Every single one of us knows people affected by the evil dragons of addictions. My name is Jessica Holdbrooks. I am 25 years old, and my life was saved since going through the TREK program at HopeQuest. This place helps people struggling with all kinds of addictions, and works to encourage, restore, heal, and rewire people’s brains to have successful recovery and abundant lives.

We are all created to love and to be loved, yet we live in a difficult, broken world, and life is painful. You are not alone. Hope is real, and help is real.

I had an addiction that began swallowing me whole. My life continued to fall apart and I rapidly lost control. I didn’t have the power to change on my own and become the woman I so desperately wanted to be.

I went through a rather violent divorce, as I was married at 19. Coming from an unstable home, I ran into this man’s arms as he promised to love me forever, a security I had never had before. So I made the vows “No matter what.” Then at 20 years old I had to get tested for HIV because of what he did in the men’s restroom. I had an inkling I should run, but I had looked down on every divorced person I had met. And I promised him “till death.” Once I accepted he was never going to be faithful, I had to let him go. I had to grow cold to let someone I loved so much go. Divorced women can get frozen. I certainly was frozen.

So frozen I let myself go, even all the hair on the back of my head formed one large nasty dread. When I was married I had a reason to keep up my appearance. Once a person is lied to such a degree, something terrible happens- a new question, will there ever be a reason to be true again? I am still not over the heart break.

I drank more and more to numb the hurt that I experienced throughout my soul. I was full of darkness and bitterness and was wrecked from the devastation of my broken marriage. People raised their eyebrows when I explicitly stated I had a drinking problem. I begged for help on multiple occasions, and I tried to get sober several times before this, and it was ultra- difficult when my friends didn’t agree that I had a drinking problem . “You are too young to be so lost;”  “Just lay off the booze;” or “You are fine in moderation.” No one saw my breakfast beers in the morning. No one shared in the puddles of tears/ piss I often lay in. I became a magnet for sick and troubled souls, really messed up people. However, I was so out of control, I made everyone feel better. Several people commented on how much fun my lifestyle was. After all- misery loves company. Yet I had countless mornings when I woke up, covered in bruises, from falling the night before- and I could not recall a thing. The root of addictions isn’t the substance, but the shame- I was drowning in shame, and embarrassing myself over and over, creating more shame. Thus I began blacking out on a regular basis. Blackouts are especially dangerous for women.

Last October I totaled the car I was driving, and ran from the cops on foot. I was plastered and could have easily, unknowingly killed someone or myself. I was on a run for some more booze. Cuffed, I was weeping so hard that the arresting officer noted in the police report: “Suspect has no bottom teeth.” (I have all my teeth.) What actually happened has been disputed, it is a blur. What I do remember: Running from the cops, barefoot, with a 40 (oz. beer) tucked nicely under my arm. I am bleeding from my mouth to my feet. “Stop, this is the Kennesaw City Police!” I decide “they are mad at me for running with that beer,” oblivious to the actual state of my best friend’s freshly crunched Hyundai. So I do what any rational intoxicated people do, and I put the beverage down, and decided to keep running. I was only a few yards from the entrance to the apartment where I have been sleeping on this single mother’s futon. (We have the same divorce date. We commiserated, and we did it well.) It is a felony to flee the scene of an accident.

Becoming a bitter woman felt great. I had every reason to be nasty and unforgiving, wicked and wild. I embraced all my feelings as deep as I could. Documenting all my sorrow, I wrote poems and came up with sick and twisted stories. My Black Cloud discussions were coming even truer. I dove deep into my darkness. I took the regard for my own life, and tossed it out- I decided I no longer needed it. This became a time of nightmares.

My DUI was the same day I went to the DMV to get my maiden name put back on my license, my final step of exterminating the plague in my life that was my husband. This was Wednesday. The Monday before was my beloved great-grandmother’s funeral.  I had recited her eloquently written eulogy, ( that I also wrote.)

Though a near- death experience should have been enough for me to stop drinking,  I learned nothing. I only now had legal trouble to justify getting sloshed and weepy and full of nasty self-pity and hopelessness. So after I had been knocked out for 2 hours 2 weeks later, I told the paramedic, “I’d rather slit my throat than go with you.”

That is the wrong thing to say to a paramedic. I should know, especially having friends who are EMTs. If you threaten your life, even as a form of expression, it will earn you a visit to your local ER’s psych ward.

I had to get an alcohol/drug evaluation, and this is what brought me to this place called HopeQuest. They suggested I do 12 weeks of counseling. Yet this wasn’t enough to stop boozing. It was when I got trashed at my place of employment that I realized things were only getting worse. I called this HopeQuest place, because Hope is what I was in dire need of.  And I was willing to Quest to find it. I was going to die if I kept going the way I was going, I needed help, and I needed it fast. They took me in with open arms.

What I didn’t know is: that it was a 3 month intensive treatment program. I had to hand over my makeup, guitar and freedom. “See as addicts, you are used to responding to whatever your body tells you. Eating when you are hungry, sleeping when you are tired, using when you feel like it. We are going to teach you new ways.” In my desperate state of surrender, I heeded their advice and followed the program.

The TREK is cognitive behavioral therapy; they believe you can rewire the brain at any age. So I sat in a classroom every day from 8:30 to 5:30. They took away all the ways people choose to cope, including cigarettes! This is the only rehab I have ever heard of that takes away cigs, even on Celebrity Rehab they are allowed to smoke!

I spent the next 3 months on their campus. Relearning how to think and process my emotions. Painfully trudging through the shame and mending my wounds that were festering with infection. I got to talk about all the darkest parts, exposing everything to the Light. I discovered my anger towards God and all of creation was misdirected. What I was given was a place to fall completely apart, and they didn’t tell me to stop crying. Once, in a fit of rage, I marched out to the front yard, and as dramatic as I could swing, I punched the tree. I could ask all my scary questions, and was assured that I could be loved. I confessed my gruesome sins, and told even that could be forgiven.I have been able to redeem my dignity. Though I am not through, it is a process, and the fact that this is only a few months out and my life has been changed so dramatically, well I am amazed.

I am sober, my life has been saved.

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Recovery is Possible

As a child i was really happy and outgoing, but at adolescence I strayed into an abyss of rebellion and anger. I was consumed by a world that hated establishment and always wanted to “stick it to the man.” My parents drug me to church weekly and put me on sports teams to try and encourage me into a more positive lifestyle that I strongly resisted. I resented my parents; I hated God and had little or no self-esteem. I found relief in prescription drugs, alcohol, sex, music and many other destructive behaviors. My life was out of control by fifteen, and no one could convince me of changing in any way. By my senior year in high school I maintained a daily drug habit, supported by selling the drugs I took.

After graduation I started school at The Art Institute of Atlanta and was dating the girl of my dreams. I had the world at my fingertips but quickly lost control because of my excessive lifestyle. I started using Heroin, prescription pain killers, Xanax and cocaine on a daily basis. At the end of 2006 I went to my first rehabilitation facility to detox. I was put on a maintenance drug to subside the drug cravings and left in ten days when my insurance quit paying. Three months later I found out that I was going to be a dad. I will never forget that discussion I had in a Waffle House late one night right after we found out. At that point I made a decision I wanted to change but it was only short-lived. I tried desperately to get off the maintenance medication by using other prescription drugs to help me through the cravings. Within a week or two I was right back in the same lifestyle I had been living before. By the time my son was born I had spun completely out of control and I had no relationship with his mom. I was in rehabilitation under lock-down the day he was born. They let me go to see my son delivered and there was no joy for me, the whole day I was consumed by my drug seeking behavior. I didn’t care about anything else. I will never forget digging through a trashcan looking for what was left in the box of anesthetics the doctor had thrown in just hours before my son was born.

I spent the next three months in the Trek program trying to get my life straightened out. In the program I handed my life over to Christ for the first time on my own accord, outside of my parents influence. The program challenged me in ways that I had never been challenged. Trek helped expose so many things in my life that had been holding me in my addiction. The most crucial time for me in Trek was during the Family and Friends weekend where God brought an enormous amount of clarity and healing in my family life. The program allowed me to come to a point where through Christ I could stand on my own two feet again.

Even during the program I began to compromise in more ways than I would like to admit. The glow of my salvation experience faded and I eventually finished that program. I stayed off all drugs and alcohol for the next year. In that time I re-enrolled in college, married my son’s mother, paid of my debts, got my own place and car. My son had been living with his grandparents since birth and I had a dream of bringing my wife, son and I together in a house and pursuing the American dream. I was happy and everything seemed to be going well until the next year. Our marriage crumbled in a matter of months because of the fact that there was no foundation beneath it. When the marriage fell apart so did my dream. When I lost my dream I crumbled. My whole world seemingly fell apart.

Eventually I fell back into my old ways for about a six months period and came to yet another breaking point in my life. By God’s grace he drew me back to himself relentlessly. No matter how far I ran he would not let me go. I finally re-submitted my life to Christ almost two years ago and went through a discipleship program in Texas that helped me grow even further with Him. I really think that the foundation that Trek had laid in my life is was led me back into God’s will for my life when I tried to turn the other way. My biggest lesson I have learned since being with HopeQuest is that you really must submit all of yourself to Christ before you will ever walk in true victory! Even though it has been rough, the journey since I graduated Trek has been one I wouldn’t trade for anything!

Today I now work at a ministry and training school affiliated with Teen Challenge International for those seeking to work in missions, drug/alcohol rehabilitation and ministry in general. I have been all over the United States and even gone globally sharing what Christ has done in my life. My greatest blessing is spending time with my now 4 year old son who was born a month before I walked into the doors of HopeQuest Ministries. I truly believe today that Jesus Christ IS the solution for those with life controlling issues like drugs and alcohol because God is the only one that can change the heart of a person and not just place a band-aid on surface issues.

What I have discovered through this journey is that God is real. I have found that God is a God that loves us all more than we could ever imagine and doesn’t base His love on our performance. I have found that it has never been His expectation for us to change ourselves but for us to let go and allow him to change us. Today I can only look forward with hope and optimism. Each time I look back I am reminded of how great Gods plan is for all of us. The following scripture sums it up:

Marketing and Development Coordinator
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Wrapping up the 25th year, Sober and free.
One of my favorite Rilo Kiley songs says”Being allone is like drinkin’ of takin’ drugs. And I quit ‘em all, but man was it rough.” When Jenny Lewis sings, “but man was it rough,” wherever I am when I hear this line, I burst out AMEN. Man, was it rough. To say the least, this also makes me laugh, how nonchalantly she sings it.

After coming out of a spiritually intense environment, I am now living in a women’s transitional living house. I have managed to get to 7 months sober January 8, 2012. And seeing as how today is my would-be-6-Year wedding anniversary, I think I am doing alright.

For this Buskowskish quarter-of-a-Centurion, this hasn’t been an easy road to recovery. People give you all this advice when you are younger, and it sounds nice and logical, but there are a few of us that scoff, and tease, and think to ourselves “Just because that life didn’t work for you, it is going to work for me. So we rebel, against everything.

I found myself barely alive and there actually was this dark tint on everything. My despair was having physical effects on my body, including my eyesight.

Somehow I was able to turn off this fight against the system, tuck my tail between my legs and abided by the TREK rules for 3 months. I was then patted on the shoulder and sent off into the real world, and I am like “wait a minute, it isn’t nice like in there?”

It’s a cruel world, but there has to be someway that others can live and not be shitheads, and the coolest thing happened. The women’s transition house overseer’s name is Nya S. Jacobs. An activist of love. It pours out off her, shines off her head in every direction, and yes, I want what she has. She got it, and she lives well. This love makes her one of the most beautiful women I have ever met. She is sincere, genuine and goofy. A teacher, before I was barely alive, and now I am learning how to live well.

It still feels strange, I often find myself more like an alien than ever. Which is cool, because I have read many others document their feelings of meitokis. (Which is the Greek word for a stranger in a foreign land.)

One minute I was dangling on a ladder, actually as it was falling over for me to land, being impaled by a 75-foot spike. That is how fast my life was going downhill. Terrible choices leading to more terrible choices, and why didn’t I listen?

I want others to get help too. If I can, you can too!

When I was drunk, I was useless. However, I managed to write myself into a blur. The entire years of my drunkenness, I was practicing the discipline of writing. Now sober, I should be writing more than ever. This weekend I was sorta falling apart, but then I went to a meeting where the Guy said, “what is it you love to do the most?” Mine is to write, and I will say I have been so busy since I got out, that I have been neglecting this vital part of my life. This blog a continued accounts of recovery from different folks, and how they got out. The people I have seen succeed are the ones that have things to do they are passionate about. What is your passion?

The art of making tea, has been such a helpful tool. Something about this meditation of drinks. Afterall, I did have a drinking problem. So I have replaced the bottle with hot tea. All kinds of teas, and they are great for your body. (More about tea here.)

This also holds true for cooking, and hell, I even started baking. Neither of which I knew anything about, but Nya is teaching me these fundamentals. I was living fundamentally workng, and this is a woman living WELL. Her life is full of relationships, people who love and care for her. I tend to push people away, I think a lot of us do.

I barely escaped. This is such a real adventure, I had to capture the details on wrinkly old scraps of paper. Anything I can get my hands on. I want to write on everything. And I have so many places to go.

I chose my 25th year to walk down recovery road. This is perhaps one of my most important chapters in my life. Yet, I have been far away from doing what it is I love to do the most, writing. I managed to write myself into a blur all the years I was drunk and high, a sad attempt at the end of my memoir that was unintelligible. What I thought was the end was actually the beginning. When I was drunk , even though I was useless, I wrote. I fell asleep several nights with a pen and paper as my bed companions, and yes this means I paid with many bursted pens ruining sheets and dresses. I wrote then much more than I do now.

Now, everything feels so strange. it is I have escaped the fires of Hell, yet I barely escaped, burned tho, scorched from the flames. Such an adventure with the darkenss, yet I have been neglectful at recording these new tales.