Article - The Turning Point: Jennifer

Jennifer

Jennifer was a mere beginner in the New Life program when she arrived at what she thought was the defining moment of the experience. Just two days after moving in to Champa House, she was reunited with her daughter, eight-year-old Aundrea. “I didn’t know what to expect when I got here,” she says. “All I knew was I wanted to be somewhere where I could have my daughter back.” Separated for nearly a year, they had seen each other only intermittently as Jennifer struggled with legal troubles and moved in and out of drug abuse rehabilitation programs, while Aundrea stayed first with her aunt in Indiana, then with a foster family back in Gunnison, Colorado.

Her desire to have Aundrea back was compounded by pressure from others to resolve her situation. “My sister and her husband were saying that I needed to hurry up because it had been a long time,” she says. “I was doing everything I could do. Finally they said ‘We’re going to put her in a foster home.’ There was some stuff going on—they were getting a divorce.” The rules of the rehabilitation program she was in at the time restricted Aundrea from coming to live with her immediately, which limited Jennifer’s options. “So I talked to my caseworker asked her what I should do. She said, ‘I have a foster home that she can go to.’” I did not want her to go to a foster home, but I felt like my caseworker was really working with me and I could trust her at that point. So I had her come back to Gunnison, and she went to a foster home. She came to visit me two times while I was at [the rehab program]. And that was really, really tough, but it was better than not seeing her at all.”

“I lost my mind
after they took her.”

The painful separation of mother and daughter was the result of Jennifer’s troubles with drugs and an abusive relationship. “I didn't have a sense of direction at that time in my life,” she recalls. “I lost my daughter because of drug use. I lost everything. I used to have my own house, I had a job, I had friends, family, my daughter, everything.”

Jennifer recounts the day she realized she needed help, “One day I took Aundrea to school—she was in first grade—and I didn’t want to go in the school because I had been using [drugs] the night before and I was paranoid and everything. So I just told her to go to her class—she knew where it was. She looked at me and that’s when I realized that she was wondering, ‘Where’s my mom?’ And she didn’t have to say anything.”

“Things like this had gone on for a while.
My guilt was starting to get to me.”

Jennifer initially sought help on her own, but the treatments were ineffective. “I was seeing this counselor…I told her that I had been doing these drugs and it was really messing me up and I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t go to Social Services but I didn’t want to get my daughter taken away. But I needed some outside help.” Jennifer entered a ten-day rehabilitation program, which cued Social Services to get involved. “Then it was a big mess because they were telling me what to do and what not to do when I was in control in the beginning—well, I felt like I was in control when I came forward and said I had this problem.”

“I guess I wasn’t in as much control
as I thought I was.”

During this period she became involved with a man who was struggling with alcoholism. Instead of helping each other, their relationship grew more and more troublesome with drinking and drug using, and escalated into violent confrontation. She says, “The abuse got worse and worse to where he was breaking my window and I thought, ‘Well, this is out of control.’”

Her problems peaked when government authorities got involved and ultimately took Aundrea out of the home. That day, Jennifer decided that instead of going to work, she would rather just be fired. She remembers, “Social Services came to my house with the police and asked, ‘Where’s Aundrea?’”

“And that’s when
my whole world was gone.”

Jennifer reflects back on those difficult times, “I really think everything happened for a reason—the whole thing—even though it seems like it such a huge mess back then, and it’s really hard to talk about sometimes. It was really, really hard to go through but I’m grateful that it happened actually.”

After about eight months in a long-term rehabilitation program, Jennifer was ready to have Aundrea live with her again. But their long-awaited reunion was postponed when that program lost its license, leaving Jennifer with nowhere to go—no home to bring her daughter to. In a desperate search, she discovered Champa House. That was Jennifer’s turning point.

“Maybe I wouldn’t have
really changed my life
if I hadn’t come to
Champa House.”

Thrilled just to live with her mother again, Aundrea was astonished by the Champa House environment. Jennifer remembers Audrea’s arrival, “Aundrea saw the outside. She told me, ‘When we pulled up I didn’t know what to think, and then I came inside and I was like, “Wow!”’ She’s really happy here.”

Now in Phase III in the program, Jennifer realizes that reuniting with Aundrea was the start of a greater life changing process. “When I came into this program there was no way I could have been there for anybody,” she admits. “I couldn’t even be there for myself. How could I raise a child? But I’ve only been here nine months and I’ve grown a lot.”

“I’m turning into the person
I want to be.”

Jennifer’s previous experiences with residential programs influenced her uneasy transition to Champa House. “At first I had to question people: ‘What are you doing? Why are you doing that?’ And I worried, because it was a matter of whether I would be getting my daughter back or not.” She adds, “But it happened so quickly—I came here and I got her back. And things have just gotten better and better since I’ve been here.”

Life at Champa House and in the New Life program presented difficult challenges to overcome, but ultimately helped Jennifer as she progressed. “It is challenging,” she says, “to have people telling you what you need to change about yourself; because you don’t want to hear it—especially when you first get here. You’re like ‘Oh that’s not true. These people don’t know what they’re talking about.’” Lessons learned at Champa House have pushed Jennifer to make important changes. “I wanted to be independent, but I hadn’t been for so long that I didn’t know exactly how to do it. I didn’t want to tell anybody that because I had an ego,” she confesses. “Humbling myself was a big part of things.”

Jennifer has put her time at Champa House to good use. One big milestone was learning how to type, which she says has improved her opportunities. With her focus on a future career, she is currently attending school and aspires to attain certification in floral design. “I really enjoy working with flowers, and I think I’m good at it, too,” she says. “I like designing things and being creative.” She also quit smoking and attends church twice a week. She summarizes her experience and aspirations with these words: “I’m getting stronger and stronger as I’m here, but I want to be a really strong person.”

“I want to be there for other people.”

*Jennifer's story appears in the April 2004 issue of The Chronicle.

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