Nothing's wasted. Not even the hard parts.

What do you do with the grief when your sponsor of 26 years is gone, and you still have to show up tomorrow?

Jen L. is back. Part 2 picks up where Part 1 left off. Tammy died two years ago on a Wednesday, and Jen is only now beginning to put words to what that means. She had 26 years of a sponsor who walked beside her and knew everything. And then Tammy was gone.

This isn't about loss as an ending. It's about what a sponsor plants in you. What she left behind.

Share with your Friends & Family

You learn some things here that Part 1 didn't have time to reach. Jen's father was dying of cancer. At 18 months sober, he waved a glass of whiskey in her face. She didn't take it. She also never told him she had stopped drinking. Recovery was hers, and she kept it that way.

At 12, Jen found out the grandmother she knew was actually biological. A Reno branch of the family where the drinking ran deep. She calls them "the tribe that parties." Finding out didn't change anything. But it named something.

00:00
00:00

RRP 123 — Jen L / When the Light Found Her, Part 2: Nothing Wasted, Not Even the Hard Parts

In those first five years, Jen walked through what she calls a suicidal depression. She kept showing up anyway.

In sobriety, Jen found Recovery League Softball. She didn't just play. She joined five teams and averaged 12 games a week. The obsession for more doesn't disappear in sobriety. It finds new rooms. One of those rooms had a woman named Mickey in it. Jen walked into a friend's house for a social gathering and found a gun and a badge on the kitchen table. Mickey was a parole officer. Jen says she didn't run.

Before Tammy died, she gave Jen a third step gift: "If it adds to you spiritually, it's God's will for you. If it takes from you in any way, it's not God's will." Jen has tested that sentence against almost every decision she has made since.

"I found a sister. I didn't grow up with a sister, but I have a sister now. And every time I refer to you, it's, 'You're my sister. You're my spiritual sister,' and that is everything to me."

— Jen L

Jen and Julie met at Lunch Bunch in 1997. Julie was the first woman in the room. Jen was the second. They've been on this train together for 29 years. This is what it looks like after 29 years. Nothing performed. Nothing tidy. Two people who kept showing up.

Nothing's wasted. Not the grief, not the years she'd trade if she could, not even the parts that cost the most. That's how Jen ends this conversation. It's enough.

Websites mentioned in this episode:

#RealRecoveryPodcast, #RecoveryIsPossible, #AddictionRecovery, #SoberLife, #LGBTQRecovery, #AA, @realrecoverypodcast