My Story: From Homeless to Selling Homes

My name is Jackie M, and I have been sober since March 23, 2020. I am extremely grateful for the beautiful gift of sobriety, and I do not take it lightly. I love to laugh, cut up and have a good time, but I take my recovery very seriously.

I come from a long line of alcoholics and drug addicts. The disease was deeply embedded in my family. My childhood was filled with chaos, with very little structure or guidance from adults. My father was often in prison or nowhere to be found, and my mother was emotionally checked out and struggling with her own addiction.
I learned to lie at a very young age, and I did not like being told no. I took my first drink at 12 years old, and that would begin a 37-year drinking career.

I knew I was smart. In seventh grade, I was chosen out of my entire middle school to attend a program at UTSA. But I was a frightened child sitting in a college classroom with no encouragement at home. One day I told my mother I was scared and didn’t understand what the professor was teaching. She told me, “If you don’t like it, just quit.”

And there began my life of quitting.

For the next 37 years, I quit just about everything.

By high school, I was already drinking alcoholically. I cheated my way through school. While my friends were thinking about college and careers, I thought my twenties were supposed to be about having fun, partying, staying drunk and getting high.

I eventually enrolled at San Antonio College and quit the first day.

I could get really good jobs working for doctors and lawyers, but as my drinking progressed, responsibilities became less and less important. Alcohol and drugs always came first.

At some point, I knew my drinking was out of control, but I didn’t understand that I had lost the power of choice. I would try to drink socially with my friends, but I couldn’t. I would be on my fourth beer before they finished their first. They would tell me, “Slow down. Have a good time. Let’s dance.”

I thought I was the life of the party.

I never thought I was the problem.

Eventually, I began losing everything. Jobs. Relationships. My marriage. And ultimately, my two beautiful daughters.

I went in and out of rehab nine different times. I became a nine-time convicted felon. I watched my life burn to the ground over and over, yet I still couldn’t see the progression of my disease. I thought I was only hurting myself. Today I understand that my addiction was destroying everyone around me, especially the people I loved the most.

I went in and out of AA, but I was never fully surrendered and never fully committed to doing the work. I was afraid to admit that I didn’t understand what I was reading or what people were talking about. My mind raced so badly that I couldn’t comprehend or retain much of anything.

I had reached what the Big Book calls pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization.

My youngest daughter’s father took her away from me, and I didn’t see her for 10 long years.

Every time I got sober, the guilt, shame and remorse became almost unbearable. I couldn’t understand how I had allowed 10 years to pass without seeing my child.

My oldest daughter lived through the wake of my untreated alcoholism. I robbed both of my daughters of parts of their childhood. My oldest had to take care of me, while my youngest had to grow up without her mother.

When I would get sober, that maternal instinct would come roaring back. I had to face what I had done, and that pain sent me back out time after time.

In 2016, I remarried a good and caring man who tried to show me a better life, but I still wasn’t ready. He eventually developed terminal cancer. On his deathbed, his dying wish was for me to get sober. He didn’t want to see me homeless again.

For the first time in my life, I was going to have a home that was mine. But he knew that if I didn’t get sober, grow up and become responsible, I would eventually stop paying the mortgage and lose everything again.
For some reason, this time I heard him.

My husband got to see me 30 days sober before he passed away.

After his death, I received a large life insurance settlement. But I still wasn’t doing the work so beautifully laid out in Alcoholics Anonymous. I wasn’t working the Steps. I wasn’t working closely with a sponsor. I wasn’t praying and meditating faithfully. I had no real connection to a Higher Power.

I was going to meetings and eating my feelings.

After nine months of sobriety, I relapsed.

I stayed out for about a year and blew through the life insurance money. Money I had planned to use to hire an attorney to fight for my daughter was gone. Eventually, I was stealing and pawning things from my own home to support my addiction.

But something was different this time.

I did not want to lose my home. For the first time in my life, I had a place where nobody could throw me out. I didn’t want to go all the way back to the bottom like I had the previous nine times.

Then 2020 came, and COVID shut the world down.

My oldest daughter came home from college, and suddenly we were together 24 hours a day. I knew in my heart that I did not want to hurt her again. I didn’t want her to see me drunk. I couldn’t bear to see that disappointment on her face one more time.

So I started logging on to Club 12 Zoom meetings.

I made four meetings a day.

My sponsor and I joke today that God had to shut the entire world down just to get my attention and get me into AA.

Something finally became clear to me: getting sober wasn’t my problem. I had gotten sober plenty of times.

I didn’t know how to stay sober.

I called my dad. He told me to get a sponsor.

So I did.

And this time, I began working the Steps fearlessly and thoroughly.

Early sobriety was painful. I cried a lot. I desperately wanted both of my daughters back in my life. But my sponsor told me something I didn’t want to hear. I was not to chase after my youngest daughter. My sobriety and recovery had to come first. I needed a solid foundation. I was on God’s time now, not mine.

She told me that when God saw I was fit, He would bring my daughter back into my life.

One of the biggest turning points in my recovery came when someone sent me an AA recording by Astrid H.
Astrid talked about the disease centering in our minds. It isn’t just in the bottle, the pill or the pipe. It’s in my thinking.

That changed everything for me.

I began paying attention to my thoughts and becoming aware of the lies my mind could tell me. I learned that this disease wants me separated. It wants me alone, miserable and afraid. It wants to separate me from God and from like-minded people. Left untreated, my mind can even make me unable to hear someone who is trying to help me.
Then, at about two months sober, something happened that showed me the Power of God in a way I could understand.

My phone rang from an unknown number. I answered it.

It was a drug dealer.

He offered me $200 worth of free drugs.

Before sobriety, there is absolutely no way I would have turned that down.

But that day, through the grace of God and the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, I said NO.

I immediately called my sponsor and started apologizing for answering the phone. I kept saying, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know who it was.”

Finally, she stopped me.

“Jackie, stop apologizing. Don’t you see what just happened? That was God. You would have never been able to say no before.”

That blew my mind wide open.

For the first time, I could actually see the Power of God working in my life.

As I progressed in my recovery, I began seeing enormous changes in myself. I had financial amends to make, and there was something incredibly powerful about finally being able to hold my head up and look the world in the eye.

I started paying people back. Employers. People I had used. People I had manipulated.

I owed one former employer $1,500. When I went to make the amends, they refused to take the money. Instead, they asked if they could pray over me.

My sponsor told me I still couldn’t keep that money.

So I donated the $1,500 to a children’s shelter.

Then came one of the greatest miracles of my life.

At eight months sober, I was reunited with my youngest daughter after 10 years apart.

We have been inseparable ever since.

Today, I have beautiful relationships with both of my daughters. My oldest graduated from UTSA with her master’s degree and built a successful career. Today, I am able to help put my youngest daughter through college as she works toward her master’s degree in psychology at Angelo State University.

We travel together. We took a mother-daughter healing trip to Egypt. I eventually got to meet Astrid in person. We attended a retreat together at Joshua Tree in California, and Astrid and Ieven traveled to Ireland Togetherto share our experience, strength and hope at a Convention. 

The woman who once couldn’t stay out of jail was traveling across the world sober.

 When I walked through the doors of Club 12, I had 19 warrants for my arrest and a credit score around 480. I made amends to every court. Those warrants were eventually dismissed, and judges gave me opportunities to complete community service because they could see that I was genuinely trying to turn my life around.

Today, I am a productive member of society. I have no warrants, an excellent credit score, and I am completely debt-free. I have learned incredible responsibility and accountability, and most importantly, how to stay rigorously honest.
 
In 2021, I earned my real estate license.

I literally went from homeless to selling homes.

Today, I am also an Account Executive for the largest transaction management company in real estate in the state of Texas.

But some of the things I am most grateful for have nothing to do with titles, careers or money.

I have been able to serve.

I chaired Club 12’s 76th Anniversary Committee. I serve on the Club 12 Board of Directors. I stay active in service and on committees. I have a sponsor who has a sponsor, and I sponsor a handful of women myself. I have chaired the Monday meeting at my home group for six years, and I will chair the 2027 Weekend in SA event.

Today, my life is almost indescribably wonderful.

That doesn’t mean life is always easy. It means I have a way to live today.

I have peace and serenity that I never knew existed. I know how to handle situations today that used to baffle me. I know how to navigate life without having to run, hide, drink, use or quit.

The little girl who learned to quit became a woman who learned how to stay.

Stay sober.

Stay committed.

Stay when things get uncomfortable.

Stay connected to God.

Stay and do the work.

Today, I try to live grounded in this program. I am intentional about my recovery. I stay disciplined. I work the Steps. I stay connected to my Higher Power and to the fellowship that helped save my life.

I love to laugh. I love to cut up. I love this beautiful life God has given me.

But I never forget where I came from.

Sobriety is the greatest gift I have ever been given, and I refuse to take it for granted.
Because today I know one thing with everything in me:

When I’m Connected, I’m Protected.