Tearing down the layers of trauma to reveal who we really are underneath it all is a big part of recovery. Accepting that person, and forgiving those who have harmed us in some shape or form along the way, is another. It takes a unique kind of bravery to acknowledge that the only thing we can change about our circumstances is within us. That is the bravery of the addict reformed. Monique H. has been through it, to say the least, working full-time while being a functioning addict in the throes of alcoholism—from career-focused to motherhood. Despite facing culturally ingrained familial standards, those which have challenged a vulnerability necessary for healing, she has persevered. Sought help. Committed to uncovering the layers that over time have begun to reveal her truest self. It’s been a long road, but she’s never given up. Through it all, her authenticity has shone through despite the struggles she’s endured.
For Monique, life began in instability. Raised in the San Fernando Valley, she moved constantly through a home marked by domestic violence, drug use, secrecy, and fear. Her stepfather was involved in organized drug trafficking, and even as a little girl, she knew something was off. “I just knew that wasn’t normal,” she says, recalling being told to lie to police about his identity. Her mother eventually left, moving the children from beautiful houses into a one-bedroom apartment in Reseda, where she worked constantly and had little time left over. Monique and her sister were forced to grow up early, learning to survive without structure, safety, or emotional support.
School did not offer much relief. Labeled dyslexic at a young age, Monique later discovered she never had dyslexia at all—only unprocessed trauma that made learning difficult. She remembers the shame of being placed in special classes while knowing she was capable. “I would ace everything in math, but nobody was really helping me with English.” At home, abuse was routine. Getting hit, yelled at, and dismissed became normal.
Despite everything, Monique never stopped loving her mother. When her mom was diagnosed with cervical cancer, Monique made a choice that reflected a kind of bravery far beyond her years. “I just wanted to support her. So I shaved my head.” At an age where identity feels like everything, she let go of it without hesitation—standing beside her mother not in resentment, but in love. She was teased, called names, misunderstood, but none of that outweighed what it meant to her. It was quiet and unwavering—a glimpse of who she has always been, even in the midst of pain.
While the love was there, so was the resentment—and it was boiling. By seventeen, when her mother slapped her and kicked her out of the house after an argument, Monique had had enough. She left her home barefoot. Her older sister left with her, and the two moved into a studio apartment in Van Nuys, beginning life on their own.
That freedom came with consequences. Their apartment became the party house—the place where everyone came to drink and get high. Alcohol had already entered the picture in middle school, and by high school, cocaine followed. With little supervision, she learned quickly how much she could get away with. “I thought I was young and having fun. I thought this was going to last forever.”
For a while, it seemed like it could. Monique worked hard, got promoted at work, built credit, bought a car, and appeared driven and capable. But addiction grows quietly beneath competence. She moved to Long Beach with a successful boyfriend who introduced her to a glamorous world—and normalized drinking as maintenance. “You just need a shot in the morning,” he would tell her when she’d wake to a hangover. She believed him. He was older, an established pro NBA trainer. She was functioning. He was encouraging. The pattern was set.
After leaving that relationship, Monique returned to the Valley, completed phlebotomy school, and built a career in the medical field. Again, she rose. But the cracks deepened. Workplace stress, workplace harassment, long hours, and eventually COVID pushed her further into alcoholism. Working in one of the first labs in Los Angeles testing for the virus, she carried immense pressure while continuing to hustle side jobs. By then, alcohol was no longer recreational—it was required.
Then came the man who is now her husband—Benjamin—someone who saw the problem clearly and, unlike others before him, did not look away. Even when they were broken up, he supported her through her first rehab in Beverly Hills. Benjamin encouraged Monique to seek therapy, though she came from a deeply Hispanic family culture where asking for help was seen as weakness. “You’re stronger than that,” she was told. “You can do it on your own.” But a therapist finally helped her understand that what she had been calling weakness was actually untreated trauma.
Still, she wasn’t ready. Monique left a rehab thinking she was cured. She and Benjamin got engaged, planned a wedding, and tried to move forward. But alcoholism does not disappear just because life looks good. She relapsed again, went back to treatment, and eventually found Beit T’Shuvah. In 2023, Monique arrived for the first time and began to understand that sobriety was not just about stopping drinking—it was about finding worth.
But after four months, Monique left Beit T’Shuvah thinking she was cured…again. Then came marriage and motherhood—what should have been the happiest years of her life. Instead, she unraveled. During her first pregnancy with Leonardo, she felt purpose. By the second, Lorenzo, Monique was exhausted, isolated, and deeply unhappy. Cravings returned. After Lorenzo was born, she spiraled into (what has now been diagnosed as) postpartum depression, at times imagining ending her life by driving into an oak tree. She relapsed—again and again—hotels, secrecy, shame, and misery she could no longer hide.
What brought her back was not pride—it was surrender. Sitting in a hotel room during the holidays, drunk and desperate, Monique called and said, “I’m ready to go back.” Told she needed detox first, she resisted—until reality hit. She was broken and needed help wherever it came from. At detox, surrounded by people whose lives reflected her father’s, she had a realization: “I never wanted to be like my mom, but I was making the same exact mistakes my dad was making.” He had called her from jail. Would she call her children from institutions?
That realization brought Monique back to Beit T’Shuvah in a new light.
This time, everything was different because she was different. Monique surrendered. She no longer cared who knew. When her husband told their family she was an alcoholic, the shame she carried began to lift. “I don’t have to hide anymore. There’s nothing left to hide. This is just who I am—and I can finally work with that.” She found a sponsor. She stayed connected. She worked the program. “This time, I didn’t isolate myself. I stayed. I let people in. I let them help me.” Monique acknowledges how integral the BTS community really is for her recovery. When she left the first time, the community surrounding her sobriety did too.
While in treatment, her husband filed for sole custody of their children. It was devastating. But she didn’t run. She didn’t drink. She stayed. She cried. She asked for help. She got a lawyer. Monique faced it head-on. “I remember thinking, I could walk out right now and go drink. And that was the scariest part—how natural that still felt. But I also knew if I did that, I would lose everything. So I stayed. Minute by minute, I just stayed.”
Monique sat in the consequences of her actions—fully, painfully, honestly. She recalls always wanting a husband who protected his family, and now, he was protecting them from her addiction. “I had to realize that this is what my life looks like when I don’t take care of myself. These are the results. And I can’t blame anyone else for that anymore.”
After three months, she saw her boys again. That moment was everything. “I just remember thinking this is what happens when you don’t run. This is what happens when you actually stay and feel things and do the work. You get your life back—piece by piece.” She didn’t come back to be rescued. She came back to be remade. And this time, she is staying long enough to meet the woman underneath it all.
There is still uncertainty. There are still challenges ahead. But something fundamental has shifted. “I’m not trying to be perfect anymore, I’m just trying to be honest. I’m trying to show up. And for the first time in my life, that feels like enough. When I stop trying to control everything, when I stop fighting reality, that’s when I find peace.”
Today, Monique stands tall in her recovery, humbly acknowledging a profound truth and wisdom through her connection to God, her spirituality, and her family—reciting the Big Book, she is soft spoken with a firm intent that communicates exactly how much these words mean to her: “‘Absolutely nothing happens in God’s world by mistake. Until I accept myself, my situation, and my life completely on life’s terms, I cannot be happy.’”