Elijah Rising
Elijah Rising
Confronting Addiction and Trafficking with Faith and Recovery - w/ Recovery Specialist Jessica Gobble - Ep. 75
What does recovery and restoration look like after addiction and trafficking?
This is the third and final episode in this series with Jessica Gobble, Elijah Rising’s Recovery Specialist. In this episode, Jessica talks about the deep shame embedded in people who have experienced addiction and trafficking, as well as the hope and restoration available to them.
Jessica also explains:
- Recovery is not linear; relapse is often part of recovery
- There is so much shame deeply embedded in people who have experienced trafficking and addiction, but we want them to experience complete freedom from shame
- Full restoration comes from Jesus
“Addiction is cunning, baffling, and powerful. But there is One that holds all power.”
-Alcoholics Anonymous
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Welcome back to the Elijah Rising podcast. Today we are wrapping up our series on drug trends, addiction and recovery in the anti-trafficking space, and I have with me the famous, wonderful Jessica Gobble, our Elijah Rising recovery specialist. Jessica, thank you so much for joining us for this series. I can't wait to get into the topic today.
Speaker 2:Thanks, micah, I'm glad to be here.
Speaker 1:So if you haven't listened, we have two episodes that we've already covered with Jessica. Again, this is our third and final. If you've enjoyed these podcasts, again like, subscribe, share with your friends. We really want to really promote and advocate for the integration of, you know, anti-trafficking and recovery, addiction recovery, within this space, because it's such a critical topic and I feel like we don't, I think we don't talk about it enough. You know, it's not a topic that you naturally gravitate to when you think, oh, we need to open a safe home or safe homes for, you know, trafficked women. Addiction sometimes is not part of that conversation, sadly.
Speaker 2:Can I tell you about that? Can I tell you about something that happened this week. I was looking at a periodical it's like a forum, a discussion forum for this periodical for professionals who who are in addiction medicine and I noticed that someone had asked about addiction medicine as it pertains to reentry from the prison system and I thought, oh, I'm glad that that topic is coming up. Let me look at other topics that have come up. I wanted to see in the history of this periodical, searching through all the archives, how many questions there had been about trafficking survivors, and there were none. Wow, none, none. So it addressed reentry from the prison system, it addressed homelessness, but it addressed sexual abuse, but there was nothing at all about human trafficking, nothing about sexual exploitation, nothing. So nobody asking how do we best treat with addiction medicine survivors of trafficking among this huge national organization of professionals? That's incredible and I was shocked. But then I thought about it and it's really not that surprising because very often it's not talked about.
Speaker 2:Even though addiction feeds trafficking and trafficking feeds addiction.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. It's not talked about and we see that almost 100% of the time with the population that we're serving. That was so good actually. Can you just explain what do you mean by that? What do you mean by addiction feeds trafficking, trafficking, feeds, addiction, sure.
Speaker 2:So traffickers use addiction as I mean use drugs in general as a means of control. They try and pull people into trafficking through forced fraud and coercion with drugs. Not just forced fraud and coercion on its own, but they try to get them on drugs using force fraud and coercion. They keep people in trafficking by using drugs. They use the addictions of parents to prey on their children.
Speaker 1:Capitalize on that, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so familial trafficking very often happens because of addiction. So familial trafficking very often happens because of addiction. There was a study that the finding was that 67% of the people who are introducing someone into familial trafficking is the mother. Wow, 67% is the mother, and I saw it on another podcast and when I saw that I was shocked, because you think of a mom as being a protector, of course, and it would be if you were to ask me who before I saw that, who would, I think is going to be, you know, introducing someone into trafficking? I would think like someone's creepy uncle or a boyfriend or a stepfather. But the number one, the highest amount, is mothers, and of those mothers I can't remember the exact number, but it was around 90%, I think more than 90% of the time the mothers are in addiction.
Speaker 2:And very often the highest amount of time they were trading their children for drugs. Not even for money to get drugs Directly trading their children for drugs. Not even for money to get drugs directly trading their children for drugs. So when you think about these two, it's not just that drugs create a risk for people to be trafficked who are on drugs, but for the family members of people who are addicted to be trafficked.
Speaker 1:You know, when you say that now, one of the first women that I had the privilege of working with, I mean I was super green, this was like 11 years ago she was actually staying with us because we didn't have a safe home, even open at that time, and there were four beds in Houston, right, so it was a very temporary situation. But I remember she, without prompting I never would have asked this, I didn't ask this but she had been just journaling during her time with us and she was like I want you to read this. And so she gave me her journal and then the excerpt it was verbatim what you're talking about, the same story Her mother had sold her for drugs. And I remember at the end of it and you know she's going into more detail, but she just said, like her last question to the ether, you know was and where are the police? Why is no one doing anything about this? And now that just came right back to my memory when you're sharing this, these statistics, and it's like those are the stories, those are the people.
Speaker 1:So we do need this is a really important conversation. We need to be having it more, I think, at a national level, at a safe home level. This is such a critical aspect of the journey of healing. Okay, we have so much to cover. So, oh my goodness, talk to us a little bit. So you know we've touched a little bit on why drugs and trafficking and how they overlap, and what happens to a woman when she comes into the home, when she's journeying with us in the home in the safe home program. Let's talk about her recovery journey post graduation. You know, I have heard, I'll let you speak to the actual statistics, but I've heard, you know, there is a risk of relapse when she exits because for various reasons. I'll let you cover. What does that look like and do we have a plan? Do we help her with a plan for relapse, for sobriety after graduation?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that is a high risk time. So when they've been in our restoration program, they've had so much restored and they've done so much hard work. Yeah, they amaze me all the time how hard they're fighting for their restoration and their healing and their work. But they're also to some degree in a bubble. We have different phases so that they can experience different levels of independence, so that it's not just all at once out of the bubble. That's something that I actually think we get to do really well here.
Speaker 2:Um, but there's still a risk that they'll be on their own and suddenly, you know, relapse and they're going to be faced with things that they haven't been faced with on a regular basis.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:So we provide aftercare and it's really intentional and personalized in the planning. It's different for each resident.
Speaker 1:That we serve.
Speaker 2:So they get aftercare provided by case management, by our program psychologist, so that they are still meeting with a psychologist and that's taking care of the legal issues and also for recovery. So we want them to leave with a recovery community supporting them and so we work on that while they're in the program in the final phase. But they're also meeting with a recovery specialist so that they can do face-to-face check-ins and then we do over-the-phone check-ins. We want to make sure that they're getting established and we've seen a lot of success. So we've seen. I was afraid in the beginning, when we started the aftercare process, that they were going to be in a rush to be done with it all. Once they got a taste of, you know, real independence, I'm actually living on my own.
Speaker 1:I am free, I do not need you. But that has not been our experience at all.
Speaker 2:So they celebrate their milestones with us. They send me pictures of their recovery chips. Someone just recently celebrated two years and sent me a picture of their two-year chip? Yeah, it's really cool.
Speaker 1:I love that. So just to reiterate, I mean you're talking, we have case management services, psychology services, so that would be like deep, you know, intensive therapy, addiction recovery. And there was one more you mentioned.
Speaker 2:Case management, addiction recovery and psychology are the three that we always try and implement in aftercare.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, and then like a community making sure they have a community of support. Yeah, so those are things. Just because it was so rich what you just said. I, just as you know, we have some listeners who are like I want to start a safe home or I want to jump into safe homework, or maybe you're just intrigued, right, interested. So we're progressively kind of walking them through, kind of being an advocate, but like coaching them towards what we hope is successful independent living once they leave our program.
Speaker 1:But I think, to your point, it's such a it's such a risky time because you're you're literally like leaving the fold, you're leaving even just people who are like positive or uplifting or protective, protective or safe, you know, and you're going into getting your own apartment, you know, you don't know what your neighbors are going to be doing or bringing home, or when you go to work, maybe she's working at a restaurant, there's stuff going on everywhere, you know, or anywhere. Really, I mean, you can find substances, you could just find unsafe people. So having that network of support kind of built in and obviously it's looser because they're not living with us 24 seven.
Speaker 1:We're not like watching that, you know. But that's just such an important piece for kind of like relapse prevention, so can you speak? Do we ever? So? We still see people relapsing even with that level of support.
Speaker 2:So relapse is a normal part of recovery and I always try to make sure that all of the women we serve recognize that, because what we don't want to happen is if someone relapses. We don't want them to throw everything away because of a relapse. So, recovery is not linear, it very rarely is just you know on the road to recovery and everything is smooth sailing from here on out?
Speaker 2:Very rarely so, and sometimes there's a relapse before a relapse. So maybe someone has quit nicotine and we call that a relapse before a relapse because it's not going to be as severe as far as consequences go usually if someone has a cigarette as if they were to relapse on. You know yeah a control, a controlled substance or illicit street drug. So um, what we want to do is offer support in such a way that they feel safe to talk to us about it.
Speaker 2:They don't feel shame affiliated with it when they're talking to us, so that we can help them have relapse prevention, so it doesn't go further, right, so that it stops there, but also so that they can get back up.
Speaker 2:We get knocked down and we get up again. This is part of it. If we talk about that constantly, you know what do you do if you relapse, so that they can just resume. I'm always saying that we take a breath and we just resume. Okay, one day at a time. This is how we do recovery, one day at a time. I relapsed I I am in my own personal recovery. I celebrated 25 years clean and sober in june, but before that 25 years I had had three years sober and I became a Christian through working the 12 steps and I'm following Jesus and I'm really thinking now I'm a follower of Jesus.
Speaker 1:I feel good.
Speaker 2:And I relapsed as a believer for one night, and thank God for one night. It did not have to turn into I'm flushing my life down the toilet because I relapsed. I didn't have to throw everything away, and God in His grace has kept me sober since then. But I always tell people relapse is a part of my journey. It doesn't have to be a part of everyone's, but it very often is a part of most people's.
Speaker 1:That's so important to understand and that it's like you hope for the best, prepare for the worst kind of mentality and the fact that you I just love what you were saying about we're going to be a safe place. We're going to be a non-condemning space, non-judgmental, there's no shame that's so critical. That feels to me like such an integral piece.
Speaker 2:There's so much shame with the women we serve. Survivors of trafficking have so much shame that they take on responsibility for everyone around them doing to them for the things that have been done to them not the things that they've done, but the things that have been done to them.
Speaker 2:There's shame about some of the things they've done too, but so much is about the things that have been done to them. And so, as they are walking in truth, in restoration that's part of what we're doing is, what is the truth? As their minds are being renewed and they are seeing who they really are, we want them. As they transition out and they go into independence, it's almost like seeing a baby deer learning to walk. Their legs are a little wobbly. They have to get their footing and now walk out what they have learned to be true about themselves and what they believe. And what does that look like in the application of their day-to-day life?
Speaker 1:Sure, yeah, it's like a whole nother skill set. Yeah, and you're doing it sober this time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and to recognize shame, like I call it, swatting. It's like mosquitoes, like you know, these shameful thoughts will come up accusations will come up and, recognizing them, call it what it is and then be done with it Like it's gone. It's not true, muzzle, that?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So it sounds to me like there's such an opportunity for just the power of the gospel to come into this sector. Can you talk to us about your experience and what have you seen in the realm of like? How does Jesus play into this? How does the gospel play into also addiction recovery? How do we merge those worlds in a healthy way?
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, so Jesus is the only hope for recovery. Really, truly, there is no hope for restoration or recovery apart from Jesus. Anything that is going to be lasting as far as recovery and restoration goes is only going to be in the strength of the Lord. So there's a book called Alcoholics Anonymous and in that book one of the lines that it says is we've been speaking to you of, and it's referring to addiction, and it says it's cunning, baffling and powerful, which has been my experience seeing addiction in people's lives is that it's cunning, baffling and powerful.
Speaker 2:And then it says but there is one who has all power. That one is God.
Speaker 2:May you find him now, and the whole book, the recovery journey, is about recognizing that I am powerless over this addiction. I cannot fight it on my own, I can't. But God can, and he wants to if I will just surrender and let him. And that is the beauty of recovery. I think of it as people talk about rock bottom and I heard someone say once that rock bottom was their birthstone and they were talking about like their life was so messed up. But what I thought about was rock bottom was my birthstone. Because I hit a bottom, I was born again.
Speaker 2:I turned to the Lord and I was born again. So rock bottom is a beautiful birthstone. It I hit a bottom, I was born again. I turned to the Lord and I was born again. So rock bottom is a beautiful birthstone. It's like a stone in my crown, you know, and so one of the beautiful things about who the Lord is is that he is wanting recovery.
Speaker 2:He is wanting restoration, he wants abundant life. He doesn't just want to set people free and then you're on your own. He wants to set people free and then he wants to walk with them and he wants to remove all of the effects of the incomprehensible demoralization that has come with that life. And then he wants them to recognize that with what he set them free, he has given them the ability to help other people be set free. And that is the beauty of recovery, is you get to pass it on and it's right away.
Speaker 2:So, a lot of times, someone you know will get saved and they'll be on fire and then the longer that they walk with the Lord, the less likely they are to be as vocal about sharing the gospel. We see this a lot of times. New believers have this fire and then you kind of get complacent. And people who have been set free, who are in recovery part of the recovery process is they say you can't keep it unless you give it away. So it's sharing it. So it's this really gospel thinking right, which is that I'm going to tell you what it was like, what happened and what it's like now. What it was like was horrible. What happened was Jesus Christ, and what it's like now is that I get to walk in abundant life and I get to share it with other people, and those other people can remind me what it used to be like. So I continue to be grateful and I continue to embrace the Lord with this humility that comes from the truth right.
Speaker 2:Which is that he's the answer.
Speaker 1:I love that. I just see, you know, from my limited perspective, you know, when we're talking about substance use or illicit drug use or whatever, like all roads lead to death and that might look like actual physical death, right, very, and we're seeing that even be more kind of pronounced, I would say, with the severity of the drugs, that we're seeing the toxicity so it leads to physical death. But also, I mean in another episode you touched on, there are some drugs that are like cause sores and and so we're leaving it. We're seeing it lead to sickness and disease and infection and, um, malformation and things that are happening to the brain and like so sickness and disease.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're seeing it lead to I mean, you talk about dysfunctional relationships a breakdown in the community, a breakdown in family, like all of these very harmful side effects, if you will, to the person you know, to their body, their soul, their spirit, their psyche, like all of these negative effects, I guess is. What I'm trying to say is I see Jesus as being the road out, the way out, because he came to give us, like you mentioned, like a life and life abundant. He came to heal all of our sickness and all of our disease. He carried it on him. Whether that's self-inflicted, you know, because there's some stupid stuff that we do, people do that are not doing drugs and they self-inflict sickness and disease Right or we just live in a fallen world or whatever, but he's still.
Speaker 1:He's like I don't. You know, I'm not judging how it came upon you. I came to carry your sickness and disease. I came to carry your sickness and disease. I came to carry the weight of your sin. I came to deliver you from all of your unrighteous, ungodly, terrible decision-making, you know. Or I came to deliver you, guys, from the effects of humanity's choices. You know the pain of humanity's choices upon you that were inflicted upon you that really you didn't do to yourself. Yeah, so, irrespective of whether someone's like, oh, I chose drugs or I didn't, we still need that same deliverer, absolutely, you know, and there's no shame, there's no judgment, but Christ is, he's powerful enough to reach into that pit, that hell pit, literally right, and pull somebody out, set them. It says even in Psalms, he took I'm going to butcher this, but he takes his children from the ash heap, from the trash heap, and he sets them among princes of his people. And I just see that being such the opportunity for redemption, no matter what someone's story is, again, willingly or unwillingly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know I think about when I think of recovery. I think lots of things about it, but I think about being reentered under the covering of the Lord, and so the word recovery makes me think. I love Psalm 91. And I think about where he says I will cover you with my pinions and under my wings you will find refuge. And I think about people who are, for whatever reason, outside of the will of God, right Whether someone has pulled them. Like you said, humanity has done things. We need recovery from the things that have been done to us and the things we've done to ourselves, and it's so beautiful that what he does is he puts us back into right standing with him and right position, and we're under the umbrella of his covering of his covering.
Speaker 2:It's just it's kind of amazing to remember how wonderful it is and that he would use us, in spite of ourselves really, and change us in such a way that we then get to help other people. And it helps to remember that because otherwise we could despair. There is, like you said, so much bad stuff going on.
Speaker 1:The world is.
Speaker 2:there's so much yuckiness there's so much devastation and the problem is so big, but God is bigger.
Speaker 1:So in that vein, I'm kind of putting you on the spot here, but can you, would you share with us just what is some God story that you've seen, whether it's micro or macro, specifically around the issue of addiction and with the population that we're serving, with these women? Have you seen the Lord break in?
Speaker 2:Oh yes, so many ways, Okay. So let me think of I want to think of ways to do it without anyone who might listen to this knowing I'm talking about them.
Speaker 1:Sure, yeah, we want to protect anonymity. Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I mean absolutely Just a recent thing. I'll share a testimony that's been so beautiful. We have a volunteer that comes and leads a recovery group in the home and in the home, and she advised one of our residents to pray and ask God to show her where she needed healing. She knew she needed a recovery, but she wasn't sure of all of the areas.
Speaker 2:So this volunteer said pray and ask God to show you where you need healing that you don't even know about. And so she did, and shortly after that she discovered that she actually had a life-threatening physical ailment that she had no idea about and she knew immediately that it was an answer to that prayer.
Speaker 2:And, like she prayed, she found out about this thing that could have. The doctors were amazed that she was still alive, and I mean they said you should be dead. And so she got physical healing. She had prayed and asked God to show her what she needs recovery and healing in that she didn't know about. And so he answered and he showed her that and that alone is a huge testimony. That would have been enough to focus on and we go like wow.
Speaker 1:God is amazing.
Speaker 2:Shortly after that, though, he started to show her other areas. As a result of that physical thing, she was set free from nicotine. She just celebrated or she's getting ready to celebrate like two months being free from nicotine, and that was not something she was even looking for. You know like in the whole scope of all of the things she's facing. It was not a big deal, it's not a priority, but so she was unexpectedly set free.
Speaker 2:But she also entered another 12-step program as a result of seeing something through that prayer that God led her to, and she has now had her mind totally renewed and she used to think that the idea that someone could ever be waiting to get married, to have sex or ever be with one person for their life was not even real.
Speaker 1:Like if someone said they were doing that you know it's not even a real thing that people do.
Speaker 2:And now that's not only does she know that that's real, that's what she wants for herself. She believes that that's what God has for her, and she's excited about it. And it just blows my mind that he took this one prayer like show me where I need recovery that I don't know about. Show me your love is what she was praying Show me your love and show me where I need healing. And he did it in all these avenues.
Speaker 1:He's like boo boo, boo, boo boo, and I'm just like sitting back and watching like wow, what a privilege to watch this it to watch this, that's so beautiful because it births like hope. Not only does it birth hope, it births dignity and value of like you are so valued to him. Wow, oh my gosh, that's such an amazing story. I mean, I know you have a million others. Is there anything, jessica, that we haven't covered through our series, that you want to say to the audience, to the listeners?
Speaker 2:you want to say to the audience, to the listeners yeah, I do want to say that we need people who have a heart for trafficking, who also have a heart for recovery or have experience with recovery. What you have to offer is so valuable. We need more volunteers, we want to get the word out, we want people who are serving the recovery community to be more aware of trafficking so that we can help survivors, and we want the trafficking community to have more of a recovery presence. So, if that's, you, contact us. I love that, okay.
Speaker 1:So you can reach us at ElijahRisingorg. Honestly, admin at ElijahRisingorg is our email, so anything that pops into your mind Just to piggyback off of that. There's so much build out still left to do. There's so much of a bridge that needs to be built, layer by layer, brick by brick, between the recovery community and the anti-trafficking space. There are a lot of opportunities and you're doing a lot of work around that. So, thank you, jessica. Your wisdom and your expertise has been such a gift. We are going to be continuing these conversations in the months and podcasts to come. So, again, if you liked this episode, go back and listen to episode one, two with Jessica Gobble, our recovery specialist. You can listen to these anywhere. You get podcasts like share, subscribe. We just love you guys as our listeners. Thank you so much for joining us and we will see you soon.