My name is Jess, and I’m a Recovery Specialist at Accountable and a person in long-term recovery. My work is founded on my academic background in psychology but, more importantly, my lived experience with abuse, trauma, addiction, and recovery.

Growing up in small-town Missouri, my family represented traditional values; hardworking, involved in church and community, and overall salt of the earth people. My mom was the black sheep of her family, however, which meant that involvement with my extended family was mostly limited to holidays and family reunions.

My home life was marked by my mom's substance use and my stepfather's physical abuse (landing on both her and I). When I was ten, during the opioid epidemic, my mom was prescribed pain medication after a back injury, initiating her addiction.

At twelve, after my mother left my stepfather, her addiction intensified due to the trauma of losing custody of my baby sister. What had been my brief glimpse at the hope that our life was going to be peaceful, just mother and daughter was quickly replaced with more darkness.

Our apartment became a revolving door for a place to party and my “safe haven” was filled most nights of the week with people barely out of high school, who naturally became my role models.

In what began as a cry for help, I started smoking weed, drinking, and taking my mom’s prescription pills to dull the pain of feeling I’d lost her all over again. Meth found its way into my life a couple years later, and that one grabbed a hold of me tight.

Determined however to create a different life for myself, I decided to break free. I believed I had stopped doing drugs at the tender age of sixteen; this was naive thinking, however, as my unresolved trauma led me back to using meth after a failed marriage two years later. This here-and-there relationship with dope became a full-blown love affair until a turning point came…

Finding out I was going to become a mother changed the way I saw everything. I’d never considered whether I even wanted to have kids… I had spent my life to that point just trying to figure out how to save my own mother, and how to survive.

The birth of my son ended my relationship with substances and self-loathing and for maybe the first time I felt like I had a purpose.

My recovery was non-traditional; I didn’t attend inpatient treatment or twelve-step programs. I immersed myself in motherhood and was driven to walk the line by my experiences as a child of addiction and my desire to protect my own child from knowing that pain.

This clarity led me to understand something- addiction is not solely a product of our choices (how could my mom have chosen drugs over me?? for example), but is a disease, stripping us of the things we love when in reality, we need more love and support to find our way through it.

I pursued a degree in psychology, building a career in recovery support rooted in deep compassion and the belief that sustainable recovery is possible.

I lost my mother to her battle with addiction two years ago. I keep her photo at my work station now. The million watt smile looking back at me from her high school graduation photo is a symbol of hope and resilience, and as a reminder of why I’m sitting here doing this work today.

Sometimes the lessons that leave the longest lasting marks are learned after we’ve hit rock bottom.

I think one of my favorite bands says it perfectly: “If you take a tumble, if you take a spill - there is a lesson to learn and a cup to refill. And if you stumble, if your balance you lose - a road lies ahead, so tie up your shoes”.

My story is proof that recovery is possible, and I’m so grateful to have found a road where I’m able to help others in their journey of healing and building lives they no longer need to escape.