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This episode and the following transcript were originally published by Stand Together Foundation.
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Ty Spells
Hey listeners. I’m Ty Spells, senior strategist at Stand Together Foundation, and one of your hosts for the Stand Together Podcast. Every time you hear my voice, we’ll be connecting with remarkable people who will help us gain some perspective. In this episode type, Perspectives, we’ll meet some inspiring friends who will help us ground our paradigms and principles in the complexity of human experience.
Today, I get to have a wonderful conversation with Kaley Jones. Kaley serves as the program manager at Colorado Springs Phoenix. Kaley is so phenomenal, and such a survivor, who understands the journey of navigating addiction, but walking in joy and pride in our sobriety.
Hello, Kaley, how are you doing?
Kaley Jones
Hi. I’m doing well. Thank you so much for having me with you today.
Ty Spells
I’m so excited that you are here with us today. In our episode of Perspectives, I always try to start with, “Where are we now? What’s going on in your life now?” So can you share with me, where are you at, and what’s been going on with you?
Kaley Jones
Yeah, absolutely. So I think these last two years have been almost redefining my recovery in many ways. I turned 31 today.
Ty Spells
Oh, happy birthday!
Kaley Jones
Thank you. And then on the fourth I celebrated 12 years of sobriety, and there’s something about hitting a decade milestone that really invited some—maybe I’ll call it juicy growth. You know what I mean?
Ty Spells
Yes! Juicy growth. I’m here for this.
Kaley Jones
So, I think what I’ve been doing is, I’ve been leaning into motherhood. I became a mom in November 2020, and just uncovering some of the lessons that come with bringing another human being into the world, and that’s offered me some perspective on my recovery I think I didn’t have before.
So I’ve really been diving into some of those conversations with my husband, and with my friends at Phoenix, and my therapist, and the whole network and continuum of care that has blossomed around me in my 12 years of sobriety. And so what I’ve been doing lately is trying to grow up, I think.
Ty Spells
Grow up and raise a human all at the same time.
Kaley Jones
Yeah. Doing the thing.
Ty Spells
What would you say are some of those one or two key things that you’ve kind of drawn, that you feel have impacted your sobriety from motherhood and navigating that? What are those one or two things that you feel like you’ve been wrestling with?
Kaley Jones
Yeah. I think it’s redefined what community really means. When I first got sober, I’d go to the late night meetings at like 9:30, and then we’d find whatever restaurant was open and be there until midnight, and just… it was really, really clinging, I think, to whoever and however I could possibly stay away from drinks and drugs.
And now I think that community has taken this new meaning of, “How can I ask someone to help me cook a nutritious meal because I’m tapped?” Or, “How can I reach out to someone and say, ‘My son is maybe teething. I don’t know. Can you tell me what’s going on?’” Or, “Oh my gosh, my son started to walk. Can I bring him to the gym so you can celebrate with me?” So I think the big lesson has been that community is a timeless experience through every season of life and one that shouldn’t be missed.
Ty Spells
Oh, that’s awesome. That’s beautiful. I feel like… it’s so funny you say that. I feel I struggle with those same things as far as, “Huh, I should ask for help.” Or, “I should slow down.” Or to your same breath like, “Is this braggadocious, or should I share in my celebration because the people that are around me care about me and want me to feel strong and encouraged in my day to day?” So I think that’s beautiful that you’re able to pull those pieces out.
Do you feel like you…in the past you have struggled with that, before you were even navigating motherhood or every aspect? What part of you first realized, “Hmm. I need to start asking for help.” Or, “I should walk in celebration.” Has that always been a struggle?
Kaley Jones
Yes. Oh my goodness. Yes. I mean, I think that it was the hallmark of my drinking and using, right? Of being in the depths of despair and just in trap houses, doing stuff I shouldn’t have been doing and knowing it, but not feeling like I knew where to reach out and not knowing even what words to use, to say, “I’m in trouble.”
Ty Spells
Right.
Kaley Jones
“I need help.” I couldn’t ever muster that. And then I think when help was introduced to me and I was—I don’t want to use the word forced because that seems really intense—but I was strongly encouraged.
Ty Spells
Encouraged and motivated.
Kaley Jones
Yes. It was pointed out to me that I wasn’t going to be able to do this alone. I wasn’t going to be able to just pull myself up by my bootstraps and move on with my life. I was going to need the love and compassion of people who had been there before. And now I think that just continues to evolve, right? So that was maybe my first inclination of accepting the hand that was offered, and now the next evolution of that is raising my hand.
Ty Spells
Can you start with the beginning, for me? What was that like? How did we get here? How did we start this journey?
Kaley Jones
Yeah. I think as I’m going through this growth process, now I’m really finding out that the addiction process started longer than I realized. I grew up in a family that was experiencing a lot of different traumas and violence and I have a lot of recollections of a lack of compassion, and so I think I’m finding now that some of those adverse childhood experiences likely fed into some of the tendencies that was a breeding ground for addiction, right?
So where it really began for me, I had experienced a sexual assault when I was 10, and I think that I don’t want to say that was to blame, right? But I think that it really kind of shook the foundation of the little identity that I was just beginning to build. And when I explained to someone what had happened, the response was, “Well, that’s just how little girls grow up.”
So I think I fell into this idea, right? That my life experience wasn’t for me, right? And so as I tried to put back the pieces of what I thought, and how I viewed the world, and understood safety and security, that all kind of got fractured and then more life happened as life does. And I had my first drink when I was maybe like 12 or 13, I really did not enjoy that experience. I was like, “This is too out of control.” I wasn’t feeling it.
I’d been a competitive gymnast this whole time and loved my team, felt really supported and challenged and all the things. And then at 14 I stepped away from gymnastics and in that moment there was this loss of community. There was a loss of identity. There was a loss of an outlet for all of the experiences that I really didn’t have words for, and at that same time I transitioned into high school and my sister became pregnant. She was 17.
And so all of the little pieces, that felt like there should be some congruency, started to shift even more. And I didn’t really have the tools, right? I didn’t have the words or the proper modalities around me.
Ty Spells
Right. And last time you tried to share something.
Kaley Jones
Right.
Ty Spells
It didn’t go well.
Kaley Jones
Right.
Ty Spells
So now, you’re in more pain.
Kaley Jones
Yeah.
Ty Spells
But you’re trying to figure out the next step. So what did that look like?
Kaley Jones
So for me, the next step was to try to make friends, right? I’m like, “I can’t be in high school without a new friend.” I was the weird kid in junior high wearing my leotard to school, like, I needed to get my act together. And so I was very academically inclined and that kind of was going to be my in, right? Like, “I’m going to make friends because I’m smart.”
Ty Spells
Oh yeah. Sounds great for high school. That’s really how it works.
Kaley Jones
People totally want to talk about school when they’re at school.
Ty Spells
Yes.
Kaley Jones
But anyways, I found these… At the time, what I perceived to be really wonderful human beings and I think in many ways they were, right? They were walking in their own traumas at that time, but they were great people. And so I offered to write their papers for school, and they obliged, and they thought that was great, and they got good grades and they offered to pay me and I was like, “Oh, look at this. I could make a living. This will be great.”
And we’re 14. They don’t have jobs. They don’t have cash to pay me. They had marijuana. So I smoked weed with them the first time and I was like, “Oh, okay. Don’t really love this experience either but I’m here.”
And the most powerful thing happened. When I left, they invited me back. And I thought, “Oh my gosh, I’m needed, I’m wanted, I’m valuable.” Right? “I have worth.” So I came back and wrote another paper for them and they said, “Hey, we don’t have any weed, but we could pay you with OxyContin.” And I was like, “I don’t really know what that is. What would that feel like?” And I’ll never forget, they said, “Kaley, it’s going to make doing nothing feel amazing.”
And I thought, “Oh my gosh, that’s what I’ve been needing.” I have been manically trying to be the best gymnast, the best student, the best daughter, the best sister, the best whatever I have to be. I’ve just lived in this perpetual state of attempting to attain some level of perfection in every outlet that I have and I’m human. I fall short. And doing nothing and feeling amazing… I was like, “Let’s try that.”
And that was the moment that I was like, “Oh, this is what people feel like in normal life.” This is what people who haven’t had the experiences that I have feel. They feel peace. And I never felt that. And so I became, I think in that moment, abandoned to whatever it was going to take to stay high.
Ty Spells
And what age was that?
Kaley Jones
I was 14.
Ty Spells
Mm-hmm.
Kaley Jones
And so I went back again, of course, and was like, “Look, I will write all your papers. I will do whatever you need me to do for the rest of the year to help you pass, if I can have two.” And it was just that fast. It was like: smoked weed one day, two days later did OxyContin, the next day it was like, “I will do whatever it takes if I can have another.”
So I spent the rest of my high school career chasing that same feeling of peace and belonging and acceptance that I had held for a short period of time in an afternoon in the summer.
Ty Spells
And how are you showing up to your family or friends? What did that look like? Your day to day? How are you performing?
Kaley Jones
Yeah. At first, I think it was… I held it together pretty well, right? At first, I was coming home super happy and telling my mom I had friends and I still graduated with a 3.98 GPA, and I held a part-time job at an Alzheimer’s care unit, the whole time I was in high school.
Towards the end, my friends started to die.
They started to overdose, and that’s when I probably stopped showing up well. And I think that, that’s when I really started thinking like, “That would never happen to me. I’m going to manage better.” And that’s probably when I stopped managing.
Ty Spells
Better?
Kaley Jones
Yeah. Right, and people were going to jail and it was… we were all spiraling. We were all a bunch of hurting individuals trying to cling on to each other as life rafts, but we were all just broken.
Ty Spells
So at what stage did you know you had a problem?
Kaley Jones
That’s so funny you ask. I don’t think I ever knew… There was one, what I call “God-shot” moment, where I was like, “This might not be right.” I had started doing some dealing for our local cartel, and I’m bilingual, and I have a perfect driving record, and I’m a five foot two, blonde white girl.
Ty Spells
You’re totally set up.
Kaley Jones
Right. I was totally set up to be the…
Ty Spells
To flourish.
Kaley Jones
Right. And I mean, I think I have an entrepreneurial spirit. I was like-
Ty Spells
Clearly.
Kaley Jones
I wanted to run a business. So I was doing a deal, and the way that works is a vehicle pulls up, you drive in behind them, someone hops out and gets in that drug dealer’s vehicle and then they drive for a minute so it’s inconspicuous. And during that time that I was in the vehicle—it was this beat up Toyota Corolla—that smell, I don’t know… It smelled like sickness. Do you know what I mean?
And there were two people in the front, and two people in the back, and they put me in the middle seat in between the two gentlemen in the back. And I remember they looked at me and they said, “Weta, why are you doing this to yourself?” And I thought, “Why do you care? I’m making you money.” Right? But in the back of my mind there was this like, “When the drug dealers are asking you why you’re doing this to yourself…”
Ty Spells
We might have a problem.
Kaley Jones
We might have a problem.
Ty Spells
If the cartel is asking you a clarifying question.
Kaley Jones
Right. And I brushed it off, right? I was making good money, and I was living this dream that I thought was going to land me on a beach in Mexico with a mansion. Full flight from reality, I had no idea that I was in a dangerous position.
And so when I finally, my parents actually… It’s so funny that we’re here today. My parents did an intervention on September 7th of 2010. So exactly 12 years ago today.
Ty Spells
One, congratulations.
Kaley Jones
Thank you.
Ty Spells
How did that intervention go for you? What was that like?
Kaley Jones
It was probably not my most beautiful moment of existence. My whole family was there, my boyfriend’s mother, because my boyfriend was in jail. My therapist and the lady that cleaned my parents’ house growing up. Everybody was there and they read their letters to me, and they told me that I was going to die if I continued to do this, and they said things like, “We’ve tried to give you everything. You have access to education. You have a safe home to go to bed, and you have a family that cares about you. You have these things and why are we doing this? You got to stop. You got to get help.”
And the whole time I was licking my mint chocolate chip ice cream aggressively at them. And I didn’t want to be there, and I didn’t believe them. And then, the lady that cleaned my parents house was from El Salvador, and she came up and put her hand on my knee and she said, “Hija, you’re going to die.” And I believed her. And I had never believed anybody about the state of my addiction at that time.
So naturally, I freaked out. I ran out of the house, I found a rock and I was sitting there, chain-smoking cigarettes being like, “Okay, how am I going to get out of this? How am I going to get out of this?” The guy that I had been dealing with had gotten deported. And so I was like, “Okay, I gotta figure this out.” Right? “I got to figure out how I’m going to live. I’m not going to treatment. No way, no way.”
And I ran through the whole gamut in my head. I was like, “Okay, I can get a burner car from his cousin. I can get a burner phone. I could probably sleep on some people’s couches. If worse comes to worst, I’m not a terribly unattractive person, I could walk the streets of South Nevada and I’ll be able to get enough money to get by.” Right?
And I marched back into that house with the plan. “I know what I’m going to do.” And I looked at my mom and I said, “Yes, I’ll go.” And I’ll never forget, I put my hands over my mouth and was like, “That is not what I meant to say. No, no, I don’t want to choose…” Like, “You said it, you’re going.” And they put me on a plane the next morning. And my mom was on the plane with me, keeping me in the aisle so that I couldn’t sneak off.
Ty Spells
Was that your first attempt at treatment, or had you done a treatment in the past?
Kaley Jones
No, that was my first one. And I had attempted, I’d gone to a 12-step meeting at one time at the recommendation of my therapist, and all I remember is it had really terrible carpet and I just couldn’t get past…
Okay, I know it’s just ridiculous, but I was just sitting there and there was a person sharing about how unfair it was that they couldn’t have a beer after mowing their lawn and I thought, “I don’t want this for the rest of my life.” It didn’t make sobriety—at that moment, at 18 years old—it did not look attractive.
Ty Spells
Mm-hmm. Didn’t seem appealing.
Kaley Jones
Right.
Ty Spells
So now you go through treatment.
Kaley Jones
Mm-hmm.
Ty Spells
After traditional treatment, what is life like when you walk back into everyday life?
Kaley Jones
Yeah. I think it was an interesting experience. So treatment itself, I don’t think I really realized I had a problem until I was in treatment. And that was when I was like, “Whoa, I landed in a… Who lands in rehab at 19?” And my best friend in treatment had overdosed and died on the phone with me while we were there. And that was when I was like, “I drank and used like she did.” And so, I got really busy. I got busy doing all the suggestions of the treatment center.
And the treatment center that I went to was very focused on helping people learn how to live life outside of treatment. So we did 12-step. We had group therapy, art therapy, equine therapy, but then we also went paintballing and skydiving and they had talent shows, where we got to learn how to sing and do stuff. And they took us to the movies. I’d never been to the movies sober, in my adolescence. They took us to The Cheesecake Factory and I was like, “How do you go through a meal without sneaking off into the bathroom to do a line?”
Ty Spells
Exactly.
Kaley Jones
So they really tried to set us up. So I left treatment being like, “I have all the confidence in the world. I know what I’m going to do. I have done life sober before, right?” I had been in treatment for nine months and one month following that, I was in sober living. So 10 months in California, and then I came back home to Colorado Springs. And that was where I did all my drinking and using, all my friends… And it felt like a raw nerve. Have you seen that movie? 127 Hours? Where the guy gets his arms stuck in the rock and he has to saw his arm off?
Ty Spells
Uh-huh.
Kaley Jones
That’s what it felt like being sober, back in Colorado Springs. It just was so raw. And so I freaked out and I started digging through all my makeup bags and my old jean pockets, trying to find something that I had stashed that I could use, because my intolerable existence hit me and I couldn’t find anything. My mom had done an excellent job of cleaning out my closet.
And so I went through my phone, right? And I’m trying to call the people that I used to use with and they were all like, “You need to be sober, stop calling me.” And I had no idea what to do. I had no idea. So I did what my treatment center put in place, right?.
So I went to a 12-step meeting and I sat down, and this girl that I used to use with was there and I was like, “Okay, God. I know somebody. Oh gosh, okay.” Now I’m sitting down and I’m shaky and sweaty and I cannot… I don’t know how I’m going to live. I can’t. I’m 19. What am I supposed to do for the next 70 years of my life?
Ty Spells
Right?
Kaley Jones
And this guy walks in with this shirt that says “Sober” in giant red letters across his chest. And I was mortified, how could you be in public claiming that you have a problem? But he didn’t have the air of somebody with a problem, and he had this comfortability, this confidence, this security in his identity. And I thought maybe, just maybe I could do that someday.
Ty Spells
Kaley, that’s a great place for us to take a break. And on the other side of this break, I want to learn a little bit more about you being back home.
[Short Break]
Ty Spells
We are back with Kaley Jones, my good friend. Before we went on break, you mentioned this gentleman walks in with an air about him and the word “sober”. So how did you process that? Or what did that look like? Or what did that feel like?
Kaley Jones
Yeah. I think in the moment I was just flabbergasted. How could you wear your problem on your shirt? But I was also intrigued because, I mean, even at that point I was almost a year sober. I still didn’t feel like I was on solid footing in my sobriety. It was just trying this thing out and trying to figure out how to do it, and in that moment, I wasn’t sure I could. But the sober shirt… I thought maybe, maybe I could do it.
Ty Spells
Did you speak to him? Did you talk to him? I know you’re there with your friend. How did you figure out what the sober shirt even represented?
Kaley Jones
Yeah. Well, my friend knew him and so he sat down next to her and they were planning on going bowling after this 12-step meeting. And I’m a terrible bowler. It’s embarrassing.
Ty Spells
That’s what makes it good though. Just so you know.
Kaley Jones
Right. But they invited me to go and again, it was kind of like that feeling back when I very first got introduced to drugs, of them inviting me back. It was like, “Oh my gosh.” That elation of, “Oh, I might have found some people who can help me. Who can walk with me.” So I went bowling. I remember leaning over to my friend and I was like, “Girl, is he going to wear that shirt at the bowling alley? That is public, public.”
She was like, “I don’t know. He always wears it. Whatever.” So while we were bowling, we got to talking and I ended up giving him a ride home, and I looked down at the clock and it was 11:58 and I was like, “Oh my gosh, I’m going to have a year sober in two minutes.” And he was like, “Well, you can’t do that alone.”
And so we went to a Denny’s, it was the only place I was open. He bought me a cup of coffee and he told me about The Phoenix. And he had been working as an instructor in Colorado Springs. And he told me about camping and climbing, and they did yoga, and they had a group fitness class and it was all free, if you had 48 hours clean and sober and I was like…
Ty Spells
I got a year.
Kaley Jones
Finally, something I qualify for, right?
Ty Spells
Yes.
Kaley Jones
And I don’t have to pay for it because Lord knows I did not have any money left over. I was walking out of treatment after spending every last dime on drugs. And so I remember thinking, “Okay, I rock climbed in treatment. So at least I’ll know how to put the harness on.” Right?
Ty Spells
Right.
Kaley Jones
I might not know anything else, but I can do that part. So they were climbing at CityROCK in downtown Colorado Springs, and I remember driving my old beat-up car down there, finding a parking space and then sitting in my car and being like, “Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Can I go in there? I mean, do I really remember how to put a harness on? What if he’s not here? And I don’t know anybody. And what if…” I just had all of these “what if” scenarios that at the bottom line are: “What if I’m not good enough?”
Ty Spells
Or, “What if I’m not accepted?”
Kaley Jones
Right. “What if my past has disqualified me from the future?”
Ty Spells
Mm-hmm.
Kaley Jones
So opening that door, it probably was a 15,000 pound door or something like that, and I remember once I got in there—it was September, so it was hot outside—I opened the door and the air conditioning hit me and it was bright, and there was all these… If you’ve ever seen a rock climbing gym, it’s like a spattering of colorful holds. And there were people smiling and talking and laughing and I’m over here like, “Don’t you guys know how terrified I am?”
And I walk up to the front desk and I shakily say, “I’m here for The Phoenix.” And they were like, “Oh my gosh, welcome! We’re so glad you’re here! Let me take you back.” And it was the first time that I was in a recovery setting where I wasn’t a problem. I was just a person and I had every worth and right to be there.
And they weren’t like, “Oh, you’re with The Phoenix.” They were like, “Yes! I’m so glad you’re here!” And I thought that was the first moment that I was like, “Maybe just the rest of my life, the rest of these 70 years or whatever I have is not going to be a fight. And maybe it’ll just be joy.”
Ty Spells
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So now you have realized that, “Hey, maybe just maybe, I could do this. I am not a problem.” What do you do? What is your first day or moment of The Phoenix like?
Kaley Jones
So I harness up. I go through their introduction clinic. I meet a bunch of people, then after my introduction clinic, they introduced me to even more people that were there. There were 50 people there climbing with The Phoenix and I was like, “I can hang out with any of these people.”
I immediately have this group of people who are down to get my number and go climb, or go to a meeting, or get breakfast, or help me find a job. I was just plugged into a network of individuals who are like, “Let’s do life.”
Ty Spells
Right. So it’s kind of like, in essence, when you first started, when we think about high school, you were finally like, “Hey, they invited me back. Let’s do life.” Then you realize, “Ugh, maybe not the right best choice of the way to do life.” But now you step into The Phoenix, and you found these individuals who are doing life and inviting you back in a healthy way.
Kaley Jones
Right. Exactly. I think the first introduction around drugs, there was always that question of like, “Ooh, I probably shouldn’t be doing this. My mom told me to keep my nose clean and here I am, snorting OxyContin.”
And then walking into Phoenix, it was like, “Yes, this is what I should be doing. This is great. Everyone feels great.” And it was like, I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing, but more than that, I’m doing something that is soul filling, instead of soul degrading.
Ty Spells
Mm-hmm. It’s something you could walk in with a sense of pride, it sounds like.
Kaley Jones
Yeah.
Ty Spells
So now you are kind of realizing, “I found my people, I find joy in that.” What ended up happening with that relationship or friendship or group of individuals, that kind of allowed you to stay on this journey with The Phoenix and yourself?
Kaley Jones
Yeah. Oh, I think I became totally obsessed, both with The Phoenix and with that guy in the sober shirt.
Ty Spells
Oh okay!
Kaley Jones
So I ended up marrying him in 2014 and…
Ty Spells
Congratulations!
Kaley Jones
Thank you. And we had our first baby in 2020 together. And those individuals that make up the family of The Phoenix were the people at my wedding party.
They were the individuals, after I brought my son into the world, were at the front door with food. They were the ones… They brought him a succulent, my son, they brought him a little succulent the day he was born, and it was 3:00 in the morning.
Ty Spells
I absolutely love that, the gentleman who said, “You can’t do your first year alone,” also said, “You shouldn’t do life alone.”
Kaley Jones
Yes.
Ty Spells
And said, “Let’s get married.” I’m like… I can’t take it. It’s too much for me. Sobriety, a husband. It’s just your joy happening right now.
Kaley Jones
Yeah. Well and the thing is, this is not a unique experience, right? When we find sobriety and we are surrounded with people who are dedicated to us, having access to a good life, we all get the joy.
We all get a form of a relationship that we are intended to have, to feel full, we all get opportunity career-wise. I have yet to meet someone who has been introduced to recovery and to Phoenix, a tribe…that didn’t find enduring joy.
Ty Spells
Mm-hmm. Now, knowing that you have found that enduring joy, found individuals that are showing up the first day to make sure that you and your family feel supported in this new chapter of life. Let’s circle back.
What has that done to help you stay encouraged? To help you stay motivated? And as you prepare for this next chapter?
Kaley Jones
Yeah. Well, circling back to the beginning of the introduction, I started volunteering for The Phoenix—which by the way anyone can do anywhere, which is great. And I spent, I don’t know…probably 400 hours, 480 hours a year, volunteering for The Phoenix. I worked in banking and insurance and went to Phoenix. That was my life.
So in 2017, they asked me if I’d like to do it officially. Work for Phoenix. And I was like, “Oh my gosh, you all had no idea I’ve been dying to do this.” This is the dream, right? To give recovery back in the way that it was given to me.
So I’ve been officially working for The Phoenix since 2017, and I think that has created the new bedrock upon which my sober life has flourished. I was six years sober when I started working for them and in that time I’ve seen thousands of people come in and set the drugs down and pick up a barbell or take the ankle monitor off and go for a run.
Ty Spells
What would you say is the uniqueness or the difference that makes The Phoenix, The Phoenix? For that individual that might be navigating their what ifs in the car?
Kaley Jones
Mm-hmm. I think it’s such a unique experience for each person, but I think the thread that ties all of the experiences together is the sense of belonging, the completely judgment free place to walk in wherever you are.
I’ll never forget: A woman walked into rock climbing, and she was an RN, and she had lost her license because of using controlled substances that she had taken from the hospital. And she collapsed on the floor in the fetal position and just sobbed in the middle of The Phoenix event, and I sat down beside her, pulled her in and hugged her and said, “Why don’t we go for a walk?”
And her daughter just celebrated being nine years old. She has over eight years of sobriety now, and has her RN license back, and is practicing as a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner. And so I think the common thread there is: Come in, open the door, even if you have to crawl, I’ll crawl with you until we can get to a chair, and let’s do this.
We can walk in the journey as far as we need to and as long as we need to, for you to have that moment of I belong. “I have arrived and these people are going to catch me.” I mean, literally we’re going to catch you rock climbing, and figuratively we will hold sacred space for you to navigate, what began your addiction and what will end it.
Ty Spells
Kaley, you shared that a woman walked into The Phoenix and she fell down in a fetal position and was crying. And you immediately met her where she was and said, “I will walk alongside you in this journey.” And I feel like for that, you were confirming and removing the stigma attached to what she was about to walk through.
Can you reflect on… How has removing that stigma helped you in your journey and also how do you feel like it will impact you in your role as a new mother?
Kaley Jones
Absolutely. I mean, stigma itself is so complex and affects all of us in such deep ways, that when it was removed from me, walking into the climbing gym and being welcomed by people who didn’t know me, but believed in my recovery. Now, I can come from that experience and offer my son belief in him in whatever he goes for.
Ty Spells
Have you thought about, or have you and your husband discussed when the time comes, kind of sharing that full story with your son? What has that conversation been?
Kaley Jones
Yeah. I think it’s kind of inevitable, right? He comes to Phoenix with me. He goes to work with me. All of his pseudo-uncles are Phoenix members and they’re in and out of our house probably every day. And they’re all carrying the banner of “a sober life is a good life.” It’s a really good life.
And so I think that those conversations, while they might not be like a sit down, and “Here’s what we did, here’s how we overcame it and this is what we’re doing now.” It is a lifestyle in which he is immersed in already.
He’s gone to 12-step meetings with me. He has his own Phoenix t-shirt. He’s getting to start his life from a perspective of, “I’m allowed to heal from whatever happens to me.”
Ty Spells
I just want to say thank you for sharing that. I also think it is worth saying that not only does he understand creating a space for healing, but I think that you are shifting the next generation of how we view those that are navigating sobriety.
With your son, I believe and see that he will grow up to be a young man who will understand that one is not defined by their past actions or choices, but they still walk in that pride and joy based off of overcoming and in community. So I really appreciate you doing the work for yourself, creating that space for him, but then also making our future as a world brighter, through the love that you share with him.
So Kaley, I want to ask you something that kind of stems from my childhood and reflection. My grandpa used to always say, “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.” So what are you standing for today?
Kaley Jones
I’m standing for an unwavering belief in people, no matter what.
Ty Spells
Kaley, I just want to say, thank you. Thank you for showing up to this conversation with such an open heart, walking in your truth and vulnerability, and also what you are doing to move the stigma and to keep encouraging those as they walk through their sobriety.
Kaley Jones
Thanks. Thank you so much for having me and thanks for starting the conversation so we can all learn.
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