Ep. 1 - Surviving Suicide, Addiction, and Emotional Crisis | Angela Presti

In this episode of "The Bounce Back," Andrea Vecchio sits down with suicide survivor Angela Presti to talk about her battle with drugs and alcohol, relapse and recovery, and how she overcame the emotional crisis of the death of her unborn child's father when she was eight months pregnant and one year sober. In this honest and unfiltered conversation, Angela talks about second chances, the path to finding self-worth, and coming clean with our own truths.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
BFCB Radio Network, where Real Talklives the mission we hold Back. Then

(00:27):
I'm Andrea Echio. You're listening tothe bounce Back the podcast. If we
can change one person's life for thebetter by sharing our story, then it's
a story worth telling. Life isa mixed bag and there's so much of
the good stuff all around us,but it's the failure, pain and setbacks
that can make us feel stuck.The teachable moments come from how we bounce

(00:49):
back from our struggles. You're aboutto listen to an incredible story and lessons
learned from the bounce Back. Ichose my guests today to be the first
guest on the bounce Back Podcast fortwo reasons. The first is because she
has the energy of every avenger whogets top billing on a marble poster.
After I witness this pint sized womancaptivate a room with her most shameful moments

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and heartbreaking stories. You know,the kind of stuff you hope God misses
when he's helping a billion other people. While she put it all out for
a room full of strangers to hear. That takes guts, and this little
mama had everyone fixated on her everyword The second reason is because she is
one of my dearest friends in lifeand also a spiritual mentor to me.

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Her story, like many, hasdramatic twists and turns, and I believe
her message can save lives. She'sa survivor of suicide, an alcoholic and
recovery, a single mother to fiveyear old Harper Reese, and a true
bounce Back story. Angela Presty,Welcome to the bounce Back. Hello.

(01:57):
So you know, we all getto make a choice. I think making
a choice is one of our greatestgifts as a human being. And it's
interesting because you and I had thisinterview scheduled for a week ago and something
changed. In fact, my introto you changed a little bit. Um.

(02:20):
You called me the other night andyou said I have something I have
to tell you. And this wasyou're coming. You were coming near six
years of sobriety. Yeah may wouldhave been six years, okay, And
so you called me and you saidI have something to tell you. Oh

(02:42):
yeah, you said I drank lastnight. I did. And why did
you choose to tell the truth?Um? Well, first and foremost,
UM, I just want to say, um, I drank because I didn't
feel a part of Alcoholics Anonymous anymore. I had stopped going to meetings for

(03:07):
around ten to eleven months, verysporadically going to a meeting here or there,
so I essentially wasn't taking my medicine. So that is the reason why
I decided that it would be okayto have one to two drinks. I
then the Sunday after, during anincredibly terrible hangover, I decided I was

(03:32):
going to keep it to myself andthat nobody needed to know. A lot
of that was to save the peoplethat loved me the most from any type
of pain, But mostly I thinkthat if I didn't say it out loud,
it was almost like it didn't happen. By the time Monday hit,

(03:54):
the guilt, remorse, and theshame which I was so used to feeling
for so many years, was creepingback and it was unbearable. And I
knew that I had to tell someoneand that I had to get back into
the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, andI had to reintroduce myself. Is what
we call it. It's standing upand admitting that you had a slip and

(04:16):
that you're back. And I knewthat the only way to get my life
back on track and did not goback down that dark path again. Was
to be able to speak my truthin the rooms. And I knew that
this was just another part of mystory and that I didn't want to drink
anymore. I didn't want any partof it, and I'm grateful for that.

(04:40):
I'm really grateful for that. Soyou were the first person I called.
I've known you for many, manyyears, and you are my cheerleader
when it comes to all this stuff. So I knew if anybody was going
to just listen and not judge me, it was going to be you.
And you had the right words andgave me the strength to be able to

(05:00):
then talk to my sponsor about it, and then talk to the people in
the rooms and eventually tell my family. And so yeah, so my story
has changed a little bit. Now. Tomorrow will be one full week of
sobriety. So I don't count lastSunday because I did drink after midnight.
So yeah, I want to talka little bit about that whole process of

(05:24):
what you were thinking and some ofthe things you just touched upon, because
when you made that phone call tome and you said I have something to
tell you, those are just afew words, but I knew in the
sound of your voice that it wassomething serious. It was something that you
didn't feel good about. It wassomething that you felt a little shame about.
But there was that little, teenytiny bit of courage that was overpowering

(05:49):
all of those negative emotions to beable to say the words I drank last
night, And then you followed itup by saying, are you disappointed in
me, which of course I wasnot. I was not. I felt
bad because I knew how hard youworked and how important all the years put

(06:12):
in were to you. But Ialso was so proud of you for saying
I drank rather than hiding it,because if you hit it. Let's talk
about what probably would have happened ifyou didn't say I drank. I think
I would have continued to drink eventually. I don't think it would have happened
right away because I was so disgustedwith the fact that I did drink.

(06:34):
And you know, I don't havea crystal ball, so I can't say
what would have happened if I wouldn'thave come back in. But I definitely
think that my disease would have turnedthat into well, you got away with
it and no one found out.So maybe when you go on vacations you

(06:54):
can drink, or maybe, youknow, maybe just for special occasion when
you were with a certain group ofpeople, you can drink. And you
know, my disease wants me outthere and wants me drinking and wants me
feeding it. And I definitely thinkthat if I would have kept it to
myself, the guilt alone would havejust eaten away at me and it would

(07:16):
have distracted me from everything in lifethat's important, my spirituality, being a
mother, to my daughter, beinga daughter to my parents, being a
friend, because in the back ofmy mind I would have had this hypocritical
feeling every time I'm trying to givesomeone advice. Not to mention, I
was sponsoring girls at the time,so you know, I can't sit here

(07:39):
and give people advice knowing what Idid in the back of my mind.
It just it's just not Back intwenty thirteen, I would have easily been
able to do that because I wasa liar. Cheating the thief and lying
came second nature to me. Itwas just what I did. But today,
after so many years of being inthe program and building such a close

(08:03):
connection to a god of my understanding, and having people that support me and
love me no matter what. AndI've learned that along the way. I
know that I can be as truthfuland honest as I need to be today
and it's going to be okay.And the biggest thing was I didn't want
to go down that path again.I mean, you know my story's there

(08:24):
was many many dark dark days,months, years, and I know where
my drinking takes me and I justdidn't want to go back there. So
I knew that the faster I gotit out in the open, the faster
I told the people, the rightpeople that I knew were going to support
me and be there for me.Tell my sponsor, get back into the
rooms of alcoholics Anonymous, get backinto the steps. The faster I did

(08:48):
that, the better I was goingto feel. And you know that this
was just a moment of a baddecision and that I could cover from it.
So when I said to you,I still want to do this interview,
you said you still you do?Even though my drank, You still
want to do this? And Isaid yes, because I think that's a

(09:11):
huge message and anyone's life and bouncebackstory whatever it is, and that is
we bounce back from struggles. Butguess what, we're human, which means
we're gonna fall again. And Idon't know what that looks like for somebody
out there who's listening, But we'regonna talk through the tools it takes,
because I think once you bounce backand you learn those tools, if you

(09:33):
fall again, you know what todo. Right. Isn't that what I
said to you when you called me? I said, you know what you
need to do now? It wasone night like it doesn't have to ruin
everything moving, it doesn't have todefine me. And if I didn't have
those five and a half years ofa phenomenal foundation, then I wouldn't have
known what to do, and Idon't think I would have come back as

(09:54):
fast as I did. I justwent to a lead on Wednesday night where
and explain what a lead is.A lad is where in the room of
alcoholics, anonymous someone gets up andtells her story. They talk about what
it was like, what happened,and what it's like today. And this
man told his story about how hewas about to hit seven years of sobriety

(10:18):
and life just got busy, whichwas the same thing for me. Life
got really busy. I'm a singlemom, I work full time. I
want to spend time with Harper.I also want to have somewhat of a
social life if I can squeeze thatin there somewhere. And I just got
tired. I got off of work. I wanted to be with Harper,
you know, getting home and thenhaving to get ready and then go back

(10:41):
out to go to a meeting andthen get back home late. It was
just I just was getting busy.I was getting lazy, and I just
didn't think that I needed AA anymore. And something had to give. So
AA is what gave for me.So he said the exact same thing in
his story, and right before sevenyears of sobriety, he went back out
and he stayed out for a fewyears. And it was an incredible message

(11:07):
because I know I was meant tobe there. There's no coincidences in life,
and I was meant to be therethat night to listen to that message,
because this is what had just happenedto me, and we are human
and it does happen. It's partof my story now, you know.
And I'll be able to get upthere some day and tell someone that I

(11:28):
was coming up on six years andthen I had to reintroduce myself and start
all over again. But I stillhave those five and a half years.
I still have all that growth andall those life lessons. And you know,
I was talking to my mom theother day and she said, well,
you're in a totally different place todaythan you were back in twenty thirteen.

(11:50):
When I first came into these rooms, I was a mess. I
was a mess, spiritually bankrupt,completely selfish, self centered. Lying was
just a way of life, andI had no respect for myself. I
absolutely hated myself. And if Icould go from that and in five and

(12:11):
a half years get to the placewhere I'm at, then I know that
I can continue on this journey.Because I didn't go that low. I
just it was a mistake one night, and I came right back. So
you know, I'm in a muchbetter place, much better headspace, spirituality,
in a different place than I wasback in twenty thirteen. So I

(12:33):
know I could just keep going forwardfrom here. So well, let's get
into your story, because it doeshave many twist and turns. The drinking
and drugs are one part of it, but let's start there. Was there
a time when you could just drinkcasually or were you always drinking to get
drunk. I was always drinking toget drunk. From my first drunk,

(12:56):
very first time I drank, Idrank alcoholically, I was actually I drank
a little bit of an Absolute vodka, a fifth of Absolute vodka. I
drank a little bit of it,and I wasn't feeling an effect. It
takes a little bit to kick in, and I wasn't feeling the effect.
So I was like, well,I guess I need more. So I
started drinking more, and then Iremember actually chugging the bottle at one point,

(13:18):
and people were telling me, whoaslow down? And I didn't want
to slow down. I wanted tofeel that effect. I wanted to get
out of myself. And you know, the next morning, my head was
pounding and felt like a million bricks, and I had vomit all over me.
I had vomit in a bag nextto me, I'd vomit in the

(13:41):
bed, and I remember opening upmy eyes and thinking I cannot wait to
do that again. Really the world'screatist hangover. But that vodka had just
set me so free, and Iremember being able to talk to anyone and
and and dance and have a goodtime. It just took me so out

(14:03):
of a self. I fell inlove with alcohol. I had We had
a love affair for many, manyyears, and it was it was everything
to me everything. It made methe person that I always wish that I
was, with no boundaries and veryfree and not a care in the world.

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What did you feel like when youwere sober? How did you feel
about yourself? Then? Very uncomfortablein my own skin, very uncomfortable.
And it was hard for a lotof people to believe that because I have
a very outgoing personality and I reallyhave the ability to be able to talk
to anyone, but I'm also anextremely, extremely manipulative person um, and

(14:48):
it I felt very uncomfortable in myown skin. I felt like I always
had to be lying um And thatmay be hard for some people to understand.
Some people may relate to that veryeasily. But you know, I
can remember being in third and fourthgrade and I would lie all the time
to try to be more than Iwas, and then the kids would find

(15:11):
out that I was lying about stufflike things that I had material possessions,
and they would think it was weirdthat I was lying, so then they
would, you know, not wantto be friends with me. And I
was very bullied as a child andreally just found it very difficult to I
always wanted to fit in, alwayswant to fit in. I never felt

(15:33):
comfortable with who I was. Youknow, my parents were our angels.
They never drank. I never sawalcohol growing up. We sat down as
a family every night for dinner andI was told I love you all the
time and given kisses and hugs,and they're just incredible, incredible people.
And I have a little sister who'smy best friend, and I just had

(15:58):
this incredible childhood. But there wasalways just something different about me. I
was just I wasn't like everyone else, and I didn't catch on as fast
as everyone else did. But youput alcohol in me, and I felt
complete, I felt whole. Ifelt like I could do anything, talk
to anyone, be anyone. Icouldn't talk to boys. And then as

(16:18):
soon as I had booze in me, I was untouchable and I was the
prettiest girl at the party. AndI you know, I just it gave
me the confidence. It was liquidcourage. You could cover it up well
too. I remember early on,when you and I first were introduced to
each other and started becoming friends,you were working at a salon I used

(16:41):
to go to and I was inthe chair of the owner and I said,
oh, I'm getting together with Angelalater. We're gonna go grab wine.
And he goes, Angela doesn't drink, and I remember when he said
that. I was like, oh, shoot, did I just say something
I'm not supposed to say. AndI'm like, oh, well, maybe
she's not going to drink. Andwe just said we were going to eat

(17:03):
at a wine bar, and sothen I went and I thought, Okay,
well maybe you just aren't going todrink and that's cool. But no,
you ordered some wine and I orderedsome wine and you maybe we had
maybe two glasses. And it wasstill light out when we called it a
night, like I was going backhome because I'm like Cinderella, like the
clock strikes twelve oh, and I'mlike, I'm ready for bed, And

(17:26):
I thought you were wrapping it uptoo, But that wasn't the case for
you. So you seemed like atotally normal, in control drinker to me
when you were with me, Butyou would say now that you were that
was just like that was pre party. I knew how to turn it on
and off. I was very goodat dad. I was also very very

(17:48):
manipulative, so I knew how toact. You know, I was very
I looked up to you. Istill do, but at that time I
looked up to you so much,and you were It was like I was
going to have wine with Andrew Ebeccio, Oh my god, and so I
wanted to be on my best behavior, and I would also do that.
I would do that a lot whenI would go out on first dates.

(18:10):
I would you know, I feelbad for the guys that used to go
out with me because they would showup to maybe dates one through three with
one girl, and then by thetime we had date number four, I
was this completely different version. Itwas like they were going up to roll
and then it was like free fall. Dascore guys. I wish I could

(18:33):
find all of them and make amendsto all of them today, but there's
just too many. Um. Butyeah, that's what I would do.
I was a chameleon, okay,so I knew how to act around certain
people in certain situations. So Ihad my group of friends that I would
just have a wine a glass ofwine or two around, and then I
would have my friends that I wouldgo to dinner with, and then I
would have my friends that I wouldmeet out after dinner, and then I

(18:55):
would have my after hours friends.So I had all these different group of
friends, and I knew how tobe a different Angela for each one of
them, because none of them crossany lines and did anything. You know,
I never hung out and did dinnerwith my after hours friends because those
were we did stuff and after hoursand you weren't doing a dinner. So

(19:15):
um. Yeah. I was definitelya chameleon. I was able to turn
it on and off at all times. And I have to say, not
every time I picked up an alcoholicbeverage did I get drunk. Because I
was such a chameleon. I knewhow to turn it on and off.
And that is what kept me outthere for so long because I learned an

(19:36):
alcohol In my mind, an alcoholicwakes up in the morning, has to
have alcohol drinks all day long,gets to happy hour drinks all night long.
That was what an alcoholic was,you know. I had such a
perception of the bum under the bridgeand it was leaving Las Vegas right with
Nicholas Cage like those people couldn't functionright right. And I never underst stood

(20:00):
that it wasn't how much you drank, it was what happened when you did
drink, and that people's drinking shouldn'thurt other people. That's not normal.
And my drinking always hurt other people. There was always someone getting hurt by
my drinking. And you know,debt just never registered with me. I
always had this idea of what analcoholic was. I didn't. I never

(20:22):
day drink, so I couldn't bean alcoholic because I don't drink during the
day. I drink when the sungoes down. I was like a vampire.
So you know, I just itkept me out there for so long
because of my perception. It's whatmy disease wanted me to believe. My
disease. It's the only disease thatyou have that doesn't let you know you
have it. It's the only one. It's crazy. You know, if

(20:44):
you get diabetes, you go tothe doctor, the doctor tells you have
diabetes. You have diabetes. Okay, I have diabetes. But if somebody
tells you you're an alcoholic, welllet me tell you no, I'm not,
and these are the million reasons whyI'm not. But yeah, I
definitely was a chameleon, could turnit on and off. There were you
know, like when I went withyou, I knew it was only going
to be a two glass of winetype of night. I'm pretty sure I

(21:07):
continued on that night. It wasa long time ago. Yeah, I
think you did. When did drugsfirst enter the picture for you? M
drugs first entered the picture almost immediatelyafter alcohol did. Um, you know,
I never It wasn't really like Iwas going to go out that night

(21:30):
at oh am I going to dodrugs? Or am I going to drink?
It wasn't really a choice. Itwas just whatever was around. If
I knew it could get me outof me, I was gonna do it.
Um. I did have some boundaries. I always said, no needles,
no heroine, no crack, no, you know, because I'm I'm
a refined alcoholic, I'm a refineddrug addict. Right, I'm going to

(21:55):
do drugs, I'm gonna have classwhen I do it. So, um,
I tended to stay more towards thestuff that So ecstasy was a really
big thing back in the early twothousands, and I really dove into that
and enjoyed myself until that just gotto be too much. I could almost

(22:15):
as soon as I took that pill, I knew exactly what the high was
going to be, like, Ihad the high figured out, and it
was it just got too mental forme. So then I discovered cocaine,
and I had a ten year loveaffair with cocaine. I loved everything about
it. But I told myself thatthose were the type of drugs that were

(22:36):
like okay to do because they werehigh end drugs. They didn't have any
type of like stigma attached to them, where you know, if you did
heroine, it was heroin. Youknow, I know it all to be
bad today, and it's it's thereis no ones worse than the other.
They're all terrible. I can't evenimagine you on cocaine. You're like a

(22:59):
minute like then throw that in,right, you must have been like bouncing
off while ceilings like any door knobs, anything around, right, It's it's
it's um, you know, Iwould get I would start the night off
by drinking, and then as soonas I would feel that drunk start to
hit um, then the cocaine comesin and kind of wipes away any type

(23:25):
of down that you have and bringsyou right back up. So I would
get so low with the alcohol andthen the cocaine would bring me right back
up to normal Angela to bouncing offthe wall's high energy. I can tell
you I was probably always the onein the room controlling the conversation. Um,

(23:47):
I have a very dominant personality.So no, I would find people
to party with that weren't that we'redoing the same things I was doing.
But I was always the ringleader,you know what I mean. So I
didn't want to find another ringleader toparty with because that would be too dominant

(24:07):
people and it would be too much. I like to find people who I
was a leader, and I'd liketo find the followers. And so that's
it sounds so sick and so twisted. It was. That was it was
my show. Those are the typeof people that I hung out with,
So that way I could always berunning things, and you know, I
was always the one to take itthe farthest. People would say, you

(24:32):
know, we'd start partying. Let'ssay we went to an after hours after
the bar's closed and it was timeto like, you know, it's about
four or five in the morning,or let's say it's six and the birds
are starting to come up and everyone'sready to call it and to try to
pass out and not me. Itcan't end. I don't want it to
end. It's not ending. Therehave been times I've gone to eleven.

(24:52):
There have been times that I'd sayscrew them, and I'd get in my
car and go find a bar arethat was open at eleven am on a
Sunday. And those were those weresome dark times. How does First of
all, I would think, wouldn'tyou be exhausted? And second of all,
like, are there moments when you'rethinking what the hell am I doing?

(25:17):
You know when when you're high,you don't get to feel anything.
So as soon as those thoughts wouldstart to creep in, so as soon
as reality would start to creep in, or any type of moral anything,

(25:38):
or the one that would always getme would be the thought of my parents.
As soon as the thought of themwould creep in, or I would
see my phone going off and itwould be my mom wondering where her twenty
some year old daughter is at asshe in a ditch? Is she is
she behind the wheel of her car? Somewhere and you know, a crash
into a wall. Who the thoughtsthat went through my poor mother's had I

(26:00):
can't even imagine, especially now beinga mother today. But as soon as
any type of remorse would creep in, then that's what I knew it was
time to do more. I thinkthat's why I was the one that always
took it farther than everybody else.I was running from those things. I

(26:22):
didn't want to feel. I didn'twant to have to face reality. I
wanted to just keep the party going. But there it has to end.
There has to be a time youhave to eventually come back to reality.
And you know, it's it's it'sone of the main reasons that and we'll
get to this eventually. But Idid try to take my own life.

(26:45):
Was because reality was hitting and itwas hitting me like a freight train,
and I didn't know what to do, and I went into pure panic mode.
And so every time the high wouldstart to wear off, everybody else
around me seemed to be okay withall right, you know what, it's
done, it's over, it's gone, the stuff's gone. So I'm going

(27:07):
to go crash in the bed andwake me up in a few hours or
but not me. I couldn't dothat because I knew what I had waiting
for me. I had parents wonderingwhere I was at. I had a
boss probably looking for me. Ihad friends that I had left downtown that
just wanted to know that I wassafe. But I was avoiding all of
that. I just wanted the highto keep going. I just wanted the

(27:29):
dream to keep lasting, the fantasyto keep going. I didn't want reality
to set in because reality was justso unbearable for me. You hated reality.
Well, the funny thing is,too, is that everything that I
hated about reality was a complete resultof doing drugs and alcohol. Yet I

(27:52):
did the drugs and alcohol to escapethe reality, but the reality was only
bad because of the stuff that Iwas using to run from it. So
it's just this vicious circle, literally, this vicious circle that I keep doing.
I'm on this carousel and I can'tget off of it. I don't
know how to get off of it. I am just going round and round
and round. And the insanity ofit all is that I keep doing the

(28:15):
same thing over and over and overagain, expecting different results every time,
but I got the same result everytime, and that was guilt, remorse
and shame and hating myself, hatingmyself the next day. So when you
ask, you know, was therea time when I would say what am
I doing? Yes, it wouldhit me what am I doing? I
cannot believe I'm doing this to myself. And throughout the years, sometimes those

(28:38):
moments were stronger than others. Ican tell you that throughout the ten years
of using in drugs and alcohol,there were many times, many times along
the way that I tried to getsober. Many times that I sat at
my kitchen table with my parents andwe cried together, and they said,
We're gonna do it this time.We're gonna get you some help. You're
gonna You're gonna pull through. Iwould sit with my grandfather, my sweet,

(29:03):
sweet grandfather, and he would tryto talk to me. I would
pull all these people that loved meinto a meeting of the minds and trying
to figure out. I've been torehab. I've been to psych wards all
those ten years. I can't tellyou how many times I've been to the
hospital, clawing at every way thatknown to man to get sober, and

(29:26):
it never worked. It just neverworked. Because I always I never surrendered.
I never truly truly surrendered. Iwas introduced to alcoholics anonymous at the
age of twenty three. I didn'tget sober this till the age of thirty
three, when I truly truly Ididn't truly surrender till the age of thirty
three, So for ten years.And you know, I started drinking and

(29:48):
drugging when I was sixteen seventeen yearsold, so my career was longer than
ten years. But from when Ifirst was introduced to the program, I
spent many years out there banging myhead against the wall. I would go
into a meeting, I'd stay soberfor about a month, and then I'd
think that I know at all,I can still drink, drinking as legal.

(30:11):
As long as I don't touch thedrugs, I'll be fine. And
I think that that was something thatwas I know, it's what kept me
out there for so long. Ican drink. I'm not an alcoholic.
Alcoholics have to drink twenty four seven. They're hiding a bottle in their car,
They're hiding a bottle in their deskat work. I don't do that.

(30:32):
I don't even drink during the daythere's no way I can be an
alcoholic. So not realizing how powerlessI was over that first drink is what
kept me out there for so manyyears. Well, not wanting to face
the reality because you didn't want tohave the stigma put on you. You
were never getting to the root ofthe problem. Right, So the drinking

(30:55):
and the drugs and the escaping reality, you were never facing what was at
the heart of it, right,what was really wrong with you? Correct?
Because the drinking and the drugs area symptom of our disease. Are
the true disease is a spirituality problem. Like there is basically a God shaped
hole in the center of me,and I kept filling it with everything but

(31:21):
God. I filled it with booze, drugs, men, friends, shopping,
spending money. I mean, yougave me something to abuse, and
I would abuse it. It wasn'tjust drugs and alcohol. I mean throughout
those years, I've spent money,fancy cars, fancy clothes, like,

(31:42):
always trying to impress people. SoI'm lying a lot along the way.
You you were the one who toldme addicts are the best liars. So
you were meeting people and telling somepretty big ones, right, it's it's
funny. I mean we laugh aboutthem today. Um, but in in,
in that moment, I believed thesestories. What was your best one,

(32:06):
my worst one, most embarrassing?I am the most embarrassing one.
Um what I can't belie. I'mgonna say that. I would tell people.
I think I've told you this one. I would tell people that,
um, I was a Calves cheerleader. And I've heard this one from you,
right, And I never saw youout there. So it would just

(32:29):
blow them away, you know,because I danced for many many years,
but um, dancing and you wouldsay it like you really mean I was
Calves cheerleader? Yeah, um solieoh yeah. And so because I was
a dancer, um, and drugsand alcohol came before my dancing, I
threw away my dancing career. Um, and so there was a lot of

(32:50):
regret up with that. So Itold them that I was a Calves cheerleader.
And I remember this one guy thatI was dating. He was so
excited about it. He told everybodyand then one of his friends was like,
well, why isn't she on thecalendar. And so when he questioned
me about it, I was like, well, actually I made the team,
but I decided that they didn't payenough, so I wasn't going to

(33:14):
stay a Caves cheerleader, so Iquit right before they took I mean,
I should have won an oscar.You answer for every oscar for the lies
that I told. It was unbelievable, but these stories that would just make
me sound bigger and better than Iwas because I had such low self esteem
and completely hated myself. Do youremember all the lies you told? By

(33:38):
the way, Like, do yourun into people now as a sober person
and think, oh my god,I think maybe I told them that I
was a Caves cheerleader or some otherlie. And I'm hard to face people
who you once told all those storiestoo. You know, I told those
stories to people that were doing thesame things I was doing at the time,

(34:00):
so they would be um in conversationwhile we were all sitting around getting
high basically um. So because Idon't hang out with those people any longer,
or because of when I got sober, all those people disappeared. I
haven't had to face come face toface with any of my wild stories,

(34:20):
and I'm sure they were as well. Um. But I have had a
few instances where my mom had whenI first got sober, when my mom
had brought something up like, oh, yeah, didn't you guys go there
or something? And I'm like,what is she talking about? You know?
And where? I had told herthat I was going to be somewhere,

(34:43):
or told her I was going outof town for something or who knows,
and she just believed me and figuredI was telling the truth and it
was some tall tale. Yeah,it's a double life. You were living
a double life. So I mean, eventually, when you go that hard,
something has to get right right,something's going to give. And so

(35:06):
the phrase rock bottom, people usethat in their lives when they're going through
something difficult, when we are atthe worst time in our lives. I
mean, I'm not I don't haveany addiction issues, but I've had my
rock bottom. I think anybody outthere listening, if you have struggled at
some point, you maybe have feltthat the weight of that phrase or used

(35:30):
it. How do you define rockbottom and what was your rock bottom up
to this point? Well, first, for me, and this is this
is just for me. This isn'tI've heard rock bottom define in various ways,
but for me personally, I definerock bottom as death, So that's

(35:51):
rock bottom I have. I liketo say that I have come so close
to rock bottom. I have cheateddeath a few times. I know that
to be the grace of God purely. So for me, death is the

(36:12):
ultimate rock bottom. But there's levelsof rock bottom, right, So I've
come very very close, and I'veI've definitely been in the deepest, most
darkest places that I ever care togo. Ever, I don't ever want
to be there ever again. Soyou haven't hit it yet to take us.
I want to talk about this isthat this is a really important topic

(36:37):
because it's not often. Listen,this has hit me in my life.
A friend of mine who not solong ago, it feels like not so
long ago, took his own life. So I don't know. I think
if you live long enough, maybeit has affected you in some way.
And it's not often that we getto talk to somebody who has survived suicide

(36:58):
and you are a suicio, asuicide survivor, and you talk about this,
and I think there are really alot of important messages in your experience
and you coming out of it andyou reflecting back on it and where you've
come from that point can you takeus back to that moment when you thought,

(37:20):
I'm assuming you must have just felthopeless, because I've never been there
myself. But that's what I wouldimagine somebody who wants to take their own
life. They just reach a pointwhere they feel just like a hopelessness.
Can you take us in that momentwhen you decided to make that decision.
So it actually happened two different times, So I'm going to briefly talk about

(37:43):
the first time because the second timeis really what did it, what changed
everything for me. But the firsttime, I had come off of a
bender, meaning that I had beenup for probably about two days doing a
lot of cocaine. And cocaine isa very mental drug, so it takes

(38:04):
you up so high that when youstart coming down from it, you're you
know, I'm sure your dopamine levelsare crashing, and who knows what goes
on physiologically, but you just don'tYou don't feel right, You are not
thinking straight, you are not thinkingclearly when you're coming down from cocaine.
The only thing that makes that crashjust a little bit more bearable is alcohol.

(38:28):
It kind of cushions the crash,if you will, So here,
I am on a bender. Everybodyis finally gone. Everyone leaves my apartment,
and I know that I've royally messedup this time. Haven't answered my
parents and are probably about twenty fourto forty eight hours. I'm paranoid out
of my mind that they're going toshow up at my apartment. I just

(38:51):
didn't not go to work that day. I was a dental assistant and I
just didn't go to work. Ididn't call anyone. I just I was
too busy partying. I didn't againescaping reality. I'm not good. I
can't physically pick up the phone andcall work and call off because that's having
to enter a reality again and that'sgoing to ruin my high and I just
can't go there. Long story short, everything comes crashing down on me.

(39:13):
End up getting a phone call frommy boss where he fires me over the
phone rightfully. So I then haveto call my parents and let them know
that I'm alive. They know whatI've been up to, they know when
I disappear for two days, whatI'm doing. And then I have to
let them know that I lost myjob. So I was at this feeling
of now not for me what italways was was. I was always always

(39:35):
holding it together because I had ajob, I had a place to live,
I had nice clothes, and Ihad a car. So if you
take one of those things out ofthat equation away, I've now feel like
a failure and now I might actuallyhave a problem, and I can't handle
that. So now you just tookmy job away. So now I'm feeling
like a failure. Now I feellike, oh boy, there might be
really there might really be a problem. The past forty eight hours of snorting

(40:00):
cocaine doesn't tell me that I havea problem, but losing my job does
so because I'm I'm not, Idon't have the persona of having it together
any longer. So I decided toeat probably about seventy tile and all pms.
And when I did that, Iwas at the lowest point in my

(40:23):
life at that moment, and Ijust didn't want to go on anymore.
I was sick of fighting. Iwas sick of attempting sobriety and constantly failing.
I was sick of disappointing my parents. I was sick of feeling like
such a loser. And then atthat moment, I couldn't handle the coming

(40:45):
down from the drugs that I hadbeen on for so long. I ended
up calling my aunt, who wasa longtime member of Alcoholics Anonymous and telling
her what I had done. Soit tells me that I didn't want to
die, but I didn't want tolive the way I was living any longer.
She, in turn, by thegrace of God, called an ambulance.

(41:06):
And I didn't think it was thatbag of a deal. I thought,
Okay, just took talent all PM. It's a sleeping medicine. I
know you took seventy I know,and I didn't think at that moment,
I didn't know what taking seventy talentall PM could really do to you.
Were you thinking then, like I'mgoing to definitely sleep and maybe I won't

(41:28):
wake up, or I hope Idon't wake up, or let's just I
don't know, I don't let's justsee what happens. But I definitely didn't
know at that point the repercussions oftaking that much tail in all into your
system. It when you consume thatamount of tile and all, it actually
starts shutting your organs down. Itpoisons your liver. Your liver shuts down

(41:52):
your kidneys, eventually and everything juststarts shutting down. So I did not
know that. At that point,they rushed me to the hospital. I'm
given charcoal. I have to throwup everything that's in my stomach so they
can get the tail in all out. And I essentially poisoned myself. So
the doctor came in and explained howbad it really was, and it surprised

(42:15):
me. Again. I think Itook it expecting it was just thail in
all PM. I wasn't taking aprescription drug that's much stronger though, right,
that would really kill me. Ithought that this was just going to
be a big scare for everybody,when in reality, I really almost killed
myself. I mean, the doctorsaid I was inches away from death and

(42:36):
that my liver had shut down.They were giving me a lot of antibiotics
and a lot of drugs to helpturn that around and to bring my liver
back, and thank goodness that theliver is one of those organs that can
rejuvenate itself itself and come back eventually. So that I stayed in the hospital
for a little bit. I wasput into a psych ward, and you

(42:58):
know, that was my first realattack at sobriety. Then after that I
stayed sober for around nine months,but eventually, you know, didn't take
it seriously and eventually went back outfor many, many, many more years.
The second time, and this isthe time that I truly believe,
I truly say I tried to killmyself because I at this point know what

(43:22):
thailand i'll PM can do to yourbody. I came off another bender,
and I was in downtown Cleveland,and this bender was just different from any
other due to the fact that I'dbeen doing it for so long. I
had been disappointing everyone around me forso long, but I was at a

(43:43):
different place and how I viewed myself. I had never had so much hate
for myself. I remember looking inthe mirror a few days before this situation
and thinking that I didn't recognize aperson that was looking back at me anymore.
There was like no sparkle and nolife behind my eyes. I wasn't

(44:06):
the same person any longer. Drugsand alcohol had truly changed who I was
inside. Every fiber of my beingwas different. And when I got done
with this bender, it was atwo day bender. I tried to drink
some wine to calm me down alittle bit, but there was just no
calming me down. I was sickof fighting. I knew I couldn't get

(44:31):
sober because I had attempted it andI had failed miserably. I had just
had a month of sobriety before Iwent out on this bender. And I
remember telling myself, you swore itwas just going to be one glass of
wine, like you went out onWednesday and you swore, and it's now

(44:52):
I think it was Thursday night.It might have been a day bender,
and you swore it was just goingto be one glass of wine. And
look at where you're at, andyou're never going to beat this. You
can't do it. You're such aloser. And I walked. I walked
all the way from East Forth toEuclid I think it was Euclid to the
CBS, and I walked through thedoors and I bought a big bottle of
Talent all PM, and I boughta bottle of water, and I went

(45:14):
into my friend's bar and there wasa hallway and I just started eating pills,
just swallowing them by clumps, likejust twenty thirty pills at a time.
And if you know what I mean, you know what it's like to
swallow a couple pills as gross,but to swallow twenty thirty at a time.
And I know what this is goingto do to me this time,

(45:35):
and I don't care because I donot want to live like this any longer.
And I don't know any other way, And I just know that everybody
else is going to be so muchbetter without me around because I'm such a
disappointment and I'm constantly hurting everyone aroundme, and I just I can't fight
any longer. I have no fightleft in me, and I feel alone

(45:58):
at this point because you have somany people who love you and who do
care about you in your life.You started this interview by saying your parents
are angels, and they always toldyou that they loved you, and sure
they probably who are frustrated with youa lot and got mad at you a
lot during this time. But didyou feel like no one cared? No.
I felt like everyone cared so much, and all I did was let

(46:19):
them down. So it wasn't thatI felt alone. I knew that,
I knew that everybody was there forme, but I felt like I had
let them down so many times thatthey were just so sick of me and
nobody would miss me because I wasjust such a burden. You know,
I was about to do the mostselfish, self centered thing that anyone could

(46:42):
ever do. Here, all theseyears of being selfish and self centered and
telling everyone don't worry about me,I'm fine, I just want to have
fun, leave me alone, andhere I am about to make the ultimate
decision that is going to hurt everyonethat loves me the most. You know,
if I if I would have umdied there that day, Um,

(47:06):
what my parents would have gone through, I don't think is anywhere near the
hurt that they felt when I woulduse you know. So I just was
downing the town all PM and Iended up at that moment that one of
my dearest friends had called me AndI cannot tell you why, but I

(47:28):
told him what I did, andI don't know why. Um up right,
the only yeah, the only thingI can think of is that,
you know, I was such acoward to even go that route to begin
with. What a what a selfish, self centered and very coward thing to

(47:49):
do. Because the the brave thingto do would be to fight, right,
It's a brave thing to do,would be go check myself and to
rehab. But the cowardly thing todo was to end my life. So
I I think that there was asmall piece of me, just a little
part of me, which I liketo think is that my soul, which
is God is you know, waswas just that little piece of me was

(48:13):
still working. And the grace ofGod, I picked up that phone.
He knew what was going He figuredout what was going on, and he
called an ambulance and I was rushedto Saint Vincent Medical Hospital, Saint Vincent
Downtown Charity. And I remember,I remember waking up and I was completely

(48:39):
paralyzed, and I knew I hada tube down my throat, and um,
I remember thinking, oh great,I got into a car accident and
now I'm paralyzed. Great, nowwhat am I going to do? So
you're pissed when you wake up,so pissed. Um, so pissed.
And then the nurse came over andsaid, stopped fighting, you know.

(49:02):
And I was restrained because I guessI had tried to pull my breathing tube
out a few times, so theyhad to restrain me. And then they
gave me some type of shot putme right back to sleep, and then
I woke up a day or twolater, when they were removing the tube,
which was the worst feeling in theworld, and my parents came into

(49:25):
the room and told me that Ihad been on life support for a few
days, that I had truly almostsuccessfully killed myself this time, that I
had really done it, and thateverything had started to shut down, and
that they needed to to put meon machines in order to keep me alive.
It was very eye opening. Icouldn't believe I had taken it that

(49:52):
far. I couldn't. I couldn'tbelieve that I had really done that much
damaged to my body. And I'dwish I could tell you that at that
moment, I wanted to fight,but I didn't. I was pissed.
I was angry. I didn't wantto be in that room, surrounded by

(50:13):
the people that loved me the most. I just I didn't want to be
bothered with any of this. Iwas so I was just so sick and
tired of all of my shenanigans andeverything, all my drama, and so
I said to the doctor, I, you know, I feel better.
And the next day I said Ihad missed my nephew's second birthday party,

(50:36):
which was pretty upsetting to me,because at that time he was the only
child in our family, and Iused my godson, and I really loved
the kid, and I remember thinkinghow terrible it was that I missed his
birthday. And so the next dayafter that, I told the doctor,
I think I'm feeling a lot betterand I should probably get going and get
home so I can get myself tosome meetings or look into some rehabs.
And she says, no, you'regoing up to the psych ward. You're

(51:00):
you're not leaving. I remember thinking, no, I don't. I don't
need to go there. It's notdramatize this. I'm fine. And she
says, yeah, you tried tokill yourself. You're you're going up to
the psych ward. They they're goingto hold you for a few days so
you can figure yourself out. Andwhen I went up to the psych ward,
a man that had just I thinkhe had thirty forty years of sobriety

(51:28):
sat down in a room and talkedto me and we just talked and he
I don't know, I couldn't tellyou to this day what he said to
me. It wasn't what he said, it was how he said it.
And how kind he was and loving, and in that moment is when I
had my moment of clarity, andI realized that I needed to fight and

(51:54):
that I could turn my life aroundif I really gave this a chance,
and that it was by the graceof God that I was sitting there in
that room. I want to talkabout that because I love moments of clarity.
You know, I believe in gettingourself in a headspace for a moment
of clarity. You were not ina great headspace, but it's amazing.

(52:17):
I want to if we could,you could really get specific into that moment.
I know you don't remember everything hesaid to you, but I think
this is a bounce back moment foryou. What specifically were you telling yourself
to realize that you had another chanceat getting life right and that you needed

(52:44):
to be a fighter. I thinkthat's exactly what I told myself, was
you were given a second chance.Because we were talking about what had happened,
and I was explaining to him whyI had done what I had done
and that I had tried to getsober before and it had never worked,
and he had said something to melike along the lines of, well did

(53:07):
you ever try to let God helpyou get sober, and maybe you stop
trying so hard and and that,and essentially what he had told me was
to give up my will and tolet God do the work for me.
And what I had hurt, whatI had thought was so ridiculous for so
many years, like oh, okay, God's going to keep me sober.

(53:28):
I mean, this is we're talkingabout a being that I've never met,
I can't sit and have a conversationwith. And it's just so unrealistic to
me that you're telling me that God'sgoing to keep me sober. Like,
no, I have to keep mesober. I have to do this.
And you didn't have a relationship withGod. I had a great relationship with
him when I needed something, phenomenalrelationship. I had no problem asking him

(53:50):
for a thing. And you know, it was just so unrealistic to me.
But my moment of clarity, mytrue moment of clarity, was maybe
if I just sit back and seewhat happens, because they're all telling me
that God's going to keep me sober. It's all I've been hearing all these
years. Is maybe if I justsit back and pray and believe what have

(54:19):
I got to lose. I've gotnothing to lose. I'm at my lowest
of low. I literally just almostdied. I'm at my lowest of low.
I've lost everything. I've lost everything, and what if I got to
lose, I've got nothing to lose. Maybe just give this one shot.
You're here for a reason, You'vekeep being given a second chance by the
grace of God. So I remembersaying, Okay, I will do this.

(54:43):
I'm giving it up to you,God, you keep me sober because
I can't do this. And whatI learned in AA is the first three
steps are I can't, he can. I think I'll let him. And
that's exactly what happened to me inthat moment. But like I took the
first three steps, I admitted finallythat I was powerless over alcohol. My
life was beyond unmanageable. I cameto believe that a power greater than myself

(55:07):
could restore me to sanity. AndI knew that a god of my understanding
was going to do it, andthat if I just turned my life over
to him that it would get better. And that all happened in that moment.
It was like it was like Ifinally believed everything everyone had been telling
me all those years. It waslike I finally believed it in that moment,

(55:28):
and they said, bring the body, the mind will follow, And
that essentially is what happened. Iwas. I was sitting there and I
thought, Okay, I'm gonna I'mgonna do this and see what happens.
That's interesting, Bring the body,the mind will follow. That's good.
Put yourself physically in that state,and then let the rest happen as you

(55:49):
work on yourself there as if youhaven't had enough challenges, there are going
to be more to come, andwe'll get to that. But I do
need to ask this question, andI don't know that there's a right answer
that works for everyone. But therecould be somebody who's listening to this right
now who's in that state and hasthat sense of hopelessness and has that feeling

(56:13):
of I just I'm just gonna quit. What what would you say to that
person if you had just a momentto be with them, I would say
that it gets better? What aboutthem? It doesn't feel like it,

(56:35):
Because you know what it's like whenyou are in a bad place and someone
says it will get better. You'rethinking that is bs like, I am
miserable. I'm never going to getbetter. It's such a it's such a
I'm just trying to think of what, like, what could have been said
to you when you think of thatstate of where you were. If you

(57:00):
die at this moment, then you'llnever know if it could have gotten better.
If you just throw it all awayand just die, then that's it,
that's the end. So what haveyou got to lose to just give
it a shot and see if youcan get better. Like, death is
so permanent, it's that's it.It's done. Once you're gone, you're

(57:22):
gone. I think I know thatwhen I was at my lowest of low
that there had to be some minusculelittle dot of hope, because I would
have taken a gun to my headif I didn't have a little bit of

(57:42):
hope. I did what I knewthey could possibly bring me back from.
You know, I know I'm apretty sneaky, a little snake manipulative,
and I know that if I reallyreally thought I had no hope at all,
and I think I would have youknow, jumped off a bridge,

(58:04):
or put a gun into my heador done some type of you know,
really terrible way. There are peoplewho do that though, right and there
could be people who are listening andlike they may think that's their route.
So the message right now is itsdeath. Death is final, and they're

(58:25):
final. Fight a little harder.Oh yeah, I mean, just give
it a shot, because you've gottwo choices right now to end things and
it'd be so final, or tojust give it a shot and you never
know what could happen. But youcan't do it. You're gonna need some
help. And it's out there inso many forms. But you know,

(58:50):
for me, I'd always been raisedwith God, so I believed in something.
My version of God today and myversion of what I was raised with
are two totally different things. Butyou know, there is something bigger than
us out there. I choose tocall him God. It doesn't mean anybody
else out there has to call himthat, or they can use so many
nature or you know, whatever universe, universe, whatever you want to call

(59:13):
it. But whatever, that higherpower is something bigger and better out there.
There is a higher power. Andif you just lean on it and
ask that higher power to do foryou what you cannot do for yourself right
now, it's it's just such abetter decision than to make it so final.
I always say, we have achoice to make. We have And

(59:35):
when you fall, and you fallhard, and you are in that deep,
deep well of a ditch, youhave two choices. You quit and
you give up, or you clawlike hell and you fight and you work
hard for every little inch and youget yourself out of it. But when

(59:57):
you do that, the payoff isso rewarding. It's so rewarding because amazing
things can happen in your life,and they did for you. As we
move into this next phase, whichboy, just when you think you couldn't
be challenged anymore, you know,there are people who come into our lives

(01:00:21):
and they change us, They challengeus, and they leave an imprint on
our lives. Let's talk about Evan. Okay, where did you meet Evan
and what was he like? Wemet at an alcoholics anonymous meeting. It
was a Friday night meeting I loveto go to because it was around It

(01:00:42):
was at nine o'clock at night.When I first got sober, I hit
a lot of Lakewood meetings because Iliked how young the crowd was. I
was only thirty three at the time, so I liked. The groups were
mid to late twenties to mid tolate thirties, and the meetings were really
fun, and then we would allgo out to eat afterwards, or then

(01:01:05):
we would all go sober bowling,and then after bowling, we'd all go
out to eat. I ended upgetting home at like two or three in
the morning and just really having ablast. I had taken a couple of
months off of work, so Iwas doing intensive outpatient rehab, so I
would go to outpatient rehab in themorning and then I would just hit meetings
at night with friends. So Igot to this meeting and I met him.

(01:01:28):
He was the house father at asober living facility for men in Cleveland,
and we immediately just hit it offand we were really good friends,
and we all went out to eatthat night. I remember I remember telling
him I had a thing for guyswith good shoes, and he had good
shoes on I remember. I rememberthat being one of the first things that

(01:01:50):
I told him. And I couldtell he was very shy at first.
I'm not a shy person, sowe balanced each other off really well because
he was so shy and quiet anddidn't really know what to make of me
at first, and then I kindof think that he opened up to me.

(01:02:14):
A couple of the guys in theSober living house, um kind of
had a little thing for me,And I remember him telling them, like,
cut it out. You know,she's trying to get sober. It's
very frowned upon to be dating inyour first couple of months of sobriety.
By the way, they say,give it about a year. I know
that to be true today because whenyou first enter AA or first enter sobriety,

(01:02:37):
you're just not the same person asyou are a year later, and
so what you may be attracted toin the beginning is not necessarily what you're
attracted to a year later. Also, you should be working on yourself.
So I decided not to take thatadvice. But um, so would you

(01:02:59):
say that you and Evan ultimately fellin love with each other? You know,
it was a really beautiful friendship.In the beginning, he was my
best friend. We could talk aboutGod and there wasn't many males in my
life that I could talk about Godwith and hit AA meetings with and talk

(01:03:20):
about the steps, and um,we just connected. I loved alcoholics Anonymous.
I still do I it was Iwas on that pink cloud and it
was everything to me. And toknow someone that I was attracted to that
was it was also everything to him. We had such common ground there,
so I think I was even moreattracted to him because he had time.

(01:03:45):
He was the house father, youknow, he knew a lot of people
in AA. It was kind oflike it was like almost like being in
high school and he was like thestarting quarterback, you know, Okay,
yeah he was Yeah, he washit. He was it. The guy.
How did he make you feel whenyou were with him? Great?

(01:04:06):
I mean he made me feel likeI was the only girl in the world.
He made me feel like alcohol usedto make me feel like as soon
as you know, the prettiest girlin the room, the most fashionable,
Like I still cared about all thosethings in the beginning. I'm still very

(01:04:27):
materialistic and I still thought I wasstill so cool. And he just boosted
my ego, you know, hejust inflated my ego. And so this
young girl, who this part ofyou? When I say young girl,
you were a young woman at thetime. But when we flashback in school,
you talk about getting bullied, Youdidn't feel popular, you didn't feel
like you were cool. Then yougo through this whole period of drag and

(01:04:51):
alcohol use build yourself up to feelcool, even though it's just a band
aid on a problem, because youstill have very low self esteem. Now
you're in a path of sobriety.You meet the cute boy, right the
quarterback of the team, the popularone, and he's giving you attention and
he makes you feel pretty and livingmy high school dream. Yeah at thirty

(01:05:14):
three years old. Yeah, itwas pretty juvenile that I think about him.
But you start dating, Yes,you start started seeing each other,
and you know, I wasn't ahundred percent that I wanted to date Evan.
I loved him as a friend,but he had kind of, I
don't want to say, given meultimatums, but kind of in a roundabout

(01:05:38):
way, had said, like,you know, we're either going to do
this or I don't know if Icould be a part of your life because
I love you so much. I'myou know, I have these feelings for
you, and I didn't want tolose him, so I think in my
head I just said, well,we'll give this a shot. I'll date,
We'll date, because I don't wantto lose him, like I knew,
I didn't want to. I didn'twant to lose my best friend,

(01:05:59):
my meeting person, my god talker. He was just such a huge part
of everything I was doing in thosefirst few months of sobriety, and so
I was so attached to him,is so codependent on him. So it's
so interesting for me to hear yousay it that way because I can take
myself back to the time when youdid meet him, and I know,
I know all the growth that you'vegone through since then, but at that

(01:06:20):
time, you were like and withyou, everything's big, right, You're
like, I'm not this guy.He's so cute, we're dating, everything's
so amazing, Like everything was amazing. It was like, this is the
guy, right and oh and bythe way, I'm having a baby,
right, yeah, I get pregnant. The funny thing about that too,

(01:06:41):
and I say this. I saythis when I tell my story, and
especially people in recovery, they laughbecause the joke is, what did two
people in AA bring to their firstdate? And it's a U haul because
they're going to move in together.We moved very very quickly, but I
remember us get to it and procreate. Remember Um, Evan and I having
a conversation about how we wanted tohave a baby, and I I think

(01:07:06):
of this. I laughed so hardbecause here I am living at my thearen's
house four months though three months overat the time, and he is living
in a halfway house. Neither oneof us are working. We're both like,
we should have a baby. It'ssuch a great idea, This is
amazing idea. I'm like, wetotally should like to should Yeah so you

(01:07:28):
did? Like, yeah, soyou did? Yeah we yeah, So
I know you both are, um, it seemingly committed to your sobriety.
At this point, you get pregnant, You're you're very excited about I'm so
excited, Like and I name.I knew it was a girl, a
girl. Everybody was so nervous tofind out if it was a girl or
boy, because I wanted it tobe a girl so bad. You name

(01:07:50):
right her together, her together,you name it right away. Everything's going
great until it started to not goso great. And that was because Evan
started drinking again and you were,what maybe about six months pregnant. No,
I was actually newly pregnant when hestarted drinking. But it didn't get

(01:08:12):
bad until I was about six monthspregnant. So first he was hiding it
very well. So in the beginningof my pregnancy, you were still together.
I was still very much in lovewith him. I wanted it to
work really, really bad. Iactually moved into his apartment. I moved
all of my stuff in there.The only thing I didn't move in were
my clothes, my personal hygiene stuff, and myself. That was the only

(01:08:36):
thing that hadn't been moved in.But everything else I owned was in that
apartment. And I smelled alcohol onhis breath right before we were ready to
leave the Ohio State And know I'ma huge house State family. Go Bucks,
a house State was playing. Now. Evan was from ann Arbor,
Michigan. Who Okay, so sothey like that team up north. So

(01:09:00):
he was a huge Michigan fan andhis mom actually went to Michigan. So
he had gotten us tickets to theOhio State Michigan game in Michigan. So
I was so excited. I wasabout twelve weeks pregnant and We're going to
go stay in Anne Arbor for theweekend. I was going to be a
blast. And when I picked himup after work on that Saturday, or

(01:09:21):
was it Friday, I don't know, but I smelled alcohol in his breath
and that's when things kind of startedturning ugly because he had tried to hide
it and I knew what I hadsmelled. We ended up going to Anne
Arbor, ended up being just terrible. He was drinking the entire time,

(01:09:42):
and I ended up leaving before Ieven went to the game. So yeah,
I tell you how bad it was. And there was a lot of
that then because now he was ona path to just drinking, a path
to destruction. You're pregnant with hischild. You think you're going to do
this to together. He's starting tojust like Reek Havoc in your life.

(01:10:03):
You're very upset. I remember onenight you called me. You we were
on the phone side yourself. Youwere like, I'm hiring a lawyer.
It was eleven o'clock at night whenI called you. I'll never forget that.
We were on the phone for aboutthree hours, and you know what
it was. It was lying.I couldn't tell. Yeah, he was
lying on the storytelling. You thoughtI told stories when I was drinking.

(01:10:26):
My goodness, Evan had a wayof telling stories. So I didn't know
what to believe. I didn't knowwhat if what was coming out of his
mouth was actually what was happening.I mean, I had stories of people
telling me that he was, youknow, getting help and going into rehab,
and then these people ended up notreally being there. It was just

(01:10:49):
it was just complete chaos. Yeah, I think that his life was chaotic.
As you mentioned, he's on thepath to destruction. He's upsetting you.
You were pregnant, he's lying,he's unhealthy for you because you're,
aside from being pregnant, you're alsoworking on being a sober person. Right,
I'm actually going through the steps atthis moment. So yeah, more

(01:11:10):
that I'm growing closer to God,closer to my year of sobriety, the
worst he's getting. And I thinkthe more we're resenting each other because I'm
resenting him because of everything that's goingon. He's resenting me because I'm not
sticking by a side and helping him. You were definitely resenting him because that
night when you called me at elevenPM, you were your voice level was

(01:11:32):
very high. You were hiring alawyer, you were going to sue him
if you had to make sure yougot child support. You, like,
I know he has money and heis not he's saying he's not going to
help, but he pops in andout of my life, I mean,
And it was very like it wasjust sounded chaotic. The whole conversation was.

(01:11:53):
And I said to you, thisis upsetting you. He's unhealthy for
you. You're going to spend allthis time and all this worry on hiring
lawyers. Right now, maybe it'sjust time to take a step back,
let things settle, cut some tiesright now, have some distance between the

(01:12:15):
two of you. Because you're pregnant, you've got to worry about your health.
And so ultimately you did a versionof that, right you had to
sever some ties for your own health, your own sanity, your own sobriety,
the health of your daughter who wasabout to be born. And then
around eight months pregnant, I'm takinga walk outside, which is where I

(01:12:38):
find my center of clarity. Andyou call me and you say what I
said that it was a Monday,and I said that I had just received
a phone call that Evan had died. He was hit by a car and

(01:13:01):
killed instantly in Michigan. And Michiganand I'll never forget. I was laying
in bed and the phone had rang. It was probably about nine thirty in
the morning. It was a Monday, so I was off at work,
and my mom came running up thestairs and she's like, Angela, Evan's

(01:13:24):
dead, Evan's dead, and screamingit. And I remember jumping out of
bed and getting downstairs to the phoneand I accidentally hung up on his dad,
so then he had to call meback. And there had been so
much lying and all this that Iremember questioning it for a second, like,

(01:13:44):
wait, is this another ploy tolike get me to feel bad for
him? And and then his dadis just I could tell from his voice
it wasn't it wasn't a lie,it wasn't a story. It was the
truth. And he had said thatEvan was probably drinking and had been walking

(01:14:05):
on a freeway and was on likea bypass and someone hit him and kept
going and they didn't even stop,and he was found when it started to
turn light out, and I rememberI was in shock. Obviously, I

(01:14:30):
couldn't process it at that moment.I just remember like falling to my knees
and just crying and like wailing,and I remember thinking his poor mother and
his poor father and what happened.And when I started to kind of get
it together, I called my sponsorand I remember telling her, this is

(01:14:56):
all my fault, This is allmy fault, because I had I had
hated his guts at that point becauseof everything he was putting me through and
all of his drinking. I didn'thate Evan. I hated Evan's disease.
But I remember saying, I killedhim. I can't believe this. I
killed him. I could have beenI wasn't there for him. And she
says, Angela, you're You're notthat powerful. And I had just so

(01:15:20):
I had hit a year of sobrietyon May seventeenth, twenty and fourteen.
This was May nineteenth, twenty andfourteen, so it was two days.
So talk about like an emotional rollercoaster. And I remember my sponsor telling
me that I wasn't that powerful enoughto kill someone, that this was God's
plan and that Evan is free fromall of his pain right now, And

(01:15:43):
it was like I snapped my fingersand my sponsor was there, like she
was literally at my house, andwe cried together, and my parents were
crying, and we were just allcrying, and I called a couple of
my dear friends in AA and newsspread like wildfire. I mean, it
was like people were calling me.It was just unbelievable. I remember thinking
how unbelievable it was that this newshad traveled so quickly, because he had

(01:16:08):
a lot of friends in AA anda lot of people that were trying to
help him at the time that hepassed away. And I remember talking to
his sister in law, who's likea sister to me today, and I
said, is it really true?And she says yeah, and she was
trying to Evan has a brother,and she was trying to console her husband

(01:16:29):
who had just lost his only brother. It was just terrible. It was
absolutely terrible, and I remember thinkingthis was all my fault. That's all
I could think of. And Iremember going on my laptop and we were
looking up the story because it wasthe biggest story at the time in Anne
Arbor. It had backed up trafficfor miles and the Anne Arbor news station

(01:16:53):
was like all over it, andI remember reading about it. There was
some pretty gruesome details, stuff thatI was not prepared to read at that
moment. In the comments, andjust how different people were commenting on it,
and it was just that's how terrible, crazy full to go down when
you start reading comments, right,because you get such a mixed bad Yeah.

(01:17:14):
So it was it was beyond ashock. And in the days and
when you following, yea, AndI remember crying for my daughter, um,
because I remember thinking that she's notgoing to have her dad and how
terrible that is. And I grewup with like the best family foundation ever

(01:17:41):
and that she wasn't going to havethat. And I was just devastated.
And I was angry at him.I was so angry at him for leaving
her, for just leaving her,you know, and um, there's just
so many emotions. I couldn't pinpointone emotion. I was feeling everything at
that moment. And as the daysand weeks passed, you know, everybody

(01:18:01):
in my life knew what was goingon. I had taken a leave of
absence from work. I had startedgoing into early labor because of the shock.
So the doctors wanted me at home, not driving or anything like that.
I couldn't even go to his funeralbecause I couldn't be in a car
for that long time because my contractionswere just all over the place. So

(01:18:29):
yeah, it was that that couldbe enough to level somebody because I think
I thought, I remember in thatmoment, I thought, God, this
woman, what she has been through, from just the rollercoaster of dealing with
your alcoholism and then getting on apath to sobriety and meeting someone and being

(01:18:50):
so excited about having a baby,and overcoming the suicide and being a survivor
of suicide, and then this snooze. I thought, it's one more thing,
one more thing. What else couldhappen to this girl? But that
all goes back to what you weresaying earlier, like it can get better,

(01:19:13):
It gets better, And so youcould take that moment of such sadness
and such loss and then something,some really amazing things happen, right because
little Harper was born, and thatthen changes everything. A couple days late,
she wanted to make a grand entrance, but she eventually made it into

(01:19:38):
this world on June twenty ninth,twenty fourteen, and I cried like a
baby when they gave her to me. And I remember the first some of
the first words out of my mouthwere, your daddy really wishes he could
have been here. I know hedoes, and he loved you very very
much, because he did. Hewas so excited about her. And at

(01:20:02):
that point I had established a reallygreat relationship with his parents, and they
were very very excited, you know, to have this little piece of their
son in the world. And sothey came to visit shortly afterwards. She
was only a few weeks old,and his brother and his wife and his
two boys came to visit, andit was it was really great, and

(01:20:24):
I'm sure it was I'm sure thatshe feels a void for a heart,
of a void for them. Ithink that's so beautiful that you have maintained
a close relationship with his parents sothat they can be a part of her
life, because that now that you'rea parent, you know how devastating that
would be to lose a child,I can't even but then to have this

(01:20:45):
gift where he lives on through herright, so that must bring them a
lot of joy. Well, AndI gotta say too, you know,
um, it all stems back tomy sobriety and making a choice to live
and not to partake in my disease, because if I wasn't a sober member

(01:21:10):
of alcoholics Anonymous at the time whenHarper was born. I wouldn't have been
able to deal with Evan's death.I would have drank through it. Pregnant
or not pregnant, I don't care, trust me. I mean, you
can have a couple glasses of wine. I heard when you're bregned in,
So I would have taken that tothe limit, trust me, And you

(01:21:30):
know, so that got me throughEvan's death. It got me through.
I was able to be a momto my daughter when she was born because
I was sober and happy and healthy. And then I was able to do
the next right thing and really includehis family in every aspect of Harper's life

(01:21:51):
because I was taught that that's theright thing to do. And that all
stems back to me not being chaoticand insane and in my disease and selfish
and self centered. You know.So everything that I do today, everything
that I have, all these decisionsthat I've made, and the reason that
my life turned out so beautiful,even after such a tragedy as Evan's death,

(01:22:14):
was all due to AA and thesteps and choosing sobriety and choosing to
live and not to succumb to mydisease. So the reason I wanted to
do this type of podcast and focuson the bounce back is that I really
feel like we can learn from otherpeople's stories and struggles, so that today,

(01:22:38):
if someone's listening to this and theydon't battle addiction or I mean maybe
suicide isn't something that has affected theirlife, there are still elements of your
story that you've overcome that I thinkcan really inspire people. And so I
always think that when we bounce backfrom our greatest struggles, when we're challenged

(01:23:01):
again, we know how to bounceback again because we are armed with the
tools. It's just putting those toolsinto practice. So I want you to
fill in the blanks for me onthese questions. I know I can bounce
back from my challenges when when Iknow that I'm not alone, when I

(01:23:28):
take into account that it's not justme going through it, that I have
God by my side and I canget through anything with him. I'm the
best version of myself when when Iwake up in the morning and I start
my day off by hitting my knees, I humble myself. I hit my

(01:23:49):
knees and I ask God to showme his will for the day and not
to do Angela's will because that's whenit's a mess. Then I feel the
most vulnerable when, oh m,that's a hard one. When I'm telling

(01:24:15):
my story to someone that I'm tryingto like, impress or that you know.
So I'm dating someone now and he'samazing and he's a huge support,
but I remember I felt very vulnerablewhen I had to first tell him bits
and pieces of my story. Iwasn't going to dump at all on him

(01:24:36):
at one time. Poor guy probablywould have ran for the hills. But
um, you know, I definitelyfelt vulnerable when I have to divulge,
you know, deep dark secret stuffthat I'm not ashamed of at all,
but you know, when it's tosomebody that maybe I'm romantically involved with or
something. So yeah, no,it's good. That takes courage, right,

(01:24:58):
takes courage. I act to selfworth by doing what well I think.
I I embrace the moments when mypast comes up to haunt me,

(01:25:18):
so I use I know what I'mworth today because I know how far I've
come from where I used to be. So some of my deepest, darkest,
most terrible moments are the most amazingreminders and amazing tools that I have
today to remember like what I'm worthand how far I've come. I find

(01:25:43):
clarity when early in the morning,when I am driving to work, because
there were so many times that Idrove to work hungover, strung out from
a bend, just miserable on anhour two hours of sleep, I am

(01:26:05):
the most clear. I have themost clarity after I drop Harper off and
I'm I have a thirty minute driveto work and I just I'm just driving,
And especially in those days when thesun shining and I know that I
got a full eight nine hours ofsleep last night. I have no guilt,
remorse and shame about any decisions Imade the night before. I am

(01:26:29):
just a sober, happy, healthywoman driving to her job to do the
responsible thing all day. And that'sthose are my Yeah, those are my
moments. I remember when we werein a car once. It was a
great thing, and I passed thison to other people. The thing you
said to me because I was strugglingwith something and you're like, why do
you think that the front window isso big on a car and the rear

(01:26:50):
view mirror is so small. It'sbecause we shouldn't spend too much time looking
at what's behind us and our pastand be much more focused on the big,
wide open road ahead. And Inever forgot that because I think that's
such a great lesson in life thatour struggles teach us. But they don't
have to define us. Absolutely,you are not defined by a date or

(01:27:15):
a stumble or a decision that youdon't feel great about or that you feel
shame about, because you still havetomorrow, and tomorrow you get to choose
to make it different and to getit right. Yeah, that's the beautiful
thing, right about waking up andsaying I'm alive. It's truly truly one

(01:27:36):
day at a time, It reallyreally is. And everybody has been so
welcoming to me this past week.I've been a meeting every day and everybody
has said the same thing. Theywere like, we missed you so much.
It was one night at least,you didn't spend weeks or months or
day or years out there. Andit's one day at a time. And

(01:27:56):
somebody even said to me, whattime do you wake up this morning?
Angel I said, I woke upat seven, And he said, well,
I woke up at nine, soyou have more sobriety than I do
today. I said, OK,well, I want to thank you for
being so open and for sharing yourstory and for doing it with truth and
honesty, and for like facing theshame stories and the vulnerability just head on

(01:28:23):
because you are a true bounce Backand I'm so proud of you. And
then just thank you for being here, Thank you so much for having me,
Thank you so much for listening tothis episode of The bounce Back.
It would mean so much to meif you would subscribe to this podcast.
You can find it on Spotify andApple Podcasts search The bounce Back and click

(01:28:45):
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