Jennifer’s Story
“Running two marathons was about willpower, but alcoholism is a disease. I wish more people understood that,” says Jennifer, a former resident of Haven Housing’s Ascension Place sober supportive housing program.
Jennifer’s willpower helped her earn degrees from Shattuck-St. Mary’s in Faribault and Hamline University in St. Paul, and led to her 15-year retail career rise. In hindsight, Jennifer acknowledges she had an issue with alcohol then, but it didn’t affect her ability to work or run. She told people she was running a marathon and she would prove she could.
The disease flared after Jennifer suffered a miscarriage in her thirties. Jennifer likes the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) analogy that alcoholism is like an allergy. You never have a severe allergic reaction the first time you try something, but at some point, the allergy intensifies. AA suggests that to manage the symptoms of alcoholism—dry skin, loss of appetite, insomnia—people should stay away from alcohol just like they would any other allergens.
Today, Jennifer lives in her own apartment and works in an Americorps position at Minnesota Recovery Connection where she helps people find stable housing. She has already helped 14 people find homes and is working with 40 more, including some of the women living at Haven Housing. Recovery wasn’t a straight path for Jennifer, and she shares her story because she hopes it will help others.
Before she tried treatment, she tried changing her settings. She took a new job in an effort to hide how alcoholism was affecting her work and moved to Chicago. When she shares her story, you can hear the sadness in her voice when she acknowledges that she let that company and her colleagues down.
She tried treatment programs for alcoholism and would do better, then not. She moved to New Mexico, then to New York. That was the first place she went through detox to rid her system of alcohol completely. Jennifer remembers being mad that she couldn’t control her alcoholism by sheer willpower.
Jennifer said that after a traumatizing stay in a domestic violence shelter, staying at Haven Housing’s Ascension Place while completing an outpatient alcoholism treatment program helped her “turn the corner” to successful recovery. She said, “I lost a lot of support because of my behavior, but at Ascension Place, I had support no matter what.”
At Ascension Place, the peer support from fellow residents and the staff made all the difference. With this support, she believed she could be successful in her recovery. Accountability is one of the benefits of Haven Housing’s supportive community. Jennifer credits Dena, the Advocate Supervisor, for telling her on a bad day, “It’s ok to take today to take today, but you can’t take the whole week.” Dena helped Jennifer realize it’s ok to have ups and downs, while reminding Jennifer of the tools she had not to get stuck being down.
Jennifer stayed at Ascension Place for one year, moving out last fall. She is a vibrant member of the Ascension Place community, a woman with a goofy sense of humor, who made up songs of the day, and wrote poems for the cooks. Jennifer credits Haven Housing for helping to bring out that side of herself. “Hope came back when I lived there,” she said.
Jennifer’s hope might be the one thing stronger than her willpower. For anyone struggling and to the people she helps find housing through her role at Minnesota Recovery Connection, Jennifer says, “Don’t be afraid to try. ‘No’ isn’t the end of the world.”