Sober Living Stories

Designing A New Life: Jessica Summer's Comeback Story

• Jessica Stipanovic • Season 1 • Episode 45

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 How does a successful fashion designer find herself in the throes of addiction, battling homelessness, and rising again to help others find their path? 

In this episode, we sit down with Jessica Summers, a mom and former boutique owner whose life fell apart after complications during childbirth led her to rely on prescription pills. That dependence spiraled into street drugs and eventually homelessness. Jessica shares her raw, honest story to shed light on how addiction can take hold of even the most seemingly “normal” lives.

Jessica opens up about losing everything to addiction and how she fought her way back. She talks about the emotional and physical toll of postpartum struggles and how being dismissed by her healthcare providers left her vulnerable. In her darkest moments, she found strength through a small, still voice that guided her toward hope and healing. Her journey is proof that even the toughest battles can be won.

Jessica’s recovery wasn’t just about getting clean—it was about rebuilding her life. With the help of compassionate care and dual diagnosis treatment, she learned that addiction isn’t a moral failing but a disease that requires understanding and support. Today, she’s an author, speaker, and cognitive behavioral therapy coach, using her story to inspire others to reclaim their power and find renewal, no matter how hopeless life might seem.

Her upcoming book, The Road to Now: From Tragedy to Triumph, is a must-read for anyone facing similar struggles. Click the link below to learn more and get your copy.

https://a.co/d/j00V4RO

To connect with Jessica Summers:
www.jessica-summers.com
http://linkedin.com/in/jessica-summers-b12680182
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100080486230656&mibextid=LQQJ4d

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Your story matters.

Speaker 1:

The person that I once knew is no longer present and I had no idea where along the path I completely lost myself. I don't even know who I am, and the thing that I did not know and this is why I was so hard on myself is there is a very big difference between making bad choices or actually just a choice to begin with. If you want to do drugs and you choose to do them, okay, and then there's addiction. And then there's like heavy addiction when you're in it and you don't even know how you got there and you've never known addiction before.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the Sober Living Stories podcast.

Speaker 2:

This podcast is dedicated to sharing stories of sobriety. We shine a spotlight on individuals who have faced the challenges of alcoholism and addiction and are today living out their best lives sober. Each guest has experienced incredible transformation and are here to share their story with you. I'm Jessica Stepanovich, your host. Join me each week as guests from all walks of life share their stories to inspire and provide hope to those who need it most. Welcome to the Sober Living Stories podcast.

Speaker 2:

Meet Jessica Summers, a former fashion designer who once struggled with pregnancy complications, postpartum, which then led to health issues, and addiction complications postpartum, which then led to health issues and addiction. Today she's going to share her personal story. She's a speaker and a coach in cognitive behavioral therapy and she helps others unlock their potential. Her book is now coming out in just a couple of days the Road to Now From Tragedy to Triumph. What I'm excited about today is the part where your addiction goes from just having a health issue to a full-blown addiction to homelessness. I have seen in the last 20 years, particularly the last 10 years, that people who are relatively living normal lives and they get prescribed medication and wow, what a fast road downhill, so I'm happy to have you on. So welcome, welcome, jessica. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much and, excuse me, it's huge about. Well, let me say this I do speaking events and I'll come right out and say do I look like a mentally ill, homeless, drug addict? And of course, everybody, oh, I'm vulnerable, right? What does that look like? What does that look like to you? Because those were the labels that I had and carried around for a while and I didn't ask for it, right. But there's so much in that I didn't know any of this until I knew it.

Speaker 2:

Sure. So how did it start? How was your prior to your addiction? Walk us through a little bit of that life right before and then just take it all the way through, so listeners can see that transition, can see that transition.

Speaker 1:

So at the time I was married with children and I was a fashion designer and I owned a boutique and on the outside everything looked great. And I think that was the hard part in it too, because people have a really hard time listening or hearing you when you have it all and you look okay. So what are you complaining about? And so it started with my third trimester, my second pregnancy, and it was completely different than the first. I thought I've had a child before, I know all the rules and the regulations and I've mapped it out, how to be the perfect mother, whatever you get going in your head, and I'm doing everything that I did in my first pregnancy. But I'm in my doctor's office, like it.

Speaker 1:

My third trimester ended up being every other week and they're checking on my blood pressure fluids and her heart rate. And one of my last it was a couple of weeks before I was actually due. I was on one of those appointments and the doctor's freaking out and saying we're going to take you across the street, we're going to induce, because they were worried that I was going to have a stroke because I had labial blood pressure. So it was like high, high and then drop. So they induced and what was also something that I look back in retrospect like why did this affect my child? Before she even came into this world, I had an epidural and it only took on one side of my body. I could feel everything and the other side was like jello. When they finally did deliver her, they had to resuscitate her, but then right away, first it was a panic and then everybody heard me and everything was okay. So I ended up going back home and I have like debilitating ab pains, so I would eventually go back to the hospital and they found that they had left placenta behind. So that, right, there was the beginning of the end that I did not see.

Speaker 1:

But that was the pain pills, the infections, one after another. I had been given so many antibiotics that I had an overgrowth of bacteria from too many antibiotics, so they gave me more antibiotics. From too many antibiotics, so they gave me more antibiotics. And what I know now too about like gut brain and just our gut in general and just that's a whole nother thing. But I didn't know it then, but that was just wreaking havoc on my on my stomach, on my gut, and then all these medications and say that was the start of it. And then I go back in and I they find I had a hiatal hernia, then I had having ruptured ovarian cysts, then I had to have an ablation. Then I mean, it was just one thing after another. And after a while you're kind of like okay, what am I doing? I don't understand, because that conversation really doesn't even come up in the doctor's office. It was just more like this is what it is, here's some pain pills, here's some medication, here's some antibiotics. And you just kind of do, sure, right, what?

Speaker 1:

you're told Right and in fact Until you say wait a minute, and that's what you did.

Speaker 2:

So then, what happened next?

Speaker 1:

Because I've had that same experience with different medications. Pilot, we are about go to the doctor. Take what they tell you to fix yourself. If you don't, it must be a you problem. I didn't recognize that again. So I was like, excuse me, so far removed from that to see how we actually all do function until we question how we're functioning.

Speaker 2:

I remember saying to myself I felt terrible, my side effects were intense and finally I said to myself wait, we're paying him, which? Means I can go in and tell him I don't want to do this anymore because it's wrong. Understood.

Speaker 1:

So I wish I would have. I was too far in it by the end to even know up from down.

Speaker 2:

So did you get the yeah, go ahead. Did you? Did the pain medication become problematic in in that process?

Speaker 1:

This is how you get sucked into. Or for myself, is the pain is still there. I'm only taking the pain medication when I feel the symptoms, but in that time the pain would get so bad that I would end up taking more pain medication to try to get rid of the pain. And I was never. I don't. I used to party like a rock star in my 20s. This is something completely different and I didn't know that and I see it's all in retrospect and addiction and the withdrawal symptoms were so. They were the same of the feelings I was having originally from when they left the placenta behind that whole stomach. There was right, so I didn't know how to distinguish one from the other, decipher what was happening.

Speaker 1:

Got it, yes, and I keep having all these other diagnoses and medication. And when I say I don't think that medication is helping me, I think it's making my stomach worse. I would get more medication. So I don't, I don't, I don't understand anymore.

Speaker 2:

And plus, you just you just had a baby, so the tired factor it's zero, so already you're not, you're doing that. And then you have this influx of medications, these diagnoses, these trips to the doctor, pain medication, addiction starting to happen.

Speaker 1:

And I also too, postpartum right the thought processes that I had right, I wasn't okay, right, you weren't yourself Right, and so weeks turned into months, turned into years that moving. I had a really close friend of mine. He drowned and it was just kind of you know, life happens, and it was just one thing after another and, like I said, I was complaining about it, saying I don't know what I'm doing right, I don't know what I'm doing wrong, and nobody really hears you Again, if you don't look sick, you're complaining.

Speaker 2:

You're the first person that said that on here, and I, oh, I think that's so true. When you don't, when you have it together but you're falling apart, it's tough for people to listen because you're not saying it and nobody's really saying hey. So you really have to, at some point, advocate for yourself. You're just not going to make it.

Speaker 1:

Right, and so I end up I don't know how to advocate for myself. I don't even know what's wrong with me. I'm going to the doctor, I'm doing and I had actually started seeing a therapist who referred me out and he prescribes me Valium. So I'm already really. Now I'm I'm pretty much passing out right in front of family and I'm complaining, but I don't think anybody really wants to see or hear it. Now I'm there, so I start going out at night and I'm pretty pathetic Actually.

Speaker 1:

I am out at bars and I am whining to anyone who will listen. So then I meet a drug dealer and then we go to a party and he shoots me up with heroin. Wow, and I thought I had been saved. Wow, cause I start. I start making it okay because I don't care about going to the doctor anymore. I just have to do just a little bit of heroin to function because I'm still out. I'm playing co-ed softball and co-ed soccer with my husband. I can do all that if I just make my own little concoction here. Think about that for a minute.

Speaker 2:

Well, I've seen that I've had a friend and she worked with me and she just needed a little bit to get through same exact thing, or she'd get very sick. And it's just incredible how you didn't need the doctor anymore, so those visits stopped, but then you needed your dealer. See the transition there.

Speaker 1:

So of course it is. Reality is are you kidding me, right? You've gone down this path and you're going to make heroin, right? So I mean, but I, in all honesty, my state of being at that time and the thing that I did not know and this is why I was so hard on myself is there is a very big difference between making bad choices or actually just a choice to begin with, if you want to do drugs and you choose to do them, and then there's addiction, and then there's heavy addiction when you're in it and you don't even know how you got there and you've never known addiction before. I'm looking in the mirror going you monster, you liar, you don't want to do it, then why are you doing it, right?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so listen, I think listeners can really relate to that. I know I can. When you don't have any examples of what it was. That's my story. I didn't know what alcoholism was. I had no one around me who was suffering from it. I had no one in recovery. So what is wrong with me? And it took me a year, decade to try to figure it out. So you speaking today is commendable and continuing. I'd love to hear more and just walk us through that. So how did you look in the mirror and say how did you change from saying you monster, you're such a liar. What's happening here? Pull it together, doing these things you would never do, to what's next?

Speaker 1:

So I had tried. I did some outpatient here and there I kept and I really believe in this too attracting right. So I was attracting all the wrong people and we'd wanted to get clean but brought each other down and I see that's a whole nother topic and conversation in itself, because that's such a big one, but the intention is there. You just don't know that you need all the help in the world and you're not going to get it from another addict trying to get clean. If it happens, fantastic and good for you. For my particular case, no way, Because I also didn't realize and didn't know that and I think this is a big one is in the time that I was growing up, there was no such thing as depression, sharing feelings, and it was.

Speaker 1:

You got a problem, fix it, basically, get your shit together, is your record in my head. So you don't know how to get your shit together. You've tried. I don't know what to do anymore. So I'm like spinning down even further. My mental health is this time. It's mental, physical, emotional, spiritual. I'm just, I'm done.

Speaker 2:

And where are you at with your business? You're being a mom, being a wife. What's happening there?

Speaker 1:

So I and this is also I was going to tell the work that I've done to actually, because, getting to know myself better, I understand myself better and how I function and how I am very intuitive and sensitive, and so I was well aware and I could see what my illness, even though people didn't want to see it or acknowledge it. I could see the chaos and the sadness, I could see it and feel it, right. But at the same time, I'm also being told to get up, get your shit together and all this other stuff. So I keep doing it so I can get out on the field.

Speaker 1:

Like I said, I ended up giving up my business because I, we had moved and I just I could not. I was falling asleep at the wheel commuting from Sacramento to San Francisco. San Francisco is where I had the boutique and that's where we had lived but I was trying to do all this stuff and I can't remember I have to think about it how long this goes on, for Cause, like I said, I'm trying to do some outpatient, but you, just I I had to completely remove myself from everything to get the help that I needed. Right, doing it and pretending that everything is okay.

Speaker 2:

So did you do inpatient? Did you go to rehab? Because some people just need their entire world to stop, and so that they can because it's hard to get to the fridge, which is two feet away from me, and figure out what's inside of it to eat, like that's where we're at when we show up right, which is incredible. How is that possible? But that's the truth. That's the truth.

Speaker 1:

So check yourself out. A big truth. And that's what I think it gets people stuck in getting the actual help that they need. Because they think like, okay, I can intellectualize this, how come I'm doing the complete opposite. It just doesn't work that way.

Speaker 1:

So I'm at the same apartment where I originally got the drugs and I'm sitting there and I'm bawling. And I had usually had a routine of I'd buy enough for right then and there for the rest of that day and then for the following morning to come back to start the whole thing over again. So I'm not paying attention, I'm bawling because I don't know who to ask for help for from. I don't know where to go anymore. I've tried outpatient. I'm failing left and right. I spies myself. So I question sometimes should I even ask for help?

Speaker 1:

So I'm in this, so I'm cooking it up, not paying attention, and I end up cooking it all up and as I did it, I said makes me emotional. I said God, why would you want me to suffer so bad? And I was like a simultaneous. I felt him and I heard him and he said I wouldn't. And I got up. I should have been knocked out if not have OD'd. And I got up and I walked out and I was like, wow, I don't know how, but I had also not that. I know I'm not a religious person I guess God in my life as a I didn't really know then.

Speaker 2:

So in that moment you had mistakenly cooked up your entire supply of heroin. Did it? And then said God, why would you want me to suffer so much? And then you audibly heard him say I wouldn't. And then you got up, so you did know D. That's a profound moment, and I'm not surprised it brings tears to your eyes, because it was such a profound moment. Absolute miracle, right. And so then, what happened after that? As far as where did you go?

Speaker 1:

So I ended up going home and I had been trying to kind of duck and hide from everybody, including God. Right, I don't know who. The devil is in my ear, laughing, telling me what a piece of garbage I am and I'm believing it. Right, I'm right, I am, but now I have this new profound green light. Right, it's go time, and I don't know what that means.

Speaker 2:

But all that other talk doesn't matter, because you said go right, let's do this thing.

Speaker 1:

So I end up, you go home and it still took a couple of days. But think about this too I had used all of that and now I'm home, a couple of days go by, I haven't used, I'm not going through withdrawal, I'm not. There's nothing there. Come on For real, right, for real. Then there is one night and I kind of strange.

Speaker 2:

That's an absolute miracle, that's a supernatural healing of sorts to not experience that. Can we just pause for a moment here? Because it's it's so true that that happened to you. So when you have evidence like that, regardless of whether we're religious or you're religious or not, or you believe in that is something that can't be contested. Right, that was a true, that's evidence that you get.

Speaker 2:

That's how faith is built in moments like that and people say, well, how'd you get here? How are you so faithful? Because I've lived in moments like that where I've actually seen evidence of God's work in my life. When it should have been this way, it absolutely was not. And these undeniable spaces that he gives. You know what I'm saying. So it's just incredible. I know of someone and I just want to share this right quick, because it's so similar to what you said there was somebody who I knew who was on methadone and he was. You know, third day is supposed to be the worst day and he was taking his daughter out to ice cream. A month later, two months later, I saw him again and said wow how are you so?

Speaker 2:

okay, right now I was a mess at two months and he just looked at me and he said God changed me. And I thought well, that was his truth and that's what happened. And it was, that was it.

Speaker 2:

And like everybody has a different experience. So I'm just so, was it? And everybody has a different experience. So I'm just so. You beautifully said that, and so what happened next? And it's not to say that this is going to stick or whatever, but these pieces of evidence bring us to the remembrances too, and this is kind of like.

Speaker 1:

Isn't that kind of what faith is Like? That was my experience. That was so real and so profound, and that was the only thing that made me even have just a little glimmer of hope. I was hopeless. There's no way I was getting out of what I had gotten myself into, because I'm not even the same person. I don't even know how to function correctly, and nobody sees it, nobody hears me. I feel like I'm underwater saying hello, I'm drowning, and people are calling me a liar. You're not really underwater. That's, in your imagination, so ridiculous.

Speaker 1:

So what happens next? So I, a couple, a couple days later, I'm laying in bed. We're all asleep well, everybody's asleep, except for myself. And I'd gotten up, grabbed my oldest daughter, put her into bed, grabbed my youngest one, put her into bed, and I just sat up all night and I looked at the three of them. They were facing me and I bawled all night because I knew I'm going to tell on myself, I'm going to tell my husband every single thing and whatever he needs to hear so I can get the help that I need. He'll understand, right? Oh wait, yes, he will. So it's the battle of all battles that night. Oh wait, yes, you know, we went. So the battle of all battles that night.

Speaker 1:

The next morning he gets up, the girls start getting ready, and I just said, and I showed him my arms and it just came out. And of course he had some choice words for me and it was I'm sorry, excuse me, they had left. I'm so sorry they had left. He went to work, the girls went to school was when they got back, because we were actually supposed to go to a Kings game that night. And that's when I said everything, because he wanted me to get up for that and I couldn't get up. And so that's when everything came out and he said some things to me and he left with the girls. And then my dad and my stepmom show up and when I think about this too, this is so heartbreaking Showed them my arms and just the looks. To think that you could scare somebody so bad people that you love and care about it is that's a heavy weight, really a heavy weight.

Speaker 1:

So I end up, I grab some stuff, we go to their house and it's still another couple of days until they're taking me to the hospital. I'm getting the pep talk of, like you know, one step at a time. I can't sleep, I'm a mess. And this is the last thing that I can remember. We're at an E and I feel myself slipping and I don't know exactly what's happening. But I know I have to get my dad out of here. He can't see what's getting ready to happen. I don't know but it's, and I was mean to him, but I said what I had to say to get him out of there. And then the next thing, I know it's a day later and I'm walking down the hallway and I looking around and I'm actually feel some relief. I'm in a mental institution and I said, thank God, the monster that I am can be under lock and key and watched 24 hours a day. I've been saved. This is it. This is exactly where I needed to be. Who gets excited about being in a mental institution?

Speaker 2:

Right that reaction. Didn't know what you were going to say, but it just shows you were relieved.

Speaker 1:

So and listen to this, though. So I'd been there for in total was 17 days. One day I'm there and middle of the night and I'm walking around in circles. I noticed myself rubbing my stomach. Went, wait a minute, I feel pain right now like excruciating pain. I thought I was lying and then the next thing I'm down on my knees curled up in a ball. They have to call an ambulance. I go to ER and they say this time it's either diverticulitis or colitis and send me back with. You'll never guess what antibiotics and pain pills Wow, and I said anybody heard a word that has come out of my mouth?

Speaker 2:

I've been trying to tell you from the beginning how all of this has happened. Wow, and so what happened next?

Speaker 1:

Did you take them? So then it said that was kind of the beginning and I think it was in. I still had those stomach issues and when they put me back on all the medication that I said was making me feel worse and I was hurting my stomach, I got put back on all of those things and so I had a reaction just like before. So, fast forward, I would get separation papers at three days out of that mental institution I had been. They told me I was disabled. I discharged papers, I carried them around with me to understand myself, because people were so still so cut off from what was actually going on and what their fear and assumptions, yes and right, so stuck in that that they still could not see where I was at.

Speaker 2:

So it's a scary place to be right To live in that, in all of that, and yeah, I can understand.

Speaker 1:

Scary is an understatement, I don't even have the verbiage or it is a fear outside of my understanding as a human being. I couldn't understand. I was in another reality.

Speaker 2:

So you were a fashion designer who owned a boutique in Sacramento giving birth to your second child, and now we're here because we were in San Francisco at the time, but, yes, I was a fashion designer living the life right and would you say that's all stemmed from the pain medication addiction that started after the postpartum?

Speaker 1:

I think it was a combination of so the postpartum and the medication, for sure, and I think everything because of those also in combination with unhealed Right, which everyone has. Right, so where does it?

Speaker 2:

take you now. So You're now re-addicted or you've initiated craving, so do you follow it? Out, or do you stay put?

Speaker 1:

Well, at first I was okay, but I've also been given separation papers, like one thing that I needed was some kind of stability and I had nothing. And I'm right. I had nothing and I'm right. I know God has saved me to carry on. But at the same time, in the human part of it and human interaction was hitting one wall after another. So fast forward. I'm sleeping in people's garages, sleeping in my car, ended up on somebody's couch and that was the last place I had stayed. I had been given a telephone number which I still can't even wrap my head around that. I had saved it and I knew where it was because it had been some time since I had been given it to me. But it was a phone number for a dual diagnosis and thank God for the guy on the phone because he knew exactly how to ask me the right questions to, because I kept thinking I had to have it so figured out. I can't go because of A, b and C.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Right, and that's why you really need so much handholding and love and understanding, even if somebody doesn't understand, right.

Speaker 2:

Well, I was thinking about that when you felt like the lack of support, which is understandable, right, because of what they've been through. But I think too, and not everybody loves 12 step, but a lot of people do, and I think you know why. Because when everyone else says we're done here, you land there, you walk into a room. Sometimes, if you walk into a 12 step and they're there and the coffee's hot and they're like, let's go, what do you? Got Sit down, you just surround you and they just have the time to pour in, because they've been there and nothing shocking and everything's okay and so it's like a.

Speaker 2:

so that's one avenue, that is, and it's open all the time and it's free, and that's that's a big one. I don't know if you went that route, which route did you go? Where did you find that support or?

Speaker 1:

did you keep?

Speaker 2:

going downhill until.

Speaker 1:

Well, I went up and down, but when I got that phone number cause this is actually what I needed all along Well, where I? The dual diagnosis? Yes, because I kept trying to get help for separate things and I would end up right back where I started. And when you're trying to do that and advocate for yourself, it's a joke People are looking at you like so. In fact, I don't even think people believed me after a while, because when I was in it, I was in it. I couldn't. This is who I am, because I was no longer that person. I was what you see right in front of your face. You're a homeless drug addict, right? So anyway, so fast forward, I'm in a dual diagnosis and that's where I started getting the help that I needed. I still had another reaction and ended up in the hospital, but they picked me up, they, and that's where I need. What I needed in the end is some handholding of cause. I couldn't remember doctor's appointments.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, like some follow-up, extra set of ears and eyes on you, so not the judgment of what's taking you so long.

Speaker 1:

What's your effing problem? Get your shit together, right. I know you're mad, everybody's mad. I'm mad too. We're all pissed off. However, we're going to get nowhere fast.

Speaker 2:

But this is where the lack of understanding that addiction is a disease. Alcoholism it's a disease. It's not good people getting bad, what is that saying? It's not bad people getting good, it's sick people getting well, period, that's it. Some people don't agree with alcoholism or addiction as a disease, but I do, and when you view it like that, it takes all of the hostility out. It might still be there, but it's more understandable. I didn't ask for it.

Speaker 1:

I don't Right why would I want to ruin my entire life Right.

Speaker 2:

The failed attempts you mentioned earlier and the self-hatred that they go hand in hand, because you start to have those failures on your attempts at getting better, changing your life, and they don't do it. And you were successful in all these other areas. Why can't I do this? So then the despising starts to happen and then it doesn't matter if you destroy yourself, because why wouldn't you?

Speaker 1:

And it's such a cycle destroy yourself, because why wouldn't you? And it's such a cycle, and that is why I have seen time and time and time again, and it's heartbreaking because of stigma, right, if it's not family friends, the world, it's us. And who is our biggest enemy but ourselves, especially when we're in it? Right, because I mean, we're at our weakest, most vulnerable state and the only thing we can think of is failures that you've made, going down and down and down. And I see it, I've seen it. The reason I speak about it is because I've been in recovery with women that are no longer here, that have children around the same ages as mine. Right, those are moms, those are daughters. Nobody asks for this.

Speaker 2:

What happens at the dual diagnosis? Do they continue to support you, and when do things start to change and get good?

Speaker 1:

Well, I think, because I really started to understand myself more and I was able to. I'm taking classes and learning about the brain and addiction and our brains on addiction and understanding the difference in how to differentiate yourself and your illness and what addiction is, and this is a big one. People think that, oh, if it's a disease, it's okay, you can just do whatever you want. No, it's an understanding of how to differentiate the difference between what is in your control and when to ask for help. As a well, I can do whatever the hell I want to. That's really an excellent point. Like I said, I needed all the help in the world and I finally got it with the dual diagnosis because I could understand by saying I could understand and differentiate what was in my control and where to ask for help. That's huge and I think that is something that everybody needs to hear. No matter what side of this situation you might be on is. It's not an excuse right To behave however you want to. It's an understanding of how to take care of yourself. So right and so it was kind of thing at one foot in front of the other, and this is a whole nother story in itself, but I'll just say this was a big turning point. I was there for about nine or 10 months and I kept getting followed around with divorce papers and it would make me literally shake every time they tried to hand me this envelope, because I still I could not understand anymore. I was at a place that if you put one more thing on me I'm going to snap. I don't know how to do all of this. And it ended up where I was rocking myself just saying God, I need you to give me the words to say to somebody else so they'll hear me. And I said, please hear, I cannot be in this loud ass recovery, I need to go someplace else. And I think they, please hear, I cannot be in this loud ass recovery, I need to go someplace else. And I think they knew what that meant. So I ended up in another mental institution, which I needed because I couldn't even think straight, and they made some medication changes and from there I would go back, the papers would come and it asked for help and guidance and I got none and I ended up signing everything away, including my children. So then that started a whole new. I have the basics. I'm terrified because I don't have insurance or I'm not going to have insurance anymore. I need to get back home and I need to make a plan how I'm going to get my girls back, how I'm going to function and start integrating myself back into the world.

Speaker 1:

Sure, and it wasn't easy. It didn't happen overnight. Just the trying to go out to find an attorney without when I would hear the words that were coming out of my mouth. I was so full of shame and guilt I didn't think that I actually deserved to be there, right, so I would stop and I would go home and loathe myself. But I had some tools now and right, and I also, while I still had the insurance, was setting up, my people, my support system, and I just started doing one thing at a time, knowing what had helped me in that nine to 10 months, and that's exactly what I needed here. I needed that support and I was past. That shame of this is the kind of help and support that I need. I'm in a totally different mindset now. I'm going to take everything that I need in order for me to succeed.

Speaker 2:

That's way different. So how far, how long did it take to get back into good graces with your family and back into society and start to do what you presently do, presently do.

Speaker 1:

So I had gotten back in 2017. I started taking some psychology classes. I ended up getting a job as peer support for the county, and so I helped other people that were in recovery or dealing with mental health issues. Cause I really, when I was at that dual diagnosis and I started to understand the things that I didn't know before I was off to the races, it was like night and day, because I start when you have the information and something outside of what you think right, because that's what. That's how I was beating myself up, because I thought I had to have the answers Right, and so it's night and day.

Speaker 1:

So it just is one thing after another and some certifications and some training and some, like I said, one thing after another and I ended up getting an attorney and we went to court and I ended up getting the girls 50-50. I said I will do and jump through whatever hoops I have to, because I am well aware that those labels do not equate to a sound fit. Mother Right, if the tables were turned, sure, right, so it all makes sense. Were they vigorous and Pauling? Yes, but I did it and I don't know how again, but I think it all goes back to.

Speaker 2:

So that was like 2000,. Excuse me, I'm sorry, go ahead it was back to that one.

Speaker 1:

When you have that, that green light and that it's going to be okay, and you drive it home with faith that I don't know how we're going to do it, but look at all the steps that I've made.

Speaker 2:

There's no going back entirely. Wow, that's incredible. So you currently are in your children's life today. We're how many years in now? So the current day? What does your life look like today? How different does it look?

Speaker 1:

It's hard to believe really. I got called a bag lady and made fun of because when I got out of the mental institution I had a lot of memory problems. Oh, I don't think I discussed this either. I was misdiagnosed bipolar, so I was on antipsychs and mood stabilizers which followed me around for a while and was not good. In any case. I would come in and out of reality and nobody hears me and the more outrageous it might sound, true, you're nobody's going to hear you. So I drug around this bag and I had all my medical records and little notes that I would write to myself because I knew one day that I would refer back to that to remind myself of who I was and what I was doing and where I was going. It's like concrete evidence Right.

Speaker 1:

And when you think about that, I had to carry myself around in a bag. Right, I don't have to do that anymore.

Speaker 2:

Giving proof right.

Speaker 1:

It's wild to think about that happened Wow.

Speaker 2:

Well, it's a lot of life experience and that you bring to the table with helping anyone else, because I don't think anyone who hasn't been through certain things to that measure have much to offer somebody who's in similar situations or even any kind of like. Yeah, I mean it's just. There's no one more capable of assisting someone in a crisis situation like that than someone who has walked through it themselves period, and it's just that effective because the honesty is there, because the transparency is there and the non-judgment and the acknowledgement. I know who you used to be, because I used to be and this is all real and it happened.

Speaker 2:

But we don't have to stay here. There's a way out. Come, follow me. This is what we're going to do and this is the hope that's here, because it means just and your life comes back threefold. It's just, and so can you speak to what you do now and walk us through that a little bit, and then we'll connect with listeners on where they can find you, Because I know that you did write a book, so you're an author and sharing that hope with people worldwide.

Speaker 1:

Right, so fast forward. And here I am, because I think one of the biggest things is that I saw it all, right. I've been on both sides of the fence, if you will, and I see people, the high achievers that push themselves and it's like, hey, that kind of looks familiar, right, because we don't know when to stop, we don't know how to ask for help, because we don't know what kind of help we need, right? So my focus now is, like Gen X Right, because we all fit in that category of we weren't real to. We didn't sit around the dinner table and talk feelings, right? Mental health issues is ridiculous. It is a new problem and I have to change that. I want to not be the person that you see when you're at the end. I want to stop you before you go there and just recognize that it's not your fault, it's okay and it makes sense, because how can you know something that you don't know? It is assumed that you understand because of stigma, because of just growing up in this world, but that is a false belief system and it's not true and wrong information that we keep feeding each other, right? So if you and I and I coach and I have clients. Now let's write out like and who are you really Right? Until you start digging around and understanding who you think you are and who your subconscious is ruling you to be?

Speaker 1:

I have this analogy and I just I love this story. It's oh, and I'm going to mess up his name. The story is he is an African-American jazz musician. He's out, he's in Mississippi, he's out playing at a gig and he sees these two white guys, like you know, totally getting into his playing and afterwards he goes up to them or they come up to him and say that was amazing. I've never seen a black guy play music like that before. That was amazing. I've never seen a black guy play music like that before. And he was like his wallet and whips out an ID and he's like some grand poobah of the Ku Klux Klan and that started a relationship and this is my perfect example of.

Speaker 1:

He learned how to hate people because that's what he learned. He didn't know why, wow, and he was schooled right then and there and had a new understanding of like, wait a minute, why do I even hate this person? I don't even know, right, and that's exactly what I'm saying about anything in life. We run off our subconscious and what we've learned, and even if it's not immediate and in your family and surroundings, it is at the world at large. You don't know layers of crap that are underneath until you start healing the layers back, right? So who are you and who are you really? Don't wait until you get your ass kicked, have one too many things happen to you, right, exactly.

Speaker 2:

Love that. So what do you offer now and where can people find your book?

Speaker 1:

So the best place to get ahold of me is my website is jessica-sommerscom, and there is a you can fill out whatever. Reach out, say whatever you like and I'll get back to you, and there's also a calendar link for a free 30 minute. Ask me questions, let's get you on track. You say I coach, the book is coming out and I'm a speaker, so I can be hired as that as well. But start there. Reach out to me and I mean, like I said, you don't know what you don't know and it's okay to ask questions.

Speaker 2:

Who is your focus? Who is your ideal client? I help.

Speaker 1:

Gen X get out of their heads to help them in their purpose power and peace, because you can have all of those once you understand and get to know yourself.

Speaker 2:

And you've done a tremendous job of really sharing your personal story and your heart, and there's so many parts in there that listeners in early sobriety are going to be able to relate to and pull from. It's just really good. So I know that you have written a book called the Road to Now from Tragedy to Triumph. Can you share with listeners what stage that book is in, where they can find it? Is it available as an ebook or is it just paperback?

Speaker 1:

So the best place would be, actually any day, I would say, to give it a week. So we're right at that end. Little stages and ebook will come out. Like I say, that will be the first, and then the paperback comes out August 13th. Um you know.

Speaker 2:

Congratulations, that's a big thank you. Excellent achievement, I mean incredible.

Speaker 1:

And, like we spoke earlier too, there's a lot in that goes in there to get it out to that point where to launch it into the world.

Speaker 2:

It just takes. It's a. It's a lot of work, so I I congratulations to you.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, I appreciate that. I think, like all that happened and I got through, that it's just a book. Come on, what's the problem?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and where can people find you during the week so they can connect with you on socials? Your website. So I'm on LinkedIn and I'm going to put those links in the show notes so if anybody would like to connect with you, they can connect with you there and your website. Again one more time Is wwwjessica-summerscom.

Speaker 2:

And so you know, you've taken us from boutique owner to prescription medication, to addiction of those, to a heroin addiction, to homelessness, to losing your children, and then you brought us all the way back to regaining custody of your children, life, education to help others in the same area, to now coaching and having authored a book that you're about to share with the world. So thank you so much for coming on and sharing your personal story with us. Thank, you.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for this too. So we can you know these stories, so other people can hear them, to know that they're going to be okay. We can do this.

Speaker 2:

It's wonderful. Thank you for being here. Thank you. Thank you for tuning into the Sober Living Stories podcast. If you have been inspired, consider subscribing and sharing with anyone who could use hope in their lives. Remember to stay tuned for more inspiring stories in the episodes to come. To view our featured author of the month or to become a guest yourself, visit youjessicastephanoviccom.