- Alcohol
- Drugs
- Mental Health
Submitted by Wendy Lee Nentwig, Heroes interviewer
When Jennifer first headed to treatment, she felt like the world was crashing in on her. She was a drug addict and an alcoholic who desperately needed help, but that didn’t mean she was happy to be there. Now, looking back on it, she can recognize that it was a great opportunity to gain clarity about who she is and what she has to offer, and it opened up a whole new world for her to help others on their own recovery journeys.
Jennifer’s family was a unique one from the very beginning. They moved around a lot because her sister was a competitive figure skater, which resulted in Jennifer attending 15 different schools while her sister was taken out of school in eighth grade to pursue her sport. And Jennifer didn’t just live in the shadow of her big sister’s talent. She also had a brilliant older brother, which made her feel like there wasn’t a lot left to be great at. While her siblings excelled, Jennifer struggled in school and to find her place as the youngest in a blended family. She cut class and began using drugs. In addiction, Jennifer finally found something at which she could excel, and she pursued it with everything she had. Cocaine was her drug of choice along with alcohol, and she also smoked pot any time she could get it. Soon enough, she totally lost control over the amounts she used and how it affected her. Jennifer’s was a very rapidly progressing disease, and she says she loved the effect of alcohol and drugs.
As a teenager with a drug habit and no source of income, Jennifer’s addiction took her to some very dark places. She resorted to sleeping with predatory men in dangerous places to get drugs. At 18, she knew the drugs and the alcohol were putting the brakes on any progress she might make in life, but Jennifer was so afraid of being found out, of being caught in the many lies she was telling, that she felt trapped. Even with the lying, the money was never there, and she could see the boyfriends getting tired of her and the drug dealers getting fed up with her. The amount of pain she was causing her family was palpable. At one point she had even lied that her sister’s husband raped her, and she was in therapy at her family’s request. “I couldn’t look people in the eye. I would tear up and cry just from the pain of it,” she recalls of that time. “I was getting ready to start prostituting officially to get money for my addiction. I couldn’t snort cocaine anymore because my nose would just pour blood.”
Jennifer went to her therapist and told her something was wrong. The therapist sent her to treatment, but Jennifer’s family was very dysfunctional at that point, and it was her drug dealer boyfriend who dropped her off at the facility, not her parents. Even though she entered treatment voluntarily, she continued lying. “I didn’t want them to see how bad of a person I was,” she explains. “I felt so filthy and dirty.” Still, she stayed in treatment for two years and then went to a recovery unit. Old habits die hard, though, and men continued to be an issue for her. She immediately got into a relationship and got kicked out. Jennifer ended up in a homeless shelter for two months, but the relationship with her sponsor helped. Darlene had a memorable smile and 12 steps that she knew were the answer. It was a rough road, but Jennifer realized she would go to the ends of the earth to have what Darlene had.
Jennifer then became head cook at the Atlanta Union Mission, feeding 90 women. “It was the first thing I ever did right,” she says of that job. Finally, she knew that lying was no longer an option. If she lied, she would use. That’s when her main goal changed from getting around the system to getting better. Being clean felt great, but it was also terrifying. Jennifer had literally grown up in treatment. At 21, she didn’t have a car, so for her first few years she took the bus everywhere and did whatever her sponsor said. It changed her life.
She now recognizes that she has a family history of addiction, depression and suicide. Her siblings both struggled with their own issues, which included alcohol and eating disorders, while Jennifer fought to accept a psychiatrist’s dual diagnosis and admit she was battling depression and anxiety. After several years in recovery, Jennifer’s depression became so bad, though, that she finally acknowledged that she needs medication to manage it.
There have been many twists and turns during Jennifer’s 25 years of sobriety, but she has prevailed and remains in recovery. She’s married today and works as the director of FRN Atlanta, an outpatient facility in Georgia that specializes in co-occurring disorders. She started as a receptionist at a treatment center 22 years ago and worked her way up. When she got clean, Jennifer had the equivalent of a seventh grade education. She had never read a piece of literature. She couldn’t multiply and divide. College wasn’t even an option. In the past, if she tried to do something and couldn’t get it, she’d quit. But she went back to school and refused to give up. “I would study sometimes 60 hours for one test,” she recalls. “There wasn’t one class that was easy.” In the end, it took her around six years to earn her Bachelor’s degree, but she graduated summa cum laude.
Her own story has had a huge impact on the way she does her job today. It has taught her how to be kind and listen and be an advocate for patients. And for those who are where she was when she first sought treatment, she says, “Be patient. It may be hard to understand, but let it unfold and you’ll see what I mean.”