Let’s talk about the cold, dark realities of life. Sometimes it feels like pain and suffering is behind every corner. Sometimes, holding on is asking too much. There are some of us who let these harsh truths weigh them down—keeping a constant frown affixed to their faces…and then there is Sarah O. A ball of joy who spreads a sense of love and care to everyone who crosses her path. That is not to say her journey was always an easy one…
For Sarah, growing up felt existential. Raised in Northridge, CA she found herself constantly questioning the meaning of life. With an older sister and parents that cared too much, she found herself floundering in the big picture questions of life. School was a breeze, getting a 4.3 GPA. Her weed consumption wasn’t a hindrance, she was unchallenged—even popping an edible before her AP French exam.
College brought a new experience for Sarah. She started experimenting slowly: benzos, coke, shrooms, acid, meth and heroin. All within a year and a half. She started to find herself searching for magic within the forests around her campus. “I had a group of friends and they were really cool, it was a witchy coven thing. But for some reason, I didn’t connect with them, I had trouble relating to them on a deep level.” She found a more meaningful connection in the unhoused community.
Sarah eventually moved home early because she wasn’t doing well in school, but hid this behind a smoke screen. Under the guise of needing a break, she fell into a spiral of depression and anxiety as her meth and heroin use escalated. Her family pulled an intervention—the result being she unwillingly agreed to a rehab trip. Her first. However, this wouldn’t be a long stay.
She found herself at the mercy of the guy who introduced her to meth and heroin. He had moved to San Diego. So did she. His using subsided. Hers did not. After a wellness check on her place went awry, she moved to San Francisco. “Cops ended up coming to the house, and thankfully, I didn’t have to deal with them. But I ended up leaving.”
Sarah was supposed to stay with her sister, instead turning to the streets. After a year on the streets, she went to a rehab at the behest of her sister. “I was starting to find the magic in life itself and things were really beautiful and colorful. But I couldn’t stop.” She ended up fleeing back to Los Angeles.
Her sister moved to Texas, and so she followed. “I ended up going to a rehab there, leaving and being on the streets.” Sarah found herself getting into a relationship—with Jekyll and Hyde. One side was nurturing and kind, the other a complete narcissist. A cat magically came into her life through a dumpster. Suddenly, Sarah was stranded in the middle of nowhere with a cat, a monster, and no options.
Her mother came to Austin, TX, and begged her to go back to treatment. She almost accepted this helping hand, but panicked at the last minute. She fled the airport and found a job at a call center. “I ended up getting fed up with the homelessness. I don’t know where it came from, but I got this inner strength.” She moved into a weekly hotel, got on Suboxone, and finally was getting her life together.
Flash forward—she was back in LA. Sarah continued to use alcohol and meth. Eventually, she found herself finding heroin on Craigslist. A risky choice. At the time, it felt like the ideal life. A series of missteps and the relationship ended up coming to an end.
As she went into withdrawals, she turned to shrooms and fell into a darker path. “I called up my friend, who was in LA, and it started this relationship that was really stupid.” A relationship built on drugs and recklessness. Soon, they would get arrested in Ventura County. Sarah wasn’t going to wait around upon her release. She located a phone and a train ticket. Heading back to LA. “I felt like a shell of a person. I felt so shitty. I felt like I wasn’t even human anymore.” She ended up calling her parents, and they took her to a detox. Her cousin told her about Beit T’Shuvah, and she eventually found herself coming into a place she would call home. “It was a bottom where I didn’t want to stop using drugs, but I also did. And I felt like life was so miserable, I felt like a walking corpse.”
“I’m really wanting to commit to sobriety. Commit to a future.” Sarah couldn’t fathom a future before. Now she’s looking forward to nursing school, becoming financially stable, and committing to the long term idea of her life. “I feel like that’s a really big part of Beit T’Shuvah. How they’re not just fostering you getting well, but they’re fostering growth toward your future.”
Sarah has reignited her lust for life. From a corpse to a human. From the next hit to the next step. She has shivered in the cold and been blinded by the night. But Sarah has come out of the darkness of her past to be the shining light for others to follow. Spend a moment with her and her luminescence will heal you, guide you, and shape you. Everyday, she proves to us all that the cold dark realities of life are warmer and brighter than we ever could have dreamt.