Janice's Journey to Recovery

In this episode, we hear the heartrending life story of Janice, a 64-year-old woman who has experienced a challenging journey but emerged victorious because of her faith and resilience. She shares her life tale, where she started in a dysfunctional family, experienced abuse, early exposure to crime, drug addiction and multiple encounters with the justice system, today, she stands as a proud and grateful recovering addict, thanking God for every step of her recovery.

She describes her early life marked by violence, neglect, and abuse. She details experiences of sexual exploitation and navigating survival on the streets at an alarmingly young age. With striking honesty, she discloses her initiation into selling drugs and a life of crime, her numerous stints in prison, and her battle with substance abuse.

Janice openly shares her struggles with seeking love and affirmation in the wrong places, her battles with drugs, and the desperation she felt in her darkest days. Her raw recounting of her life underscores the unmanageability and powerlessness that drugs had over her life.

Enlightening moments arrived when she was introduced to recovery programs. Here, she outlines her transformation through her realization of the damages of self-centeredness and the power of her spiritual connection. Janice candidly explains her entry into a treatment center was a turning point, where mentors and healers encouraged her to learn from her mistakes, guided her, and planted seeds of recovery.

She emphasizes the crucial role of formal recovery steps, finding a sponsor, and tapping into a higher power in her journey to recovery and renewal. As she started to realize her self-destructive behaviors, she came to understand the deep-seated issues feeding her addiction and found a way to address them.

Janice's incredible story is a testament to her resilience and the transformative power of recovery. Her story is an inspiring message of hope for fellow addicts still trapped in the painful cycle of addiction, offering them practical advice. Thanks to faith, determination, and recovery, Janice now lives a life that goes beyond her wildest imagination.

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
Hi, Belly. My name is Janice. I'm a grateful recovering addict.
I want to thank God for my life. I want to thank God for the willingness.
I want to thank God for recreating me as a person.
I want to thank God for the process of recovery that's outlined in the big book,
Hyperholic Anonymous. You know, I'm here to share my experience and hope to

(00:29):
tell you what it was like, what happened, and what it's like today.
Well, what it was like for me, I came from a very, very, very,
very, very dysfunctional family from as early as I can remember.
And mind you, I'm 64 years old today.
So as far as I can remember, I used to see my dad beat my mom unmercifully.

(00:51):
I mean, just like break bones, you know, and I'm just like looking at this lady
like, how do you let this man beat you like that, you know?
So at an early age, I had resilience. I just didn't know that they were resilient.
And also at an early age, men used to touch me and I equated them touching me as that they loved me.

(01:14):
So I had some more issues. On top of that, I was always a curious child.
You know, if you say no, I say go.
You know, I developed a personality around the age of seven or eight.
And then it came to the point where by the time I was eight years old,
I had so much trauma at Toronto and my conception of love,

(01:40):
my conception of God at that age was totally off-keyed.
I ended up, my father ended up molesting me at the age of nine.
I tried to tell my mom. My mom just looked at me like, yeah,
okay, I don't believe you.
So all my life, I've been, I yearned for that emotional time with my mom.

(02:03):
I wanted that nurturing that I seen other girls get from their mom.
And I never got that. And to this day, I've realized that my mom gave me the
best that she could give me.
You can't transmit nothing that you don't have. But I also realized that she loved us in her own way.
I just wanted her to love me the way I wanted her to love me. So that was the problem.

(02:29):
So I left home. I was 10, going on 11.
I got with an older guy that was still in Huron.
Because, mind you, at that age, I was in survival mode.
I needed to learn how to stay, be out on the street. I didn't have a place to
stay. I didn't have a hustle.
I didn't know how to be a woman. I was just a child in a grown folks world trying to survive.

(02:55):
So I learned at an early age how to act as if, you know.
If they was doing that, that's what I was doing. If they was doing that,
that's what I was doing. And I learned the game.
I was a quick learner, very, very quick learner.
I learned how to sell heroin at an early age. I learned how to board planes
at an early age. I knew how to go out on the street corners and sell heroin at an early age.

(03:17):
And all of this led to me going in and out of the criminal justice system for the next 45 years.
In and out. At one time I thought prison was my home.
You know, because I knew how to do time real, real good. I came out here, I couldn't exist.
So at about the age I had tried, weed didn't really turn me on.

(03:40):
I tried drinking. I didn't like that effect because I didn't like to feel like I wasn't in control.
And that's what alcohol made me feel like, that I wasn't in control.
So I ended up being Bonnie and Clyde. You know what I'm saying?
I tried prostitution. It didn't work for me. First of all, it didn't work for
me because I like to have sex. So I forget to get paid.

(04:04):
So I wasn't making any money. And they were using me. But then I met this guy
that told me, you can make some money real fast.
All you got to do is get a gun, tell them to lay down. I found my niche. I had arrived.
I had arrived. I was robbing everything that looked like it had some money.
And I robbed a wash house behind you for the quarters.
So that took me to my first step in California Youth Authority at the age of 17.

(04:29):
I'd already had a baby. I had my first child when I was 14 years old.
I left her at the hospital, never went and got her. Just gone up and left.
Mom, Dad, you have to, you know, I don't have, what could I give a child?
I was still a child myself.
So it was nothing I could possibly give a child. I ended up doing two years

(04:54):
in California Youth Authority. I came out.
Things was kind of like, I had a little counselor that was telling me about this inside trauma.
Like, why was I so hateful? Why was I so angry? And she kind of like planted a seed way back there.
But it would take 30 more years for that seed to actually cultivate. Right.

(05:16):
I did pretty good when I came out of youth authority. Met this guy.
He behold me. Put the world over my eyes.
Mind you, he was almost 30 years older than me. I was 21 years old.
Ended up getting pregnant by him. That's my middle son.
For about six years, kind of did good again. You know, then I started dibbling

(05:37):
and dabbling with powder cocaine.
It was okay. I could do with it or I could do without it. But then I met this
guy that told me about freebasing.
I had a ride. I was there.
I took a hit, and all I seen was lights. It was like, this is me.
You know what I'm saying?
So this is at the age of 21.

(06:01):
So for the next 20 years, I went in, out of prison, in and out of prison.
And in the programs, it says we put our lives on the line so many times for that next hit.
Never understood that. back until I got into this work, this process of recovery. I found out how.
I almost got burnt up. I was in a hospital in the growing war.

(06:22):
I left the hospital, got on the bus in a gallon, a wheelchair,
going to find another head.
That's how you put your life on the line for these drugs.
This is how the unmanageability and the powerlessness of this drug has over
your life. Like, you know, and we come, like, for me, I came to this.

(06:42):
I didn't come into recovery, go to a treatment center to get sober.
I went to a treatment program because I did not want to do 25 to life.
So I got an alternate center. And that was God working way back then. I didn't know that.
God was working for me then because he sent me to this treatment center.

(07:03):
And then they planted a little seed.
But me, I'm a self-centered, self-seeking, selfish individual.
It was all about me. It wasn't about my children, my mom, not anybody.
It was all about me, my money, my status, and how I felt and how I looked.
Because I could dress the outside up real, real good.

(07:23):
I could walk out looking like a million dollars, and inside I feel like shit.
So I needed that next hit to make me feel all right.
You know what I'm saying? and then another hit to make me feel a little bit better.
You know what I'm saying? Because I didn't know at that time I suffered from
this disease that centers in my mind and my body and my spirit.

(07:44):
You know what I'm saying? I know for me that once I put one in, all bets are off.
Because I suffered from that obsession, that allergy, that phenomenon of craving.
But I also learned in this process that as long as I don't put one in,
I have nothing to worry about.
But the only way that I have that kind of power is that I tap into the power.

(08:08):
And see, first of all, I had to admit that I was very pious and that my life
was totally unmanageable.
You know what I'm saying? Then I had to come to believe that a power greater
than me could restore me back to sanity.
So then after I did that step, I made a decision to turn my life from mom yoga
to a current God as I understand it.

(08:29):
Not your God, not your God, not anybody's God. I got a God list.
What I need my God to be in my life every day.
So every morning, I look at that God list. I meditate.
I burn my sage. I ask God, what do you have me to do today? Your will, not mine.
See, because words are powerful, especially in the term that you're using here.

(08:54):
And seeing this process of recovery, the first thing they ask you to do,
are you willing to follow some simple direction?
And see, that's that ego to say, I don't need them.
I don't need them. I got this. But if you play the tape and you realize how
many times your best idea got you fucked up, your best idea got you homeless,

(09:17):
your best idea got you in jail.
So for me, I had to be on a lot of ideas. So once I got to the treatment center,
I still had an ego problem. Biggest mouth sack.
They sent my ass back to jail in the treatment center.
That's how bad I was. legacy. But I was the only supposed to be there for two
weeks. But as my dad would have it, he kept me there for 90 days.

(09:41):
I cried for 90 days.
I called my son. I said to myself, did you please come and bail me out?
It only cost $500 to get me out.
And he's going to know, I'm not going to bail you out.
I'm not going to do none of that, mom. He said, what you need to do is you need
to sit there and realize what do you want out of life?
You got grandchildren now. You You want to raise your grandchildren like you raised us?

(10:05):
That's God. That's another act God did for me. You know, God was doing for me
what I would have never done for myself.
Never, ever, ever. Because I was powerless. Because I wasn't tapped into this
power that I'm tapping into now every day.
So I ended up going back to the treatment center.
And my mentor, my spiritual advisor, works at Prototypes. And she was like,

(10:27):
are you ready to sit your ass down and just be quiet and listen?
Take some simple suggestion?
And I was like, is that all I got to do? She's like, yeah, you might just get
this shit if you shut up, you know?
So I sit there. So she told me, get your sponsors.
I immediately start going to the Zoom meeting, looking for somebody that would

(10:48):
sponsor me, that would take me through this work, that would bring me from a place to a place.
Somebody that would guide me to this sunlight of spirit that I'm seeking daily.
You know, because what you see now is God. It's not me. It's that God in me.
Because if you'd have met the old Janice, you wouldn't have liked her very much.

(11:09):
Because if you didn't have anything to give me, fuck you.
And that's how I felt. But now I've had this opportunity to start working these steps, this process.
And I can't tell you that my life is great, but I'm living a life beyond my
wildest imagination. nation.
I'm living a life that who would have thought that I had the power or even had

(11:33):
the courage to come back to school and haven't been in school with almost 30
years and do what I'm doing now.
It's not me. It's God.
That same mother today, she hasn't changed.
She's changing, but she hasn't changed. But now I know that it's the God in

(11:54):
me that see the God in her.
Because there's no more God in me than it is in each and every one of you guys here.
And the same God that I die, he's inside of you. Because, see, God is not in a building.
He's not on a poster. He ain't nowhere. He's right here with all that shit that keeps you loaded.
He can't get through it because you got to get that shit up before you can get in.

(12:18):
You got to tap in. And for me, to you guys, is, I don't know,
don't let it take you 40 years.
Before you tap into this power, I would suggest that you go to meetings,
that you get a sponsor, that you get a sponsor that's going to take you line
through line through line in that book so that that book come alive.

(12:41):
You know, get that book, you'll be like, woo, say that shit, say, woo.
Now I know what I'm suffering from. Now I know why I'm powerless because I don't got no power.
And see, ego, it's your God. Right?
Number one killer. Because I don't want to ask nobody for help.

(13:03):
Because I'm used to doing this on my own. And what have doing it on your own got you all this time?
Nothing. But another jail cell, sleeping under the bridge.
God has been good to all of us. But all I can tell you to do is you got to find
a God of your understanding.
You got to find a God that you're tapped into, not your mama's God,

(13:26):
not your daddy's God, not your grandma's God, but a God of your own understanding.
Because see, before I thought my God was a punishing God. He was either a punishing
God on one hand, or he was, if you get me out of jail this time,
I promise you ain't going to do it no more.
If you just hurry up and give me another hit, I'm going to be okay,
God. That's the God that I had before I got into this work.

(13:50):
So, I'm just here to tell you that the process of recovery does work.
One day at a time. I'm a living witness.
And if you be new and you still in these rooms dying, you don't got to die.
Get your sponsor. Go to a meeting. Find somebody whose story you hear. The similarities.

(14:10):
Get somebody that can take you so you can see yourself in that book.
Look, because once you diagnose yourself as being powerless,
once you diagnose yourself that you need this power, and you're a real one like
me, you are tapped in. My name is Janice. Thank you. Come on.