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Welcome to Choose Your Struggle Presents: Made It, Season 1: Stay Savage. We're heading back up again! It's ugly, everything hurts. But we're pointed in the right direction.
Choose Your Struggle Presents: Made It, a documentary, serial-style podcast telling the story of a person who has made it back from the depths of trauma and created something extraordinary with their second chance.
Season 1 is titled Stay Savage and focuses on Sarah Laurel and the harm reduction and recovery housing organization Savage Sisters.
* This transcript has not been edited. Sorry, I ran out of time!
Made it made it as a member of the shameless podcast network previously on made it rehab didn't work for me. Cause I definitely didn't want it to, people need to stop marketing their rehabs. Like they're selling some fucking thing like sobriety because that is not what they are doing. They're just stabilizing somebody who was on a substance.
You want the truth? Fuck. Here we go again. So I knew something was wrong. If she dies,
choose your struggle presents made it season one, stay Savage. Imagine a world that embraces the full humanity of people who use drugs, but a world where drug policies are grounded in science, compassion, health, equity, and human rights, a world where lives are saved, not destroyed the drug policy Alliance fights every day to make that world a reality.
We work to end the war on drugs, repair its harms and build an approach that puts people first. We've led the way on cutting edge drug policies, decriminalizing drugs, and instead investing in health-based services, centering racial justice and marijuana legalization and expanding access to harm reduction.
Join us in building a better future@drugpolicy.org slash made it.
Oh God. What a shitty story. Welcome to episode seven. When we last left off, Sarah was having a rough time. She was in jail and then out of jail and then in jail, again, all along, she wasn't getting the treatment, whether mental health or substance misuse that she needed. Here's Sarah. So I had a really rough summer, 2017.
I was the beginning of the year to like, I would say from like April to July, it was just me in Kensington alone. Um, some really bad stuff had happened. There were so many things that took place in that timeframe. Um, really like brutally violent.
Um, scary things. And, uh, I kind of went deeper and deeper and like used more and more, um, where I wasn't even really functioning anymore. Um, I think that was like the darkest part of my using. I just wanted to die. They always say it's darkest before the Dawn and in Sarah's case, No, I'm completely kidding.
That stuff is always a bunch of bullshit. However, for Sarah, a change was coming. That change was what we call the famous Sarah story. It's what you heard her referred to as an awful story. And it is, and it's an awful story. What you'll hear next is everybody in the family, remembering it for themselves.
Let's start with Mary. So Liz and I were in the kitchen and the phone. Sarah. She was shaking. She was, I, I, I think I broke my hip. I maybe everything's a little disconnected. I am in a car and, um, I need you to come get me and take me to the hospital. Now let's hear from Liz. I don't remember exactly where I was when I heard.
I just know that I was at Jefferson hospital immediately after that. Um, me and my mom were there, the first ones there and now Mac, um, I was at school, uh, when my mom. Told me, my first question was just like, oh, is she alive? Uh, yeah, my mom was like, what the fuck is wrong with you? Of course she's alive.
Otherwise I wouldn't be calling you. And I was like, I would, I hope you called me anyway, but okay. Uh, so the first thing I did, obviously when I left school, I happened to work down the street from where she was staying in the hospital. Uh, so, you know, I stopped at work was like, got to go check on my sister she's in the hospital, walked a couple blocks down.
Checked on her, really? It was just like, okay, she got injured. Adam remembers it a little bit differently. We were at my mom's house, um, at the park playing basketball. And my mom was there, which is really weird because only two times in my entire life. Can I recall my mom being at the basketball court with us in, at the park.
And we were all there. My brothers, a couple of friends, the nieces and nephews, and my mom picked up the phone. And at the time. Um, Sarah had been in a really rough stretch of, of use. Um, she had been, she had gone to rehab probably a dozen times in the last three months. Uh, and each time she would come out and some crazy shit would happen.
Uh, and at that point I was, I was just, uh, I was mad more than anything. She, she called my mom. Um, my mom picked up the phone at the basketball court and she said, Sarah is calling me saying that her hip is broken, um, and that she's needs help. Um, and that was it. And I was like, what are you like, where is she?
She said an hour away in north Philly. And, uh, I was like, why would she call you if her hip was broken? Why wouldn't she call an ambulance? And she was like, I don't know, but I'm going to get her. And I was like, do not go to get her call an ambulance. Okay. Let's finish. You might think I'm crazy. But when I heard, I was like, huh, she's she's going to be good now.
Like, she's going to be okay. Because she was on her way to the hospital and like, she wouldn't, she couldn't walk, so she couldn't leave. So like, I know that sounds awful, but like, I was like, oh my God, this is a relief. She's going to be in like, she's going to be okay. Okay. That was the family's reaction.
Let's hear Sarah tell her side of the. I had a bunch of cash on me and I went to my normal spot and there were some new people working the block because there had been a shooting on the block a couple of weeks earlier. So they had new people working different shifts that I didn't know anymore. And, um, I copped, we kind of had a couple of words.
I went to the trap house. I went up into the trap house. I proceeded to get high, very high for some reason. Checked the hallway. I was like alone in the trap house and I saw that there were three men kind of coming up the stairs and then the hallway. And, uh, I immediately kind of went into like high alert and we got into a tussle and I went out a second story window.
And, um, I remember hitting the ground. It was this weird sound. And I remember. Looking for my stuff, making sure I had my drugs. I couldn't reach my little bag with my phone in it or anything. So I was fucked and I tried to move and my legs didn't work. And I tried to crawl the opposite direction. Cause I heard them coming around to like, and I was afraid.
I thought they were definitely gonna kill me. Anyway. They dragged me, um, down the street to a.
Um, uh, filthy fucking block,
Sarah and I took a break at this point in the recording. I'm sure you can understand why. When we came back, I asked her why she thought that they dragged her away from the house. Here's her.
It's drawing attention. You know, I'm an injured person. I was covered in blood and I couldn't walk and it's not like they're going to, and also the house that I was, that house has all the drugs in it. So it's not like they want the cops coming around there and ambulance coming around there. They don't want that kind of attention on the block.
Well, various members of the family had guesses as to what was actually happening inside the trap house that day. Sarah did her best to set the record straight. I thought, and I don't know, you know what I mean? Like people are always like, oh, is this like, blah, blah. Like, I don't fucking know I was fucking shooting cocaine and heroin and smoking crack and taking Zack.
They could have been walking upstairs to sit down on the sofa and fucking smoke a blunt. I don't know what they were doing. I assumed they were coming up to fucking gang raped me. That's what I thought they were doing. And I didn't want to be fucking raped. So did I get hype? Yup, I did. Did I pay the fucking price?
Yeah, I did. Do. I think they were coming upstairs that give me a piece of fucking bubblegum. No, I don't. It's Kensington. There is an effort among people who like to tell these stories and recollect. To identify a moment as the narrative device, rock bottom. Sometimes those moments are exactly what you think they are.
They clear identifying moment where your life is going to change. Other times it's flat out false. That narrative comes from a really dark place. To be honest, it comes from this idea that if we just force people to hit a point where they simply cannot kid themselves, It will force their life to rebound or them to realize how bad their life really is.
The thing is if you actually stop and think about the idea, it doesn't make a lot of sense. And for me, The moments that I finally realized that I needed to make a change were months after what I now recognize as the lowest moments in terms of scariest and darkest. And in fact, what I call my rock bottom moment was actually a moment of just loneliness.
I asked Sarah if this moment, what we all now know as the famous Sarah story in which her life did begin to change. If in that moment she recognized it for what it was. Her answer was a very clear, no, in the moment. Before I got to the hospital and on my way to the hospital, I just wanted to die. And I was cursing God for making it last.
So long. Every move that I had made for the past three to four months was like a very passive, slow suicide. And it, it had gone from this like, well, I might die, but that's okay too. God, I hope I don't wake up. I just, I wanted the pain to stop. All of it, everything hurt. Everything was ugly. Well, Sarah doesn't remember a lot of the details of that day.
And honestly, can you blame her? The rest of the family does here's Mary. We managed to get her, me and this passer-by out of this vehicle and into my car. We get there and they don't have a gurney. They don't have a wheelchair. They got to get her out and get her through those. The next thing, you know, she's in this auditorium, they asked her like, where, where, where can we find a vein?
And she's points to her neck. She's like, that's the only one that's open. And she passed out from the pain after this break. Here's this episode's podcast recommendation brought to you by great pods. Hey, y'all it's me your host. It's my absolute pleasure to tell you about one of my favorite podcasts cracking.
Launched in 2019, it's hosted by the journalist Garth Mullins. And it's one of the most honest and empathetic shows on drug use addiction and drug policy in the world. And I should know, I mean, I did create this show. You're listening to right. I love crack down so much that I'm a Patrion supporter and rarely just one of their monthly episodes go by that I'm not posting about it on social media and sharing it with my friends.
I even got to interview Garth through my other show. Choose your struggle. Yeah. I'm kind of a super fan. So check out crack crackdown, wherever you get your podcasts and let them know. You heard about them right here on choose your struggle presents made it season one, state Savage. Liz was fresh out of another stint in rehab, and she was right there with her mother caring for Sarah.
And I remember walking in to, it was like an operating room. And so it was like 360 degrees. Like, it just felt like there was lights and gadgetry all over the place. And she was laying in this bed. She had a neck brace on and like her, she was strapped. Like she couldn't move at all. And she had like crusty blood all over her.
She was swollen. And I just fucking, like, I was trying to hold it together because if she could see me, I didn't want her to see my face and get scared about what she looked like. But. So, what I always do in those situations is like, try to be a little positive, like, okay, everything's going to be fine.
Like you want some, she was complaining that her mouth was dry and gross. So I went and got her some candy and a little, I got her a rose and hung it from the metal bed, like a four poster frame because of the way she was jacked and just hung, dangled the rows over her head and whispered in her ear. I love you.
You're going to make it. You're going to be okay. All this shit. Sarah did make it. And the family rallied around her in the hospital. Uh, I did continue to see her. Most days she complained. She didn't like the food, so I would go buy her Panera all the time. I spent so much fucking money on Panera. Uh, and yeah, she loved Lappin.
Uh, so I would do that. And, uh, while she was in the house, And she said, you know, I want to do something. I want to help people in my position. I don't want to do that anymore. I want to change some shit. And I was like, all right, epic, I'm with it. What do you need me to do? What you just heard Mac referred to was the seed that would eventually grow into Savage sisters.
The incredible organization that Sarah now runs, but it's birth, or I should say the birth of its idea. It's not a pretty one. Here's Sarah, the full background of it, which is actually kind of funny. I stole a credit card. I had hit a lick and, uh, when I hit the lick, I stole a car allegedly and, uh, in the car was.
And in that purse was a credit card. And I decided after, uh, you know, getting rid of the car and getting a little money that I was going to go on a shopping spree and Kensington with this credit card. And it was the day before I went out the window and I bought myself a pair of combat boots and a dress, and it says Savage across it and capital letters.
And that would be the dress that I would be cut out of in the, um, hospital. And it was kind of the only thing that I could see now when I was in ICU, I was coming in and out of consciousness. I remember little tiny, like I know people kept saying that they had come and they had visited me. I don't remember a lot.
And for some reason I had my cell phone. So, and, and I had a very bad memory for months ahead of bad memory. I had multiple contusions in my head and the concussions might, I didn't remember things that were, I didn't remember a lot. I kept seeing the word Savage through the clear plastic bag and I kept Googling it like over repeatedly because I would forget what it said.
And I almost couldn't identify what it meant if that makes sense. Um, when you have a concussion, I guess, as severe. There were certain things that like, somebody would say a word to me that was normally like tour. And I wouldn't, I would know that it was a word, but I wouldn't be able to like, match what that meaning was.
So I was Googling a lot of things the way that it's been retold, it's almost as if Sarah woke up and had divine intervention. And the next thing we knew she was better and it founded Savage that wasn't the case. Here's Adam underscoring. That point, I don't think Sarah woke up, saw the Savage dress Muslim.
Oh, everything's going to be okay. Now I'm going to go start seven sisters. No, definitely not. Um, I can guarantee that that's not the case because when I went to go see her, she was like, I'm getting the fuck outta here. And she was like, you know, fighting the nurses and she was fighting anybody around her.
And, uh, she just wanted to leave while it may not have been a sort of fairy godmother waving a magic wand and making everything all better. Members of the family did see an improvement in her. Um, and I remember having this conversation with Adam was like, how is she what's going on? And I remember him being like, she's, she's good.
She's really angry. She's really angry. And it's great. That she's really angry. I was like, that's amazing because if she's angry that like she's like alive, she has energy. Like she's angry, you know what I mean? Um, so I think like in a way maybe Adam also felt a little bit of that relief. Because for a long time, like sometimes she'd be missing for like a long time and you, you start to have like very dark and like scary thoughts when someone you love is missing.
So it was nice that everyone knew where she was. I remember when I saw Mary and Adam, Mary was also like, she's, she wasn't. I think that moment of fear had passed. And everyone was just relieved that they knew where she was and that she was safe after a while. Those improvements became much more obvious.
Here's Adam each day that I would see her afterwards, I would notice a difference. And the change in her, she was just like coming back to being herself. And, uh, within 30 days, I remember finally, uh, believing that I might actually have sober Sarah back, which was a long time. For Mac that hope was immediately motivation and translated into action.
She gets out of the hospital is in like a wheelchair and then crutches. I did really hope that that would be the turning point for her, uh, after she had talked about it, you know, I had, I did, I started doing research. I started looking up all the things about prisons and how to, um, just like statistics. I started taking courses in school based around her idea, learning all about everything I could about addiction, the statistics of it, uh, what happens behind it?
The chemical imbalances. I just, I dove right in. If this goal is the thing that keeps you running, then let's run with it. But that's not all Mac did. She also took a hands on approach to helping Sarah get better. So I would Uber her everywhere. I went to meetings with her. It was really nice because after she fell out of that window, she became a person again.
She was not a Dick anymore. For the most part, she was still a Dick. Sometimes she was in a lot of pain, so she wasn't asshole, but she was a lot less sticky. Mack was cautiously optimistic, but she wasn't ready to hang the victory banner yet. So this is the sad part for me was that I always believed that it could be every single time.
I thought this could be. Uh, which is part of what kept me going. And the thing that tipped me off was that even though she was walking around in crutches, she was asking me to get her Uber's two meetings every day. And I knew all the time where she was, because I was the one Ubering her to, and from those places.
So I could look up the. Let's take a break. If you guys want to learn more about Savage sisters, check out www.savagesisters.org. If you'd like to hear more from me and Sarah specifically, please reach out to info@savagesisters.org, and we can come speak to you, your organization, your business, or your place of worship on Narcan, trainings, harm reduction, trainings, or anything in general with Savage sisters.
If you want to donate, please go to seven sisters.org sponsorship. There, you can find a plethora of ways to give directly to our cause and help our mission. Additionally, if you want to come volunteer at an outreach, please reach out to info@savagesisters.org. So we can give you dates times and locations for our outreach events.
Thanks everybody. Stay Savage.
Hey, y'all it's Jay, the host of this show. If you're not really enjoying the series and you're just listening to make me happy, then thank you for the rest of you. I invite you to check out everything else. Choose your struggle does in the mental health and drug use advocacy space, we have a couple of other podcasts, including our incredibly popular weekly show called.
Choose your struggle on that show. I interview people with lived and learned experiences on the subjects of mental. Substance misuse and recovery and drug use and policy. But occasionally we talk about other topics as well. We also have another new show called choose your struggle presents Monday motivation, but it's not just podcasts.
We also host two vulnerable storytelling events, rock-bottom storytellers and a day in the life on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Twitch, and YouTube. And now I'm so excited to announce that we'll be doing rock bottom storytellers live here in Philly, starting this summer. I also have a book coming out, hopefully later this year.
And I regularly traveled the country, telling my story. And speaking about these important topics. I know this is all a lot, but you can check us out at our website, choose your struggle.com and check out all of our podcasts, wherever you're getting this serious, just by searching for chooser struggle. All right.
That's enough about us. Let's get back to the show.
Sarah has a pretty simple explanation of what it was that made this time. I had to sit still long enough to actually reflect on everything. And it wasn't that I was like, this is my rock bottom. It was, um,
a lot of pain. I, it might've been cute for them to watch me hobble around, but for me, I was terrified that this wouldn't be it. That I would go further and then I would get more hurt and then I wouldn't have the control to stop. And that terrified me because I didn't have an aha moment walking around on with staples.
I was scared of the disease. I was scared of heroin and the fact that I wanted it so badly, still. So.
I'm glad they had that experience because they were exhausted from my, my, my years of bullshit, but
I don't, at that point I was tired and I was afraid that I was going to go back at it in that state and that.
I wish I had a Holly Lou moment that would have been so fucking epic. If I was like, Jesus saved me. That's not what happened. Other people talk about that pink cloud. And I'm like, um, yeah. Okay. I don't have one the, the God moment though, whatever you want to call it, the higher power moment.
And when you feed that lie to people like me, I feel like I'm undeserving of that moment. You know, I'm like, why isn't this holy ghost carrying me through this? You know? And I'm like, well, I guess I'm just supposed to die from it. I'm serious though. You know, it's like this. This fairytale. We're always fucking telling adults, fairytales children into adulthood.
When you're an adult, you're like, Jesus is going to come to your room and you're going to be cured. So what the fuck happens, it's not what it is. It's fucking hard work and it's ugly and it's gross and it's raw and it hurts. The dark night of the soul is, is the dark night of the soul. It's not fucking carried on Angel's wings.
Fuck. The rest of the family could tell just how fragile Sarah's recovery really was. Sarah was in recovery, living in recovery homes around south Philly, and we all talked every single day. She would come over. She would hang out. I mean, my house was not a recovery house. She could come over and relax and be with the family right down the street from where she was.
She definitely was having a rough time. She was in a wheelchair, then she was on crutches and the homes that you were in sucked. Um, but she met a couple of really cool people. Uh, and I think that really helped her those first few months in recovery, living in substandard sober housing. That really was the motivation for the idea that became Savage sisters.
Here's Mary. It was an adventure. She had a brutal, brutal time. It's the first sober place she went to. They throw her out because of her. And I remember the guy saying to me like, this is for her safety. I said, you are so full of shit. This is covering your own ass. You don't give a crap about her recovery.
He's like, well, she just needs to come home with you for a few days. Or you said, are you kidding? She has used in my house beyond understanding. She should not be in my house. And then her friend called her and said that she could come and stay there. So she did that friend was someone who understood what Sarah was going through because she was going through it too.
Here's Liz, Dez is the one who left the recovery house to start savages. I refused. I was not secure in my recovery. I had a couple of months sober and I I'm want to stay here. I'm safe here. I am not starting, you know, trying to build a friggin recovery house empire just yet. It's too premature. So Deseret does that.
I'm living in this recovery house. There's three of us in this house. There's this, I'm sharing a bedroom with a girl. I move in three days. Go by. She doesn't speak to me. She's very quiet. I have a book called he and I by Gabrielle. It's a spiritual book. And I love that book. I read it until it falls apart and then I buy another copy and I had it on my bed.
So this girl, my roommate who doesn't talk to me, comes down into the kitchen. And she's like, where the hell did you get that book? She said, I had my first spiritual experience in my life, reading that book in prison. My cellmates mom gave it to her. And I was like, that's my sister, the small world of recovery.
Right. Anyway, Sarah and Dez had a deep connection. Here's Sarah, my friend Dez. And we'd been in jail together, uh, twice. And. She had a friend who owned properties and she was like, come let me, I, you can live on the first floor. And I was like, but I'm out of here, dude. So Sarah moved into the recovery house.
Dez was staying and in very quickly, she starting to build this as Liz jokingly called it empire. That is now Savage sisters. I think it was just me and desert first. And then we got a couple more girls, but it was supposed to be like a quote unquote sober house. Cheap. There was a second house that we opened up.
She went to the second house to open it up. It was empty. She had to get the furniture and put it together and do all that stuff. And she relapsed there while preparing the house. Okay. It's time to level with you about something I know for the last couple of episodes, I've been saying that we're doing the use storyline, you know, the U shape, right?
Where we go down, you sit at the bottom and then you come back. Well, I lied. Uh, it's really more like a backwards J with a little bit of a squiggle at the, uh, at the end. And then it comes up. I don't know, maybe it's a letter in Norwegian or something, but it certainly isn't a, you, uh, you probably could have guessed that though, considering they're still three more episodes after this and things were sounding good there from.
So look, just hang in there. I promise the end. We end up at the top again, like that's definitely going to happen. You can trust me on that. I'm not lying, but it's going to be a little bit, so, you know, stay tuned. Anyway. Here's a little bit more from Sarah. I was the house manager at the Siegel street house and she was over on the Jackson street house.
There were two blocks away from each other in south Philly. We were right there. And I still had staples in my leg maybe, but I wasn't on a, I wasn't using a Walker or crutches. I still remember that. I think I had like 60 days sober, no business running a recovery house. And we just put that out there. But like, you know, there was only like one other person living there.
Claudia was living there with me at that point. So it was me and Claudia and this girl Kat at Siegel street and Dez called me and she was like, I'm going to get high. You want to come. And I did not really know what to do. I, I just remember being in my bedroom and like freezing completely freezing. And I said, let me call you right back.
Next time on me. And Dez kind of went in and out in and out. And, you know, we obviously always talked to each other about. I got really busy. Thanks for listening. Made it. Season one, stay Savage is a chooser struggle production and a member of the shameless podcast network. I'm Jay Schiffman, their narrator producer, and founder of choose your struggle special.
Thanks to Lauren Schiffman and Steve Schiffman for their help on this show, the theme song was composed by me and built on the song. All that by Ben sound, the made it theme you hear in episode 10 was composed by lettuce and Robert. All interviews for this show were given freely and no payment was received by anyone for providing an interview for this show, all views expressed by those interviewed are their own.
For more info, please see your show notes or learn more@chooseyourstruggle.com.