April 9, 2024 • 36 mins
In this episode we delve into the remarkable journey of Mary Beth O'Connor, author of the memoir, "From Junkie to Judge." This candid conversation beautifully captures her transformation from a troubled childhood filled with violence and neglect, to an eventual Federal Judge.
The episode sheds light on pressing issues like mental health, and substance abuse. Explore her personal battles with PTSD, anxiety, and meth addiction, and witness her remarkable resilience as she breaks out from this consuming abyss of negativity to rise as an influential figure in the world of law and education.
Discover the significant role that education and dedicated teachers played in her life, offering the guidance and attention she craved as a solace from her turbulent past and gain some valuable life insights from her candid advice to her younger self.
Hear her spellbinding journey to overcoming adversity and succeeding in making an impactful change in society. Learn about her incredible transition from a meth addict to a Berkeley Law School graduate, shedding light on the transformative power of perseverance and resilience. Follow her journey to becoming a federal administrative law judge and her meaningful contributions to recovery organizations.
Dive deeper into the profound connection between trauma, mental health, and substance abuse, and understand the lifelong consequences of addiction. The episode emphasizes the importance of strong support networks in recovery and offers insights into various recovery pathways that can cater to individual needs.
Get inspired by Mary Beth's commitment to spread awareness and education about substance use and recovery challenges. This episode concludes with a powerful message of hope and resilience, reminding us that with patience and persistence, overcoming obstacles is within our reach.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music.
(00:12):
Welcome to destiny is debatable a podcast and movement that will encourage you
to build your life into the one you want,
here's your host a guy who's great at hearing but terrible at listening john
grimes hey hey and howdy howdy welcome back thanks for tuning in subscribing
(00:33):
and supporting the podcast experience Our guest for this episode is Mary Beth O'Connor.
She's the author of a memoir, From Junkie to Judge.
Which chronicles her time as a child in an abusive life,
basically, for many, many years and how that went into over 20 years of some
(00:55):
pretty serious drug abuse and
what she did to get out of that and to go on and become a federal judge.
Judge and basically her path through that and what recovery was like.
And now she works with recovery organizations to help people that were like her back in those days.
Hey, Mary Beth, thanks for stopping by. Thanks for having me. Looking forward to it.
(01:19):
I can't think of anybody that's more fitting of the term destiny is debatable.
After reading your book, which is called From Junkie to Judge,
Mary Beth, wow, what a story. is probably the best way I know to start.
Yeah, and I try to use the story to be of use at this point, right?
And tell sort of the whole arc of it because the subtitle is One Woman's Triumph
(01:41):
Over Trauma and Addiction.
And part of what I like to sort of make sure people understand is that connection
between trauma and substance use, pain and substance use, attempts to sort of
self-medicate and manage your
emotions to substance use because that was definitely the trigger for me.
Yeah, and after reading your book, as I mentioned, it is pretty amazing.
(02:02):
But before we get too far into that, Mary Beth, I have some wacky kind of get
to know you questions that I am contractually obligated by my audience to ask you.
What is your favorite band or type of music?
My favorite band would be sort of classic rock, although I was a punk girl in
college in the, you know, in the early 80s. So I listen to a variety,
(02:23):
but I must admit I haven't kept up with most of the modern music.
Yeah, well, there should be enough classic stations and things out there to
keep you locked into that kind of stuff, right?
So like 60s, 70s, 80s, what's a general decade there for you?
I'd say 60s, 70s and into the mid 80s, yeah. Okay, cool. Cool.
You're an author, which I assume makes you somewhat of a reader.
(02:45):
Do you have a favorite author or type of book that you like to read?
I read a wide variety of nonfiction, as well as novels and memoir,
of course, because if you're going to write a memoir, you really ought to have read some memoir.
So it's a pretty wide variety. And I try to mix it up. If I read a nonfiction,
next I'll read a novel, you know, so I try to keep a good variety going. going.
(03:08):
Okay. If you could time travel any to any place in time, where would it be?
And what do you think you'd do?
You know, I think it would have been very interesting to be part of the women's
movement in the in the 60s. That would be a place that I would find intellectually stimulating.
I really feel like you have an opportunity to participate in something important.
(03:30):
And finally, what advice would you give your 19-year-old self?
I would try to reassure her that actually the path she's on,
she can break it at any point.
She doesn't have to wait until she's 32, which is what she ultimately did.
But really, I would try to find a way to encourage her to seek the help that
(03:51):
she desperately, desperately needed. Do you think she would listen to you?
No. I don't know that I could have believed it. You know, it was such a deep, dark place.
I don't know that I could have believed it, but it would depend on who it was coming from, I guess.
If I came as a stranger telling her, no, I'm sure she would have looked at me like I was outrageous.
If I was someone in her life, then perhaps.
(04:12):
Okay, well, that's all the hard-hitting questions.
Okay, so let's start with, I guess, your story. And really, the only way I know
how to start it, Mary Beth, is what happened? Like, how did this start?
Yeah, I mean, it really didn't start well, even when I was in the womb.
My mother was an unwed Irish Catholic mother in 1961, which was a really big deal.
(04:34):
And because of that, I actually didn't live with her for the first six months. I was left at a convent.
And then later, I was left for three years with a great-grandmother. my
mother could be violent but mostly she just
wasn't interested in me there was no real you know
motherly bond no real connection and that
created a sort of a sense of being alone knowing
(04:55):
that i was on my own and then when i was nine she married my stepfather who
was very violent with her and physically and sexually violent with me and then
things just sort of escalated downward from there yeah there are some some shocking
details in the book about that but we don't have to get into all those,
but how do you explain your mom?
(05:15):
What was your mom's role in your life as you saw it?
I mean, her role in my life really was more on the periphery.
I did, when I was younger, try to bond and connect with her.
I tried to grab her attention.
I tried to grab her interest, but I was always failing.
And she was really more focused on making sure that my sister sister and I,
(05:37):
you know, looked pretty and dressed nice and that there was this outward appearance,
but she wasn't interested in engaging.
And so after a while, I really sort of gave up on that.
And then later when things got bad with my stepfather, I knew I couldn't turn to her.
Plus he was violent with her and she wasn't stopping it.
And so it was really a feeling of being on my own, but also as the oldest of
(06:01):
the siblings feeling a need to protect the younger ones because my mother wasn't going to do it.
Who did you look to for guidance or who did you look up to if it wasn't your
mom or your stepfather or other people that were close to you?
I mean, the one place I always had was school. I had always done really well in school.
(06:22):
I got a lot of positive attention from teachers, a lot of special attention
that the other students didn't get.
And so I still have very clear memories of my teachers,
especially in grade school, not just, you know, their names,
but what they look like and different, different engagements I had with them,
different times that they picked me out and, and let me do something sort of beyond my grade level.
(06:44):
So school was really my place where I felt seen.
Do you remember the incident or the situation you were in where drugs all of
a sudden were available? No.
Yes, definitely. My first drug was alcohol and it was Boone's Farm Strawberry
Hill Wine, which is a lot of people are familiar with.
(07:06):
I was 12 and my girlfriend stole it from her sister and she rode it over on
her banana seat bicycle.
And we actually drank it out of Flintstones glasses that used to have grape jelly in them.
So that was sort of the level of sophistication that we had. That's great. Yes.
And so what I noticed right away was how much better it made me feel.
(07:28):
It was like I could sort of breathe deeper.
I felt looser and lighter.
And I had a very fun and giggly afternoon with my friend.
And that really captured my attention, that this is a positive experience.
And therefore, I need more of this. And you said you were 12?
I was 12. Yeah. So positive experience in your life or most of your day was
(07:52):
full of negative experiences, I guess.
Right. I mean, it really seemed to get rid of some of the stress that I,
I mean, I was really clenched in a lot of ways, tight all the time.
I lived in a fairly constant state of anxiety because I never knew what was going to happen.
And, and I also knew that what I did and what happened to me,
there wasn't a real connection between those two things. And so I I had little control.
(08:16):
There were a few techniques I developed, things that I, for example,
taught my sister about how to avoid my stepfather, but really,
ultimately, I didn't have any ability to stop the violence.
And so that just was a constant anxiety. And the alcohol lifted that anxiety for the moment.
Kind of set the scene for me here. How does one at 12 start drinking and then,
(08:38):
of course, escalate into some other things in the next couple of years,
kind of without your mom mom and other adults in your life noticing that?
Were they just not paying attention? Did they not care?
How do you explain that? What happened there? Yeah.
I mean, I quickly, I did seek out alcohol and it was pretty readily available at parties.
(09:00):
I even stole alcohol beer from my stepfather, even though it was a risk because
that's how much I wanted it. But weed was readily available.
There were some pills around. And then I did a a lot of acid my sophomore year.
But from the parents, if they noticed, they never said anything.
And I don't know that it was so extreme until I hit meth.
(09:21):
When I was 16, I started using methamphetamine. And at 17, I was shooting up
and I started losing a lot of weight.
I was also really avoiding them, but I looked haggard at times and I wasn't going home a lot.
And they mostly ignored it. And I really think it's because they didn't want
to invest the emotional emotional energy that it would have taken to address the issue.
(09:43):
Yeah, that's pretty wild. At 16, well, for sure, shooting meth is pretty wild.
But I think you might have been gone for a couple days at a time.
Yes, I was frequently gone. As a parent myself, I just, you know, I can't really...
I can't wrap my head around how that would be possible.
What would be going through my mind that would make that acceptable?
(10:07):
And part of it was that my sister and I actually lived in a little apartment over the garage.
And so, you know, sometimes they may not have even known that I was missing.
I didn't show up. They didn't look for me. But you're right.
I mean, it's really telling that I could be gone that often.
And even when I was there, I didn't look well. I really didn't.
(10:28):
There was one summer where my mother, the only time she ever saw me was in a
bathrobe that had three quarter length sleeves because it was a light summer
robe, but it covered up my track marks.
And it was the only thing I could wear that wouldn't capture attention.
Like, why are you wearing those long sleeves in the summer in New Jersey?
So she never saw me for an entire summer except in that robe. And she never noticed.
(10:49):
I wonder in today's time. Now, this was a couple of years ago, Mary Beth.
We don't have to date anybody here, but a few years ago. and this is in New Jersey area, right?
Yeah, Central Jersey. Yeah. So I just wonder if you were, if this happened today.
Like wouldn't CPS be called by somebody or wouldn't somebody at school,
(11:12):
one of your teachers or something, did they ask any questions about any of this?
I mean, for CPS, right?
The police were called a couple of times because of the violence,
but only one time was my stepfather arrested And that's when he really,
there was a life-threatening incident with my mom. He was choking her.
She was really in danger.
The other times that the police came, they would say things along the lines
(11:35):
of, you know, well, go away and cool off.
Today, I'd like to think that things would be, there would be an earlier intervention
and it's more recognize the problems with physical violence against children.
But at the same time, there are children all over America that suffer from abuse
on on a regular basis that are still in the home.
(11:57):
And the other thing is foster care is a separate risk, right?
There are a lot of foster families.
Don't get me wrong. There are many foster families that try to do a good job,
but it's also a risky situation for a lot of foster kids. They don't always
end up in better environments.
Yeah. Do you think if more appropriate or aggressive interaction had occurred,
that your story would have changed? Or do you think this was what was going to happen?
(12:21):
You would have found a way to do this at this point.
If there would have been appropriate intervention in the sense that we were
taken out of the household and put into a healthy living situation,
things could have turned out very differently.
I mean, especially if I would have been given the mental health treatment that
I needed. I really, I found out later that I had PTSD.
(12:43):
I had other sexual assaults later, but just from living in the household.
I suffered with OCD-like tendencies and severe anxiety as a child.
So if the mental health issues could have been addressed and I could have been
in a safe environment, yes, I think the long-term drug addiction could possibly have been avoided.
One of the things that jumped out to me as I was reading, you appear to be gifted
(13:06):
or blessed with an insane amount of intelligence, like book smarts.
You appear to miss half of your semester of school and just go in and pass or
even ace most of your tests or whatever you have to do.
So that's got to be a silver lining for you as far as how you got through it and where you are now.
(13:29):
Yes. I mean, school, as I said, was my special place and it got me out of town.
So when I went to college, I left Central Jersey and came to California.
I ended up graduating from Berkeley.
And so that was a big geographic change. But also, I wasn't living in a violent household anymore.
And at first, I did do better. I used fewer drugs.
(13:50):
I used mostly alcohol, sometimes pills or hallucinogens or cocaine,
but mostly on the weekend, only occasionally did it roll into the week.
But I had a life-threatening kidnapping by three men and raped for six hours.
And I moved in with a violent boyfriend, which is common with abused women to
do. And I just sort of lost my grip.
(14:13):
So on one hand, it got me out of the house and I did better for a while,
but I really hadn't addressed the underlying traumas.
And I fell back into it. And I started using meth again on a regular basis in
my senior year of college, and I didn't get sober until I was 32.
So looking back on the story now, is the 16-year-old meth use,
(14:34):
is that kind of where things really fell apart or really ramped up in the wrong
direction? Or was there a different point?
I mean, I definitely abused all the other drugs and there were bad incidents,
but the meth was the point at which things really escalated.
They got a lot worse and I really sunk into a deeper level of despair and it's
(14:55):
such a hard drug on your body.
For one thing, you don't sleep and that's not good for the brain that it became
a really vicious spiral.
So if that's kind of the start of it, is there a moment in time or an event
that happened, a spark that you said, okay, enough's enough.
We're not going to do this anymore. I got to change this. What was that like?
(15:18):
I mean, for me, it was a process, which I think is the more common path.
But at 32, I was really having physical problems from that very toxic drug that I took for so long.
But also, I was just in sort of emotional despair. spare.
And I felt trapped and hopeless and helpless. And I couldn't hold a job.
And my partner was ready to throw me out. So it was sort of everything in combination
(15:40):
that made me say, you know, well, what if I go to rehab?
And so that's why I went. But it wasn't that I was sure I could get sober or
I really didn't think I could.
My goal was to try to figure out how to use less because I thought that was
the best possible option.
I didn't really believe I could could stop.
But over time, as I saw other people who had succeeded and as I got some time
(16:05):
with drugs out of my system, I started to think, well, maybe I can do it too.
And so let's give it a serious effort. Were you ever homeless?
No, I wasn't. I was lucky. I mean, I was lucky in that way. I had a long-term
partner and I lived in sort of a middle-class neighborhood.
Yeah. You were lucky with an abusive partner. Is that, did I get that right?
No. So my abusive partner, I I was in college and I left him.
(16:30):
I started dating my current husband in my senior year of college,
who was a really good guy.
And I was living with him when I went to rehab. He was the one who was sort
of done with me at that point.
It wasn't done like me. He was just, he couldn't deal with it anymore.
He wanted out. Yeah, I can understand.
So at no point were you homeless, though, during this 16 to 26-year-old time period.
(16:54):
That's right. And you're using a lot of drugs.
So how does that work? You're not homeless. You can't hold a job.
Is that stuff readily available? And is it cheaper than I think it is?
Or are there just lots of other ways to make all that happen?
Well, I was working intermittently. I would have a job. I would hold it for six months to a year.
(17:17):
And then I would get laid off but really fired. And I would collect unemployment.
And you have friends who are dealers. And so you pay the wholesale rate rather
than the retail rate, which keeps you going.
But you're just also part part of that community.
And so drugs, I really don't know anyone who has a drug problem who generally
has problems finding drugs.
(17:38):
They're easy to find in most communities and you over time have your circle
of friends and you each help each other out.
If one of your connections goes
dry, you call a buddy and somebody else will be able to find it. Okay.
What is your relationship with something like caffeine? caffeine?
I drink a little caffeine, but I don't drink that much of it.
(18:01):
And I never use that much as an emotion management tool or as an energy burst.
I tend to be high energy naturally, which is part of why it's interesting that
I was drawn to meth and not the opiates. You'd think that I wanted to be calmed
down, but meth just chemically, for whatever reason, fit me best.
Do you have, just for lack of a better term, an addictive personality or something?
(18:25):
Or is that a myth or that doesn't necessarily fit for you?
Yeah, I mean, it's a myth in one way. So what happens when you get sober is
if you don't deal with the underlying reasons that pushed you into the excessive drug use,
and I say excessive drug use because most people use drugs at moderate levels,
(18:46):
but if you don't deal with the underlying impetus and the underlying pain,
then it is feasible that you might pick up other techniques.
Some people will turn to food or they'll turn to, you know, gambling or something else.
But if you address what's happening internally, if you address your emotional
pain, then that tends to remove the sort of the impulse, the reason to pick
(19:10):
up other unhealthy behaviors.
Okay. So it sounds like your husband was pretty critical in your road to sobriety.
He was a big help. Although I will say when I went into rehab,
he was really, you know, done.
And they have like family therapy sessions in most rehabs. And he came a couple
(19:31):
of times and he was very clear.
He wasn't sure we were going to survive this. He wasn't making any promises.
But when I got out, we did, you know, we did couples counseling.
In addition, I had individual therapy and other things. And I was doing my peer
support meetings for my sobriety. We had to do a lot of work in order to build
a healthy relationship and heal the wounds of the relationship.
(19:54):
Sure, yeah. But just in my opinion, and you can...
Say what you think about this, but I think the buddy system,
at least for me, is always better.
And do you think you would have been able to do it on your own?
The data shows that if people have positive, loving relationships with friends
and family, their odds of success
in achieving abstinence, if that's what they're going for, it is higher.
(20:15):
And certainly I had the advantage of living in a calm home, right?
In a safe home, in a stable home. When I got home from rehab,
I really wasn't ready for full-time work. And so I worked part our time.
And he allowed that as long as I was making positive forward steps.
Not everyone has that calm of a living situation, that stable of a living situation
(20:37):
or the financial option to start slow rebuilding themselves professionally.
Okay. So that's kind of the junkie portion of the title of the book.
Let's talk about more like the judge portion title of the book here.
So as I mentioned, you're insanely or at least appear to be insanely intelligent.
And I'm sure it wasn't easy.
As though it wouldn't be easy for anybody, but you made it through law school.
(21:01):
Did you go to Cal Berkeley? I did. I went to Berkeley Law when I had six and a half years sober.
Yeah. So I mean, that's not shabby, I guess. No, that's right. Top 10 law school.
So how do you find yourself there? And what was that experience like?
I mean, I can't imagine there were other meth users in your group of friends
(21:23):
at law school, or were there? I don't know anyone else who was using meth in
law school, but I didn't talk about my drug history there either.
It was really something I kept to myself.
And I will say one of the advantages of going to law school,
I was 39 when I started. I was six and a half years sober.
So I was actually really ready to be disciplined and do it in a very focused
(21:47):
way. Although it was strange being back in school after so many years,
I was able to sort of just, I treated it as a job.
You know, I started at this time in the morning, I went until this time in the
evening and just approached it in a systemic way.
Did you start law school at Berkeley or did you start somewhere else originally?
So I had gone to Berkeley Law right out of college.
(22:09):
But remember, I started using meth again in January of my senior year.
So by the time I got there in the fall, I was in no shape to do it.
I mean, I couldn't get to class. And when I was there, I couldn't concentrate.
And so I withdrew. I mean, I gave back a top 10 law school because of my meth
addiction. And I knew that was why. And it was agonizing.
Was anybody at the school aware of that at that time and trying to help you?
(22:35):
Or any, was there anybody saying, Hey, what's going on here at the school?
No, no. I mean, I filled out the withdrawal paperwork, but I gave financial
and health reasons or something vague like that, you know? And so I never talked to them about it.
All right. So law school is typically about three years. Is that right?
Right. Were you on the three-year plan or I guess not, were you on the three
(22:55):
or four or five-year plan?
So I went through and I, and I didn't go back because I wasn't,
I wasn't in any shape to go back.
And so when I got sober, it was sort of It's still this great loss that I had
had this in my hands and I had to give it back.
But when I got sober, as I said, I wasn't even ready to hold a full-time job.
So I had to work my way up into full-time employment. And then I worked up into middle management.
(23:20):
And then I started thinking, also, I was getting older. And I thought,
well, either I go to law school sooner or I just admit I'm not going to do it.
And so when I was 39, I went to law school.
And I did apply to Berkeley again, but they didn't take me back at first.
I ended up at UC, University of California, Hastings Law School,
which is a good law school, but it's not as highly ranked as Berkeley.
(23:42):
But I was number three in my class of 400 at Hastings. And so then Berkeley
took me back as a transfer and I graduated from Berkeley Law.
Okay, awesome. So what happens now? Let's get to the...
How do we get to be a judge? You go into, is it corporate law to begin with?
Yes. I worked at a really large law firm in Silicon Valley doing complex litigation and class action work.
(24:04):
And then I went to do class action work for the federal government.
And then when I had 20 years sober, I was appointed a federal administrative
law judge. So what is the role of that?
So in the federal government, ALGs work for a specific agency.
And so I worked for the the Social Security Administration. So I mostly handled disability cases.
(24:26):
Okay. And when you say handling them, what does the attorney do for that?
Are you representing the state or the government, I guess?
So I didn't do that as an attorney. I did that as a judge. Oh,
I'm sorry. I did that as a judge. Yeah. Yeah. So you're hearing disability cases?
Correct. I'm hearing disability cases and issuing decisions about them.
I did other kinds of cases, but that was the bulk of it.
(24:47):
Anything remarkable about that time? I'm sure sure you got lots of crazy stories
that you probably can't tell, but was there a common theme in most of those cases?
Well, I will say that I saw a lot of people that had trauma histories and therefore
mental health conditions.
And I saw a lot of people that had substance use disorders either actively or in their past.
And there was specific law I had to apply, but I certainly understood their
(25:11):
history and where things came from. Yeah.
So how does substance abuse and physical abuse, emotional abuse,
you know, like your upbringing, how closely are those connected?
The odds of someone that has a significant trauma history, especially a longer
term, in other words, not like a one event trauma, but something ongoing.
(25:34):
Today, we would call that complex PTSD.
My odds, because I had that history of developing a substance use disorder,
were three to four times the national average. And you're just much more likely to have that happen.
But also trauma actually can have physical impacts. There is data that shows
that even as you get older, your odds of getting an autoimmune condition are
(25:55):
higher, certain types of cancer.
So having childhood and other traumas, especially ongoing, has a significant
impact on your mental health as well as your physical health.
On your road to sobriety, did you meet other people like you?
I mean, I know you went through some rehabs and things, but outside of the rehab,
were there people that were doing what you were doing that wanted to get out
(26:20):
and get somewhere different?
I mean, did you interact with those people? Was there any kind of support network
just amongst your peers in that regard?
I mean, everyone that gets sober that I know wants to build their life.
And usually that's a multi-pronged attack. people
usually come in with professional ramifications although
not always but a lot of us have to build up from there people often have
(26:42):
debt a lot of times they don't have custody of their
kids anymore but also most of a high percentage of different numbers I've seen
55 to 75 percent have a mental health condition in addition to their substance
use disorder that they need to address and so I saw a lot of people with similar
histories to mine a lot of people facing similar challenges.
(27:02):
And that is one of the advantages of peer support groups like 12 Steps,
which wasn't right for me, but it's good for a lot of people.
But also there are others like Life Ring CycloRecovery or SheRecovers.
When you go to peer support meetings, you meet people who have had your experience,
but you meet some people who are sort of ahead of you in the recovery process.
(27:24):
And that can be reassuring that they are succeeding,
they're finding a way out, But it's also a source of ideas, sort of what techniques
are they using, what strategies are they using, how they approach it,
what can I adopt, what do I think will help me succeed as well.
One of the things you talk about in the book is multiple pathways to recovery.
(27:45):
What, what does that mean to you? And how does that, so like AA or NA or those
types of things, don't they, you don't think they work for everybody?
Well, they don't work for everybody. We know that the data shows that.
And, and the other thing is that other peer support groups like Life Ring and
Smart Recovery and Women for Sovereignty, they work just as well as 12 Steps.
There are studies that show that as well.
(28:06):
So it's really about what's the right fit for the individual.
And, and also you can mix and match them, which is what I do.
So people, you know, know, the different programs have different philosophies.
They have different meeting formats.
The books are different. But Life Ring, for example, on the board for Life Ring,
they focus on self-empowerment, but also the individual nature of the recovery plan.
(28:28):
That my plan and your plan will probably be different because we're different
people and we have different priorities and we have different things we want to work on.
So there are a lot of different approaches, but that's the good news.
And today there's actually Google, which there wasn't when when I got sober in 1994.
So you can look at them all and see which one is most attractive to you,
(28:48):
which looks like it's going to be the best fit.
And as far as the writing of the book goes, what was that like?
What spurred you to want to write about your experience? Did that have anything
to do with the recovery process?
Or was that just, you know, people, you hear this all the time,
you should write a book. You know, people say that all the time.
So you definitely You definitely did. And it's really incredible.
(29:10):
But what prompted the process?
And while you were writing, was there stuff that you left out because this is
too personal or too close to me?
I can't imagine there is. If there is, it must be very close because there's
a lot of things happening in that book.
Yeah. So when I was appointed a judge, it was sort of a natural reflection time.
(29:33):
Like, you know, how the heck did I go from shooting method 17 until 32?
It's not like it was short lived. Right. And then become a judge.
And so I really started thinking about, could my story have value?
You know, is there a way that I could use it to be helpful?
And so one of the things I did, as I mentioned, was read memoir.
And, and what I found was that I didn't see the book I wanted to write.
(29:55):
Like most memoirs, recovery memoirs sort of jump into to the drug addiction,
but they don't show where it came from.
And I really wanted to show what my life experiences, my family,
my history was that made it make sense to me to use drugs at that level.
But also a lot of memoirs at the end, it's sort of like I went to a couple of
(30:17):
meetings and everything was great. And it's like, well, that's not how recovery works.
So my memoir, 30% of it is about my first three years of recovery because I
wanted to show a more realistic example. example, but also about how you might
do it if you're not exclusively a 12-step person.
So I show different techniques. 12-step people can use as well,
(30:37):
but if you want to take a more individual approach, this is one way to do it.
And also I talk about the trauma recovery as being part of my recovery process.
So I didn't see the book that I wanted to write. And so I thought that I would
try to do it and see if my story could be of value.
Yeah, just do it yourself. So something you just said, well,
(30:59):
it's almost like an entrepreneurial spirit there.
You don't see what you want, so you just make it, which is tremendous. Yeah.
As you were talking there, you said using meth from 16 to, I think you said 32.
What does that do to your body with that time? I mean, you mentioned no sleep for lots of years.
Lots of that time and just all the stress and things that you're under normally, that can't help.
(31:21):
That's right. I mean, certainly, you know, I do have, I've had dental work after,
you know, Wazoo as most people are familiar with, they associate that with meth,
but also it's really, a lot of it is the impact on your brain because not only
are you throwing a very, very toxic chemical in, but not sleeping is really bad for your brain.
And so it takes a long time for the the brain to recover fully from a long-term meth addiction.
(31:45):
And I've seen brain scans, like when you're actively using, when you're six
months sober, a year sober, two years sober, it's really not until around two
years sober that the brain starts to look pretty close to the typical brain.
And that's part of the reason why recovery is more, or staying sober is more
challenging in the early days than it is in the later days.
(32:07):
It takes a while for the brain to heal, heal but also
we talk a lot about how substance use
rewires the brain but recovery rewires the
brain too so when you're making positive choices especially
over and over they become sort of a habit and you don't think about but all
those positive decisions and behaviors they they they help your brain heal in
(32:29):
a more positive direction so it can take a while for all of that to happen so
other than talking to people like me on podcasts and things about your book
what is What is life like for you these days?
So I'm on the board for Life, Brain, and Secular Recovery. I'm on the board
for SheRecovers Foundation.
I write opinion pieces. I've been in the Wall Street Journal and the LA Times
and Recovery Today and others. And those are all on my Jumping the Judge website.
(32:53):
And I do a lot of speaking and trainings at conferences.
I train lawyers and judges. They have continuing legal education requirements.
I teach them about substance use and treatment options and things like that.
And I'll do a keynote as a fundraiser for recovery organizations.
So I do a wide variety of things in what I've defined as my space now about
(33:18):
substance use and recovery education,
stigma reduction, and trying to use my story to help people listen to some information
I think it's important to share.
What would your message be to somebody that was like you? I don't know.
We said 19 earlier, but let's say you're a stranger talking to somebody with
all of your recovery things that you've done and all the time you've done.
(33:40):
What would you say to somebody to give them hope or what would the plan be to
get on the road to recovery?
I mean, for the plan, I would have a specific conversation with them to see where they are.
So today we talk about substance use disorder, like all mental health conditions
that you you can have a mild, moderate, or severe case.
And for example, what treatment would be best for you can depend where you fall on that spectrum.
(34:05):
But it's also true that not everyone can access treatment.
America doesn't really offer readily accessible, affordable treatment for everyone.
And so the conversation about what are the realistic options,
what different techniques might be useful, but also to try to use my example as a sign of hope.
I mean, I was 32. to, I used drugs for 20 years. I had a significant child abuse
(34:30):
history, other assault history.
And yet I found my way out, not just to being sober, but to a really happy and
productive life and to try to use
that as a light for them that this dark tunnel, there is a way out of it.
If you're willing to do it and you want to do it, there's a way out.
Yeah, well, there is a little oversimplified there, but yeah,
(34:54):
it's a lot of hard work and people do usually have ups and downs.
I mean, I used three times in my first five months. I didn't have perfect sobriety
from day one. And yet I just have 30 years sober in January.
So, but yes, ultimately I see the two biggest factors or characteristics are
patience and persistence because you really need to keep at it to have,
(35:16):
to have ultimate success.
But the good news is that in their lifetime, 75% of the people with a substance
use disorder will eventually recover.
That's great. Well, congratulations on your recovery and on the book.
It really is tremendous.
I'm going to have a link to it in the show notes. I would encourage anybody
to read it or share it with somebody that you know may need to hear this message.
(35:38):
It is really incredible.
Where's the best place to find the book and find you, Mary Beth?
The book's on Amazon and all the usual sites or bookstores have it or can get
it. My website is junketajudge.com, and I have information there.
And I'm on Twitter at MaryBethO underscore, and I don't argue with people on
Twitter. What I do is I share information.
(35:58):
So I will post there the new studies that come out, articles,
opinion pieces that I think will be helpful for people.
Tremendous. Well, thanks so much for hanging out with us, Mary Beth. Thanks for having me.
Thanks so much for spending your time with the Destiny Debatable Podcast.
Please rate and write a review wherever you subscribe. It really does help us
(36:21):
grow and reach new people.
For more information, visit johnbgrimes.com.
Destiny is Debatable is a Symblom production.
Music.
Music.
(00:12):
Welcome to destiny is debatable a podcast and movement that will encourage you
to build your life into the one you want,
here's your host a guy who's great at hearing but terrible at listening john
grimes hey hey and howdy howdy welcome back thanks for tuning in subscribing
(00:33):
and supporting the podcast experience Our guest for this episode is Mary Beth O'Connor.
She's the author of a memoir, From Junkie to Judge.
Which chronicles her time as a child in an abusive life,
basically, for many, many years and how that went into over 20 years of some
(00:55):
pretty serious drug abuse and
what she did to get out of that and to go on and become a federal judge.
Judge and basically her path through that and what recovery was like.
And now she works with recovery organizations to help people that were like her back in those days.
Hey, Mary Beth, thanks for stopping by. Thanks for having me. Looking forward to it.
(01:19):
I can't think of anybody that's more fitting of the term destiny is debatable.
After reading your book, which is called From Junkie to Judge,
Mary Beth, wow, what a story. is probably the best way I know to start.
Yeah, and I try to use the story to be of use at this point, right?
And tell sort of the whole arc of it because the subtitle is One Woman's Triumph
(01:41):
Over Trauma and Addiction.
And part of what I like to sort of make sure people understand is that connection
between trauma and substance use, pain and substance use, attempts to sort of
self-medicate and manage your
emotions to substance use because that was definitely the trigger for me.
Yeah, and after reading your book, as I mentioned, it is pretty amazing.
(02:02):
But before we get too far into that, Mary Beth, I have some wacky kind of get
to know you questions that I am contractually obligated by my audience to ask you.
What is your favorite band or type of music?
My favorite band would be sort of classic rock, although I was a punk girl in
college in the, you know, in the early 80s. So I listen to a variety,
(02:23):
but I must admit I haven't kept up with most of the modern music.
Yeah, well, there should be enough classic stations and things out there to
keep you locked into that kind of stuff, right?
So like 60s, 70s, 80s, what's a general decade there for you?
I'd say 60s, 70s and into the mid 80s, yeah. Okay, cool. Cool.
You're an author, which I assume makes you somewhat of a reader.
(02:45):
Do you have a favorite author or type of book that you like to read?
I read a wide variety of nonfiction, as well as novels and memoir,
of course, because if you're going to write a memoir, you really ought to have read some memoir.
So it's a pretty wide variety. And I try to mix it up. If I read a nonfiction,
next I'll read a novel, you know, so I try to keep a good variety going. going.
(03:08):
Okay. If you could time travel any to any place in time, where would it be?
And what do you think you'd do?
You know, I think it would have been very interesting to be part of the women's
movement in the in the 60s. That would be a place that I would find intellectually stimulating.
I really feel like you have an opportunity to participate in something important.
(03:30):
And finally, what advice would you give your 19-year-old self?
I would try to reassure her that actually the path she's on,
she can break it at any point.
She doesn't have to wait until she's 32, which is what she ultimately did.
But really, I would try to find a way to encourage her to seek the help that
(03:51):
she desperately, desperately needed. Do you think she would listen to you?
No. I don't know that I could have believed it. You know, it was such a deep, dark place.
I don't know that I could have believed it, but it would depend on who it was coming from, I guess.
If I came as a stranger telling her, no, I'm sure she would have looked at me like I was outrageous.
If I was someone in her life, then perhaps.
(04:12):
Okay, well, that's all the hard-hitting questions.
Okay, so let's start with, I guess, your story. And really, the only way I know
how to start it, Mary Beth, is what happened? Like, how did this start?
Yeah, I mean, it really didn't start well, even when I was in the womb.
My mother was an unwed Irish Catholic mother in 1961, which was a really big deal.
(04:34):
And because of that, I actually didn't live with her for the first six months. I was left at a convent.
And then later, I was left for three years with a great-grandmother. my
mother could be violent but mostly she just
wasn't interested in me there was no real you know
motherly bond no real connection and that
created a sort of a sense of being alone knowing
(04:55):
that i was on my own and then when i was nine she married my stepfather who
was very violent with her and physically and sexually violent with me and then
things just sort of escalated downward from there yeah there are some some shocking
details in the book about that but we don't have to get into all those,
but how do you explain your mom?
(05:15):
What was your mom's role in your life as you saw it?
I mean, her role in my life really was more on the periphery.
I did, when I was younger, try to bond and connect with her.
I tried to grab her attention.
I tried to grab her interest, but I was always failing.
And she was really more focused on making sure that my sister sister and I,
(05:37):
you know, looked pretty and dressed nice and that there was this outward appearance,
but she wasn't interested in engaging.
And so after a while, I really sort of gave up on that.
And then later when things got bad with my stepfather, I knew I couldn't turn to her.
Plus he was violent with her and she wasn't stopping it.
And so it was really a feeling of being on my own, but also as the oldest of
(06:01):
the siblings feeling a need to protect the younger ones because my mother wasn't going to do it.
Who did you look to for guidance or who did you look up to if it wasn't your
mom or your stepfather or other people that were close to you?
I mean, the one place I always had was school. I had always done really well in school.
(06:22):
I got a lot of positive attention from teachers, a lot of special attention
that the other students didn't get.
And so I still have very clear memories of my teachers,
especially in grade school, not just, you know, their names,
but what they look like and different, different engagements I had with them,
different times that they picked me out and, and let me do something sort of beyond my grade level.
(06:44):
So school was really my place where I felt seen.
Do you remember the incident or the situation you were in where drugs all of
a sudden were available? No.
Yes, definitely. My first drug was alcohol and it was Boone's Farm Strawberry
Hill Wine, which is a lot of people are familiar with.
(07:06):
I was 12 and my girlfriend stole it from her sister and she rode it over on
her banana seat bicycle.
And we actually drank it out of Flintstones glasses that used to have grape jelly in them.
So that was sort of the level of sophistication that we had. That's great. Yes.
And so what I noticed right away was how much better it made me feel.
(07:28):
It was like I could sort of breathe deeper.
I felt looser and lighter.
And I had a very fun and giggly afternoon with my friend.
And that really captured my attention, that this is a positive experience.
And therefore, I need more of this. And you said you were 12?
I was 12. Yeah. So positive experience in your life or most of your day was
(07:52):
full of negative experiences, I guess.
Right. I mean, it really seemed to get rid of some of the stress that I,
I mean, I was really clenched in a lot of ways, tight all the time.
I lived in a fairly constant state of anxiety because I never knew what was going to happen.
And, and I also knew that what I did and what happened to me,
there wasn't a real connection between those two things. And so I I had little control.
(08:16):
There were a few techniques I developed, things that I, for example,
taught my sister about how to avoid my stepfather, but really,
ultimately, I didn't have any ability to stop the violence.
And so that just was a constant anxiety. And the alcohol lifted that anxiety for the moment.
Kind of set the scene for me here. How does one at 12 start drinking and then,
(08:38):
of course, escalate into some other things in the next couple of years,
kind of without your mom mom and other adults in your life noticing that?
Were they just not paying attention? Did they not care?
How do you explain that? What happened there? Yeah.
I mean, I quickly, I did seek out alcohol and it was pretty readily available at parties.
(09:00):
I even stole alcohol beer from my stepfather, even though it was a risk because
that's how much I wanted it. But weed was readily available.
There were some pills around. And then I did a a lot of acid my sophomore year.
But from the parents, if they noticed, they never said anything.
And I don't know that it was so extreme until I hit meth.
(09:21):
When I was 16, I started using methamphetamine. And at 17, I was shooting up
and I started losing a lot of weight.
I was also really avoiding them, but I looked haggard at times and I wasn't going home a lot.
And they mostly ignored it. And I really think it's because they didn't want
to invest the emotional emotional energy that it would have taken to address the issue.
(09:43):
Yeah, that's pretty wild. At 16, well, for sure, shooting meth is pretty wild.
But I think you might have been gone for a couple days at a time.
Yes, I was frequently gone. As a parent myself, I just, you know, I can't really...
I can't wrap my head around how that would be possible.
What would be going through my mind that would make that acceptable?
(10:07):
And part of it was that my sister and I actually lived in a little apartment over the garage.
And so, you know, sometimes they may not have even known that I was missing.
I didn't show up. They didn't look for me. But you're right.
I mean, it's really telling that I could be gone that often.
And even when I was there, I didn't look well. I really didn't.
(10:28):
There was one summer where my mother, the only time she ever saw me was in a
bathrobe that had three quarter length sleeves because it was a light summer
robe, but it covered up my track marks.
And it was the only thing I could wear that wouldn't capture attention.
Like, why are you wearing those long sleeves in the summer in New Jersey?
So she never saw me for an entire summer except in that robe. And she never noticed.
(10:49):
I wonder in today's time. Now, this was a couple of years ago, Mary Beth.
We don't have to date anybody here, but a few years ago. and this is in New Jersey area, right?
Yeah, Central Jersey. Yeah. So I just wonder if you were, if this happened today.
Like wouldn't CPS be called by somebody or wouldn't somebody at school,
(11:12):
one of your teachers or something, did they ask any questions about any of this?
I mean, for CPS, right?
The police were called a couple of times because of the violence,
but only one time was my stepfather arrested And that's when he really,
there was a life-threatening incident with my mom. He was choking her.
She was really in danger.
The other times that the police came, they would say things along the lines
(11:35):
of, you know, well, go away and cool off.
Today, I'd like to think that things would be, there would be an earlier intervention
and it's more recognize the problems with physical violence against children.
But at the same time, there are children all over America that suffer from abuse
on on a regular basis that are still in the home.
(11:57):
And the other thing is foster care is a separate risk, right?
There are a lot of foster families.
Don't get me wrong. There are many foster families that try to do a good job,
but it's also a risky situation for a lot of foster kids. They don't always
end up in better environments.
Yeah. Do you think if more appropriate or aggressive interaction had occurred,
that your story would have changed? Or do you think this was what was going to happen?
(12:21):
You would have found a way to do this at this point.
If there would have been appropriate intervention in the sense that we were
taken out of the household and put into a healthy living situation,
things could have turned out very differently.
I mean, especially if I would have been given the mental health treatment that
I needed. I really, I found out later that I had PTSD.
(12:43):
I had other sexual assaults later, but just from living in the household.
I suffered with OCD-like tendencies and severe anxiety as a child.
So if the mental health issues could have been addressed and I could have been
in a safe environment, yes, I think the long-term drug addiction could possibly have been avoided.
One of the things that jumped out to me as I was reading, you appear to be gifted
(13:06):
or blessed with an insane amount of intelligence, like book smarts.
You appear to miss half of your semester of school and just go in and pass or
even ace most of your tests or whatever you have to do.
So that's got to be a silver lining for you as far as how you got through it and where you are now.
(13:29):
Yes. I mean, school, as I said, was my special place and it got me out of town.
So when I went to college, I left Central Jersey and came to California.
I ended up graduating from Berkeley.
And so that was a big geographic change. But also, I wasn't living in a violent household anymore.
And at first, I did do better. I used fewer drugs.
(13:50):
I used mostly alcohol, sometimes pills or hallucinogens or cocaine,
but mostly on the weekend, only occasionally did it roll into the week.
But I had a life-threatening kidnapping by three men and raped for six hours.
And I moved in with a violent boyfriend, which is common with abused women to
do. And I just sort of lost my grip.
(14:13):
So on one hand, it got me out of the house and I did better for a while,
but I really hadn't addressed the underlying traumas.
And I fell back into it. And I started using meth again on a regular basis in
my senior year of college, and I didn't get sober until I was 32.
So looking back on the story now, is the 16-year-old meth use,
(14:34):
is that kind of where things really fell apart or really ramped up in the wrong
direction? Or was there a different point?
I mean, I definitely abused all the other drugs and there were bad incidents,
but the meth was the point at which things really escalated.
They got a lot worse and I really sunk into a deeper level of despair and it's
(14:55):
such a hard drug on your body.
For one thing, you don't sleep and that's not good for the brain that it became
a really vicious spiral.
So if that's kind of the start of it, is there a moment in time or an event
that happened, a spark that you said, okay, enough's enough.
We're not going to do this anymore. I got to change this. What was that like?
(15:18):
I mean, for me, it was a process, which I think is the more common path.
But at 32, I was really having physical problems from that very toxic drug that I took for so long.
But also, I was just in sort of emotional despair. spare.
And I felt trapped and hopeless and helpless. And I couldn't hold a job.
And my partner was ready to throw me out. So it was sort of everything in combination
(15:40):
that made me say, you know, well, what if I go to rehab?
And so that's why I went. But it wasn't that I was sure I could get sober or
I really didn't think I could.
My goal was to try to figure out how to use less because I thought that was
the best possible option.
I didn't really believe I could could stop.
But over time, as I saw other people who had succeeded and as I got some time
(16:05):
with drugs out of my system, I started to think, well, maybe I can do it too.
And so let's give it a serious effort. Were you ever homeless?
No, I wasn't. I was lucky. I mean, I was lucky in that way. I had a long-term
partner and I lived in sort of a middle-class neighborhood.
Yeah. You were lucky with an abusive partner. Is that, did I get that right?
No. So my abusive partner, I I was in college and I left him.
(16:30):
I started dating my current husband in my senior year of college,
who was a really good guy.
And I was living with him when I went to rehab. He was the one who was sort
of done with me at that point.
It wasn't done like me. He was just, he couldn't deal with it anymore.
He wanted out. Yeah, I can understand.
So at no point were you homeless, though, during this 16 to 26-year-old time period.
(16:54):
That's right. And you're using a lot of drugs.
So how does that work? You're not homeless. You can't hold a job.
Is that stuff readily available? And is it cheaper than I think it is?
Or are there just lots of other ways to make all that happen?
Well, I was working intermittently. I would have a job. I would hold it for six months to a year.
(17:17):
And then I would get laid off but really fired. And I would collect unemployment.
And you have friends who are dealers. And so you pay the wholesale rate rather
than the retail rate, which keeps you going.
But you're just also part part of that community.
And so drugs, I really don't know anyone who has a drug problem who generally
has problems finding drugs.
(17:38):
They're easy to find in most communities and you over time have your circle
of friends and you each help each other out.
If one of your connections goes
dry, you call a buddy and somebody else will be able to find it. Okay.
What is your relationship with something like caffeine? caffeine?
I drink a little caffeine, but I don't drink that much of it.
(18:01):
And I never use that much as an emotion management tool or as an energy burst.
I tend to be high energy naturally, which is part of why it's interesting that
I was drawn to meth and not the opiates. You'd think that I wanted to be calmed
down, but meth just chemically, for whatever reason, fit me best.
Do you have, just for lack of a better term, an addictive personality or something?
(18:25):
Or is that a myth or that doesn't necessarily fit for you?
Yeah, I mean, it's a myth in one way. So what happens when you get sober is
if you don't deal with the underlying reasons that pushed you into the excessive drug use,
and I say excessive drug use because most people use drugs at moderate levels,
(18:46):
but if you don't deal with the underlying impetus and the underlying pain,
then it is feasible that you might pick up other techniques.
Some people will turn to food or they'll turn to, you know, gambling or something else.
But if you address what's happening internally, if you address your emotional
pain, then that tends to remove the sort of the impulse, the reason to pick
(19:10):
up other unhealthy behaviors.
Okay. So it sounds like your husband was pretty critical in your road to sobriety.
He was a big help. Although I will say when I went into rehab,
he was really, you know, done.
And they have like family therapy sessions in most rehabs. And he came a couple
(19:31):
of times and he was very clear.
He wasn't sure we were going to survive this. He wasn't making any promises.
But when I got out, we did, you know, we did couples counseling.
In addition, I had individual therapy and other things. And I was doing my peer
support meetings for my sobriety. We had to do a lot of work in order to build
a healthy relationship and heal the wounds of the relationship.
(19:54):
Sure, yeah. But just in my opinion, and you can...
Say what you think about this, but I think the buddy system,
at least for me, is always better.
And do you think you would have been able to do it on your own?
The data shows that if people have positive, loving relationships with friends
and family, their odds of success
in achieving abstinence, if that's what they're going for, it is higher.
(20:15):
And certainly I had the advantage of living in a calm home, right?
In a safe home, in a stable home. When I got home from rehab,
I really wasn't ready for full-time work. And so I worked part our time.
And he allowed that as long as I was making positive forward steps.
Not everyone has that calm of a living situation, that stable of a living situation
(20:37):
or the financial option to start slow rebuilding themselves professionally.
Okay. So that's kind of the junkie portion of the title of the book.
Let's talk about more like the judge portion title of the book here.
So as I mentioned, you're insanely or at least appear to be insanely intelligent.
And I'm sure it wasn't easy.
As though it wouldn't be easy for anybody, but you made it through law school.
(21:01):
Did you go to Cal Berkeley? I did. I went to Berkeley Law when I had six and a half years sober.
Yeah. So I mean, that's not shabby, I guess. No, that's right. Top 10 law school.
So how do you find yourself there? And what was that experience like?
I mean, I can't imagine there were other meth users in your group of friends
(21:23):
at law school, or were there? I don't know anyone else who was using meth in
law school, but I didn't talk about my drug history there either.
It was really something I kept to myself.
And I will say one of the advantages of going to law school,
I was 39 when I started. I was six and a half years sober.
So I was actually really ready to be disciplined and do it in a very focused
(21:47):
way. Although it was strange being back in school after so many years,
I was able to sort of just, I treated it as a job.
You know, I started at this time in the morning, I went until this time in the
evening and just approached it in a systemic way.
Did you start law school at Berkeley or did you start somewhere else originally?
So I had gone to Berkeley Law right out of college.
(22:09):
But remember, I started using meth again in January of my senior year.
So by the time I got there in the fall, I was in no shape to do it.
I mean, I couldn't get to class. And when I was there, I couldn't concentrate.
And so I withdrew. I mean, I gave back a top 10 law school because of my meth
addiction. And I knew that was why. And it was agonizing.
Was anybody at the school aware of that at that time and trying to help you?
(22:35):
Or any, was there anybody saying, Hey, what's going on here at the school?
No, no. I mean, I filled out the withdrawal paperwork, but I gave financial
and health reasons or something vague like that, you know? And so I never talked to them about it.
All right. So law school is typically about three years. Is that right?
Right. Were you on the three-year plan or I guess not, were you on the three
(22:55):
or four or five-year plan?
So I went through and I, and I didn't go back because I wasn't,
I wasn't in any shape to go back.
And so when I got sober, it was sort of It's still this great loss that I had
had this in my hands and I had to give it back.
But when I got sober, as I said, I wasn't even ready to hold a full-time job.
So I had to work my way up into full-time employment. And then I worked up into middle management.
(23:20):
And then I started thinking, also, I was getting older. And I thought,
well, either I go to law school sooner or I just admit I'm not going to do it.
And so when I was 39, I went to law school.
And I did apply to Berkeley again, but they didn't take me back at first.
I ended up at UC, University of California, Hastings Law School,
which is a good law school, but it's not as highly ranked as Berkeley.
(23:42):
But I was number three in my class of 400 at Hastings. And so then Berkeley
took me back as a transfer and I graduated from Berkeley Law.
Okay, awesome. So what happens now? Let's get to the...
How do we get to be a judge? You go into, is it corporate law to begin with?
Yes. I worked at a really large law firm in Silicon Valley doing complex litigation and class action work.
(24:04):
And then I went to do class action work for the federal government.
And then when I had 20 years sober, I was appointed a federal administrative
law judge. So what is the role of that?
So in the federal government, ALGs work for a specific agency.
And so I worked for the the Social Security Administration. So I mostly handled disability cases.
(24:26):
Okay. And when you say handling them, what does the attorney do for that?
Are you representing the state or the government, I guess?
So I didn't do that as an attorney. I did that as a judge. Oh,
I'm sorry. I did that as a judge. Yeah. Yeah. So you're hearing disability cases?
Correct. I'm hearing disability cases and issuing decisions about them.
I did other kinds of cases, but that was the bulk of it.
(24:47):
Anything remarkable about that time? I'm sure sure you got lots of crazy stories
that you probably can't tell, but was there a common theme in most of those cases?
Well, I will say that I saw a lot of people that had trauma histories and therefore
mental health conditions.
And I saw a lot of people that had substance use disorders either actively or in their past.
And there was specific law I had to apply, but I certainly understood their
(25:11):
history and where things came from. Yeah.
So how does substance abuse and physical abuse, emotional abuse,
you know, like your upbringing, how closely are those connected?
The odds of someone that has a significant trauma history, especially a longer
term, in other words, not like a one event trauma, but something ongoing.
(25:34):
Today, we would call that complex PTSD.
My odds, because I had that history of developing a substance use disorder,
were three to four times the national average. And you're just much more likely to have that happen.
But also trauma actually can have physical impacts. There is data that shows
that even as you get older, your odds of getting an autoimmune condition are
(25:55):
higher, certain types of cancer.
So having childhood and other traumas, especially ongoing, has a significant
impact on your mental health as well as your physical health.
On your road to sobriety, did you meet other people like you?
I mean, I know you went through some rehabs and things, but outside of the rehab,
were there people that were doing what you were doing that wanted to get out
(26:20):
and get somewhere different?
I mean, did you interact with those people? Was there any kind of support network
just amongst your peers in that regard?
I mean, everyone that gets sober that I know wants to build their life.
And usually that's a multi-pronged attack. people
usually come in with professional ramifications although
not always but a lot of us have to build up from there people often have
(26:42):
debt a lot of times they don't have custody of their
kids anymore but also most of a high percentage of different numbers I've seen
55 to 75 percent have a mental health condition in addition to their substance
use disorder that they need to address and so I saw a lot of people with similar
histories to mine a lot of people facing similar challenges.
(27:02):
And that is one of the advantages of peer support groups like 12 Steps,
which wasn't right for me, but it's good for a lot of people.
But also there are others like Life Ring CycloRecovery or SheRecovers.
When you go to peer support meetings, you meet people who have had your experience,
but you meet some people who are sort of ahead of you in the recovery process.
(27:24):
And that can be reassuring that they are succeeding,
they're finding a way out, But it's also a source of ideas, sort of what techniques
are they using, what strategies are they using, how they approach it,
what can I adopt, what do I think will help me succeed as well.
One of the things you talk about in the book is multiple pathways to recovery.
(27:45):
What, what does that mean to you? And how does that, so like AA or NA or those
types of things, don't they, you don't think they work for everybody?
Well, they don't work for everybody. We know that the data shows that.
And, and the other thing is that other peer support groups like Life Ring and
Smart Recovery and Women for Sovereignty, they work just as well as 12 Steps.
There are studies that show that as well.
(28:06):
So it's really about what's the right fit for the individual.
And, and also you can mix and match them, which is what I do.
So people, you know, know, the different programs have different philosophies.
They have different meeting formats.
The books are different. But Life Ring, for example, on the board for Life Ring,
they focus on self-empowerment, but also the individual nature of the recovery plan.
(28:28):
That my plan and your plan will probably be different because we're different
people and we have different priorities and we have different things we want to work on.
So there are a lot of different approaches, but that's the good news.
And today there's actually Google, which there wasn't when when I got sober in 1994.
So you can look at them all and see which one is most attractive to you,
(28:48):
which looks like it's going to be the best fit.
And as far as the writing of the book goes, what was that like?
What spurred you to want to write about your experience? Did that have anything
to do with the recovery process?
Or was that just, you know, people, you hear this all the time,
you should write a book. You know, people say that all the time.
So you definitely You definitely did. And it's really incredible.
(29:10):
But what prompted the process?
And while you were writing, was there stuff that you left out because this is
too personal or too close to me?
I can't imagine there is. If there is, it must be very close because there's
a lot of things happening in that book.
Yeah. So when I was appointed a judge, it was sort of a natural reflection time.
(29:33):
Like, you know, how the heck did I go from shooting method 17 until 32?
It's not like it was short lived. Right. And then become a judge.
And so I really started thinking about, could my story have value?
You know, is there a way that I could use it to be helpful?
And so one of the things I did, as I mentioned, was read memoir.
And, and what I found was that I didn't see the book I wanted to write.
(29:55):
Like most memoirs, recovery memoirs sort of jump into to the drug addiction,
but they don't show where it came from.
And I really wanted to show what my life experiences, my family,
my history was that made it make sense to me to use drugs at that level.
But also a lot of memoirs at the end, it's sort of like I went to a couple of
(30:17):
meetings and everything was great. And it's like, well, that's not how recovery works.
So my memoir, 30% of it is about my first three years of recovery because I
wanted to show a more realistic example. example, but also about how you might
do it if you're not exclusively a 12-step person.
So I show different techniques. 12-step people can use as well,
(30:37):
but if you want to take a more individual approach, this is one way to do it.
And also I talk about the trauma recovery as being part of my recovery process.
So I didn't see the book that I wanted to write. And so I thought that I would
try to do it and see if my story could be of value.
Yeah, just do it yourself. So something you just said, well,
(30:59):
it's almost like an entrepreneurial spirit there.
You don't see what you want, so you just make it, which is tremendous. Yeah.
As you were talking there, you said using meth from 16 to, I think you said 32.
What does that do to your body with that time? I mean, you mentioned no sleep for lots of years.
Lots of that time and just all the stress and things that you're under normally, that can't help.
(31:21):
That's right. I mean, certainly, you know, I do have, I've had dental work after,
you know, Wazoo as most people are familiar with, they associate that with meth,
but also it's really, a lot of it is the impact on your brain because not only
are you throwing a very, very toxic chemical in, but not sleeping is really bad for your brain.
And so it takes a long time for the the brain to recover fully from a long-term meth addiction.
(31:45):
And I've seen brain scans, like when you're actively using, when you're six
months sober, a year sober, two years sober, it's really not until around two
years sober that the brain starts to look pretty close to the typical brain.
And that's part of the reason why recovery is more, or staying sober is more
challenging in the early days than it is in the later days.
(32:07):
It takes a while for the brain to heal, heal but also
we talk a lot about how substance use
rewires the brain but recovery rewires the
brain too so when you're making positive choices especially
over and over they become sort of a habit and you don't think about but all
those positive decisions and behaviors they they they help your brain heal in
(32:29):
a more positive direction so it can take a while for all of that to happen so
other than talking to people like me on podcasts and things about your book
what is What is life like for you these days?
So I'm on the board for Life, Brain, and Secular Recovery. I'm on the board
for SheRecovers Foundation.
I write opinion pieces. I've been in the Wall Street Journal and the LA Times
and Recovery Today and others. And those are all on my Jumping the Judge website.
(32:53):
And I do a lot of speaking and trainings at conferences.
I train lawyers and judges. They have continuing legal education requirements.
I teach them about substance use and treatment options and things like that.
And I'll do a keynote as a fundraiser for recovery organizations.
So I do a wide variety of things in what I've defined as my space now about
(33:18):
substance use and recovery education,
stigma reduction, and trying to use my story to help people listen to some information
I think it's important to share.
What would your message be to somebody that was like you? I don't know.
We said 19 earlier, but let's say you're a stranger talking to somebody with
all of your recovery things that you've done and all the time you've done.
(33:40):
What would you say to somebody to give them hope or what would the plan be to
get on the road to recovery?
I mean, for the plan, I would have a specific conversation with them to see where they are.
So today we talk about substance use disorder, like all mental health conditions
that you you can have a mild, moderate, or severe case.
And for example, what treatment would be best for you can depend where you fall on that spectrum.
(34:05):
But it's also true that not everyone can access treatment.
America doesn't really offer readily accessible, affordable treatment for everyone.
And so the conversation about what are the realistic options,
what different techniques might be useful, but also to try to use my example as a sign of hope.
I mean, I was 32. to, I used drugs for 20 years. I had a significant child abuse
(34:30):
history, other assault history.
And yet I found my way out, not just to being sober, but to a really happy and
productive life and to try to use
that as a light for them that this dark tunnel, there is a way out of it.
If you're willing to do it and you want to do it, there's a way out.
Yeah, well, there is a little oversimplified there, but yeah,
(34:54):
it's a lot of hard work and people do usually have ups and downs.
I mean, I used three times in my first five months. I didn't have perfect sobriety
from day one. And yet I just have 30 years sober in January.
So, but yes, ultimately I see the two biggest factors or characteristics are
patience and persistence because you really need to keep at it to have,
(35:16):
to have ultimate success.
But the good news is that in their lifetime, 75% of the people with a substance
use disorder will eventually recover.
That's great. Well, congratulations on your recovery and on the book.
It really is tremendous.
I'm going to have a link to it in the show notes. I would encourage anybody
to read it or share it with somebody that you know may need to hear this message.
(35:38):
It is really incredible.
Where's the best place to find the book and find you, Mary Beth?
The book's on Amazon and all the usual sites or bookstores have it or can get
it. My website is junketajudge.com, and I have information there.
And I'm on Twitter at MaryBethO underscore, and I don't argue with people on
Twitter. What I do is I share information.
(35:58):
So I will post there the new studies that come out, articles,
opinion pieces that I think will be helpful for people.
Tremendous. Well, thanks so much for hanging out with us, Mary Beth. Thanks for having me.
Thanks so much for spending your time with the Destiny Debatable Podcast.
Please rate and write a review wherever you subscribe. It really does help us
(36:21):
grow and reach new people.
For more information, visit johnbgrimes.com.
Destiny is Debatable is a Symblom production.
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