May 22, 2025 • 38 mins
For years, Sarah Jacobs was lost to the streets, trapped in a brutal cycle of heroin addiction, arrests, and heartbreak. She spent her days chasing a high and her nights in jail cells or treatment centers—each time vowing it would be the last, and each time falling again. She lost everything: her freedom, her dignity, and the most devastating of all—custody of her three children.
But this is not a story of defeat. This is the story of what happens when one woman finds a sliver of grace in the darkest night of the soul.
In this gripping and deeply human episode, we follow Sarah’s journey from overdoses and prison walls to the pulpit of Beit T’Shuvah, a community where addiction, faith, and recovery collide. Today, Sarah is not only sober—she’s the congregation leader, helping others reclaim their lives from the same darkness that nearly swallowed her whole. She speaks with raw honesty about what it means to lose everything and then rebuild a life not just worth living, but worth sharing.
This episode will break your heart—and then piece it back together. Sarah Jacobs was dying. Now she gives life to others. This is her resurrection story.
Sicker Than Others is bought to you by Pink Cloud Coffee. Pink Cloud Coffee is an award-winning coffee company based in Los Angeles with the primary purpose of helping addicts and alcoholics through scholarships and work programs. Sicker Than Others listeners get 10% off their first order. Go to pinkcloudcoffee.com and use promo code sick10 for 10% off any beans or merchandise.
For more information on Beit T’Shuvah please go to www.beittshuvah.org.
For more information on the program of Alcoholics Anonymous go to www.aa.org.
Host: Seb Webber
Engineered and Produced by: Ted Greenberg
Producers: Laura Bagish, Jesse Solomon, and Chris Hendrickson
Executive Producer: Seb Webber
Intro Theme by Rich Daytona
Recorded live at: Beit T’Shuvah, 8831 Venice Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90034.
To reach the production team, please email: seb@magick-arts.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:00):
Ah, that's the sound of pink cloud coffee and their
(00:03):
exceptional Columbian roast.
Pink cloud coffee is an awardwinning Coffee Company based in
Los Angeles with the primarypurpose of helping addicts and
alcoholics through scholarshipsand work programs. Sicker than
others, listeners get 10% offtheir first order. Go to pink
cloudcoffee.com and use promocode sick 10 for 10% off any
beans or merchandise sicker thanothers, is a podcast on the ups
and downs of recovery brought toyou from within a treatment
(00:25):
center in Los Angeles. Thispodcast does not reflect the
views or opinions of beta shuvaor any of its subsidiary
businesses or partners sickerthan others. Neither speaks for
AA or recovery as a whole, butyou'll find some useful links on
both if you'd like to find outmore information sicker than
others, touches on subjects andsituations that some listeners
might find offensive, or, Ifyou're lucky, triggering you
(00:45):
have been warned.
David Luke, gaveit Hi, welcome to sicker than
(01:09):
others. The podcast brought toyou from within a residential
treatment center in sunny LosAngeles. My guest today is
somebody that I hold very dear,a big light in this community,
as a gentle soul and somebody'ssmile that you want to see when
you arrive right in here. Sarah,welcome
(01:32):
to the show. Hi, hi. I've beentrying
to get you to come do this for aminute.
I know, I know. I keep backingout. I'm gonna, I'm an avoider.
Avoidance, yeah, thingnow let's get, let's get into
is, do you avoid it? Because doyou find these things hard to
talkabout? Or you i Yes, and I think
(01:52):
I get nervous, and I just, youknow, tend to avoid anything
that makes me a little bituncomfortable, yeah, but
that's the stuff we need to leaninto. Well, I'm really grateful
that you're here today, so whydon't we start a little
differently than how wetraditionally start? Why don't
(02:13):
you tell us a little bit aboutwhat you do here, because it's
an interesting role before weget into your story. Okay,
I am the temple coordinator forbeit Sheva, which is a Jewish
treatment center and also asynagogue. And what I do is I
engage with the membership andmembers of our community and try
(02:33):
to pull them in as templemembers and keep our temple
going with alumni and communitymembers. And really just, I
really, just want to bringpeople in to see the wonderful
work that we do. And I thinkthat anybody coming to Shabbat
is going to see and feel thespirit that I felt my first
(02:54):
Shabbat here. Yeah, you're likethe guest list person, the
bouncer, the productioncoordinator, the production
manager. You plan out we all,all of us that volunteer or work
here on a Friday, we get setlists that you and Laura put
together. It's very, very tightoperation. Very tight. Yeah,
yeah, very you reach out to thepeople that have birthdays. You
(03:15):
make sure that they come becausewe have a big tradition here.
Well, in blah, blah, blah. Wehave a big tradition here where
birthday people come and lightthe Shabbat candles, right? So
there's a lot of, like, talkingto alumni. And do you find that
you like, I'm curious, right?
Because you are on, like, thefront lines of the alum live
(03:37):
that obviously there's two typesof people. I think there's three
types of people. There's threetypes of people. There's people
that leave and probably don'tcome back. There's people that
leave and stay in contact, butprobably don't come here for
many Shabbats. Or there's peoplelike me who kind of come here a
lot, yes, right? So you have to,I mean, that's interesting. So
(03:59):
you have to reach out to thealumni and be like, Oh, are you
taking a cake allthe time? Yeah. I mean, anytime
I see somebody right on theirtheir birthday comes up on
Facebook or Instagram, I'm like,When are you coming to Shabbat?
Do you have to have a log of allpeople? We do have a lot, kind
ofgreat. Yeah. That's great, yeah.
And, you know, being an alumnihere is a for me. It's a really
big, it's a huge fucking part ofmy sober life now, like somebody
(04:21):
asked me, was like, Why do youspend so much time on beethove
still? And I'm like, you don'tget it like they don't get it.
They don't get it like you haveto. I read with guys here. I
still take people to meetingstwice a week. Sometimes help
with Shabbat. I do it, don't getme wrong. I do it for selfish
reasons. Yeah, do it because Idon't know why this thing
(04:41):
worked, but I'm not gonna startpicking off things and trying to
evaluate what this worked.
That's why I still cover. Istill come here and I'm like, I
am so afraid to give up onething in case that's the thing
that fucking takes me out.
Absolutely.
I think that's why I continue towork here. Yeah, it fills my
spiritual bank account everytime I step into work here, even
(05:04):
if I don't want to come to work.
And I think the Beit Shevacommunity is like a key part of
sobriety for me and for manyother people. Yeah,
I had something happen to me onFriday, I took a resident here
to a job interview, right? Just,just took them out, just took
them driving down there, waitoutside, and they got the job. I
(05:26):
have never felt, yeah, that muchfucking, like, I dropped him off
and I, like, cried in the car onthe way home. Absolutely, I was
like, Dude, I don't know whatthis is, yeah. Like, I don't
know what this feeling is. Also,I'm like, Who the fuck is this
person? Yeah, yeah, where isthis guy been forever, exactly
and, like, those are the thingsthat just okay, this is the
community. Yeah, this is thecommunity.
That's exactly what it's about.
That is what that is, what keepsmost of us going around here,
(05:50):
the the feeling of seeingsomebody take that year, when I
saw you take your year cake andcried with you while you were,
you know, saying your birthdayspeech. I mean that to see
people stay continually sober,when I know how hard it was for
me to stay, to stay sober, itlike and achieve these
milestones in their life. It's,it's, it's everything, yeah,
(06:15):
all right, so now I've got youwarmed up.
Uh, tell us. Tell us how you gothere. Because it was a rough
ride. Itwas a rough ride. Where do I
start from? Like the beginning?
I'll go through the beginningquickly. Imagine pitching at a
meeting. Yeah? So I grew up. Iwas born and raised in Los
Angeles. My parents divorcedwhen I was two. My mom is I'm
(06:41):
just gonna say this. My mom isLatina and Native American, and
my dad is Ashkenazi, Jewish. AndI say that because it was so
much of a identity thing for megrowing up like, you know, I
felt more Jewish, but I didn't.
I was kind of embarrassed ofthat at the time growing up. So,
I mean, it was a big push andpull where I grew up, in
(07:03):
Burbank, and my dad is a as aformer heroin addict, and he got
sober when before I was born,and then he got sober off of
everything when I was two. So Igrew up going to meetings, and,
you know, I was a little kid inthe back of the meetings
pretending to smoke, becausethat's when you could smoke
inside the meetings, you know,with the stir coffee stirs. And
(07:24):
instead of being afraid of whatthey were talking about, I was
completely intrigued and lovedit. I loved hearing what my
dad's friends spoke about. Iloved going to coffee and food,
you know, after the meetings andhearing them bullshit and talk
shit, and I loved being aroundthem. So, yeah, I grew up with
(07:45):
all that, and I wasn't reallyafraid, because when you're
little, you don't really, youdon't, you don't know, right?
You don't know, like, the painthat they go through trying to
get sober. You don't know theaddiction part. Yet, my
childhood was, you know, a lotof back and forth between my
parents and a lot of fighting alot of custody battles trauma,
(08:06):
you know, a lot of not knowingwho I really wanted to be with
or not being able to be with theparent that I really wanted to
be with. And I'd say, around1314, years old, I really
started, um, hanging out withthe wrong people, or whatever,
you know, people that I feltcomfortable with, because I feel
(08:29):
like the the people that arereally doing good in school
didn't like me anyways. So Itended, you know, to go towards
the bad kids, or whatever, theCholas and the the Cholos, and I
thought I was one, and so lifegot pretty crazy around 14.
There's something that thathappened to me around 14 with
(08:52):
somebody close to me that kindof, I would say, you know,
damaged me a bit, and I took itthat was I was a freshman in
high school, and I took that,and that was my excuse for not
going to school for smoking weedevery day with my friends. At
that time, my dad had relapsed.
(09:15):
I was around 15 or 16, and so hekind of didn't really care. I
didn't really have a curfew, youknow, I had, like, a lot of
freedom, and I basically thoughtI was an adult already at 14 and
around 17, I think I gotinjured, or, I don't know if I
was injured or I just madesomething up, but I started
(09:36):
taking painkillers with my dad,and that turned into within 30
days, within the first month orwhatever, I remember knocking on
my dad's door every single nightfor two Norco like I just
remember that feeling like Icouldn't get through a night. I
needed that. I needed the twoNorco so I could smoke my
(09:56):
cigarettes and watch a movieand. To eat something, and it
was just like a whole, you know,routine, and you know how it
goes. And that went on for manyyears. My dad got sober again
when I was about 21 I think Iwas about 21 he went into
treatment. Finally got sober,and thank God, because he he
(10:19):
would have died. He was takinglike, 100 Norco a day. It was
crazy. And I had tried to getclean and sober. I tried to go
to the meetings. I knew I had anissue. You know, I was also
working, and then I wasn'tworking, and then I was living
here with this person andtraveling, and then I'd come
right back to my addiction, andI just couldn't live without
(10:42):
opiates. And around, uh, 27 Ithink I had, um, this boyfriend
who gave me an ultimatum. He Iwas on methadone, and he told
me, you need to get offmethadone if you're gonna stay
with me. So I went into Tarzanatreatment center, and in Tarzana
treatment center, in the detox,I fell in love, you know, met
(11:03):
the man of my dreams in detoxthere, and he was just out of
prison and a heroin addict. Andfor the next 30 days in there, I
fantasized about leaving withhim, and, you know, using
heroin. And so they were tryingto separate us. In Tarzana
(11:27):
treatment center, there's twodifferent sides of the detox,
and you know, they can separateyou. And I, you know, threw a
fit and said, I'm leaving. Areyou coming with me? And I packed
my bags. He packed his bags, andwe left, and we went to the AMPM
on the corner, and we had sold60 bucks, and we went straight
(11:48):
downtown Skid Row, boughtheroin, and he shot me up for
the first time. And that was,that was it. I mean, that was
the next step in the ultimatefeeling of being on an opiate,
right? Was heroin and shootingit and shooting it, yeah,
(12:10):
and, you know, wemade out in the courtyard of the
Midnight mission and got kickedout. And it was so romantic.
And, and we went towhere he's from, which is
Hawthorne, and stayed the nightin his mom's car. And that led
me on to the next few years ofbeing on the streets, learning
(12:36):
how to adapt on the streets.
You know, I ended up going tojail for the first time a couple
years later. And then once yougo to jail one time, that's it.
You're just like, in and out.
You're on probation. You'regetting holds put on you. You're
stealing, you know, you're I dideverything you can think of for
(12:58):
money, right? Things that youwould hear in meetings, and
you're like, Yeah, whatever. Andthen you end up being that
person, and it's wild and andaround five years into that
relationship, in and out oftreatment.
And so you did try and go backto treatment in that period,
I did, oh, yeah, I was in andout of treatment, because every
(13:18):
time he would go to jail, beforeI started going to jail, I would
have, like, my ex boyfriend pickme up off the street and take me
right to a treatment center, orbeg my parents to help me get
into a you know, let me staywith them for a night so I can
go into Tarzana or Red Gate,whatever, treatments, county
treatment center. Then, what isit? Four years, four years into
(13:44):
the relationship, me and himwent to go sign up at Tarzana
together, and they finallyagreed to let us both in at the
same time. And that night, Itook a pregnancy test, and we
were living in this hotel inHawthorne, and I discovered I
was pregnant, and I thought,This is it, this is my time.
(14:06):
This is it. I'm having thisbaby, and there's no way that
I'm going to continue this life.
And I think we had, like, a weekbefore we went into treatment
that time, and I ended upgetting arrested and going to
county jail, pregnant, Dope Sickand, oh, I remember being so
sick in County because I waspregnant with being dope sick,
(14:29):
and it was like the ultimateterrible experience.
How do they treat pregnantpeople in County?
So in County, they do put you onmethadone, or they did then, I'm
sure they still do now, orSuboxone or whatever, but it was
like Martin Luther King weekend,so there was no doctor, so I
(14:50):
didn't get any medication forlike, three or four days, and I
was, you know, throwing up andjust so ill. And finally, they
took me to the US. See ahospital with the sheriffs, and
that was an experience, becauseI remember going into that
hospital and they have youshackled, and you're going in
(15:10):
through the main part of thehospital, and your county blues
shackled up, and it's and you'rejust, I, you know, I was
probably like 120 pounds, like,I was just looking like crazy.
And I remember feeling verylike, I cannot believe this is
me. You know, I had many momentslike that, but
they're not like, if you'repregnant, you're not, you
(15:33):
obviously the methadone, thatmakes sense, but they're not.
You're not going to see like, anOB, GYN or anything, right?
No, they, they did anultrasound. Okay, all
right, you're pregnant, yes. Allright, go back to cell exactly,
holy shit. Andthey gave me morphine, and then
they sent me back. And the nextday I got, like, a dose of
methadone, I remember, and thenthat was it back up again. You
know, I was feeling great again.
(15:56):
And I get out of county, and Igo straight to Tarzana, and I
know I need to lie to them andtell them I'm not pregnant, and
I got because they wouldn't letyou in at a certain stage of
your pregnancy, so I gotsomebody's pee, and I fake peed,
and anyways, they found out, andit all worked out, thank God.
But you know, I was stillsneaking and lying. Yes,
(16:20):
exactly, junky drive, yeah. Andthey put me on a low dose of
methadone, and I slowlydecreased while I was there, I
was about six months pregnant,and I think I had just maybe
taken my last dose of methadone,and I wanted to use. I wanted, I
knew I wanted to use, like Iwasn't using just then, but
(16:41):
within a few days, I remember, Iwas on my way to group with
another mom who was there to gether kids back, and she took me
to her room, and she pulled outa pipe, a meth pipe, you know,
in front of me, and smoked. AndI think I'm like, six and a
half, seven months pregnant atthe time, and she asked me if I
wanted to hit and wouldn't,without even thinking, you know,
(17:02):
of course, and you know, becausethis thing that I thought would
happen didn't happen to me. Itdidn't the pregnancy didn't
connect, like, like I thought itwould, like this your life
changes, and like, you have thishuman being inside of you, and
God, you know you would never dothat to your baby, you know you
would not harm your baby. And Idefinitely probably judged moms
(17:27):
in the past or, you know, like,how could they hurt this unborn
baby? And here I was, I wasdoing it like, and it just
didn't even compute, because myaddiction was just so strong,
like and within a day or two, Iwas calling my, you know, my
homie, to come bring me a shotof heroin to the rehab. And I
(17:48):
was using heroin and meth in therehab, and they caught on, and
they told me I could stay, but Iwas dope sick when they told me
I could stay, and I said, Fuckthis. I'm not staying because I
knew I needed to go get loaded.
Yeah, and I left, and I went togo get loaded. And within a
(18:08):
couple weeks, I ended up goinginto a sober living and going on
methadone again and gettingclean. But the sober living
wasn't like a sober living. Itwas like moms. It was a friend
of ours who opened it up to somemoms with their children, and,
you know, pregnant women, andone of the moms ended up using
again, and I ended up using withher about two or three weeks
(18:33):
before my baby was born, and Ithought it was going to be one
time, and it was meth, and whichtakes a minute to get out your
system. Yeah, and it wasn't justone time I smoked until, like,
two days before I went and youstill had meth in your system
when the baby, yes, okay, andyeah.
(18:55):
So I went in and they told methey were gonna induce me. I was
two weeks late, you know, sothey induced me, and my family
was there, and nobody knows I'musing because I've been really
good, and everybody thinks I'mdoing really good still. And
they came in, and my mom wasthere, and they they told me
that my my P tested positive formethamphetamine. And after the
(19:17):
baby was born, they would callthe social workers, and I just,
I just, I don't know what I wasthinking beforehand. I don't
know like, if I thought itwouldn't happen to me, like,
maybe I could get away with it,but it didn't. So I gave birth
to my daughter. I was in labor,maybe about 24 hours, and my mom
(19:41):
was next to me. My dad was inthe room. My best friend Shannon
was in the room, and I pushedthis human being out of me, and
I saw her for the first time.
And like the love and theemotion and shame and the guilt.
And like, all of it was all inone instance. Like, I just
(20:02):
couldn't believe that that wasmy baby. And like, God, I love
this baby. And I connected,like, that immediate connection,
like, it was just amazing thatmoment. And like, it's crazy
because I see that moment on TVwith people like, or I see
people giving birth, and I seethat moment, and I know that
(20:23):
moment so well. Like, and theyhanded her to me, and she was,
you know, eight pounds or eightpounds, nine ounces, I believe.
And she was very healthy, yeah.
And I held her for the firsttime, and I said to myself,
like, this is it? This is thisis my baby, and nothing's gonna
happen. You know, I'm not thisis nobody's taking this baby
(20:46):
away from me like I am meant tobe her mom. And about three days
into being there, the socialworkers came to see me, and she
assessed me, and my daughter wasin my arms, and I was thinking,
I'm just gonna let this womanknow, like, I am ready to be
this mom and like, of coursethey're gonna let me keep her.
(21:08):
Well, that wasn't the case. Theythey called me a little bit
later, and they told me thatthey were sending four social
workers over to take her from meat the hospital. And they came
in, and I couldn't even handher. I couldn't hand her to
them. I didn't want to let hergo. I think I had to put her on
the bed, because I just couldn'tgive her to them. And they took
(21:31):
her from me, and within 20minutes, I was calling my friend
to bring me a shot of heroin,right? Because it was either
that or a bullet in my head atthe time. You know?
Yeah.
So I did heroin. I left thehospital that night, and they
called me, I think later on,they told me they were going to
be keeping her in the hospitalbecause she was starting to show
(21:52):
signs of withdrawal from themethadone. And I was like, No
fucking way. She's not, youknow, like she's been she's
normal, she's perfect, like,there's no like, I it took me so
many years to realize, like,they were right, and you know,
what was I fighting against?
Like, this is what I did, andlet the hospital help her. So
she stayed in the hospital, andI was with her every day in the
(22:15):
hospital, and that first, shewas there for like, about a
month, and the NICU is very likepro mother, like, wanting you to
be there with your kid no matterwhat's happening. So I was able
to do that, and the nurses weregreat, and my baby, dad's mom
ended up taking custody of her,and I tried to get clean, and I
was unable to get clean. Well,that's like another traumatic
(22:39):
event. It's so traumatic, likeit is, I don't know how
you could, you know what I mean?
I know because no amount of forme, no amount of, like, I
understand that the I had thesame feeling when Stella was
born, and I've said this before,but like, there's two days to
remember, October 25 when shewas born, and then November 1,
(23:00):
when I was smoking meth, and Irealized that not even that
little girl was gonna save me,right? I mean, I get it, but
that alone for me, so it was atraumatic event for me, you
know? So I can't imagine havingthese people come and be like,
Oh, well, you know, we're gonnamake your decisions. Now, you're
not fit to make your decisions.
Yeah, you know, that's got tothat spin anyway. That might
(23:22):
even now sober, my firstinstinct would be, get high.
Yeah, the fuck out. How am Isupposed to deal with that? I
know so, um, so she's in thehospital for a month, yeah? And
what's that process? What dothey do after, like, you, they
give the custody, I don't reallyknow how it works, but they
give you go to Children's Courtand, like, they find a suitable
(23:43):
person to take care of her. Andluckily, it was a family member
on her right. And I hadvisitations twice a week. You
know, my visitations were twicea week for like, two hours at a
time, just not enough. No,absolutely not. And I just
couldn't do it. I couldn't, Icouldn't. And her dad was in
jail at the time. He got outduring the time when his mom got
(24:04):
custody of her start, wasimmediately using with me when
he got out, and then he wentback in, and I met somebody
else, because I was out there ondrugs, and I met somebody else,
moved in with him, and I wastrying to reason with myself and
and I don't know what I wasdoing at the time, and I don't
know why it was like that, otherthan the traumatic experience of
(24:27):
everything that happened, but Iwasn't done, you know, like I
wasn't done. I don't even knowif that made sense, but I wasn't
done, and I but also in my head,I knew that I was going to be
her mom no matter what, like, Iwould get clean, yeah, like,
(24:48):
this is not going to happen.
There's no way I'm not going tohave this little girl not with
me, right? But I wasn't able tostay in a fucking treatment
center, and I wasn't able to tostay clean, but I. Knew, like
she was gonna be mine, like Ihadn't, you know, like it didn't
snap in, like they could takeher from me forever, you know.
And as the months went on and Iended up getting pregnant again,
(25:12):
this new guy, and wasn't able tobe clean with my next one, while
I was fighting for custody forthis one, you know, and, and I'm
sure it's kind of like jail,right, once you're in their
system, once you once you'rein the system, you're in the
system right now. And there wasmoments where I tried to be
clean, and then, you know, veryI just couldn't, I couldn't
like, I just wasn't ready to,like, I talk about it all the
(25:37):
time, like, I don't know why I'mso done now, and why wasn't I
done 12 years ago? Like, what? Idon't know what the difference
is, and I don't know why. And Ihate it sometimes. Well, I hate
it a lot. You know that itwasn't 12 years ago when my
first daughter was born, but youknow I'm I, I'm grateful to be
clean. And anyways, I had mydaughter, and they, they took,
(26:02):
they took her from me withinlike three months, I was
pregnant again, so now I'mpregnant three times, and I had
my son, same guy, same guy, andthat was a traumatic experience.
I was not healthy at all. Ididn't even try with my son. I
think I was three or four monthswhen I found out I found out I
was pregnant. Yeah,I've seen pictures of you when
(26:24):
you were using and I thinkthey're probably this. It's
probably the completely unrecoYou're completely
unrecognizable, yeah, yeah, Iknow. And
I was thinking I was looking allcute in these pictures, like,
you know, like this, like,sunken face with this, these big
(26:45):
eyes and thinking, going to myvisits like that, yeah, you
know, going to my children'svisits and having to use heroin
in the bathroom at Children's atthe DCFS office, just so I could
play with My kids for the nexttwo hours. You know, you given
up enough, yeah. And so I wasdoing heroin in the shooting
(27:07):
heroin, and the kids, you know,in the DCFS office, well, that's
what drugs do to us. I mean,they not being able to show up,
yeah, yeah, right, because I wasdidn't have enough dope to get
me through. That'show incestuous This shit is, is
you have to do the shit to dothe stuff you love, yeah, not
even to, like, pay bills or,like, I remember Same deal, I'd
have to get hired to exactly thethings I really cared about,
(27:29):
right, the things I loved, yeah,things I love to do. Yeah,
that's what's so fucked up aboutthis shit. It doesn't it when
people say it takes everything.
It's not just material. It takesevery part of you. Yeah,
completely rewires and changeswho you are. It's crazy. So
you're three kids down.
Three kids down. I was also, youknow, with the baby, with my
(27:50):
second kid's father. I was in avery abusive, toxic, toxic
relationship, and, you know, I'dbe with my son, I'd be eight
months pregnant, and he'd kickme out at two o'clock in the
morning with all my stuff, youknow, and I'd be walking with
this big belly down the streetto some tweaker pad down the
street, and I lived like that.
And then I'd be begging andapologizing to come back right
(28:12):
now, always. And I gave I wentinto labor, and I remember he
was upset with me aboutsomething, and I couldn't go get
my my dope. So starting to getdope sick, and I didn't want to
bother him. And I thought, like,Okay, I've been in labor before.
(28:34):
I think I have some time, youknow. Like, I'll just wait, let
him sleep a little bit, youknow? And around six in the
morning it was, it like thatwas, I was literally going into
labor at six o'clock in themorning, and I was still there,
and I woke him up, and he droveme to the hospital, and within
about a half an hour, I pushedmy son out, wow. And he was
(28:57):
like, nine pounds, right? Imean, the the miracle of, like,
life is so crazy because I wasso skinny and unhealthy, and I
had this nine pound baby, like,who probably took every little
bit of goodness that I had andand he was miracle. I think I
almost died giving birth to him,no epidural, no dope, you know?
I mean, it was, it was atraumatic and also he was
(29:22):
beautiful and and then I had tolive with the guilt of him
being, you know, a little hegot, he went into withdrawals a
little bit as I was in thehospital holding him, I could
see that he was uncomfortable.
And I did everything in my head,like I fought with myself, like,
do I call the nurses and what amI doing? Like, is this really
(29:45):
happening in front of me? Did Ido this? And I did. I called the
nurses in I said, You need tohelp him now. And that was
probably one of the hardestthings I've done in my life,
just not getting him help. Butlike, admitting to myself that I
did. This, becauseprobably so important for you,
soimportant, so important for me
to do that. Yes, it was. I washaving faith like even in this
(30:09):
moment I'm having faith. Youknow, I came through Beethoven,
we have spiritual counselors,and I had Rabbi Carrie as my
spiritual counselor, and I hadto write in detail about all
this, the birth of my kid, andthe drugs that I took, and when
he started not looking right tome, and I had to read it out
loud to her, kind of like, whatyou do with a sponsor I did with
(30:30):
Rabbi Carrie. And she goes,Sarah, you didn't even know, but
you were having faith then. AndI'm like, what? Yeah, faith.
Like, what does that even Ilike, I had no idea. I didn't
ever think about it like that.
And that was such a pivotalmoment in my in my stay here, in
my sobriety and, like, turningshit around a little bit, right?
(30:54):
So what got you here? Soafter I lost the rights to my
kids about a year later, becauseobviously I didn't get clean,
and I had to go to Children'sCourt and sign my rights over.
That was it for me. I gave up. Isaid, I'm just gonna die, right?
Like there's no reason for me toget clean. I can't even be the
mother that you know I thought Iwas gonna be. And mind you, like
(31:17):
my entire life. I wanted to be amom. Since I was a little girl,
I had baby dolls and I playedhouse, and I knew I was going to
be the best mom, like I was bornto be a mother like when that
didn't obviously work out. Iwent back out on the streets.
(31:39):
And I started using again whileI was continuing to use, and I
just said, Fuck it. And I stayedout there, and I was going to
jail, in and out of county jail.
And the last time I got bustedin a raid in this house I was
living in, and they gave me alittle more time than they
usually give me, and I was inthere about six and a half
(31:59):
months, which is in a long timecompared to some people. But to
me, that was a long time, and Icalled my dad. My dad is the
only one who really kind ofanswers the phone when I'm in
jail. He sends me packages oncein a while, you know, he told
me, you need to try to get backinto beit. Sheva, I had been
here once for two days in thepast. I was like, Yeah, okay,
(32:20):
I'll try. He goes, No, if youdon't get back into Bay,
teshuva, I don't ever want totalk to you again. And usually
that wouldn't have mattered tome, right? But for whatever the
last person on Earth, when it'sthe last person on Earth, yeah,
and, and you don't want todisappoint him, all of a sudden
I felt this, like feeling insideof me that I didn't want to hurt
him, you know, like somethingshifted. And also, I was able to
(32:43):
call my mom for the first time,she answered her phone, which
was amazing. And somethingshifted. And I tried to get back
into Beth Sheva, Rabbi denied mecoming back. I almost gave up,
and I ended up writing a letter.
And, you know, in the letter, Ibasically said, If I don't get
in, I will die like this is,this is life or death. I need, I
need you guys. And they approvedmy letter, and are they approved
(33:06):
me to come back in. So when Igot out, they picked me up right
from jail. They were right onthe other side of the fucking
door, and Carrie. It wasn'tCarrie as Michael Rosenfeld at
the time. He was my guy, and Icame back in, and I walked
through these doors, and I wasin gratitude, like, you know,
like I was just so I had beendreaming about Beijing, but my
(33:30):
best friend, Shannon, who Italked about, who was at the
birth, you know, I she's thefirst person I ever did heroin
with, and she got clean here in2006 Wow. And so I knew it
worked for her, like it has towork for me too, like she was a
crazy dope Fien, you know. And Icame in and, you know, I I
jumped right in, but I didn'tjump right in, like I was still
(33:51):
lying, I was still sneakingaround. I was, you know, doing
things with people I shouldn'tbe doing. And but there was,
that's the great story. Butthat's the thing here that sets
this place off, separate fromother places. It's an
individualized program,absolutely, so long as it's not
fucking final fentanyl, yes,right? Exactly like they take
(34:14):
everybody's Yeah, and it takesit just the kicking of the drugs
is the easy bit. Yeah, in myopinion, the behavior change
takes time.
The behavior change totallytakes time. And you don't learn
that in jail, and by the way,there's no timeline on that. No
some people need, I know somepeople here that have made total
180s and it was in like fuckinga month. And some people in like
(34:38):
nine months. It just takespeople time, yeah, absolutely,
you know. And I get it. I when Ifirst landed here, I had some
bad behaviors that just took aminute to for me to go. And
that's not we're gonna fly here,yeah, you know. But I've been to
other stricter institutionswhere it's like, yeah, and I
would have either bounced orbeen kicked out. A long time
(34:59):
ago, absolutely.
Well, I think that's the thingwith beit Sheva is like, when
you do get caught on thosebehaviors and they call you out,
you can either own up to it andtry to change make teshuva,
which is something that welearned here, and try to rewire
yourself, or you can continue,right, like, not hear anything,
(35:20):
like, we don't care what you'vedone, yeah, we don't care who
you've done it with, yeah, wedon't care what you were. We
just care about what you want tobe, right? And you've got to
show that's the way you'resuccessful here. You show that
you're willing to do thosethings, yeah, you know. And in
my experience, those are thepeople that do well here,
absolutely right? Who? Yeah, whoknow they need to change
(35:42):
something? Yeah. No one comeshere knowing shit. No, you you
want, if you're coming in herethinking, you know shit,
you ain't gonna last long,absolutely not. No. I think
that's yeah. That goes withYeah, anything. And I think
that's, that's one of the bestthings about be true. But I
mean, and it's in the program,right?
Like, yeah, but it's in the it'sin the program, but it's also in
(36:05):
the community. There's a magichere. Of you can emulate what
you see. Yeah, right. People cantell me shit all day long. I
could be in groups about whydrugs are bad until I'm blue in
the face. But the my change cameby seeing other people change
Absolutely.
That's what that's that'sliterally what happened. This
thing wouldn't workif that. I think it's such a key
component here, that's justlike, that's what makes this
(36:27):
place 10 times better than otherplaces, in my opinion. And you
seethat, you see that with people
that work here, still totallyLaura and via like, people that
went through these, thisprogram, Zach, like, and it's
crazy when I interview them, or,like, with these or talk to
them. And I'm like, How the fuckwas Zach a junkie? How the fuck
was it beer? Yeah, yeah. Like,when I interviewed Bradley on
(36:48):
this thing, like, I'm like, thisisn't what this isn't you. It's
like you were this crazyrelapser Who would like, lie and
cheat and like, steal and andI'm like, Dude, that's just not
who you are. It's fuckingamazing, isn't it, our biggest
promotional assets, right? Ifthat's even a thing, are the
people? Yeah, no, totally,totally. It's like, dude,
(37:09):
nothing, no amount of like pressor media or any of that shit
will will change the stories ofour stories Exactly. You know,
hey, we'll be right back. Butbefore we do please consider
helping us grow this podcast.
You could do that a number ofdifferent ways. You can hit
follow on, Spotify. You can rateus, review us. But what would be
really awesome would be if youcould share this with one other
(37:31):
addict or alcoholic that youthink could get something out
this podcast. If everyone didthat, we would grow this thing
tremendously. But as always,thank you for listening, and
thank you for your support. Sowe ask every guest this, as we
come to the end, what would yousay to Little Sarah? Today, you
knew this thingwas coming anyway. I was hoping
that I wasn't gonna get thisquestion.
(37:53):
It happens every week. Sorry.
What would I say to LittleSarah?
I don't I think what I would sayto Little Sarah is I would just
give her a big hug and tell her,I love her. I don't think
there's anything too complicatedthat or in depth that I would
need to say and and Little Sarahalways had a lot of love, but I
(38:16):
want to show her self love, youknow. And I would just hug her
and tell her, I love her.
We love you. Love you. Thanksfor coming in today. Thanks.
Ah, that's the sound of pink cloud coffee and their
(00:03):
exceptional Columbian roast.
Pink cloud coffee is an awardwinning Coffee Company based in
Los Angeles with the primarypurpose of helping addicts and
alcoholics through scholarshipsand work programs. Sicker than
others, listeners get 10% offtheir first order. Go to pink
cloudcoffee.com and use promocode sick 10 for 10% off any
beans or merchandise sicker thanothers, is a podcast on the ups
and downs of recovery brought toyou from within a treatment
(00:25):
center in Los Angeles. Thispodcast does not reflect the
views or opinions of beta shuvaor any of its subsidiary
businesses or partners sickerthan others. Neither speaks for
AA or recovery as a whole, butyou'll find some useful links on
both if you'd like to find outmore information sicker than
others, touches on subjects andsituations that some listeners
might find offensive, or, Ifyou're lucky, triggering you
(00:45):
have been warned.
David Luke, gaveit Hi, welcome to sicker than
(01:09):
others. The podcast brought toyou from within a residential
treatment center in sunny LosAngeles. My guest today is
somebody that I hold very dear,a big light in this community,
as a gentle soul and somebody'ssmile that you want to see when
you arrive right in here. Sarah,welcome
(01:32):
to the show. Hi, hi. I've beentrying
to get you to come do this for aminute.
I know, I know. I keep backingout. I'm gonna, I'm an avoider.
Avoidance, yeah, thingnow let's get, let's get into
is, do you avoid it? Because doyou find these things hard to
talkabout? Or you i Yes, and I think
(01:52):
I get nervous, and I just, youknow, tend to avoid anything
that makes me a little bituncomfortable, yeah, but
that's the stuff we need to leaninto. Well, I'm really grateful
that you're here today, so whydon't we start a little
differently than how wetraditionally start? Why don't
(02:13):
you tell us a little bit aboutwhat you do here, because it's
an interesting role before weget into your story. Okay,
I am the temple coordinator forbeit Sheva, which is a Jewish
treatment center and also asynagogue. And what I do is I
engage with the membership andmembers of our community and try
(02:33):
to pull them in as templemembers and keep our temple
going with alumni and communitymembers. And really just, I
really, just want to bringpeople in to see the wonderful
work that we do. And I thinkthat anybody coming to Shabbat
is going to see and feel thespirit that I felt my first
(02:54):
Shabbat here. Yeah, you're likethe guest list person, the
bouncer, the productioncoordinator, the production
manager. You plan out we all,all of us that volunteer or work
here on a Friday, we get setlists that you and Laura put
together. It's very, very tightoperation. Very tight. Yeah,
yeah, very you reach out to thepeople that have birthdays. You
(03:15):
make sure that they come becausewe have a big tradition here.
Well, in blah, blah, blah. Wehave a big tradition here where
birthday people come and lightthe Shabbat candles, right? So
there's a lot of, like, talkingto alumni. And do you find that
you like, I'm curious, right?
Because you are on, like, thefront lines of the alum live
(03:37):
that obviously there's two typesof people. I think there's three
types of people. There's threetypes of people. There's people
that leave and probably don'tcome back. There's people that
leave and stay in contact, butprobably don't come here for
many Shabbats. Or there's peoplelike me who kind of come here a
lot, yes, right? So you have to,I mean, that's interesting. So
(03:59):
you have to reach out to thealumni and be like, Oh, are you
taking a cake allthe time? Yeah. I mean, anytime
I see somebody right on theirtheir birthday comes up on
Facebook or Instagram, I'm like,When are you coming to Shabbat?
Do you have to have a log of allpeople? We do have a lot, kind
ofgreat. Yeah. That's great, yeah.
And, you know, being an alumnihere is a for me. It's a really
big, it's a huge fucking part ofmy sober life now, like somebody
(04:21):
asked me, was like, Why do youspend so much time on beethove
still? And I'm like, you don'tget it like they don't get it.
They don't get it like you haveto. I read with guys here. I
still take people to meetingstwice a week. Sometimes help
with Shabbat. I do it, don't getme wrong. I do it for selfish
reasons. Yeah, do it because Idon't know why this thing
(04:41):
worked, but I'm not gonna startpicking off things and trying to
evaluate what this worked.
That's why I still cover. Istill come here and I'm like, I
am so afraid to give up onething in case that's the thing
that fucking takes me out.
Absolutely.
I think that's why I continue towork here. Yeah, it fills my
spiritual bank account everytime I step into work here, even
(05:04):
if I don't want to come to work.
And I think the Beit Shevacommunity is like a key part of
sobriety for me and for manyother people. Yeah,
I had something happen to me onFriday, I took a resident here
to a job interview, right? Just,just took them out, just took
them driving down there, waitoutside, and they got the job. I
(05:26):
have never felt, yeah, that muchfucking, like, I dropped him off
and I, like, cried in the car onthe way home. Absolutely, I was
like, Dude, I don't know whatthis is, yeah. Like, I don't
know what this feeling is. Also,I'm like, Who the fuck is this
person? Yeah, yeah, where isthis guy been forever, exactly
and, like, those are the thingsthat just okay, this is the
community. Yeah, this is thecommunity.
That's exactly what it's about.
That is what that is, what keepsmost of us going around here,
(05:50):
the the feeling of seeingsomebody take that year, when I
saw you take your year cake andcried with you while you were,
you know, saying your birthdayspeech. I mean that to see
people stay continually sober,when I know how hard it was for
me to stay, to stay sober, itlike and achieve these
milestones in their life. It's,it's, it's everything, yeah,
(06:15):
all right, so now I've got youwarmed up.
Uh, tell us. Tell us how you gothere. Because it was a rough
ride. Itwas a rough ride. Where do I
start from? Like the beginning?
I'll go through the beginningquickly. Imagine pitching at a
meeting. Yeah? So I grew up. Iwas born and raised in Los
Angeles. My parents divorcedwhen I was two. My mom is I'm
(06:41):
just gonna say this. My mom isLatina and Native American, and
my dad is Ashkenazi, Jewish. AndI say that because it was so
much of a identity thing for megrowing up like, you know, I
felt more Jewish, but I didn't.
I was kind of embarrassed ofthat at the time growing up. So,
I mean, it was a big push andpull where I grew up, in
(07:03):
Burbank, and my dad is a as aformer heroin addict, and he got
sober when before I was born,and then he got sober off of
everything when I was two. So Igrew up going to meetings, and,
you know, I was a little kid inthe back of the meetings
pretending to smoke, becausethat's when you could smoke
inside the meetings, you know,with the stir coffee stirs. And
(07:24):
instead of being afraid of whatthey were talking about, I was
completely intrigued and lovedit. I loved hearing what my
dad's friends spoke about. Iloved going to coffee and food,
you know, after the meetings andhearing them bullshit and talk
shit, and I loved being aroundthem. So, yeah, I grew up with
(07:45):
all that, and I wasn't reallyafraid, because when you're
little, you don't really, youdon't, you don't know, right?
You don't know, like, the painthat they go through trying to
get sober. You don't know theaddiction part. Yet, my
childhood was, you know, a lotof back and forth between my
parents and a lot of fighting alot of custody battles trauma,
(08:06):
you know, a lot of not knowingwho I really wanted to be with
or not being able to be with theparent that I really wanted to
be with. And I'd say, around1314, years old, I really
started, um, hanging out withthe wrong people, or whatever,
you know, people that I feltcomfortable with, because I feel
(08:29):
like the the people that arereally doing good in school
didn't like me anyways. So Itended, you know, to go towards
the bad kids, or whatever, theCholas and the the Cholos, and I
thought I was one, and so lifegot pretty crazy around 14.
There's something that thathappened to me around 14 with
(08:52):
somebody close to me that kindof, I would say, you know,
damaged me a bit, and I took itthat was I was a freshman in
high school, and I took that,and that was my excuse for not
going to school for smoking weedevery day with my friends. At
that time, my dad had relapsed.
(09:15):
I was around 15 or 16, and so hekind of didn't really care. I
didn't really have a curfew, youknow, I had, like, a lot of
freedom, and I basically thoughtI was an adult already at 14 and
around 17, I think I gotinjured, or, I don't know if I
was injured or I just madesomething up, but I started
(09:36):
taking painkillers with my dad,and that turned into within 30
days, within the first month orwhatever, I remember knocking on
my dad's door every single nightfor two Norco like I just
remember that feeling like Icouldn't get through a night. I
needed that. I needed the twoNorco so I could smoke my
(09:56):
cigarettes and watch a movieand. To eat something, and it
was just like a whole, you know,routine, and you know how it
goes. And that went on for manyyears. My dad got sober again
when I was about 21 I think Iwas about 21 he went into
treatment. Finally got sober,and thank God, because he he
(10:19):
would have died. He was takinglike, 100 Norco a day. It was
crazy. And I had tried to getclean and sober. I tried to go
to the meetings. I knew I had anissue. You know, I was also
working, and then I wasn'tworking, and then I was living
here with this person andtraveling, and then I'd come
right back to my addiction, andI just couldn't live without
(10:42):
opiates. And around, uh, 27 Ithink I had, um, this boyfriend
who gave me an ultimatum. He Iwas on methadone, and he told
me, you need to get offmethadone if you're gonna stay
with me. So I went into Tarzanatreatment center, and in Tarzana
treatment center, in the detox,I fell in love, you know, met
(11:03):
the man of my dreams in detoxthere, and he was just out of
prison and a heroin addict. Andfor the next 30 days in there, I
fantasized about leaving withhim, and, you know, using
heroin. And so they were tryingto separate us. In Tarzana
(11:27):
treatment center, there's twodifferent sides of the detox,
and you know, they can separateyou. And I, you know, threw a
fit and said, I'm leaving. Areyou coming with me? And I packed
my bags. He packed his bags, andwe left, and we went to the AMPM
on the corner, and we had sold60 bucks, and we went straight
(11:48):
downtown Skid Row, boughtheroin, and he shot me up for
the first time. And that was,that was it. I mean, that was
the next step in the ultimatefeeling of being on an opiate,
right? Was heroin and shootingit and shooting it, yeah,
(12:10):
and, you know, wemade out in the courtyard of the
Midnight mission and got kickedout. And it was so romantic.
And, and we went towhere he's from, which is
Hawthorne, and stayed the nightin his mom's car. And that led
me on to the next few years ofbeing on the streets, learning
(12:36):
how to adapt on the streets.
You know, I ended up going tojail for the first time a couple
years later. And then once yougo to jail one time, that's it.
You're just like, in and out.
You're on probation. You'regetting holds put on you. You're
stealing, you know, you're I dideverything you can think of for
(12:58):
money, right? Things that youwould hear in meetings, and
you're like, Yeah, whatever. Andthen you end up being that
person, and it's wild and andaround five years into that
relationship, in and out oftreatment.
And so you did try and go backto treatment in that period,
I did, oh, yeah, I was in andout of treatment, because every
(13:18):
time he would go to jail, beforeI started going to jail, I would
have, like, my ex boyfriend pickme up off the street and take me
right to a treatment center, orbeg my parents to help me get
into a you know, let me staywith them for a night so I can
go into Tarzana or Red Gate,whatever, treatments, county
treatment center. Then, what isit? Four years, four years into
(13:44):
the relationship, me and himwent to go sign up at Tarzana
together, and they finallyagreed to let us both in at the
same time. And that night, Itook a pregnancy test, and we
were living in this hotel inHawthorne, and I discovered I
was pregnant, and I thought,This is it, this is my time.
(14:06):
This is it. I'm having thisbaby, and there's no way that
I'm going to continue this life.
And I think we had, like, a weekbefore we went into treatment
that time, and I ended upgetting arrested and going to
county jail, pregnant, Dope Sickand, oh, I remember being so
sick in County because I waspregnant with being dope sick,
(14:29):
and it was like the ultimateterrible experience.
How do they treat pregnantpeople in County?
So in County, they do put you onmethadone, or they did then, I'm
sure they still do now, orSuboxone or whatever, but it was
like Martin Luther King weekend,so there was no doctor, so I
(14:50):
didn't get any medication forlike, three or four days, and I
was, you know, throwing up andjust so ill. And finally, they
took me to the US. See ahospital with the sheriffs, and
that was an experience, becauseI remember going into that
hospital and they have youshackled, and you're going in
(15:10):
through the main part of thehospital, and your county blues
shackled up, and it's and you'rejust, I, you know, I was
probably like 120 pounds, like,I was just looking like crazy.
And I remember feeling verylike, I cannot believe this is
me. You know, I had many momentslike that, but
they're not like, if you'repregnant, you're not, you
(15:33):
obviously the methadone, thatmakes sense, but they're not.
You're not going to see like, anOB, GYN or anything, right?
No, they, they did anultrasound. Okay, all
right, you're pregnant, yes. Allright, go back to cell exactly,
holy shit. Andthey gave me morphine, and then
they sent me back. And the nextday I got, like, a dose of
methadone, I remember, and thenthat was it back up again. You
know, I was feeling great again.
(15:56):
And I get out of county, and Igo straight to Tarzana, and I
know I need to lie to them andtell them I'm not pregnant, and
I got because they wouldn't letyou in at a certain stage of
your pregnancy, so I gotsomebody's pee, and I fake peed,
and anyways, they found out, andit all worked out, thank God.
But you know, I was stillsneaking and lying. Yes,
(16:20):
exactly, junky drive, yeah. Andthey put me on a low dose of
methadone, and I slowlydecreased while I was there, I
was about six months pregnant,and I think I had just maybe
taken my last dose of methadone,and I wanted to use. I wanted, I
knew I wanted to use, like Iwasn't using just then, but
(16:41):
within a few days, I remember, Iwas on my way to group with
another mom who was there to gether kids back, and she took me
to her room, and she pulled outa pipe, a meth pipe, you know,
in front of me, and smoked. AndI think I'm like, six and a
half, seven months pregnant atthe time, and she asked me if I
wanted to hit and wouldn't,without even thinking, you know,
(17:02):
of course, and you know, becausethis thing that I thought would
happen didn't happen to me. Itdidn't the pregnancy didn't
connect, like, like I thought itwould, like this your life
changes, and like, you have thishuman being inside of you, and
God, you know you would never dothat to your baby, you know you
would not harm your baby. And Idefinitely probably judged moms
(17:27):
in the past or, you know, like,how could they hurt this unborn
baby? And here I was, I wasdoing it like, and it just
didn't even compute, because myaddiction was just so strong,
like and within a day or two, Iwas calling my, you know, my
homie, to come bring me a shotof heroin to the rehab. And I
(17:48):
was using heroin and meth in therehab, and they caught on, and
they told me I could stay, but Iwas dope sick when they told me
I could stay, and I said, Fuckthis. I'm not staying because I
knew I needed to go get loaded.
Yeah, and I left, and I went togo get loaded. And within a
(18:08):
couple weeks, I ended up goinginto a sober living and going on
methadone again and gettingclean. But the sober living
wasn't like a sober living. Itwas like moms. It was a friend
of ours who opened it up to somemoms with their children, and,
you know, pregnant women, andone of the moms ended up using
again, and I ended up using withher about two or three weeks
(18:33):
before my baby was born, and Ithought it was going to be one
time, and it was meth, and whichtakes a minute to get out your
system. Yeah, and it wasn't justone time I smoked until, like,
two days before I went and youstill had meth in your system
when the baby, yes, okay, andyeah.
(18:55):
So I went in and they told methey were gonna induce me. I was
two weeks late, you know, sothey induced me, and my family
was there, and nobody knows I'musing because I've been really
good, and everybody thinks I'mdoing really good still. And
they came in, and my mom wasthere, and they they told me
that my my P tested positive formethamphetamine. And after the
(19:17):
baby was born, they would callthe social workers, and I just,
I just, I don't know what I wasthinking beforehand. I don't
know like, if I thought itwouldn't happen to me, like,
maybe I could get away with it,but it didn't. So I gave birth
to my daughter. I was in labor,maybe about 24 hours, and my mom
(19:41):
was next to me. My dad was inthe room. My best friend Shannon
was in the room, and I pushedthis human being out of me, and
I saw her for the first time.
And like the love and theemotion and shame and the guilt.
And like, all of it was all inone instance. Like, I just
(20:02):
couldn't believe that that wasmy baby. And like, God, I love
this baby. And I connected,like, that immediate connection,
like, it was just amazing thatmoment. And like, it's crazy
because I see that moment on TVwith people like, or I see
people giving birth, and I seethat moment, and I know that
(20:23):
moment so well. Like, and theyhanded her to me, and she was,
you know, eight pounds or eightpounds, nine ounces, I believe.
And she was very healthy, yeah.
And I held her for the firsttime, and I said to myself,
like, this is it? This is thisis my baby, and nothing's gonna
happen. You know, I'm not thisis nobody's taking this baby
(20:46):
away from me like I am meant tobe her mom. And about three days
into being there, the socialworkers came to see me, and she
assessed me, and my daughter wasin my arms, and I was thinking,
I'm just gonna let this womanknow, like, I am ready to be
this mom and like, of coursethey're gonna let me keep her.
(21:08):
Well, that wasn't the case. Theythey called me a little bit
later, and they told me thatthey were sending four social
workers over to take her from meat the hospital. And they came
in, and I couldn't even handher. I couldn't hand her to
them. I didn't want to let hergo. I think I had to put her on
the bed, because I just couldn'tgive her to them. And they took
(21:31):
her from me, and within 20minutes, I was calling my friend
to bring me a shot of heroin,right? Because it was either
that or a bullet in my head atthe time. You know?
Yeah.
So I did heroin. I left thehospital that night, and they
called me, I think later on,they told me they were going to
be keeping her in the hospitalbecause she was starting to show
(21:52):
signs of withdrawal from themethadone. And I was like, No
fucking way. She's not, youknow, like she's been she's
normal, she's perfect, like,there's no like, I it took me so
many years to realize, like,they were right, and you know,
what was I fighting against?
Like, this is what I did, andlet the hospital help her. So
she stayed in the hospital, andI was with her every day in the
(22:15):
hospital, and that first, shewas there for like, about a
month, and the NICU is very likepro mother, like, wanting you to
be there with your kid no matterwhat's happening. So I was able
to do that, and the nurses weregreat, and my baby, dad's mom
ended up taking custody of her,and I tried to get clean, and I
was unable to get clean. Well,that's like another traumatic
(22:39):
event. It's so traumatic, likeit is, I don't know how
you could, you know what I mean?
I know because no amount of forme, no amount of, like, I
understand that the I had thesame feeling when Stella was
born, and I've said this before,but like, there's two days to
remember, October 25 when shewas born, and then November 1,
(23:00):
when I was smoking meth, and Irealized that not even that
little girl was gonna save me,right? I mean, I get it, but
that alone for me, so it was atraumatic event for me, you
know? So I can't imagine havingthese people come and be like,
Oh, well, you know, we're gonnamake your decisions. Now, you're
not fit to make your decisions.
Yeah, you know, that's got tothat spin anyway. That might
(23:22):
even now sober, my firstinstinct would be, get high.
Yeah, the fuck out. How am Isupposed to deal with that? I
know so, um, so she's in thehospital for a month, yeah? And
what's that process? What dothey do after, like, you, they
give the custody, I don't reallyknow how it works, but they
give you go to Children's Courtand, like, they find a suitable
(23:43):
person to take care of her. Andluckily, it was a family member
on her right. And I hadvisitations twice a week. You
know, my visitations were twicea week for like, two hours at a
time, just not enough. No,absolutely not. And I just
couldn't do it. I couldn't, Icouldn't. And her dad was in
jail at the time. He got outduring the time when his mom got
(24:04):
custody of her start, wasimmediately using with me when
he got out, and then he wentback in, and I met somebody
else, because I was out there ondrugs, and I met somebody else,
moved in with him, and I wastrying to reason with myself and
and I don't know what I wasdoing at the time, and I don't
know why it was like that, otherthan the traumatic experience of
(24:27):
everything that happened, but Iwasn't done, you know, like I
wasn't done. I don't even knowif that made sense, but I wasn't
done, and I but also in my head,I knew that I was going to be
her mom no matter what, like, Iwould get clean, yeah, like,
(24:48):
this is not going to happen.
There's no way I'm not going tohave this little girl not with
me, right? But I wasn't able tostay in a fucking treatment
center, and I wasn't able to tostay clean, but I. Knew, like
she was gonna be mine, like Ihadn't, you know, like it didn't
snap in, like they could takeher from me forever, you know.
And as the months went on and Iended up getting pregnant again,
(25:12):
this new guy, and wasn't able tobe clean with my next one, while
I was fighting for custody forthis one, you know, and, and I'm
sure it's kind of like jail,right, once you're in their
system, once you once you'rein the system, you're in the
system right now. And there wasmoments where I tried to be
clean, and then, you know, veryI just couldn't, I couldn't
like, I just wasn't ready to,like, I talk about it all the
(25:37):
time, like, I don't know why I'mso done now, and why wasn't I
done 12 years ago? Like, what? Idon't know what the difference
is, and I don't know why. And Ihate it sometimes. Well, I hate
it a lot. You know that itwasn't 12 years ago when my
first daughter was born, but youknow I'm I, I'm grateful to be
clean. And anyways, I had mydaughter, and they, they took,
(26:02):
they took her from me withinlike three months, I was
pregnant again, so now I'mpregnant three times, and I had
my son, same guy, same guy, andthat was a traumatic experience.
I was not healthy at all. Ididn't even try with my son. I
think I was three or four monthswhen I found out I found out I
was pregnant. Yeah,I've seen pictures of you when
(26:24):
you were using and I thinkthey're probably this. It's
probably the completely unrecoYou're completely
unrecognizable, yeah, yeah, Iknow. And
I was thinking I was looking allcute in these pictures, like,
you know, like this, like,sunken face with this, these big
(26:45):
eyes and thinking, going to myvisits like that, yeah, you
know, going to my children'svisits and having to use heroin
in the bathroom at Children's atthe DCFS office, just so I could
play with My kids for the nexttwo hours. You know, you given
up enough, yeah. And so I wasdoing heroin in the shooting
(27:07):
heroin, and the kids, you know,in the DCFS office, well, that's
what drugs do to us. I mean,they not being able to show up,
yeah, yeah, right, because I wasdidn't have enough dope to get
me through. That'show incestuous This shit is, is
you have to do the shit to dothe stuff you love, yeah, not
even to, like, pay bills or,like, I remember Same deal, I'd
have to get hired to exactly thethings I really cared about,
(27:29):
right, the things I loved, yeah,things I love to do. Yeah,
that's what's so fucked up aboutthis shit. It doesn't it when
people say it takes everything.
It's not just material. It takesevery part of you. Yeah,
completely rewires and changeswho you are. It's crazy. So
you're three kids down.
Three kids down. I was also, youknow, with the baby, with my
(27:50):
second kid's father. I was in avery abusive, toxic, toxic
relationship, and, you know, I'dbe with my son, I'd be eight
months pregnant, and he'd kickme out at two o'clock in the
morning with all my stuff, youknow, and I'd be walking with
this big belly down the streetto some tweaker pad down the
street, and I lived like that.
And then I'd be begging andapologizing to come back right
(28:12):
now, always. And I gave I wentinto labor, and I remember he
was upset with me aboutsomething, and I couldn't go get
my my dope. So starting to getdope sick, and I didn't want to
bother him. And I thought, like,Okay, I've been in labor before.
(28:34):
I think I have some time, youknow. Like, I'll just wait, let
him sleep a little bit, youknow? And around six in the
morning it was, it like thatwas, I was literally going into
labor at six o'clock in themorning, and I was still there,
and I woke him up, and he droveme to the hospital, and within
about a half an hour, I pushedmy son out, wow. And he was
(28:57):
like, nine pounds, right? Imean, the the miracle of, like,
life is so crazy because I wasso skinny and unhealthy, and I
had this nine pound baby, like,who probably took every little
bit of goodness that I had andand he was miracle. I think I
almost died giving birth to him,no epidural, no dope, you know?
I mean, it was, it was atraumatic and also he was
(29:22):
beautiful and and then I had tolive with the guilt of him
being, you know, a little hegot, he went into withdrawals a
little bit as I was in thehospital holding him, I could
see that he was uncomfortable.
And I did everything in my head,like I fought with myself, like,
do I call the nurses and what amI doing? Like, is this really
(29:45):
happening in front of me? Did Ido this? And I did. I called the
nurses in I said, You need tohelp him now. And that was
probably one of the hardestthings I've done in my life,
just not getting him help. Butlike, admitting to myself that I
did. This, becauseprobably so important for you,
soimportant, so important for me
to do that. Yes, it was. I washaving faith like even in this
(30:09):
moment I'm having faith. Youknow, I came through Beethoven,
we have spiritual counselors,and I had Rabbi Carrie as my
spiritual counselor, and I hadto write in detail about all
this, the birth of my kid, andthe drugs that I took, and when
he started not looking right tome, and I had to read it out
loud to her, kind of like, whatyou do with a sponsor I did with
(30:30):
Rabbi Carrie. And she goes,Sarah, you didn't even know, but
you were having faith then. AndI'm like, what? Yeah, faith.
Like, what does that even Ilike, I had no idea. I didn't
ever think about it like that.
And that was such a pivotalmoment in my in my stay here, in
my sobriety and, like, turningshit around a little bit, right?
(30:54):
So what got you here? Soafter I lost the rights to my
kids about a year later, becauseobviously I didn't get clean,
and I had to go to Children'sCourt and sign my rights over.
That was it for me. I gave up. Isaid, I'm just gonna die, right?
Like there's no reason for me toget clean. I can't even be the
mother that you know I thought Iwas gonna be. And mind you, like
(31:17):
my entire life. I wanted to be amom. Since I was a little girl,
I had baby dolls and I playedhouse, and I knew I was going to
be the best mom, like I was bornto be a mother like when that
didn't obviously work out. Iwent back out on the streets.
(31:39):
And I started using again whileI was continuing to use, and I
just said, Fuck it. And I stayedout there, and I was going to
jail, in and out of county jail.
And the last time I got bustedin a raid in this house I was
living in, and they gave me alittle more time than they
usually give me, and I was inthere about six and a half
(31:59):
months, which is in a long timecompared to some people. But to
me, that was a long time, and Icalled my dad. My dad is the
only one who really kind ofanswers the phone when I'm in
jail. He sends me packages oncein a while, you know, he told
me, you need to try to get backinto beit. Sheva, I had been
here once for two days in thepast. I was like, Yeah, okay,
(32:20):
I'll try. He goes, No, if youdon't get back into Bay,
teshuva, I don't ever want totalk to you again. And usually
that wouldn't have mattered tome, right? But for whatever the
last person on Earth, when it'sthe last person on Earth, yeah,
and, and you don't want todisappoint him, all of a sudden
I felt this, like feeling insideof me that I didn't want to hurt
him, you know, like somethingshifted. And also, I was able to
(32:43):
call my mom for the first time,she answered her phone, which
was amazing. And somethingshifted. And I tried to get back
into Beth Sheva, Rabbi denied mecoming back. I almost gave up,
and I ended up writing a letter.
And, you know, in the letter, Ibasically said, If I don't get
in, I will die like this is,this is life or death. I need, I
need you guys. And they approvedmy letter, and are they approved
(33:06):
me to come back in. So when Igot out, they picked me up right
from jail. They were right onthe other side of the fucking
door, and Carrie. It wasn'tCarrie as Michael Rosenfeld at
the time. He was my guy, and Icame back in, and I walked
through these doors, and I wasin gratitude, like, you know,
like I was just so I had beendreaming about Beijing, but my
(33:30):
best friend, Shannon, who Italked about, who was at the
birth, you know, I she's thefirst person I ever did heroin
with, and she got clean here in2006 Wow. And so I knew it
worked for her, like it has towork for me too, like she was a
crazy dope Fien, you know. And Icame in and, you know, I I
jumped right in, but I didn'tjump right in, like I was still
(33:51):
lying, I was still sneakingaround. I was, you know, doing
things with people I shouldn'tbe doing. And but there was,
that's the great story. Butthat's the thing here that sets
this place off, separate fromother places. It's an
individualized program,absolutely, so long as it's not
fucking final fentanyl, yes,right? Exactly like they take
(34:14):
everybody's Yeah, and it takesit just the kicking of the drugs
is the easy bit. Yeah, in myopinion, the behavior change
takes time.
The behavior change totallytakes time. And you don't learn
that in jail, and by the way,there's no timeline on that. No
some people need, I know somepeople here that have made total
180s and it was in like fuckinga month. And some people in like
(34:38):
nine months. It just takespeople time, yeah, absolutely,
you know. And I get it. I when Ifirst landed here, I had some
bad behaviors that just took aminute to for me to go. And
that's not we're gonna fly here,yeah, you know. But I've been to
other stricter institutionswhere it's like, yeah, and I
would have either bounced orbeen kicked out. A long time
(34:59):
ago, absolutely.
Well, I think that's the thingwith beit Sheva is like, when
you do get caught on thosebehaviors and they call you out,
you can either own up to it andtry to change make teshuva,
which is something that welearned here, and try to rewire
yourself, or you can continue,right, like, not hear anything,
(35:20):
like, we don't care what you'vedone, yeah, we don't care who
you've done it with, yeah, wedon't care what you were. We
just care about what you want tobe, right? And you've got to
show that's the way you'resuccessful here. You show that
you're willing to do thosethings, yeah, you know. And in
my experience, those are thepeople that do well here,
absolutely right? Who? Yeah, whoknow they need to change
(35:42):
something? Yeah. No one comeshere knowing shit. No, you you
want, if you're coming in herethinking, you know shit,
you ain't gonna last long,absolutely not. No. I think
that's yeah. That goes withYeah, anything. And I think
that's, that's one of the bestthings about be true. But I
mean, and it's in the program,right?
Like, yeah, but it's in the it'sin the program, but it's also in
(36:05):
the community. There's a magichere. Of you can emulate what
you see. Yeah, right. People cantell me shit all day long. I
could be in groups about whydrugs are bad until I'm blue in
the face. But the my change cameby seeing other people change
Absolutely.
That's what that's that'sliterally what happened. This
thing wouldn't workif that. I think it's such a key
component here, that's justlike, that's what makes this
(36:27):
place 10 times better than otherplaces, in my opinion. And you
seethat, you see that with people
that work here, still totallyLaura and via like, people that
went through these, thisprogram, Zach, like, and it's
crazy when I interview them, or,like, with these or talk to
them. And I'm like, How the fuckwas Zach a junkie? How the fuck
was it beer? Yeah, yeah. Like,when I interviewed Bradley on
(36:48):
this thing, like, I'm like, thisisn't what this isn't you. It's
like you were this crazyrelapser Who would like, lie and
cheat and like, steal and andI'm like, Dude, that's just not
who you are. It's fuckingamazing, isn't it, our biggest
promotional assets, right? Ifthat's even a thing, are the
people? Yeah, no, totally,totally. It's like, dude,
(37:09):
nothing, no amount of like pressor media or any of that shit
will will change the stories ofour stories Exactly. You know,
hey, we'll be right back. Butbefore we do please consider
helping us grow this podcast.
You could do that a number ofdifferent ways. You can hit
follow on, Spotify. You can rateus, review us. But what would be
really awesome would be if youcould share this with one other
(37:31):
addict or alcoholic that youthink could get something out
this podcast. If everyone didthat, we would grow this thing
tremendously. But as always,thank you for listening, and
thank you for your support. Sowe ask every guest this, as we
come to the end, what would yousay to Little Sarah? Today, you
knew this thingwas coming anyway. I was hoping
that I wasn't gonna get thisquestion.
(37:53):
It happens every week. Sorry.
What would I say to LittleSarah?
I don't I think what I would sayto Little Sarah is I would just
give her a big hug and tell her,I love her. I don't think
there's anything too complicatedthat or in depth that I would
need to say and and Little Sarahalways had a lot of love, but I
(38:16):
want to show her self love, youknow. And I would just hug her
and tell her, I love her.
We love you. Love you. Thanksfor coming in today. Thanks.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.