenge in about an hour from my dad's house and my aunt actually made the call for me and got everything set up for me to go and then once I did my interview with them they said hey we have a family center here if your husband wants to come through the program with you and I remember telling my aunt that and my aunt was just like look we're just trying to get you right now if he wants to get help he'll go get the help but I ended up telling him and said look if this is what you want to do we have a family center we can go to and be together and and so I checked in and then five days later my husband showed up wow yeah that's incredible so I'm I'm curious you mentioned like the addiction prior to prison right prior to jail and then getting out and really doing well for a while like so prior to jail like all these years later have unpacked what led to your use initially like dealing with the meth you said meth addiction and and so is it just part of the environment or was there anything that sprung spurred that on in your life way back when well I grew up with deaf parents and so life to me was already different than everybody else's and so but to me my life was good growing up my dad struggled with addiction my whole life and I had no clue my I just remember my mom always being the nurturing mother the mother that always went to school events sport events she did everything with me and my brothers and and so I went to the same school from kindergarten to sixth grade I think things started to change for me when I started to go into junior high because a lot of my friends from kindergarten to sixth grade started to move away so I had to find a new set of friends and I already felt odd I was the short fat kid that nobody really wanted to hang out with so I had my little set of friends and so when going into seventh grade it was hard and so I met new friends and with those friends I started smoking weed a little and drinking and then my parents decided to split up after 19 years of marriage and when that happened that just unraveled everything I was 13 years old my mom left my dad after 19 years and got with the 16-year-old boy and they were together for almost seven years and when my mom moved us away with him he introduced me to meth and it was the summer of seventh grade going into the eighth grade and then from that point on that first time I tried it was a wrap after that yeah especially at that age that's so that's about I started in eighth grade as well when I did math back in my life and man it was one time and some sometimes I think sometimes the younger folks when you say that to them they think you're messing with them it's like I promise I am not hyping this it literally was the first hit like yeah so then the jail period in jail right you started to put some of the pieces back in place but so when did you meet Jesus on this journey right was it prior to jail did you have an on get off again relationship with God or did that not happen till te challenge I remember Jesus when I used to go to church with my grandma I still and my parents used to send me to aana when I was little but don't I still don't think then I really made a connection I was really young and aana was just a place I would go and repeat the same Bible scripture every week and get me a little prize for saying a scripture I don't think I really understood it but once I got out of prison and met my husband he started taking me to church and that's and then that's when I started to realize like who God was who Jesus was I still at that point though did not know about having a relationship with him until I got to Teen Challenge yeah and so that would be that part where you guys you knew about Jesus you were hanging doing the church thing and what led up to the relapse right for you guys you said that things were seem to be going well life was moving in the right direction you're married and things are working and then this relapse and things start to unravel for you guys do you remember what led up to that yeah just a small compromise thinking you can have a drink just on the weekends or just it started with my husband at first with him smoking weed and then the crowd of people that we started to hang out with started to shift a little bit and also the place that I worked at for almost five years we worked right next to a bar and that's where a lot of people that I worked with would hang out at and so of course wanting to fit in that's where I hung out with them and so it started with drinking occasionally and then it just progressed from there so the little foxes really do spoil the vine right like and so that started to fall apart and you ended up in this family center and so tell us a little bit about your encounter like the pivotal moment you said you made that distinction there between knowing about Jesus and entering into a relationship with him and so what was different for you like you guys end up at TC and how did you uncover that the value and the benefit of that relationship with Christ the curriculum and the things that we learned there and the different type of churches we went to out there because when I was going to church with my husband it was a Southern Baptist Church so it was definitely what I was exposed to at Teen Challenge was definitely extremely different than a Baptist Church a lot of the churches we went to we know were AG churches or Pentecostal churches and so I was exposed to a lot of different things going through Teen Challenge and and was taught differently and so then also a lot of the curriculum and the having the Bible reading and all the stuff that we had to do at the program also opened my eyes to saying oh okay well this is this goes deeper than just knowing him that he is here for me and that I am Chosen and I am loved and it went deeper than that and so I started to go on that journey of knowing who I am and yeah that's so good I you just hear a lot I just find it interesting Hearing in your story and correct me if I'm wrong but like there was just this like almost refining process that the Lord was taking this journey he was taking you on as he was discipling you and you hear some people talk about these re Divine moments revelatory moments where it's just like Paul getting knocked Saul getting knocked off the horse if you will and what I'm hearing from you is it's like there it wasn't necessarily the I've been knocked off the horse moment but it was really God taking you in his hands and just starting to refine you and lead you into relationship is that a fair assessment yes for sure my grandmother prayed for me my whole entire life and so when I look back at my life and where I've come from or where I've been and the things that I've been through to where I am now I definitely understand that was the hand of God on me the whole entire time because there was many moments I should have died or been killed or could have been killed or seriously injured and and I wasn't and so when I look back and there's lots of things too with my children that I didn't understand that I understand now that I didn't see then I was like I need to make my case I need to prove my point I'm their mother not them and so I felt like I had to fight these things but even though I didn't know what was going at the time going on at the time God did yeah so can I ask you about your kids how many kids do you guys have and in part of this journey do you mind bringing us in a little bit were the children around during some of this I have two children not with my husband they're both from before I met him I don't have any kids with my husband but my daughter I had at 21 my addiction was I guess I shouldn't say my addiction was my addiction did mean more to me at that time than caring for her so my mother took her and raised her and then I had a son while I was in County Jail the it was funny though because I had went to jail literally four days prior and the judge let me out because I was pregnant and I was crying and I was like please I can't have my baby here four days later got arrested again had to go in and the judge was like I'm not letting you out this time it looks like you're having your baby here and I'll never forget that moment of going to the hospital have this child being Shackled by the ankle to the bed and having the officer sitting outside of a glass window watching and and then coming out of I had a cesarian so coming out of recovery and asking to see my child and I was told no so I never got to see my baby and so and then that's a whole another story in itself with what happened with my son it's just a family agreed to take him until I got out of jail she only brought him to see me one time but every week they were faithful of putting money on my books we talked we agreed that when I got out we were gonna she said I can stay with her temporarily until I can figure it out figure life out and what would I was going to do and so the day before the week I was about to get out I had called her and said hey I thought you were supposed to bring the baby today and she said oh he's sick and so we can't come and then she said how about Thursday and I said well I get out Thursday and she said oh so soon and that took me back because you knew like we've talked about this and the day I got out their number was disconnected and that started a whole another journey of searching and looking and finally finding them when he was six years old wow so how were do you have both your children now no the family that has my son I allowed them to adopt him that was a whole another Journey when I found them at six years old we went started visitation he has Down syndrome he had trami 9q where he was born with an extra chromosome so I not that I didn't want to take care of him but this family uprooted their whole entire life to care for him and they loved him so much and to ask me if they can adopt him how was I gonna deny them that and so they have him he's 17 and my daughter lives downtown Houston with her boyfriend she's 21 I got her back when she was seven wow yeah that's amazing yeah and then so she's 21 lives that's not far from you guys right you're in Texas right yeah that is that's phenomenal and so tell us the journey to serve in Ministry like you went through this process at at the family center and ended up staying on staff for Teen Challenge for six years you mentioned and now project hope for three years so how did the Lord call you to Ministry out of all of this on you I would love to hear that because yeah I see this SM I think there's a great story coming with this most people would think you're insane but as or think I'm insane as soon as I heard about an internship with Teen Challenge I was literally probably not even 30 days in and I was like oh I'm doing an internship and everybody was like yeah right I was I remember telling my husband because he was at the Men's Center and I was like I'm gonna stay and do an internship and he's like whoa let's slow down let's do this year and then let's figure it out and I just I was just adamant when my year was done I was going to stay and do an internship and I did we stayed and did an internship we stayed and then I did my staff internship and then I became staff and I did that for a while my husband decided to leave at some point in our program I think we were like three or four years in my husband was like I'm done with Ministry I think it's time to get back to real life and at that point was a it was hard for me too because it's like do I follow my husband because he's the head of the household and he if he says or feels that it's time to go do we go and let me pack up myself my daughter and everybody and we leave or do I stay and just keep doing what I'm doing and I decided to stay and he left for about 8 months relapsed on heroin never done heroin a day in his life and so he ended up coming back eight months later and doing a restoration but during that time he was gone I used to try to hit him below the belt every single time and just make it so miserable for him because he left and then one day all of a sudden God was like stop you need to stop and I just said what God I'm sorry I Surrender him I Surrender this marriage if we were meant to be together you'll bring him back and if you don't then I'm going to be okay because there was a point in time where I would say that I wouldn't be able to live without him I wouldn't know what to do without my husband and in that time that he was gone God showed me like yes you can live you're still breathing right now and he's gone and so I learned a lot about myself at that time because God was showing me that I didn't give you a husband to put up here I gave you a husband to be next to you and for you guys to be together and do things side by side I'm I'm supposed to be the one that's up here and so he taught me a lot in that Mo in those eight months that I am strong I am capable these were things that I knew but it was just like a reassurance you are able to do these things with me you can do anything just hearing you say that and jumping back to you talking about your story seventh and eighth grade searching for that identity right and that being the journey that began the addiction all these years later through everything you walk through God giving you that revelation of identity while you're on staff at Teen Challenge and I'm sure there had been some addressing of it prior because you do that at TC but to get that like man that is that's that's profound is there anything more you've got to speak to that am I way off base here like no you it's good you're absolutely right because during my addiction in my younger years I for so for that 15 years I was like a chameleon I adapted to the situation or I changed who I was to be who I thought you wanted me to be or I changed myself to be who I needed to be to get what I needed and to care for myself to make sure I had a place to stay drugs whatever the case may be I made sure I was able to adapt to every situation so I was just out there never being me and so during that time I was just like man it I was just in tears all the time during that time my husband left because God's just so good like you said we did learn these things I did work through some stuff in Teen Challenge I had a counselor I worked through stuff but there were still just pieces that I felt like were missing and in that moment I feel like God showed me and filled those pieces not to say I don't still struggle today with insecurities or whatever the case may be but it's still just a powerful moment that I remember that knowing that God you are real and I know who I am now yeah that's so good I was talking to somebody about this the other day and I'll never forget when I met my now wife when we were first dating and she says that she didn't say it exactly like this but this was the context and she almost set to the point where like we were trying to figure out this whole dating I'm post Team this whole dating I'm post Teen Challenge at this point she's a bible school graduate never touch drugs I'm former methodic and I remember her saying something to the effect of like I don't need you to complete me and like I'm a whole person like a 100% And like I got offended at first like I'm picking Jerry uire you complete me in our conversations and she's like no we're bringing our whole selves to this marriage 100% of who we are and and God begin to really work with me on that end just interesting that to hear that point about marriage of like just the illustration you gave it's that Mutual submission to one another that side by side versus yeah it's so good it's so powerful I think too for when he had to come back and do restoration that was a pivotal moment for him because I think when we went through the program together we were constantly worried about each other and trying to fix each other and carry each other's burdens and do all this and that so and then also had my daughter with us our daughter and just and worrying about her and her needs and the things that she went through and what she's seen and what she experienced during this relapse and just in her life in general not being with me not being raised by me and all this other stuff and so that moment that he had to come back and do a restoration it was a moment for him to figure out who he was as well so now he's walking through the restoration part by himself I kept my distance to let him do his thing and so that he can work through the issues that he's been needing to work on but was so focused on me that he never did and so that was a really changing point for him as well yeah that's that part of like Galatians 61 where Paul talks about right like if any of you is caught in sin you who are spiritual restore one another gently and I think sometimes like we go past that you who are spiritual right like restore and so there's the condentation there of maturity and growth and from a place of maturity we're restoring other people gently and so early on in this recovery thing and I sure you've seen it over all these years's a Teen Challenge it's like we want to run out and fix and rescue everybody else and it's like no there's a season for that but let's get spiritual first then we can go work on restoring other people yeah it's so good so SE the season of life that you're in now you are moved on from TC in California you're now program directing project hope Saving Grace is the women's branch and I've talked to Jeff several times man he's been out to our Center back in the day Pastor Jeff is awesome so how did you end up in Texas directing a women's program now well before leaving TC I went to college and got my bachelor's and business management congrats that's awesome yeah thank you and did a few other things and then the director that was directing the TC that when I was there ended up leaving and moving him and his family moved on and they went to TC in Ohio for a little bit and then they came on as directors of the project hope in Arkansas and so they were needing someone for Texas and they asked him if he knew anybody that would be qualified for the position and he suggested me and so of course I took the interview and did what I needed to do and then my husband and daughter were ready to go to Texas before I was but it was funny because prior to this being asked my husband and I were like okay we're never going to be able to buy a house in California it's so expensive and so we were thinking of places to relocate eventually one day and so he had said Colorado because that's where he's from and I'm like I don't really want to deal with snow and so we kept going back and forth with different things and I said why don't we go to Texas and he's like really and so he's like I've been looking at houses in Texas and they look reasonable and so I was like all right and we just left it there we never we didn't pursue anything we just left it alone and literally like a week or two later I was called and asked if I wanted this position in Texas that's awesome that's fantastic so working your role as program director what does that look like in the scope of a project Saving Grace I do a lot of administrative work making sure schedules are running smoothly I put to the schedules together I do a lot of things I do a lot of their shopping for the house grocery shopping Supply shopping scheduling pop log which is just keeping how many students we have and making sure those that's sent out every week I send out random emails I do a lot of things I work with the women I love the women I get I hang out with them all the time and so what's your drive in doing it right obvious we've heard your story but like is there just something like a reoccurring theme or if you had like a personal vision statement in regards to doing this work because recovery Ministry work is not easy right it's not the easiest to do but sorry you're ready to answer you so go ahead that is I absolutely love to serve you will find me at events you will find me jumping in any time at hand is needed I love to serve so I love to serve these women I like to give them hope that if my marriage can be restored if my child can be given back to me if I can go through college at 30 almost 40 30 something almost 40 years old and get a degree my husband and I and may just bought our first house and so it's like if I can do it and if God did it for me he can do it for you and so i' love to be able to give these women encouragement I want them to see that it is possible that they are not too far gone that they can't be chosen loved brought back restored redeemed because I've been through a lot too and I'm I'm here I'm still here that's so good how has that contributed to your freedom this time around the difference of serving the internship and doing doing the ministry route rather than going back out and trying to figure life out outside of have you noticed the difference between this season and that season and how that's helped yes obviously Ministry can be very overwhelming you stay very busy 247 and I just feel like being here this overwhelming busyness and continuing to stay busy feels a lot different than being busy not in Ministry I was very frustrated at times just felt overwhelmed there was days I wanted to give up not that I don't have those days now but those days for some reason just feel a whole lot different because I feel like my walk with God now is a whole lot different than when I was out in the world or the real world trying to make it because then I was only going I wasn't plugged in I was not plugged in so before it was just church on Sunday and that's what we did now I stay plugged in with life groups obviously Church different I do different things now and so that's how I feel my walk is different now compared to before yeah there's that dichotomy and I wrote a mini blog many Facebook most of my Facebook posts are like mini blogs I don't write a few words why I don't have Twitter but the difference the dichotomy between being poured out and burnt out right and that mindset you talk I'm connected to the source consistently so there's always a flow and that's what I'm hearing you describing like I don't mind being busy I don't mind running because I've got an endless Source flowing through me through Jesus and like so I am pouring myself out B versus running at my wits in and feeling burnt out all the time yeah so Jessica let me let me ask you a question as we come to an end and if you could go back to that season of life and so I have behind me the light that's my Lego DeLorean from the Back to the Future one of my favorite movie trilogies of all times but if you could hop in a DeLorean and go back to the past to the season of life where you're facing down you've just gone through this like this relaps you're facing down Teen Challenge you got all these insurmountable odds in front of marriage kids everything facing you down and you could give Jessica just one piece of advice having the experience you have now giving Jessica that advice back then do what that would be all these years later don't do drugs no that's good I don't think so no not I'm not asking if you would change anything so if you could give yourself one piece of it there's nothing you could sell her nope because that one piece of advice could change the whole entire route that I was on if I that one piece of advice could have led to a change and I could have went a totally completely different route and so like my aunt says sometimes like she wish she would have helped me she knew what I was in she knew that I was in a mess and wish she would have helped me back then and I told her first of all I probably wouldn't have wanted your help I was young and I was living life I to me that I was having a good time and so I probably and I told her I said for once I probably wouldn't have took your help and two if I would have allowed you to do that I wouldn't be who I am and where I am today yeah and so any piece of advice I could have gave myself back then could have changed my whole course of life and I wouldn't be and it could have been better I could be a millionaire living in some big house on a hill who knows but that's that's not the life I want I absolutely love the life that I have right now and I don't regret anything that I've gone through has bad things happened yes have I done bad things yes but I still wouldn't change it for anything because it brought me to where I am today it brought me into a relationship with God it brought me into a Ministry that I love working at and serving at I wouldn't change that or say anything different yeah that's good yeah no I appreciate that answer I like to ask that question cuz sometimes it gives perspective and I appreciate the way you answered that because it always you're hearing those differences and you're trying to look back and see like man what would I've told me being mature being where I'm at now and hearing your response like no it was painful but I'm confident in where I am now like this has been God's Journey and God's path that's such a powerful response so Jessica if somebody is U looking for help and there's a female that is reaching out and looking for help how can they connect with you guys at saving grace to yeah to be able to get some help they can find us on Facebook it's called Grace I think it's Grace home let me look that up just to make sure I'm sorry no it's all good we'll put the link in the description box below I think we've updated the page Saving Grace dtex is our Facebook and then you can always go to our website too I think I gave it to you it's the www.savingstar.com process and talk to our intake coordinator and the only thing that really turns someone away which we don't really often is just certain types of medication that we don't accept here but other than that we work with everybody the best that we can to get them in and we have five homes we have five women homes now and three men's men's locations so if we're not a if we don't have an OED in Texas and my there we go open bed in Texas we definitely locate you at one of our other cers that does have an open bed willing to go to a different state yeah project hope we're yeah project hope and saving grace are doing phenomenal work great programs if you need help the comments in the description I'll put both links to both the men's and the Women's Center down in the description well Jessica thanks so much for jumping on I think we're I think we froze up again but that's all right I can edit and clean some of this up at the end but I do appreciate you jumping on and chatting