When I worked as part of the treatment team at a residential recovery center it was always surprising to me that the clients, who’s lives had been spiraling into chaos, were expected to walk out the door 30 days later and now be able to handle all of the things that were taking them down a mere 4 weeks ago. Not that the treatment facility wasn’t doing their best to set the clients up for success, but not all clients were sober living candidates and almost all were from out of state, some from out of the country. This meant most in-person support was lost and needed to be rebuilt at home. As I watched clients relapse and return over and over again, I realized a big piece was missing. From the pain and struggles they left behind, to moving into a beautiful treatment center where they were being cared for, listened to, understood, and supported, all while bonding with peers, was like being wrapped in a warm blanket. The kind of luxury facility I worked in created for clients a state of being referred to as the “pink cloud”. Going from this environment straight back to the same stressors and situations from which clients came can be a real shock, but it doesn’t have to be that way. When I decided to start working with my clients after they left recovery, things started to change. For them, it was like being able to take a piece of that pink cloud with them. Not only did we work together on their aftercare plan, we worked on why they felt their coping strategy had become substances in the first place, and how would their life change if they could cut that anchor for good.

I work with my clients on two simultaneous, intertwined paths. 

First, supporting clients to heal from the trauma or belief system that led to their addiction in the first place using a combination of coaching, clinical hypnotherapy and equine assisted learning. This will most likely include working with other hand picked doctors and mental health practitioners, specifically chosen for the client. The client’s personalized team will create a framework of support and accountability to help the client succeed. 

Second, we will work on the vision you have for the best version of your life, the life you were meant to live. Maybe that starts with healing relationships through new communication skills, acceptance of the past, and finding forgiveness. Or it could be that you are miserable in your current career choice and can’t see how things could change for the better. You are more powerful than you may know. Finding the things that light you up and make you happy is a pivotal part of your growth. Many newly sober clients carry a lot of guilt, and the people in their lives may feel a lot of anger or sadness around what has happened due to the addiction. This can lead clients to not feel like they are worthy of doing things that bring them joy, or excitement, or make them laugh. Letting go of substances to take back your power over your own life takes great courage. It is important to balance self work and accountability with creating a life you are excited to live. This is also why I find it extremely beneficial to be able to talk to the people closest to the client at the beginning of our work together. They need understanding and guidance on where they can go to get their own support. They also benefit from some coaching on what supporting someone's sobriety goals looks like, and what it doesn’t look like.

I received my certification as a Clinical Hypnotherapist in 2004. I am a member of the American Hypnosis Association. I have certifications in EFT, CFT, and Guided Imagery. I’ve taken more workshops and coaching courses than I can count. I began working in residential treatment full time in 2017 and learned so much from my colleagues and clients. The work I was doing there became more and more insightful and the people I was working with wanted to keep working with me. I also started getting more and more outside referrals, and soon I started working as a sober coach full time. The truth is, at the end of the day, people just want to know you can help them. They want to feel seen, heard and understood. They need to know you are in their corner 100%. 

In a way, I have been training for this career my whole life. I grew up around a lot of addiction and mental health issues that created physical and emotional instability. From a young age I wanted to understand people and help them. That became a very long and winding road that found me attaching myself to unhealthy relationships full of addiction, abuse and violence. 

I was raised in a sheltered environment by my grandmother. My mother was chaos and destruction on two legs, but I did not see her regularly when I was little. She would show up for a while and then she would be off. I lived in a small town where I had a cousin on almost every street. Going into high school I went to live with my aunt and attend a prestigious private school. When events led to me living with my mother at 15, I was completely unprepared.

At 17, deeply in love and fully trusting, I was driving my boyfriend Ric's car when we got pulled over. This was the boyfriend my mother introduced me to when she was taking me to bars as her drinking buddy when I was 16. The police discovered 5 lbs of meth in the trunk. A chain of events began then that took years and a lot of patience and personal work to overcome. We went on the run. As I was a juvenile, the logic was that if Ric continued to show up for his court dates, and won his case, I would be automatically cleared. This made even more sense as the state wanted to have a hearing to certify me as an adult. 

I spent almost 5 years living in multiple states, under multiple names, giving birth to two children under aliases. There were no friends, no baby showers, no birthday parties. I barely could speak to my family back home due to the warrant that had been issued for my arrest. Ric supported us during this time by building a pharmaceutical lab and making methamphetamine. Touching this substance when it is in liquid form results in it traveling through the skin and he eventually became addicted. This made him even more controlling, abusive and unpredictable. 

When Ric won his state case we moved back home. I thought I had at least escaped one aspect of the hell I had created through my choices, but I had no idea how I would get out of this relationship. I loved him deeply, it was not healthy, and the relationship was killing me.

Back then, I didn’t know anything about the complexities of addiction and pathological relationships. I even tried to leave once. I loaded the car up with the kids' things, drove to a hotel, checked in, stared at the wall for a while, then called the only person I knew could help me figure out what to do next….Ric. He apologized, talked to me kindly, told me to come home, everything would be alright. So I did. I felt like I was in a maze and all roads lead back to him. As you can already guess, everything was not going to be alright.

A few weeks later, after he left to drive his teenage daughter, who had been staying with us, to school, there was a knock on the door. A state trooper stood there and he asked me to step outside of the house. I did as he asked. That’s when federal agents came out of the woods, came from behind the house, came from behind the barn. I would soon come to learn that the state case Ric had won was big enough to also be considered a federal case. The federal government had charged both of us in a sealed federal indictment and had kept us under surveillance since moving home. 

I was arrested and my children, only 3 and 15 months at the time, went to stay with my Ric's ex wife. For that part I was grateful. I had been charged with over 20 felonies and found myself in the back of a speeding police car heading to the city jail. My family learned of my arrest on the 11 o’clock news. I retreated deep inside myself and cried for my children, terrified about what was going to happen to us. We had never been apart. Now, I was facing 30 years.

Once settled in my cell, laying on my bunk after lights out, I was surprised by the feeling that flooded my entire body. That feeling was relief. It was over. There was nothing he could do to me now. The spell was broken. I had lived in fear for so long I had become numb to it.

I stayed in jail and fought to return to my children for the next 15 months. I survived one day at a time. Patience eventually paid off and the government, not wanting to go through a lengthy and expensive trial, began offering plea agreements. I had tunnel vision during that time. I had to get home to my kids. I rejected the first 3 deals presented to me. My response every time was that I would plead guilty to all the charges in exchange for time served and probation. To his credit, Ric agreed to plead guilty to 10 years in order to get me out. Finally, the federal prosecutor agreed to my request. I plead guilty to all the charges, charges that included guns, drugs and money laundering, and walked out of that courthouse and into the backseat of a pickup truck where my 5 year old daughter beamed at me with a smile that never left her face the whole ride home. 

The gratitude I took away from this experience carried me through the many years of stress and struggle. I was an uneducated single mother determined to give my kids, and myself, a better life. I was also a convicted felon on probation. My first job as a free woman was making minimum wage at a discount women’s clothing store called Fashion Bug. It was a start. I was only there a few weeks before I landed a job as a leasing consultant at one of the biggest property management companies in the city. A year later I got poached to manage an apartment complex by a competitor. Over the years I tried many different jobs, usually holding down more than one, always with the goal of moving up. We were the poor family living in the good neighborhood with good schools. 

I wish I could say, when it came to relationships, I didn’t relapse and end up in other bad ones. So much of living in financial insecurity lends to making decisions out of fear. It also means that one wrong step and you could lose everything. Sometimes the person rushing in as your savior is not a savior at all.

I know what it’s like to make decisions that you are ashamed of, that hurt people you love, that sometimes don’t even make sense to you. I also know what it’s like to have to completely let go of what others may think of you in order to keep your head straight and do what needs to be done to keep moving forward. 

Personally, I believe we choose this life, with all of the joys and all of the pain and suffering, for the evolution of our spirit. There is something powerful in this view. Taking ownership of our life doesn’t mean that we chose to have bad and traumatic things happen to us. It just means we choose to understand everything that we experience shapes us. We may have been victims of abuse, but we don’t have to live victimized lives. Maybe the trauma you experienced made you committed to doing the self work and ending the ancestral trauma in your family. Maybe the trauma you experienced made you empathetic to others who have had the same experience, and now you help support them in their healing. I am not saying this is easy, and you certainly don’t have to agree. I share it here because having this mindset has brought me to a place where I view all the pain and suffering of my own life as necessary in developing my ability to relate to others and help them change their lives for the better.

In March of 1992 I was arrested and charged with over 20 felonies. Ten years later, in August of 2022, after living as a free woman for 9 years, we moved from Vancouver, BC to Los Angeles. CA to start a new life. In 2022, I found myself inside my greatest dream, living outside of Los Angeles on a beautiful horse property, having created a financially and spiritually fulfilling career helping others rebuild their lives. My kids are grown now, in their own careers, healthy and stable. We take at least one family trip a year now, as we didn’t have the means to take them when they were small. I can tell you this now, because I know it to be true. You can rebuild. The grass TRULY IS greener on the other side.