#37 – Kim Jorgensen-Richard
Kim’s Story
Kim Jorgensen-Richard, first time author, of Rock-Covery, Not Your Mother’s Meditation Book, (now available on Amazon.com) is a life-long resident of Southeastern Massachusetts, a Licensed Alcohol & Drug Counselor, a woman in recovery from trauma & addiction, and of course, a fan of all things rock and roll!
She first began her recovery journey in 1987, at a detox in Fall River, Massachusetts. In the 10 years that followed, she began her career in the field of addictions treatment, started a family, and continued to stay on the path of recovery. Eventually though, she became distracted by her good fortune and decided to celebrate with a drink, thus beginning a three-year relapse.
Fortunately, she never stopped seeking treatment, and eventually began to find traction on her road to recovery. She does not apologize for her relapse, but acknowledges it as one of the most powerful life-lessons that she has ever experienced. She credits this experience as a key influence in maintaining her recovery today, and one of the motivations behind her first book, _Rock-Covery-Not Your Mother’s Meditation Book. _
Today, a woman in long-term, active recovery from alcohol and any other numbing agent or activity, Kim is a Project Director at an area Human Service Agency, providing reentry assistance for individuals diagnosed with Substance Use or Co-Occurring Disorder. Her mission is to chip away at the stigma surrounding these disorders, providing hope to people devastated by trauma, addiction & mental health issues by sharing her own experiences with these same conditions.
Kim enjoys spending time with her soul sisters in recovery, hanging out with her kids, watching the Patriots & documentaries, going to the gym and the beach, and of course, listening to music and going to concerts with her guy.
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Episode Transcript
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Hello, beautiful people. Welcome to the courage to change a recovery podcast. My name is Ashley Loeb Blassingame, and I am your host. Today, we have Kim Jorgensen-Richard. Kim is a first time author of the book Rock-covery: Not Your Mother’s Meditation Book, now available on amazon.com. She is a lifelong resident of Southeastern Massachusetts, a licensed alcohol and drug counselor, a woman in recovery from trauma and addiction and of course, a fan of all things rock and roll. She first began her recovery journey in 1987, at a detox in fall river Mass. In the 10 years that followed she began her career in the field of addiction treatment, started a family and continued to stay on the path of recovery.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Eventually though, she became distracted by her good fortune and decided to celebrate with a drink. Thus beginning a three year relapse. Fortunately, she never stopped seeking treatment and eventually began to find traction on her road to recovery. She does not apologize for her relapse, but acknowledges it as one of the most powerful life lessons that she has ever experienced. She credits this experience as a key influence in maintaining her recovery today, and one of the motivations behind her book, Rock-covery: Not Your Mother’s Meditation Book. Today, a woman in long-term active recovery from alcohol and any other numbing agents or activities.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Kim is a project director at an area human service agency providing re-entry assistance for individuals diagnosed with substance use or co-occurring disorders. Her mission is to chip away at the stigma surrounding these disorders, providing hope to people devastated by trauma, addiction, and mental health issues by sharing her own experiences with these same conditions. Kim enjoys spending time with her soul sisters in recovery, hanging out with her kids, watching the Patriots, obviously, and documentaries going to the gym, and the beach and of course listening to music and going to concerts with her guy. Ladies and gentleman and everyone in between. Please enjoy my friend, you know her, that’s Kim Jorgensen-Richard. Episode 37, let’s do this.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Kim, welcome to The Courage to Change: A Recovery Podcast. Thank you for being here.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Thank you Ashley, for having me.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
You have an incredible story and you have even written a meditation book.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Yes.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
What’s your meditation book called?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So, my meditation book is called Rock-covery: Not Your Mother’s Meditation Book. And so, this book is just a daily reader based on rock music, that really kind of highlight some of the struggles that I’ve been through, and I kind of use each page as like an AA meeting. Like, so what it was like, what happened, and what it’s like now or what it can be like. And so, I tried to kind of capture a meeting on every page, and then kind of sum it up with today’s chorus. So, there’s a song that prompts the writing, and then a little, today’s chorus at the end. So, I thought loving music most all of my life and getting a lot of my scene from writing, putting those two things together, like it was kind of natural for me.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah. Super cool idea. I love it. You’re obviously British.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
I can’t tell you, yeah. New England. Yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Exactly. So, you are where in new England are you?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So I’m in Southeastern Mass, close to Cape Cod. So Fairhaven, Massachusetts, which is right outside New Bedford, Massachusetts. And so, new Bedford has in this area is like just been ravaged by the opiate crisis. I think we all have. But it’s really been pretty bad here. We have a huge fishing port. We’re conveniently located to all the major highways, so some natural glad for that.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
And your father was a fisherman?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Yes, my father was a Norwegian immigrant, and he came over in the late 50s to, he landed in New York city on a merchant Marine ship and probably, I don’t know how long it was, but it was only a short time later that my mother was also in Brooklyn, New York after leaving her hometown of Detroit, Michigan. She was also a Norwegian, first born in America. So she’s a first generation Norwegian American. And so, she was in New York city self-admitted alcoholic as time went on. But at that time she was-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Self-admitted partier.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Self-Admitted partier, and she met my dad at a boarding house where he was staying, and he asked her to go to some kind of fishermen’s dance or some kind of dance. And so, she agreed and three months later they got married. And so, that was the beginning of their love story.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Did they talk about being an immigrant a lot when you were growing up?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So Norwegians are very excited about being Norwegian, although we would never admit it. It’s something that was a very proud tradition of, being hard working, proud and strong and we can do it. We are Vikings, and just all of that will.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah, will power.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Willpower, so there’s a lot of that weaved in too.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
So your mom was self-proclaimed alcoholic and your dad, Norwegian fishermen and you ended up in a household where family was Jehovah’s witness ditch. How did that happen? Did they become Jehovah’s witnesses? Was your father a Jehovah’s witness before he came to America?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
No, my father was never a Jehovah’s witness.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Oh, ever?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Ever. Yeah. But he wasn’t around enough to have to-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Comply?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Yeah. Have to comply with that nor did he want to. So, just an understanding that my mother was going to raise us in her way, what she believed and she was just following orders from her mother, so we all had to be-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
So her mother was in Detroit?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So her mom was, they were all originally living in Detroit, Michigan. And my grandmother was practicing and she’d have the witnesses over and her husband wasn’t too keen on it either. And so, then she brought her children to, I guess the kingdom hall at that time in Detroit, Michigan. I’m not really clear. I don’t go that far back with it, but I know that my grandmother remained from the time she landed in Canada, to the time she died. She remained a devout Jehovah’s witness baptized. And she brought her children up that way and her children were expected to bring up their children that way. And that’s what my mother did. Although, she didn’t get baptized into the religion until in her later years.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
So, what was it like growing up in a home where your dad’s not around a lot and your mother is an alcoholic Jehovah’s witness? And there are six children, right?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So there’s six of us. So, what it was like was, it was insane because my grandmother was also an alcoholic with mental health issues undiagnosed. So, there would be times when in my household there would be my mom drinking, my grandmother drinking, my half-brother probably drinking. And there would be fist fights in the middle of the living room between my mother, well, between my half-brother who was feeding on my mother while my grandmother cheered on by brother. So, she would be cheering on my half-brother to continue beating on my mother.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Why?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
I really think that my grandmother had an issue with the fact that my mother was extremely beautiful, like strikingly beautiful. And so, my grandmother, this is just my version. My grandmother didn’t have that going on for herself. And I really think she was jealous of that or there was some kind of disdain for my mother and that’s all I could come up with.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Why would it be okay for the half-brother to beat up the mother? How would something like that happen?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So my grandmother took my half-brother in while my mother went to New York city. And she took him, and she said to my mother that she wouldn’t give him back until my mother found someone. And this was back in the late 50s. And so, illegitimate children, you heard the stories. So, I think that she had some kind of ownership of my half-brother or they had like more of a connection than my mother and my brother. I think they bonded first. That was his closest and most important relationship because my mother wasn’t around. I think that’s how it played out.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Got it, got it. Okay. And so, music was a big part of your childhood as well. How did that look like?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So what that looked like was whenever there was music playing, it was kind of like a ceasefire as so my mother being from Motown enjoyed Motown and she blasted it on the stereo. Diana Ross and The Supremes, all those Smokey Robinson, and you knew that when that music was playing, it was safe to come out, there wasn’t a lot. It was joyful. And my mother sang a lot. I think one thing about my whole family is like, we really bonded around music. Despite everything, we really all had a love of music. So, when music was around, it seemed like there was peace and joy even in the house.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
That’s nice that you had that respite. There were six of you. What is the age difference between the siblings?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So the age difference is two years apart with the exception of the two youngest who are, I would say Irish twins, but they are Norwegian twins. So, they are like nine months apart. And we referred to them when they were younger as the babies.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So there’s two years between us all.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Okay. Two years between. And what was your experience growing up in the home?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So my experience growing up in the home was that of identified patient. I mean, looking back now, I didn’t know what then. So, when I was like a year and a half old I still wasn’t walking, but I was smiling. So, I was like immobile and smiling. So that made for the perfect baby. But finally, someone said, don’t you think she should be walking by now? And so, my mom took me to the pediatrician and he diagnosed me with cerebral palsy. And so, I spent a lot of my time going to children’s hospital in Boston and it was a teaching hospital. So they were kind of fascinated, poking and prodding and having to do physical therapy and exercises.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
And so, that was good for me because I was able to have that alone time with my mother and some sober time. But sometimes on the way back from Boston, things could get hairy. We could end up in a tenement building with another woman my mother met who was also an alcoholic and they’d be drinking in, who knows, Charlestown, who knows? I don’t remember where I was, but I know that there were times when coming back from Boston my mother would have her bottle in her pocketbook.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
What was that like was she a nice drunk?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So my mother crossed the line into blackout a lot. And so, it was like you never knew when that was going to happen. And as a young person, you don’t know that, that’s what’s happening. You just know, “Oh, things are going South, and it’s very, very frightening.” So for me, growing up, I had a lot of one on one time, which I look at now is really positive. But there was also a lot of stuff that I was like forced to guess what was going on, as you have to when you come from an alcoholic home, you have to get a read on something really quick to be able to move to safety or figure it out. So that was my experience too.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Do you remember any time where like a time where you had to get a read on something and got yourself to safety? At a time where maybe it was not age appropriate for someone to be in that situation?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
There was like, but we always had, my brothers and sisters were always pretty much there with me. So, I think my older brother really had the brunt of, not my half-brother, but the brother above me, he really had to take the brunt of being the caretaker for the rest of us when he really shouldn’t have been in that situation. Because there were times when my mom would black out and she’d, as soon as my father left the dock she’d be hitting it heavy because, I guess she felt like now her permission slip to go wild. And so, she’d take us on road trips. And so, there were times when she took us on road trips to Newport, Rhode Island where we’d be at the Marae on Goat Island, which I don’t know if you’re familiar, and she’d be in the bathroom, threatening to commit suicide and he’d have to call 911.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So, it was more, he really had the brunt of that. And I don’t even really remember like how those things ended. I don’t know if you’ve heard that a lot. Like, okay, how did we get home? I remember the actual climax of the story, but how did we get home? So, there was a lot of stuff that wasn’t age appropriate for any of us but thank God he was there to kind of keep things manageable.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
For people who don’t know. Can you tell us about what living with cerebral palsy was like?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So, it’s a really mild case of cerebral palsy, but I think of how it affected me is that I was kind of doted on and really not asked to participate in, I wasn’t able to reach my full potential having that label on me at the time. And I guess another thing is in the 70s, if you had something that was like may considered a handicap or something, you are automatically put in special needs even though there was nothing wrong with my mental capacity to learn. But it’s something they just excluded you from the rest.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So, what it was like is, I was kind of labeled as someone who couldn’t do what the rest of the folks could do or the rest of the children could do, and also, she doesn’t understand anything. They just put that extra having to go to title one, I don’t know what you guys call it on the West coast, but the resource room or title one, or I don’t know what they call it, but go for extra help. And that label was really throughout my life, the victim learned helplessness, and the victim hood and all that stuff. I capitalized on it believe me. When I needed to use it, I used it. But it also worked against me in a way that like, I never thought I could do the things that I now do in sobriety, thank God. But I had to smash those belief systems that I held, cause they, they kind of worked for me, but then they stop working.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
As they do. And you had some trauma when you were younger. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Sure. So, myself and my sister were abused by a relative, sexually abused. And so that was extremely traumatic for us and very frightening at the time for me and frightened for my sister too, because at one point, I guess it started around when we were like I was six, and my sister was like four. So there was a lot of, I was older, so I was able to kind of like resist a little and question, “Wait, what is this? What’s happening?” And so this family member would say, “Hey, wait, Jeannette’s doing it. Why can’t you?”
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So there’s a lot of peer pressure to allow it. And so, that was a little tough because I guess the frightening part came later. I guess I’m jumping ahead. When I said I stood up for myself finally after, I guess for me it went on two to three years and I said, listen, because it got to the point where it was like progressively getting, the acts were getting more daring and more aggressive, I don’t even know how to put it, but it was progressing to more outrageous acts. Not that any of the acts were not outrageous, but I mean, like really pretty bad at this one time.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
And so I said, “If you don’t get off me, I’m going to tell.” And so, I was never touched again. But the frightening part of for me was, and this is where me and my sister have this closeness, we shared a room. So, I was always on the lookout for this relative and really had a difficult time sleeping or like I wanted to protect her because well into adulthood, this relative continued to pursue her. And so we went to Disney. This person was there and I had to constantly, I was afraid when my parents went out at Disney that, Oh no, it’s going to happen again, and like, will I be able to protect her?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
And so, there was always like a lot of terror in protecting her. And because somehow of all the things I didn’t have, the one thing I always kind of did have, and still have and gets me in trouble is that voice to say, “Wait, no way. No.”
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
So, this is going on, and this person would continue to do this to her even when you were in the room, or how did he pursue her once you basically said, “This isn’t going to work anymore?”
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So, he found ways to get her alone. We shared a room, but once we moved too, so my father, his fishing took him to Alaska, but once we moved to a different location in a bigger home, there was more room, so there was more ability to gain access to her. And thankfully, he was sent away. He did go away and leave the area. So, during those times we’re safe, so that was good too. But there were times even if he’d come back there were times when he’d pursue her and luckily she was able to protect herself from him, she just was able to protect herself, but then there were times when she wasn’t.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
So what would have happened if you had told your parents or your mother?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So my sister ended up telling my mother, and he was already gone because he had gone to jail. He went to jail for another crime of sexual assault that happened at Alaska and he went away for 12 years.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
So he raped somebody.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Yes. So, that kind of was a reprieve. And so-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Did that help your mom believe?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
My mom always believed, my sister I believe told my mother after he had been sentenced and was doing time. And I thought because she knew about her, that she must have known that it was happening to me too. But I didn’t tell her until I was in sober house at 20 years old. And she’s like, “I knew about Jeanette, but I had no idea.” I said, “You didn’t know?” I just thought she knew. So, I did tell her and she said, “If I had a gun I’d kill him.” And we never told my dad. And so, I never told my dad about this relative and the assault even until 2008, he still didn’t know. And the reason for that was my dad, that would have been a bad end.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Yeah, really bad because there was already bad blood between them. For most of my relatives life, most of that relatives life.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
How do you think that shaped your addiction? Did that start your addiction? Or did you start using to cope with the feeling of being afraid all the time?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So yeah, I was so afraid that I couldn’t talk on the phone. And I’ve heard some of your other guests talk about that extreme self-centered fear. And I had that too. I just could not, if my mom said going to the store and get me a gallon of milk, I wasn’t able to do it. I’m like, I can’t go in there. She’s like, “Oh my God, you are full of self-centered fear.” And I’m like, “What does that even mean?” But anyway, she was right. I couldn’t go in and I was really fearful. Also, I was overweight. I had limited physical confidence. I really didn’t have much going for me, a pair of orthopedic shoes, and so, I didn’t feel beautiful or pretty or any of that stuff.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
And so, when I found alcohol that was terrific. The magical elixir really.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
And being overweight young, was there a piece of that, that food started as the first?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Oh yeah. My first addiction was marshmallows and Nestle quick.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
The powder?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Powder straight up. Straight up out of that.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
The hard stuff.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I would imagine that living in a home where not only do you feel like you’re going to be preyed on literally at any moment and particularly starting from such a young age with someone who has a lot of access. And then also I know being an older sister, I mean I’d kill someone for my, and just the feeling is protective as you do around your sibling, younger sister being afraid for her safety and of course, knowing what that feels like so you actually have something to compare it to and all of those. And then mom and all, I mean that’s a lot of complex trauma and complex emotions.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Frankly, any healthy person would need some serious coping skills with that stuff. So, it makes complete sense that you would seek things to, to help with that.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Yeah, definitely.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
How could you not?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Sugar is still, a struggle.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
What were some of your physical limitations where you were able to a walk?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
I could walk, but in recess and gym class, and I trip a lot and that was like, Oh my God, I was constantly falling on my face. And I’m not able to like keep up on the playground or in the gym class or, so I was labeled as like, the last one picked for the whatever kickball.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
To the naked eye, you couldn’t see that anything was wrong?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
No.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
So maybe, In some ways that was complicated because it didn’t look like it.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Yeah, it didn’t show. And so, people didn’t know. And so, I’ve read up on that too in my sobriety about people who have, because there’s not much going on as far as like adult CP, mild adult CP as far as research because-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
It’s invisible.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
It’s just starting to go out and get information about that. And so, I’ve read up about people who’ve had mild cases who felt like it was a worse, not that I’m saying it what it is, but just because of-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
The invisible.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Not being able to see.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah. Yeah. How did your alcoholism progress?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So, let’s see. So, I had three, seven and seven, when I was 12 years old at a wedding. And I felt like a princess, I felt very graceful, although I did trip again. I felt very beautiful and graceful and this is it, this is what I’ve been looking for. And my mother was just got sober probably a year or two before that, and she didn’t go to this wedding. She just dropped me and my brother’s girlfriend off.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
And my brother’s girlfriend she was one of the first people I drank with. And she was also in my first round with sobriety. She was one of the last people, so she was like the book-ender. But anyway, so 377s and I tripped over, I don’t know, a chair. I didn’t fall though, but then this woman looked at me, some woman I didn’t even know, and she gave me such a look of disgust and I didn’t understand, why is she looking at me like that? Life is beautiful.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
And obviously, I got that look a few more times in my life and I came to understand why she was looking at me like that. So, it started there and then it was a weekend warrior. So, I was in junior high school now, the bullying was still going on, but then I found that group of people as everybody who, most people do.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
They find that group of people that drink and drug like they do, although it wasn’t drugs, it was like marijuana and drinking on the weekend in the woods. So, I went and sought out and met these people and they kind of were like my family and they protected me from being bullied. No one, like we had the jocks and the burnouts. Well, I was a burnout obviously. So, we hung together on the weekends.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
We pulled together our money and we were in wood shop on Friday. I could remember we had these rulers that we’d use to measure wood, I guess, and we’d like use it as like, “Okay, Kim has $10.” And we’d use that as a scale for how much money all of us could pull together and what we’re going to buy with it that night by the guy who was standing outside the Paki. But to use a New England term, standing outside the Paki to buy us our alcohol. So, that’s how it started.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
So your mom had gotten sober at this time? Did she recognize the progression at all?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So, what she recognized is that the people that I was changing. She recognized the people I was hanging around with probably weren’t the people she was used to seeing me hang around with. And so she was a little concerned that way. We have this road in our town that is long and wooded and my mother would patrol that road more than the police. Now, if the police were coming, my gang of friends would say, “Okay, we only need to go a little bit back behind the tree line.” What if they saw Judy coming in her LTD, we’d run like hell because she’d get out of the car and chase us.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Because she knew something. She was losing her grasp of what I was doing, but she knew it couldn’t have been good. But she never really, she knew I had alcoholic tendencies, I’m sure, but to saying things like I have self-centered fear, but she never really recognized the problem until around my 20s. That’s when she, or late teens or like 20. She knew then that, “Oh my God, she’s an alcoholic.” Or maybe she wasn’t ready to admit it.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah. I mean she knew something cause she was patrolling so.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Oh yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
People don’t patrol for no reason.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Oh my God, when she did find me at times drunk out of my mind, she blamed the people I was hanging around with. So, she’d go from house to house, she’d stop it door to door and talk to each parent and say, “Listen, my daughter’s drunk, you might want to check your daughter. She might be drunk too.” And she’d go to every… I wasn’t very popular after that, and they were afraid of Judy because she’d do the door to door thing, letting everyone know that these kids are drinking and beware.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
And so she definitely was worried.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
She used to be worried.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Yeah. But the reason I say this is because she didn’t, like when we spoke in my first recovery round with recovery at 20 or 21, she said, “I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know it was alcoholism until just recently.” And I’m like, “Wow, we did it.” It is.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Which is interesting because she had gotten sober.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
I know.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
So you would think that would be top of mind?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Yes, or maybe she just didn’t want to see it. Because really, I was the good girl. I was the one that was like oooh?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right. Right. So then you met someone at 20?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So I met someone-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
You met someone a 16?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
16, 17 years old. I had just turned 16 in August and I knew this guy because I thought he was awesome because he was 21. He had tattoos, he wore a leather vest and like all that 80s stuff. And I’m like, he was something, and I really had a crush on him. And then he found out I had a crush on him. And so, he asked me out and he was able to buy booze. I didn’t have to wait around outside in the cold for that random guy to buy us alcohol. I had it built right in. And that made me love him even more.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah, exactly.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
He became so much more attractive then, but this is all in hindsight. But I really was crazy about him. He was my first, first love, or what I thought my definition of that at the time. So, I met him and we… he was really very instrumental in me graduating from high school because he’d withhold love if I didn’t show up for class, he would be, “Uh, uh, uh.” He was that father figure guy in those ways. And he kind of got me to stop taking hallucinogenics during school, he got me to cut down on smoking weed, and all those things. And so, I was able to graduate from high school. And so, I credit him for that because there really wasn’t a lot going on at my house that could restrain me or put me on the right path. But if you’re going to threaten my supply of love or whatever that was I was going to fall in line.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah. And how did that relationship progress?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So we met, I was drinking. He didn’t drink a lot, but he supplied me with alcohol. When we go to keg parties, he would say, “Okay, you’ve had enough.” And I did not stop regardless of what he said. And he’d have to like physically remove me from those weekend keg parties. And then I began to drink more. And we had broken up and then we got, and I was like so devastated because it was like a codependent postage taking situation that I was withdrawing from. I was detoxing from him, although I didn’t know that at the time. And when we got back together, I got pregnant. And so-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
How old were you when that happened?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So, 19 years old.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Okay, 19, so you graduated from high school?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
I did graduate from high school. Yup. And so, shortly after high school is when we broke up for a minute and then we got back together and I got pregnant. And what happened was that in 1985, sorry, 1986, I was doing August of 1986, and I had the baby in April. And so, I went to premature labor on a Thursday night while the Cosby show was on. I can remember it like it was yesterday. I’m like, Oh, I didn’t know because I didn’t know it was labor. I thought it was gas pains. So I’m like, “I think I’m crampy.” I think it just made me-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
How far along were you?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
I was five months. April, may, June, July, August. Yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah. So you’re five. So you were doing, okay.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So, August 1st.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Were you living at home?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So I had, I have so much baggages, it’s so hard to keep track of where I was at the time, but at the time I was back in my mom’s house after going out and being on my own, but getting kicked out of my house and all that stuff. But I was now back in the home because I was pregnant, and my boyfriend was kind of there, kind of not there. He was like playing around on the side, and so I could feel it slipping away. And so, he happened to be coming over that night. So he said, we’re going to the hospital. So we went to the local hospital that didn’t have all the… They didn’t have a maternity ward.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So they sent me to another hospital. And so, that hospital back in those days had it been now, they probably could have saved her. But I went into labor and about three or four hours later, I had her Bethany Megan, and she was about a pound, little over a pound. And so, that was devastating. I didn’t even know what I did. Looking back, I’m like, wow, I was so numb that I didn’t even know what I didn’t know. If I could go back and hug that 19 year old I would. So, they came in and read the last rights-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
So they knew she wasn’t going to survive?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So they knew she wasn’t going to survive. And so everyone had left after they read the last rights. And this was done by a priest, which kind of freaked me out because that wasn’t something that was part of my world. And so, I was a little, that kind of scared me, and my mom was there with her new boyfriend who I’d never met before. So that was weird also. And then I had this baby and now this baby is going to die. So that was also, the whole scene-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Was your boyfriend there?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
He was there. Yes he was. And my mom was more there with me than he was. He had to leave the room at certain times because he just was too much.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
And so then, he tapped out and then my mother would come in the room and, so they said when everyone left, they said, “Kim, do you want to hold the baby?” Normally, I would be, I don’t want anything to do with holding this baby, but something inside me said, “Kim, you need to do this.” So, I did it and I just sat there holding this little baby in my hand and I’m like, “Is this really happening?” It was almost like it was happening to someone else. And I couldn’t even, I was so messed up that I couldn’t even conjure up any kind of feeling.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
I’m like, okay, I know how I’m probably supposed to feel in this moment, but I have nothing. So, I did what it looked like I was supposed to do, because I had some kind of idea, and the drill trauma, I think it was on your podcast, the real trauma didn’t happen till later. You’ve talked about that in other episodes. So, we had a funeral and my boyfriend at the time took care of the whole thing and, it was a very nice service. And then right after that, immediately after that, he went his way to a friend’s house, and I went my way to a friend’s house and I proceeded to snore an eight ball with my friend because, I was going to mourn now, and I had permission who wouldn’t snore an eight ball after that?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Especially when you have no coping skills, I mean-
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
That was my permission slip. If this just happened to you, you’d do it too which was obviously the only way I could see it at the time did.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
And so, did you ever speak to him again?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Yes. Yes, I have. So, when I got sober this past-time, well I spoke to him during my first sobriety, it’s really choppy. I’m sorry about that. But during my first sobriety, he and I spoke, he told me he had gotten a stone for her grave, which was really nice. He came into some money and he was able to put a stone at the grave site because when we’re young, that young, we didn’t have that kind of cash, but he was able to do that, and that was beautiful. And when I got sober the second time, he came over and we had a brief, consider it like I was divorced.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
And he was going through a divorce and we reconsidered should we go on a date? And he asked me out on a date and we started off that date by going to the grave site. And I’m like, “Well, that probably wasn’t a good way to start things,” but we did. And then I said, “You know what? I can’t do this. I can’t.” But we remained friendly, and then through some series of events when I said, I can’t do that, I can’t pursue this. I felt like he wasn’t being respectful of my boundaries. And so since then we haven’t really spoken.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
So you talked about getting sober. So when did you get sober?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So the first time I got sober was 20.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Shortly after-
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Yes. After Bethany was born in April, I got sober. April of ’86 she was born, and in February of ’87, I was in a sober house. After going to a detox in Fall River Mass. So I got sober at 20, and it was the most awesome. I found my tribe of people, that’s all I can say. I felt like I belonged there and mind you I’ve been going to meetings with my mother too, so I knew the deal. It wasn’t anything that was foreign to me or that I was uncomfortable there. Most people knew me already, so it just seemed like a natural fit, and I felt accepted. I felt, “Wow, it did everything that booze did for me right in the beginning.”
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
I really felt that vibe and having heard your story. When you get sober young, you think it’s going to be terrible, but it was a blast. I consider my halfway house as my time away at college.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah, yeah, college, yeah.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So it was really great. I had a good time. And I learned how to live life without a drink. I learned a lot of things. I learned about accountability in the halfway house, and how to be part of a family, so to speak. How to make a dinner, how to make a bed, how to show up for meetings, all those fundamental things, how to get along with others, how to work things out. So it really was the best. I wouldn’t trade it for the world, and I’ve made a lot of lifelong friends that I still have today.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah, I have that same experience, and I mean it’s just one of those things where you just… It’s just a totally different experience than you think it’s going to be. Stay tuned to hear more in just a moment.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Hi, it’s Ashley, your beloved host. When I’m not hosting The Courage to Change: A Recovery Podcast, I’m running the recruiting department at Lionrock Recovery. We are always looking for amazing licensed mental health counselors, along with various other sales and operations positions that pop up from time to time. The Lionrock culture is one of collaboration, support and flexibility. Our employees work from home offices all over the country, utilizing technology to connect to one another. We are always hiring. So if you want to have the best job ever, check out our open positions and apply at www.lionrockrecovery.com/about/careers.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
How long did you stay sober?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So boy met girl on a campus, well and I got married, let’s just skip ahead. Boy met girl on a campus in 1989, and my ex-husband and myself got married in 1992.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Okay.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
He was total opposite of that first boyfriend. So I thought, well it’s going to work this time. He had a stable family, and I really intended for it to work, but alcohol had other plans for that as well. So stable family. I fell in love with his family. They were so generous and normal. Husband, wife, eight millimeter movies, all those things, the furniture matched. So they really took me in and they were very loving and oh, just the best great family. And he was a great man too. Very nice man.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
And unfortunately when it talks about boy met girl on a campus, most of these marriages are successful, but if there’s some underlying stuff going on that might challenge things. And so as you’ve just heard, I had a lot of underlying stuff going on, and he had some of his own stuff, which is none of my business, but he had some of his stuff too. So we met, we fell in love, we got married, he built this beautiful house in the country and I was like, Cinderella being ushered in and it’s like, “Wow, AA does give you so much.”
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
I was just like, “Oh, it’s so magical.” And then it was so magical that I became complacent and I stopped going to meetings, and I got pregnant and there was some vanity involved in that because I didn’t want people to see me when I was pregnant. So I kind of stayed home and then I had so much to keep me busy in this big house, like cleaning it and getting things to buy.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
My ex-husband also was someone who made it possible for me to stay at home once my son was born. But before we got married, and while I was still living with him, I was able to get a job at my first detox. So that was really awesome. So I was able to work up until the time I got pregnant. And then once I got pregnant, the meetings went away. I fired my sponsor, because I felt like she really… Because I told her, “Hey,” because we had been having some challenges, and then the next thing I’m telling her I’m pregnant.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
She’s like, “Kim do you think maybe that’s a good idea?” But it was kind of too late. So I didn’t like that she was highlighting to be cautious. And I said, “You know what?” I stopped talking to her. So then I cut that off. I cut off meetings and slowly… And that was in my first five years. I was pretty active. And then 5 years to 10 years, I was not at all active in AA, but I was active as far as spending, eating, fantasizing about wanting things to be better, restless, irritable and discontent despite everything that I had in front of me. A beautiful son, a nice husband, a nice place to live, all the trappings.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
I had it all and I’m like, “This sucks.” And then fear, that fear started coming back. It was during times when I hate to say this mass shooting started to be on the rise. And so I started thinking that these irrational fears, it’s crazy, but it happens. Like, I would be in a restaurant with my son and my husband, I’d be so fearful that something bad was going to happen to us.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I don’t think that’s irrational. I have those fears too.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
It happens.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
But there was no kind of reliance on anything to say or no ability to be able to calm myself down. So those fears started coming. And then that restless irritability, and discontent was kind of running the show. He also was in AA, and so he wasn’t going to meetings either. So you had two untreated alcoholics, looking for things outside themselves to make them feel good with an unlimited supply of… Not unlimited, but a good credit line and a little bit of money.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So like, “No, let’s sell this house and we’ll move to this house.” And I’m sure you’ve seen that and you’re like too, “Okay, let’s change where we live.” And then I’m like, “Hey,” and I had a sponsor who told me this. “Don’t have any more ideas. Okay.” I’d always say, “Hey, I got an idea.” And she’s like, “No, no ideas.”
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
No more ideas.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
But I had a lot of ideas. Like, “Oh, we have a son, I want to have a daughter.” Luckily I had a daughter, it was almost like I ordered it up and it was given. And so she was given. So we had moved, and it still didn’t feel quite like we felt much better. Had a baby. That didn’t work. We kept coming up with ways we could feel better, and nothing was working until one day when my daughter was six months old, and I was 10 years sober, or 10 years away from a drink, I had some after pains, like labor pains after childbirth, which were killing me.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
And with my son, I was able to wanted to those medications, make sure I did it the right way. The way AA taught me, was to have someone else hold them, or have someone else monitor them for accountability. But this time I took them, I kept them in the cabinet, and one day at six months, I forgot what it was. Oxy? No, it wasn’t oxycodone. It was an opiate. What was it? Perks? It was Percocets.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So I took some Percocets, and at six months sober I was going to see Styx in concert. So I thought, “I think I’m going to drink today. But why don’t I start off with taking some perks?” So I took some Percocets and then that really lit the fire. But what I wanted to say just prior to relapse, they talk a lot about nicotine dependence and how that can ignite a relapse. They talk a lot about it in the treatment centers where I have worked.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
And so I quit smoking when I was pregnant with my daughter. And what I was doing was I’d take off. During her first six months I’d take off and go and sneak a cigarette. Drive around and smoke a cigarette. And it woke up that excitement in me that I was getting away with something. I want to mention that in case anyone feels like they’re on that path, that excitement. Once that excitement got ignited, it was like, “Wow, what else could I do right?”
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right. Right.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Fear was no longer there. Excitement took its place. And so what I ended up doing was actually taking some Percocets, and I wasn’t someone who was big into opiates. Alcohol was my jam, so to speak. But once I took those, I felt like, “Wow, I can really tolerate anything right now.”
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
You know? It just felt good. And so that night I went out to the Styx concert, and sucked down some beers. And then because I was now 30 years old, I was of age to drink. And so I wanted to catch up for lost time. I wanted to go when every bar room, I wanted to drink at a wedding. Everything I couldn’t do, I was going to put on that alcoholic bucket list and get that done. So that’s what I proceeded to do. And it took me about three years of struggling and people watching me and I kept going to meetings. I kept getting that one day chip. In the meantime, my mother was diagnosed with lung cancer and she was stage four lung cancer.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
And so things weren’t looking too good for her as she was watching me in relapse mode and saying, “Don’t you dare drink over my grave.” And so I really didn’t want to drink over her grave. That was the last thing I wanted to do, but I was powerless. I think when I got sober at 20, my idea of the first step, powerless over alcohol, my life has become unmanageable. I switched it around to say, “Well, if I can get it managed by not drinking, then I might be able to have some power.”
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So it was more of an intellectual idea of the first step, but when I relapsed, it became more of an experience of what it really meant to be powerless, and what it really meant… What it really was like to exist in this unmanageability, I had no choice. It wasn’t up to me.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
What was going on with your kids at the time, because your kids were young?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Yeah. So my daughter was six months, and my son was about three years old when I picked up. And so I was a bar room drinker. My husband who also drank on the same night-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
He drank with you?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
I said, “I’m drinking tonight. You with me?” The night of the Styx concert. He said, “Kim, really?” I’m like, “Yep, I’m doing it.” He’s like, “All right.” So we both started drinking that day. And so he was an at home drinker, and I was a bar room drinker. And so he stayed home with the kids totally drunk. And I was out at the bar room, and I stayed until long after closing hours and I’d seek out whatever else I could.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Getting home at 2:00 AM was a good night. And it took me three days to recover. So I was home, but I wasn’t present. I remember my daughters first sentence was, “Mommy’s sick,” and it was like, “Ugh”. And another time when my son said, “Mom, can you come out to the living room? I made the couch just the way you like it so you can lay down.” So it’s like, “Oh my God.” And that still didn’t stop me. I got arrested.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Mrs. Richard from Main Street, U.S.A. Ms. sober got arrested for hitting my ex-husband in the head with a spatula. And I’m so glad I wasn’t chopping onions. I was just whipping an egg. I’m like, “This can’t be happening.” But it was happening. And I went back to AA and I rehired that sponsor. I said, “Hey, will you take me back?” She’s like, “Sure, I’ll take you back.”
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
But I kept going in and out and I kept changing my sobriety day and I kept getting my one day chips and I said, “There’s got to be something, how can I get this back?” It wasn’t optional. It was never optional, although I thought it was. So my kids were being neglected, they were being neglected. And I had no concept of that. I thought that if I threw a party with a Tele tubby theme for my daughter, and invited all her toddler friends and the parents and put on a good face, that that was my permission slip to go out, and drink and then we’d swear it off for good.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
And then my ex-husband would come home drunk, then I’d be like, “Oh good, now that’s my permission to go out and do my thing.” And so it was just a vicious cycle, and I just couldn’t stop. And at one point, my sister-in-law at the time said, she had never seen me drunk, and-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right, that was probably crazy for her.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
It was crazy. And so she was like if you don’t get it together, I’m calling DCF, for department of child and family to come because this is crazy. And so even hearing that, “Nope, didn’t stop me.” What had happened though is my ex-husband got sober again before me, and we had separated, which I was really excited about because then I could do what I really wanted to do. And that was live the bar room life to the fullest, which meant everything that went along with that too. And so I was out of there, out of that marriage.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
And so what had happened was he got sober and my son and daughter went with him on the weekend. This was my fantasy. He can take them on the weekend, and then I’ll be able to really have it all. I can have this life over here, and then try to keep it together during the week. And that was my goal. And so it had happened that I had to pick them up at a certain time, and I didn’t show up.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
And I was drunk, in a place I didn’t belong, with a person I didn’t belong with. And I had blown off my kids like I had been doing for the past three years. If I showed up minimally, I thought that I was the best mother in the world. So the next day I woke up and I’m like, “I’m in trouble. I’m in trouble deep.” This was my second attempt during those three years at a treatment.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
The first time I left against medical advice because my mother was babysitting, and I called her and she was coughing, and having difficulty breathing and watching my two kids so I could get sober. And they’re like, “Kim, you should really stay.” I said, “No, I have to go.” Just like I’ve heard so many times. There’s always that something at home that’s really pulling at you to go home. I have to go home. And this was perfect.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
My mother’s dying of lung cancer, I have to get back. And I was drunk within a couple of weeks of that. So anyway, the second detox my mother had died. And so there wasn’t that going on anymore. And what occurred to me when she did die was like Kim drunk or sober, it still happened. So life happens regardless of my sobriety status. So maybe it would have been better if you were sober.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So anyway, I got sober again at 33 years old in 2000, about nine months after my mother died. So my mother died in April and again sober in February.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
That’s a pretty wild synchronicity.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Yes. But the second time, and this is something I really feel strongly about, because I hear it a lot. When they relapse, when they get everything AA promised them and then they relapse, they feel like… Because for me, when I got sober the first time, the problem was removed and I was welcomed into AA and I felt like that was my tribe and it was magical and I belonged there. But the second time around I didn’t feel any of those feelings. And it was void of all that.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
And I wanted to drink so bad every single day and people would say, “You didn’t lose what you’ve learned.” And it’s like I really kind of had to lose what I learned, because I sounded really good at every meeting I ever went to.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right, right.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
I had it baby. I could talk circles around anyone and baffle them with all my knowledge, but my knowledge cannot keep me sober. And so I would speak, they would say, “Good job, good job.” And I’m like, “Yeah, good job.” Next thing you know I’d be drunk again. So when I went into the second detox just to get out of trouble, by the way, I kind of began to say to myself, “Kim, you need to forget everything you ever learned. You need to start over. You need to keep your mouth shut. You need to not dazzle everyone with how well you speak.”
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Because how much did I know if I kept getting drunk? I’m a drunk of a hopeless variety, and I can put frosting on that, but it still doesn’t make it any less true. So I tried to be quiet, I tried not to share too much and I tried to just really listen. Like I had never heard about a before and that seemed to work. That seemed to work. But it’s not until I got out of that detox, and my ex-husband picked me up with my two children because he watched them while I was in detox. He wasn’t my ex-husband at the time. We just separated. He watched them during my time in detox and after… Well, what do they call it? C.S.S, crisis stabilization services. That’s what they call it, Massachusetts now.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
But it was a 21 days at the time. And when I got out, I ran to my son and I hugged him and he cried, and we were crying and we were happy to see one another. And I hugged my daughter who was now… He was six and now she was three, and we made the journey home and my ex-husband left and the kids were here, and I had a lot of laundry to do. So I went down to the laundry room, and I wanted to drink so bad, even after that warm hearted reunion and all that emotion, I wanted to go to the local bar around the corner and get drunk.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
And I’m like, “Oh my God, I’m up against something way bigger than I am.” So I had a healthy respect for alcohol, but I also had the phenomenon of craving so bad that I didn’t think I was going to make it. But I understood that this is a whole new ball game. The progression of my disease demanded that I be really aggressive when it came to my recovery program this time around. And so that’s what I did.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Was that the last time you got sober?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Yes.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
And how long have you been sober?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So I just celebrated 20 years, February 6th.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Congratulations that’s amazing.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Thank you. Thank you.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Do your kids remember those? Maybe your son does those early days?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So I asked them that, because I’m concerned about that and I do talk a lot… I talk a lot about what it means to come from an alcoholic home, when my daughter might be questioning why she has certain reactions and feelings. And I’m like, “Well, you come from an alcoholic home and you probably weren’t given the kind of nurturing you needed. And maybe that’s why.” And I’ve even let her read the laundry list of Adult Children of Alcoholics, which kind of brought her to tears. So she’s strongly identified with that.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So hopefully it’s there if she wants it. And so she said, I don’t remember. She said, “All I know is that you were sober and I had a good childhood.”
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right, she doesn’t remember.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
And my son said the same thing. “I don’t remember when you were drinking.” So they don’t have any recollection, but I know they were affected by it anyway.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right. Right.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Obviously.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
What is your sobriety look like today?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So my sobriety today looks like I have a job in the field of recovery. As far as I attend meetings. I just talked to my sponsor before I talked to you, and we talked about the message that someone else might need to hear, might not be up to me, so to just speak whatever I can. Whatever comes out is what was meant to come out. And so she has to remind me of that a lot lately. That’s the theme lately.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
And so the message isn’t about me, it’s about maybe someone else needs to hear it. And so I talked to my sponsor regularly. I went through the steps a couple of different times, two times in a more disciplined fashion. And I try to maintain my spiritual fitness by practicing those steps to the best of my ability. And so that’s like the kind of work and sobriety. But as far as my life goes, as far as personally, I’m pretty, pretty content.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
There’s not a lot of chaos around and I’m okay with that. Most of the time I’ll stir some stuff up if I get a little bored. But it’s really pretty nice. It’s nice because it’s serene, and I have coping mechanisms now. I’ve gone through therapy for the trauma, that I’ve been through.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
That was my next question. Have you utilized therapy as a resource?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
I was in intense therapy for like eight years because along with alcoholism I had rageholism. And so it wasn’t something that-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Talk about that.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Well, I had really a lot of difficulty dealing with interpersonal relationships with my children. I had a lot of rage when my kids were younger, and I was someone who was just newly getting sober, and rage was my reaction to pretty much everything.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
What did that look like?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So it was a lot of slamming, a lot of taking off in my car, a lot of yelling, a lot of being a bully, and not being a very nice person to my children in those moments. Followed by extreme shame that I spiraled downward, and I felt like being a woman I shouldn’t be that angry. It’s not right to be a woman and a mother, and be that angry and rage filled. And the 12 steps wasn’t enough. And so someone said, “Hey, I’m going to this therapist and you’ll like her. She’s one of you.”
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Because we have the East Coast Big Book Step Study meetings. And so they’re pretty popular here. And then they have open AA. But it’s all good. You can’t fail, because you led to where you need to be at the time, you need to be there. But anyway, he said, “She’s one of you, she’s practiced the Big Book 12-step-way.” And I’m like, “Oh, okay.” Not that it mattered. I needed help.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So when he just said that to kind of like maybe dangle a carrot, I don’t know, but he said, “Go see or she’ll help.” And so I went to her, and she really helped me to get to the bottom line, is that my core belief was I didn’t like myself. The anger and the rage that I was projecting out against my children and anyone else, was a direct reflection of how I felt about myself and that was a game changer.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
And having a therapist who gave me skills to take with me when I left the office was huge. Like guided meditation, breathing, taking a time out. And this is when I still have a problem with loving the inner child. That’s really still sometimes difficult for me, but picturing myself, as a child and what would I like to see? And my internal parents, and all that stuff. So all of those things combined. I mean, she pulled every rabbit out of her that she could, and for eight years we work together, and the rage has been removed from me. It’s replaced by healthy anger that I try not to have spill onto other people.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah. That’s incredible.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Yeah. But the shame around being an angry rage filled woman, and a mother, that was, oof, something that no one talked about. It’s not talked about a lot in AA.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
And rageaholic isn’t talked about a lot. And I know they actually have meetings for that.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Really?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah. Yeah. It was something I heard about in treatment a long time ago.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Yeah. So it was something that I was very ashamed about and almost like closeted with. Like all the people that have been put in my path to help me along the way, that therapist was really key to my long-term recovery, because I don’t think, had I not addressed that stuff that shame, I don’t know what it would have done, but it feels like it was really, really hard to live with.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah. How did you get to the place where you wanted to write this meditation book?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So I was working in treatment centers. So I’ve worked in the field of recovery for like, God since my first job. Like I said, was in 1989. And I still work in the field, but I’ve taken a couple of years off to have my kids. But I was now four years sober. I was working in a local… We have a TSS, I don’t know if you know what that is. So that’s the level of treatment between inpatient and residential.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So a lot of times people, if their stay would be covered any longer by insurance in the inpatient treatment, so they’d have to go wait on the streets for their residential bed to open up. So in Massachusetts, we have holding facilities or what we call transitional support services where folks can go and stay their halfway house bed before their residential bed opens up.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So I was working here and I was four years sober. I was in another relationship and that relationship ended, because I didn’t really address the stuff and it’s still a little challenge in that area. But I didn’t really address my underlying stuff. And so when that person who I chose to call my higher power walked out the door, he didn’t want the job, but he had it.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
I hit the wall. It was like four years sober. I had that. I hit bottom again in recovery and I had what you might consider a nervous breakdown, where my hair was falling out, and I wasn’t even feeling like I was in my body and I lost so much weight, which was so awesome. But oh, that was the best part, it’s terrible. But anyway and I was just walking around numb. And so they wanted to commit me to the Rogers Unit, which is a psych unit in our area.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
But my boss stepped in when my friends at work said, “Kim, you got to go. You need to get in there.” And my boss stepped in and said, “No, her job is probably the only thing that’s keeping her going. Let her stay. I want her to stay and keep coming to work.” And so that’s what I did. I just kept showing up for work and those people just kept putting me back together. But what happened was one day, all these feelings about… The feelings of trauma, the feelings of worthlessness, the feelings of not liking myself, were kind of coming up in the music that I was listening to
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
The darker side of things, the darker nature, but the same songs were also empowering me to move forward. The energy of the song kept me going. So I was always very interested in how a song could change your mood. I’m like, “Wow. It’s really very fascinating to me, always.” And so at the time I was working, my coworker came in, his name is Scott and he was doing a group and he said, “Oh, I got to do one o’clock group. And you know how it is in residential.”
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Like if a crisis is going on and you have to do a group, you don’t have a lot of time sometimes to plan that group. And so he’s like, “You know what? I’m just going to do a music group.” He said, “This house is so negative. There’s so much negativity going on. We’re going to turn it around with a music group.” And I said, “Oh, that sounds good.” And I was known as the singing administrative assistant. I was constantly singing, constantly being scolded for having my radio too loud in my office, so I loved music.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
And so he was doing the music group, and after the music group was done, the energy in the place shifted, people were happy. And I thought to myself, “I said, too bad there wasn’t a way that we could have a way that these folks could take a music group with them when they leave because it helps me.” And the first thing when you’re doing a biopsychosocial on someone and you ask, “Okay, what helps you to cope?” The first thing they always say is music, or at least on the top three would be music, exercise, and I don’t know, you can pick the third one.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
But it’s like those are always the most popular. I said, “You know, there should be a meditation book about that. And so, you know what? I think I’m going to ask friends what they think their favorite meditation, what their favorite song is. And begin to build a library of songs and what it means to people.” So that was the original version. And then people didn’t want to, or I’m like, “Where’s your song?” And they’re like, “No. I’m busy tonight.”
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So I said, “You know what? I’m going to do it.” So that’s what I started to do is collect songs along with my children. We’d be driving in the car or they’d be the backseat. We’d be speeding along and they’d say, because I’m from Massachusetts, so I’m not going the speed limit, but speeding along. And I’d say, “Oh, there’s a good song. And we’d pull over and we’d write it down.”
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
And so they were with me on this whole journey from the beginning. So that’s what inspired me to begin writing. And there was many different reasons to continue writing. And it evolved into what you see today.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
That’s so cool. And your book is on Amazon.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Yeah. So my book is on Amazon. It came out December, 2018. And yeah, you can buy it on Amazon for 15.99 and it’s really cool. And I also wrote it with a helping professional in mind as well, to be able to do the music group on the fly. So all you really have to do is copy the page, download the song, and you have yourself a group, which makes life a lot easier, especially in residential because they can get crazy as you know.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
And one of your children is in recovery as well?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Yes. So I’m blessed to be a triple winner, right?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Triple winner.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
But along with the legacy alcoholism, we now have the legacy of recovery, and my mother bestowed that on us too. So she was the first person get in to AA. And I have a few sober family members, and now my son and one of his cousins is sober too in AA. So we’re going out on third generation. So he’s been sober a little over a year. He’s writing his fourth step now, and working with a sponsor. And that was quite a journey. And I really had to learn about detachment, and I’d been going to Al-Anon for a long time. Only the faces changed as far as like who’s the next qualifier. But that was the most challenging and heartbreaking journey.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Oh, I’m sure.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
But the other thing is, even if that doesn’t continue, I know that my wellness doesn’t depend on his recovery. My okayness doesn’t depend on him being okay. We’re not enmeshed like that. Whereas before, I would take on that energy when he was hung over, it’s like, I’d feel hung over. It was really a weird phenomenon. But now I know despite his recovery status, I have to be separate from that and live my own life. So that’s the biggest gift of Al-Anon.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah. That’s amazing. That’s amazing. Well, you have an amazing story. Thank you so much for coming on here, and sharing it with us. And I’m sure lots of people are going to relate to various parts and follow up with your book. It is Rock-covery: Not Your Mother’s Meditation Book, and they can find you on Instagram @recoverymeditationbook, or Facebook Rock-covering: Not Your Mother’s Meditation Book. Is that right?
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Yeah. So it’s R-O-C-K C-O-V-E-R-Y. So Rock-covery. Yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I love it. It’s so awesome. Your story is really amazing and I think there’s so many different components from the religious trauma, to the sexual trauma, to your mom getting sober and all the different pieces.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
There’s not enough time. I think we’re all very multi-faceted.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah, yeah. It’s so much to unpack and it’s so much there, but the solution is almost always the same. It’s almost always community, doing deep inner work, finding your own inner peace and peeling the onion that is ourselves to find the core and it’s a lifelong journey.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Yes. And having a trusted support group around you to be able to do that is like asking for help, and there’s so much available today. There’s so much so you never have to be alone. And that’s the biggest gift of all.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
It’s wonderful.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
We have a built-in community for the rest of our lives.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
We’re very lucky.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Who can say that?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah. Very lucky. Well thank you so, so much.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Thank you for having me.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I look forward to keeping in touch, and definitely we’ll have to talk about what Tom Brady’s decision is for coming year.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Yes. Definitely.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
So we will stay in touch for that.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Absolutely.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
All right Kim, thank you so-
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
So glad to be this elephant.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yes, yes. Thank you so much for coming in, and for sharing your story and your vulnerability with us, we really appreciate it.
Kim Jorgensen-Richard:
Thanks for having me. Have a good day.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Thanks. This podcast is sponsored by Lionrock Recovery. Lionrock provides online substance abuse counseling, where clients can get help from the privacy of their own home. They’re accredited by the joint commission and sessions are private, affordable, and user-friendly. Call, their free helpline at 800-258-6550 or visit www.lionrockrecovery.com for more information.