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Shari’s Story |
Shari, the oldest of four children, was born in Hobbs, New Mexico – a little southwestern town where as she says “everyone knows everyone else.” Her parents divorced when she was young, and she was raised by her father and her stepmother. At age 12, her father died, and Shari went to live with her mother for the first time in many years.
“Because I’d never really gotten to be with her, I was a real mama’s girl,” says Shari. “I just had so much desire to be with her and be loved by her.” But as a teenager, Shari also started drinking and smoking marijuana, and says that by the age of 18, “I was definitely a full-blown alcoholic.”
Shari moved to California at the age of 23 and shortly after began using cocaine. Soon came her first arrest on drug charges. She was arrested multiple times – all on drug-related offenses, and spent more than four years in prison. During that time, she also gave birth to two children. “I had one of my babies in jail,” Shari says. “They put the handcuffs on me, I had my baby, and then they took my baby away and put me back in the cell.” She eventually lost custody of both children due to her drug addiction and incarceration.
During her last prison stay, Shari joined the Walden House Substance Abuse Program. “I’d had a few periods of sobriety before and had been introduced to the ideas of recovery,” she says, “but the concepts I learned in the therapeutic community really changed me. I learned to walk the walk and that nothing changes if nothing changes. I learned that eternal change starts within.” Upon release, Shari entered aftercare at El Monte’s FOTEP program, where she spent another seven months.
Shari credits behavioral modification techniques she learned at Walden House as having the biggest impact on her recovery. “I learned that it wasn’t just about me stopping drugs. I was still left with me even when I wasn’t loaded. I realized that I was always loaded before I even took a hit – that my behavior caused my drug use and that I had to look at my behavior before I could really stop using for good.”
“I still work on it every day,” Shari says. “My self-esteem, my own individual achievements. But I used to settle for being a certain way in order to fit in. I used to be dominated by what other people thought of me. Now I know what I’m capable of achieving.”
Today Shari has a healthy relationship with her kids and family, and is moving up the ranks at Walden House – currently serving as a dispatcher in our Los Angeles office. But her real passion is helping other people who were once like her. “I want them to understand there’s another way.” And so she gives back – participating at groups at El Monte’s FOTEP program and sharing her story. She takes women to meetings, and facilitates meetings for Walden House’s PROSPER programs. She’s also a well-regarded speaker on Cocaine Anonymous panels.
As for the future? “I just want to stay teachable,” says Shari. “And open-minded and honest. Most of all, I just want to keep asking myself, ‘what’s possible now?’"