The word “love” is tossed around so willy-nilly these days—two teenagers who locked eyes in the halls—a sports team from your hometown—a slice of bundt cake. In reality, love means so much more than that. Love is the cornerstone of recovery. It is about devoting yourself, standing up for what you believe in, and following your passions. It’s truly a blessing to be in the presence of someone who is nurturing, and full of the life and determination it takes to love others and themselves. That is why, today, we are talking about Jamie S.
Originally born in Connecticut, Jamie’s family moved to Clearwater, Florida when she was five. Very conservative. Very white—the Florida sun was eclipsed by the plethora of Confederate flags. Yeah. THAT white. “I was the first Jew most of my friends had ever met.” Before it was common at all, her brother was diagnosed with ADHD. He had a hard time making friends and teachers didn’t know how to handle him. Jamie, not even knowing what she was really doing at the time, became her brother’s protector. If you messed with him, you best be prepared to deal with Jamie…and if you know Jamie, you know she is no one to be trifled with.
Jamie’s home life was turbulent, but loving. “My dad was my best friend.” As a naturally outgoing person, she ended up finding most of her catharsis with her friends. She studied dance and excelled at school…even when she eventually started drinking. It all started when she was 14 and her girlfriends got a bottle of rum from an older sister. “The first time I drank, I drank until I threw up and I was shoving bread down my throat. I woke up and thought, ‘That was the best night of my life.’” At that point, she was off to the races. Once she tried weed for the first time, she fell in love again. All her girlfriends told her that it “wasn’t a girly thing.” So, she smoked pot and hung out with the boys. She had no care about how people would perceive her for getting high with the guys. “I never cared about getting looked at like a druggie. Not at all.”
FLASHBACK: “I remember in second grade our teacher told us about heroin and that it was the worst one and then what the effects were and I remember thinking, ‘That sounds really cool.’”
…and we’re back to the daily weed-smoking socialite on her way to harder substances…and also somehow being elected class president and prom queen. That’s Florida for ya! “That taught me that if I got my work done, everything else was okay.” The real reason she attributes to winning prom queen is that she smoked weed with everybody—she was friends with everybody in her school. “I think everybody deserves to have a friend.”
Jamie decided to go to college in Maryland, far from her home in Florida. The “go to school in your hometown, marry your high school sweetheart, three kids, and a white picket fence” life never appealed to Jamie. She wanted more. She wanted to live. She wanted love. Once she got to college, she became an everyday blackout drunk. Cocaine entered the picture and her life started to seem like a nonstop party and, from what she could remember, it was fun. When she graduated, she went on birthright and traveled around The Middle East. The time came for her to return home, but her boozing remained the same. She quickly started to notice that her friends no longer drank like she did. This was the first time in her life that it dawned on her that she may enjoy being intoxicated a little bit too much. “The seed of uh-oh was planted but not enough for me to do anything about it.”
On a whim, Jamie bought a one-way ticket to India and started herself on a spiritual journey of self-discovery. It’s not as easy as you may think to get alcohol in India. “The beer is watered down.” So, she went to the pharmacy to get Xanax. Instead, they gave her Tramadol. “I had this huge backpacking backpack full of Tramadol.” Although she was high at the time, I want to take a second to stress that it doesn’t take away from the truly spiritual path she walked while she was there. She stayed at monasteries, saw the Dali Lama, and helped Tibetian refugees and preschools—she was still the nurturing caring loving Jamie we know…she was just loaded in India.
Eventually, the sunset on her travels through India and it was time for her to come home…but instead, she went to Washington DC and became a Pre-K teacher during the day and a bartender at the hottest music club in the city at night. “My whole heart and soul was in it, but I had a double life. I just wanted to be a part of their journeys to get opportunity and then I would bartend and take shots of whisky and go to sleep with a Xanax and wake up with an Adderall and a Mountain Dew. Then do it again.” After not getting a job at the school she wanted to, Jamie decided to move to Los Angeles.
So, Jamie packed her clothes, hamsas, and problems and headed out west. Six months later she was doing heroin, fentanyl, and meth. “Once I tried heroin, I didn’t stop until I came to Beit T’Shuvah. That was eight years.” Here Jamie was, in Hollywood, in the throws of addiction, insane. “I know they say that drug dealers can’t be friends, but I had a drug dealer once tell me that I needed treatment.” Do you know how bad it has to be for your drug dealer to tell you to get help instead of keeping you as a loyal recurring customer? A bit more than mild. All the while, she worked as the operations manager for a major festival production company. She lived the nightlife. She felt the music. She nodded off on the dance floor.
In early 2020, Jamie moved out to Oklahoma (where, if you haven’t heard, the wind blows sweeping down the plains). She moved in with her brother, to help nanny his kids. At this point, her habit had peaked. When her sister-in-law found her having thrown up in her sleep, the family knew she needed help…and like any good Jewish family, they called their Rabbi. The Rabbi suggested a small house of outcasts in recovery that he thought had the potential to help her.
When Jamie got to Beit T’Shuvah, the first person who greeted her when she walked in the door was a tall, muscular man with an award-winning smile—Vinny. He welcomed her to Beit T’Shuvah, took her temperature, and sent her to quarantine in her room for two weeks. Those were great times, weren’t they? A few hours into her being there, for the first time in a long time, she started to get hungry. Before she knew it, dressed in full hazmat gear, Vinny walked in with a plate of fresh berries. “I thought, ‘Oh my god. People care about me?’ I couldn’t believe what was happening.”
“I knew when I finally got to treatment it would be because I was ready…and I was ready.”
Jamie put her all into her program here. Groups. Meetings. Sponsor. The whole nine yards and the whole 12 steps. Before she could see it in herself, former staff member, David Baer, saw something in her. He made her take an internship as a Program Facilitator. That internship turned into a job and then a promotion to counselor. While on this journey, she discovered that her lifelong passion for helping people was what she needed to drive towards. So, she went back to school to become a therapist. Today, Jamie works as a therapist and Extended Care Coordinator at Beit T’Shuvah—saving the lives of people who stumble through our doors every single day.
In this whole spotlight, I only used two names. Jamie and Vinny. Why Vinny? This isn’t about him. His name isn’t at the top of this page. While they were both working here, they started to become good friends…and then best friends…and then that best friendship started to blossom into something more. They were in love.
Everything seemed to be coming up Jamie. That is when Jamie’s dad—her best friend since birth—died. Vinny was right by her side the entire time. In every way you can imagine. He stood with her. “I think that is when I knew that Vinny was going to be my person.” She has spent her life with her dad as her friend and now standing beside her, helping her through the hardest moment of her life, is her new best friend and future husband, Vinny. This Sunday, Jamie and Vinny are getting married—tying the knot, and vowing to each other to always be the love they seek and the passion they follow.
Throughout her life, Jamie has been filled with nurturing love, support, and wonder. She’s a free spirit and a staunch defender of the disenfranchised and underserved. No one has ever yelled at me with more purpose or vigor for not recycling a can as Jamie has. That girl who needed drugs to fit in built a home and a family with her future husband, stepson, and Beit T’Shuvah community. That girl who searched the world for meaning finally found it deep within. That girl who gave all the love in the universe to everyone she met finally found a way to save some for herself. So, Jamie, from all of us at Beit T’Shuvah—all of us that you take care of every single day simply by being a ball of pure light and radiant joy: We love you too.