‘I survived so that I could change the cycle’

AUDIO – BRAVE NEW WORLD –

Aug. 3, 2023 – Before entering recovery last year, Jennie cycled in and out of substance use from the time she was in her late teens. When she first started, she had just left her husband, a man she married at 19 years old because of pressure from family after getting pregnant in high school.

“I tried to become what they wanted me to be. I was the mom, I was the wife,” she said. “He was abusive. He was an alcoholic. He worked night shifts, and I didn’t have help.”

After leaving, Jennie said, she had no support. Eventually, she met a man named Daniel, who would become her fiance. He and his mother took her in, she said. They also did drugs.

“His mom … I felt safe with her,” Hollenbeck said. “She felt like a mom to me, even though she was in that world. She kind of took me under her wing. And so I did the drugs with her.”

Those first times weren’t what got her hooked, Jennie said. Next, she would meet Jackie, a woman who became her best friend for years. Jackie and her mother became like family. On one occasion, they took Jennie shopping for her son’s birthday. That kindness and generosity was something she’d never had before, Jennie said.