"You know what? Good people can also struggle. I am a good person and I also am a felon, and that's okay. The church is doing so well at moving towards less judgment and I feel so thankful that I get to be a part of that. That I get to share my story without shame. To try and help people realize that forgiveness is all encompassing. We don't have to carry the shame. We don't have to be afraid of who we are and what our past is. I can stand at the pulpit and tell them my story, because I'm whole, I've been forgiven. Why am I gonna keep shame? Why am I gonna be embarrassed about it? I've overcome something."
Transcript
ASHLY
Laura, I am so excited to have you on the podcast. This is such a full circle moment for both of us right now. For anybody listening, I'm sure you remember me mentioning the Kuchen family that let me come into their home when I had to turn myself into the Tent City Jail in Arizona to face my charges.
It just so happened that the dad in the family, David, he was a judge at the time, and he used to drive me to Tent City and drop me off to go sleep at the jail. Well, we just so happen to have the honor of having David's sister, Laura on the podcast today. And it's so exciting because I remember them talking to me about you. This was what, 10, 11 years ago?
So it's just so cool to have this full circle moment of having you on the podcast. So welcome, [00:03:00] Laura.
LAURA
Thank you. Appreciate it.
ASHLY
So excited to have you on. So tell us a little bit about you, just a little bit of background,
LAURA
I have four kids. I'm married. I grew up in the church. I had a super awesome upbringing.
I think like most people that have been raised in the church, it's somewhat sheltered, I don't feel like I had a great knowledge about addiction or anything like that, but I had an amazing upbringing, and parents that have just been great through everything. I've done hair my whole life. I get to talk to people, I feel like I'm just a therapist, right? You get to share with a lot of people.
I'm not a therapist, that's not what I mean. But you just get the opportunity to talk to a lot of people one-on-one, and with the perspective I have from being on the other side of addiction and 10 years in recovery now, it presents such an amazing opportunity for me.
ASHLY
Well, let's jump into your story. I'm excited to hear it because I've heard bits and pieces over the years, but I'm excited to hear the whole [00:04:00] thing.
LAURA
So, growing up, in high school, I didn't party. I was a good kid for the most part. I mean, obviously I wasn't perfect.
There were things my parents probably didn't know, but for the most part, I was just your typical LDS kid. I think with that, I don't know that I had like a super strong testimony myself. It was always just rooted in my parents.
Fast forward, I have my daughter at 18, my oldest, and her dad and I did not stay married, so then I got remarried. Ended up having three more kids in that timeframe. There were a couple different surgeries that happened to where I had pain medication, and I always remember liking the feeling of it, like it never made me tired or groggy.
Like most people, it did the opposite. It gave me a boost. It made me feel so happy. Like life was just amazing, but it was never something that was a temptation outside of I didn't have pain anymore. I didn't need the pills and I didn't take them, but I kinda [00:05:00] remember like a little bit before I had my son, who’s now 13 — life got so stressful in the sense that I was working full time. I had three different callings. My husband was Young Men's president in our ward. We were just running a million miles an hour. And I remember feeling like, I can't do all this, but yet I should be able to do it all, and I want to be able to do it all and do it well.
But I'm drowning here. I did not know how to communicate that. And I grew up with a mom who just was a frigging powerhouse, right? She was amazing. So in my mind, that's what a strong, good woman does. They just do and they don't complain. And they go to work and they just do it all and they're just with a smile and happy, you know?
And anyway, I put this pressure on myself. It came from myself, nobody told me those things, but you just grow up and you gain those core beliefs and a lot of 'em are not good core beliefs unfortunately. I end up having Grady, and I remember [00:06:00] before I got pregnant with him, here and there, I had those leftover pain pills from various surgeries. And I remember taking one after a long day of hair and my back was killing me and thinking, oh my goodness. Like this is just like a reward at the end of the week. Some people go out and have a beer kind of thing. And I remember in my mind, like justifying, “I just need an escape.” Like, “I cannot handle what is going on right now.”
So I end up getting pregnant with Grady. All is well. I'm prescribed pain pills after he's born. You know addiction, now we all know about fentanyl. We all know about pain medication and how risky that can be. But 13 years ago, we weren't talking about addiction the same way. I had no concept that I could get addicted to something that was prescribed to me, honestly. I would've thought I was stronger than a pill, that I could stop if I wanted to.
So I remember using that pain medication, and it was prescribed because of [00:07:00] an epidural injury, basically. I had to have an epidural like four or five different times. I had some nerve damage that was just temporary, but that's why it was prescribed. It was probably more of a prescription than I really needed.
I was prescribed 60 Percocets. That's a lot right? For that scenario, I would say. I would take one at night or when I was in extreme pain, and instantly within 10 minutes, I would feel no more pain and I would feel like, “Oh my gosh, I wanna clean my house. I wanna take my kids to the park like I'm the best wife.” “Oh my gosh, I got this,” right? And in my mind I just thought, “This is temporary, and it's okay.” It did not even dawn on me the risks and what would follow.
Fast forward about two months. I'd been taking at least, you know, one-ish every day, or around there. And when I went to stop, I was sick, like even within that short amount of time. [00:08:00] I was physically sick, but I was also extremely mentally and emotionally craving that release, that escape.
So I had a friend of mine who wanted to get her hair done and I said to her, “I don't know what withdrawal is or if this could even make me sick, but I ran out of them, and I can't even hardly get out of bed. I am not well. I'm not okay.” And I mean, the depression, the darkness of that … because by that point, your dopamine's already getting messed with.
All those pleasure chemicals are already struggling or, you know, aren't being produced the same. She's like, “Hey, I'll just bring you a couple and you can see. I have some.” So she brought them over. Obviously she wanted her hair done right?
So she brings me a couple. I take one, and within 15 minutes, I feel like a million bucks again. That just cemented it. I don't know what flipped in me, but that little pill was the answer to my problem, and I thought, “I'll be able to end this [00:09:00] whenever.” So I think at that point I went and got another prescription.
I knew that was probably the last one that I would get from my doctor because I didn't want people to know I was embarrassed, and I thought, “Okay, I'm gonna get one more prescription and I'm just gonna wean down myself, and I'm gonna fix this.” And I think that prescription was gone within a week or something and then I started asking around. I had a friend of mine who I knew was, um, colorful in what she chose to do. And so I said to her, like, “Hey, do you have any of these? My back is really a problem.” I just would make up a sob story that was not really true. And I think I did that to a few people, friends, and they, oh yeah, “Here's a couple,” “Here's a couple.”
Eventually she just said, Hey, I have a person who I think sells 'em. Do you want his number? And so she gave me this person's number, and that was the start to the end for me, because the secret is where the sickness lies, right? I didn't have to tell anybody, I didn't have to fill [00:10:00] a prescription that was documented at the pharmacy that somebody could potentially see.
This person was not somebody in my life that I knew. He knew nobody I was connected to. So I could just go and buy them without anybody really knowing. My husband and I at the time had a savings account that was just in an account that I'd had from high school that he never saw. I think I went through about $27,000 within like six months or so, just buying them. I say that now and I think, “How in the world could I not have … I need help.” Before that, you know, but I was so mortified and embarrassed about myself and what had happened, and I would watch videos like, how do I get off of pain medication?
I would go buy 50 of them and think this is the last 50 I will ever purchase and I'm gonna wean myself off. And I would start trying to follow what the videos would tell me. Then those 50 would be gone in a week. I got sucked in so [00:11:00] quickly.
ASHLY
Did your husband have any idea what was going on?
LAURA
In the beginning, no. And here's why. He knew that I was acting a little bit strange. But I had a baby. I blamed everything on postpartum depression. My sleeping, my roller coastering, I just blamed it on postpartum. And I was struggling with postpartum.
The pain medication was making it 10 times worse, I'm sure. I just slid it under the radar under that.
It went on for a while. And when he finally found out was because I had blown through all that money and my dealer at the time would let me run a thousand dollars tab. So I had gone from one dealer, he'd pawn me off to the next dealer, and with each dealer change, I went from Percocet 10 to fifteens to thirties, and they were $20 a pill.
After about six months of it, I was taking anywhere from 10 to 20 of them a day, on a good day. Whatever money I could scrounge up, and my [00:12:00] dealer would let me run a thousand dollars tab, but when I hit that a thousand dollars, he was like, “Nope, not until I get a payment.” So desperate times would call for desperate measures because I'd start getting sick.
At that point my husband had kind of caught on that I was going through money a lot, that every grocery bill was three or $400, 'cause I was getting cash back. So he kind of reigned that in a little bit, but I don't think he suspected addiction still.
So I would tell my hair clients like, “Hey, I don't have money for even the product, but if you want to pay me half up front, I'll go grab all the product.” So they would do that and it just got like ridiculous, honestly. But the thing that kind of brought it out of the dark was we were house sitting for his sister.
She lived next door and I had gone into her garage to feed animals, put the mail inside. And I remember seeing a debit card sitting over on the bookcase or the desk in their kitchen and I thought, “I wonder if it's her garage PIN.” My [00:13:00] door, my PIN, my everything was all the same.
And so I thought, I'm gonna call Chase and see if it works, if it gives me access to her account. If this doesn't tell you how sick you become once that sickness sets in, it doesn't matter who you harm, it doesn't matter who you steal from, all that matters is making that stop.
So I called the bank with a blocked number, but sure enough it let me into her account. So I went down to the gas station in Queen Creek and took $500 out of her bank account. I assumed that I would be on camera doing so. They were out of town, so I thought, “Well, I have a day to come up with some lie or something,” I don't know.
I went and got my $500 worth of pills. I went and paid some of it down and got more pills. Once I started feeling better, I started panicking because I wasn't sick anymore and I realized, “Oh dear. How am I gonna get out of this?” I remember making up some bogus lie about our cleaning lady was on the side of the road with a broken down car and had given [00:14:00] me a debit card to go get money to pay the tow truck driver ...
I had made this most elaborate. Isn't that crazy?
ASHLY
The lies we tell when we're in our addiction, like just the crazier the better.
LAURA
Yeah. And you think, “Oh no, everyone's gonna believe this.” It's actually disturbing. I became like a master liar. They called the police obviously to report this. They didn't know it was me at first. They called us and said, “We think somebody took mail out of our mailbox. I was waiting for a debit card coming, a replacement card or something, and we think somebody must have taken it. Not sure. Have you guys seen anything?” And so the panic instantly sets in. And this was only about an hour after it happened. I thought I was gonna have a day or two before they figured it out.
Anyways, fast forward. I knew I had been there. I knew I was gonna be on camera, so I came out and said this story, which ultimately I told on myself because they did have me in the store, but they did not have me at the ATM.
There wasn't even a camera at the ATM, but I assumed there was. That kind of thing. And so they asked me, “Well we're gonna [00:15:00] ask the cleaning lady,” or “Do you have any receipt of any of this stuff you're talking about?” I'm like, “Well no.” Anyways, it became very clear, obviously my story would change every time I told it. I think they all knew I was lying at that point.
So stuff got really uncomfortable around the house. I just quit going to any family things. I started staying away from home as much as I could. I, at that point, would be out at my dealer's house all the time, just leaving my kids to be with babysitters. So about a month went by and I was coming home from the gym, and I had Grady at the time, so he was not even one yet.
I had him in the car with me. I pulled into my driveway and a car pulled in behind me. Two men got out and said, “Are you Laura Kumar?” And I said, “Yes, I am.” And they said, “We're here to talk to you about some money that went missing.” And at that point, they said, “If you'll talk to us about it, we'll help you hopefully not get in as much trouble.”
So I'm just thinking, “Okay, I'm just gonna tell him then, because I don't [00:16:00] wanna get in trouble” kind of thing, or as much trouble. So I get arrested, obviously. They basically said, “You have about five minutes to get somebody here for your son.” And I remember at that point my father-in-law—I ended up calling him—he was the only one that was near enough to get there, and I didn't want them to take Grady and take him to foster somewhere, so he hurried over. I remember him asking the officers, 'cause I just had workout clothes, I was in like a tank top and shorts, and he is like, “Can I please get her something to cover up?”
And they said no, they would not let him. And I thought, “That's weird. Like, why does he even care?” It didn't dawn on me. So I go down to jail. I basically talked the whole way there and told him everything, which all got used against me. It took 48 hours for me to get booked through the system because I'd never been in trouble before.
I didn't actually even make it to the actual jail. I just stayed in the intake jail down in Phoenix, and then they released me. My dad picked me up [00:17:00] and in my purse I had pills and they had taken my purse into custody, and I thought for sure I was starting to get sick at that point.
It's 48 hours later and I'm a mess. I go to get my purse. They had taken them, so that was another charge, because I had stuff that was not my prescription, not documented. So possession of narcotics basically. I got put on unsupervised probation from there. It just was one thing after the next.
I started shoplifting TVs from Walmart to pay for my addiction. I would give them to my dealer. He would give me half of their value. I would steal a vacuum from Walmart, take it back to Costco and return it. I just became this professional thief. I thought I was professional.
I was not really good at it at all because I got caught time after time, and every time I got caught, it was a little bit more and a little bit more time. But the problem was I would be in for 10 days here and there, and I would start to feel a little bit better. The withdrawals in jail, I'd [00:18:00] go through 'em.
They were terrible. But the second I'd get out, , I'd wanna go find pills. That wasn't enough time for my brain to do any healing. So, you know, that just kind of reiterated this, “I am pathetic. I've been away from it for 10 days. Why can't I stay away?”
At this point I was just not ever around my family really at all. I moved in with my drug dealer, basically started kind of dating him, if you will. I would steal from him as much as I could, and that became an extremely toxic situation. Fast forward, a couple more jails.
I ended up getting sentenced to six months in Tent City. That was really the part where my story changed because at that point I was in custody for four and a half months and my brain had enough time to start the healing process, and so I started feeling better. About three months in, I started feeling like myself again.
I had a little glimmer of hope that maybe I can continue this [00:19:00] because , I felt like myself completely at that point. Um, So,,
ASHLY
For those who don't know what Tent City is, it is where I went to. So tell listeners about Tent City.
LAURA
Okay. So Sheriff Joe Arpaio was this guy. His motto was, “If you treat 'em like dogs, feed them like dogs, maybe they won't come back.” So they did everything they could to make you miserable. We lived outside, and actually I ended up choosing to go into the tents because they would give you two for one.
You'd work one day and get credit for two days served. So that would get me out quicker. And at the point that I'd been in for a month and a half and I was literally starting to go crazy. You don't go outside, they don't turn the lights off. You're showering and going to the bathroom in a room.
So you're sitting next to somebody on a toilet. It just was very demeaning and just rough. I felt like at least if I go to the tents, I can get a job right? 'Cause everybody there had to work. It was like military tent [00:20:00] with bunk beds. I was in Tent City from May through September in Arizona, which is horrible. And I mean, we had some pretty good monsoons. I remember just thanking Heavenly Father for these monsoons that year because they would at least cool it down a little bit.
We lived in these huge tents and there were 20 bunk beds under each one. I think there were eight or nine tents outside. Everybody out there had to have a job, so I ended up applying for the Maricopa County Animal Safe Haven unit, which was evidence dogs that would get taken in or fight ring cases, or that kind of stuff.
And they all got housed at a condemned jail in downtown Phoenix. So we would get picked up at six in the morning. And get dropped back off at 6:00 p.m. So that was my saving grace, was I was indoors all day getting to take care of these animals. I ended up losing a bunch of weight, because I had put on a ton.
And the working and the being physical, I felt like jumpstarted that dopamine and those chemicals rebounding and healing, which [00:21:00] was actually so crucial for my healing. I worked with people at rehab now and it's like three months later. They still feel like garbage.
It takes such a long time for that process to heal or to start. And so people will be sober for three, four months and it's like, why am I bothering? I still feel like garbage. This is daunting. But I started feeling a lot better. I used to say that jail is what got me sober, and I don't really feel like it's what got me sober, because there were a lot of drugs in there.
I had a cellmate who swallowed some— 'cause she knew she was coming in—a balloon full of heroin ruptured in her stomach and she was overdosing. And I found her. There was drugs all over there. People brought it in. So had I wanted to use, I could have, but at that point I was so done.
It had been almost three years of hell, literal just hell, and I just was done. And so it provided an opportunity for me to be away from my environment, and I was so [00:22:00] afraid of getting caught and having to stay there longer. There was nothing that I would do to break a rule, anything because I just wanted to go home when I was able to go home.
So I got out in September. I thought all is well. We're done. And then in October, my attorney called me and said, “Hey. I just found out you have a warrant for your arrest.” It was a DUI that was 18 months prior that they never sentenced me on because they give themself time for toxicology to come back.
So they'd never sentenced me on it. And so he said, unfortunately, because this is so many felonies within a short time, this is gonna be mandatory prison time. , I just remember at that point being really upset with Heavenly father. “Why do I need to leave my kids again? Why do I need to go away? I stayed sober.”
May of 2014 is my sobriety date, and I didn't use. I went back into prison. I didn't use in between that. I stayed [00:23:00] sober, but I remember just feeling like this just doesn't seem fair. I could have been serving time for this the whole time I was in Tent City also, and I really didn't understand why I needed to go away again.
I felt like my kids were the ones that were gonna suffer more than me. I didn't question whether God was real. I've never doubted that. I questioned whether He knew what he was doing. I don't get this kind of thing.
So my attorney kept me out, like postponing and filing extensions to keep me out, through Christmas. I ended up having to self-surrender. I had open charges in Maricopa County and Pinal County at that point. So I self-surrendered into Pinal County because my attorney felt super impressed that was where I needed to go to get sentenced.
So I went there and he showed up at my court date in Maricopa County on the same day that I self-surrendered. I had a court date in Maricopa, and he just told them, she's getting taken into custody there. So they just said, “All right, we'll just deal with her in a while.”
I thought I was looking at four and a half years, it’s what I was originally being told. [00:24:00] Through a series of my attorney just listening to the Spirit, and I just genuinely at that point had hit rock bottom.
The night that I went in, I was so overwhelmed with grief. I remember I physically could not even stand, I was so just wracked with the realization of four and a half years, like four and a half years from your kids, you know? And I had promised my kids when I went into Tent City, “I will never do something again to take me away. And that's a promise.” And I didn't do anything again. But you don't get to choose your consequences when you make these choices.
So I remember that night, I didn't have a cell mate that first night, and I remember the grief being just so heavy that I just was on my knees. I remember just saying like, “Where the heck are You? How are You [00:25:00] letting this happen again? I've been doing so good. I've stayed sober. Why, why is this happening?” And I remember asking like, “Where are You? Why are You not helping me?” And I remember just literally hearing like, “I've been here all along. I've just been waiting for you to come to Me.”
And in that moment, the grief that I felt, the heaviness for what my kids were gonna go through, it just, it lifted. I felt this overwhelming sense of peace, and I knew that it was in His hands. I knew that He was aware of whatever was happening and that it was His will, and my whole addiction, I didn't pray 'cause I didn't feel worthy of it.
I was almost afraid of, “What if I get an answer and I can't do it? What if He does try and help me and I'm too weak to be successful?” So I just didn't even ask for help. I just shut that out altogether. Like I said, I moved in with my dealer. It [00:26:00] was a horrible scenario.
So I end up going to court. My attorney, like I said, felt the Spirit about how it needed to go down. He ended up having 70 people show up on my court date, just loved ones, and wanted to show the judge how much support I actually had. Everybody wrote letters, but it ended up my daughter, my oldest Brooklyn, who was a teenager at this point, was in that court date, and she had written a letter to the judge.
And the judge basically said, all of these letters are great, whatever, but the letter that stands out to me and the letter that lets me know that you need to get home is this letter from your daughter. He had me turn around and look at everybody at that point and just take in, “How many people love you? What are you doing?” You know, he was amazing.
So I got sentenced to the minimum amount of time that I possibly could have, which was 18 months. What a blessing. I thought I was going away for four and a half years. In Arizona you serve 85%. So that was 13 months that I was gonna serve, and I was gonna be back home [00:27:00] to my family, like a lot quicker than I thought.
While I was in prison, I was happy. I knew Heavenly Father was with me at that point. I had that moment in my cell where He literally spoke to me. And so I was able to do prison time. I read the whole Book of Mormon. I ended up getting a job teaching school in there to people who hadn't had the privilege of being able to pass eighth grade.
That was such a healing thing for me because as a mom, it's like, “I'm just wasting my time in here.” But I felt I had a purpose, right? I was teaching people school and helping them pass classes, and tests. I ended up running a marathon while I was in prison.
I just was like, I'm not gonna let this time go by and just sit here and waste my time. I can't do anything to be with my kids or my family. The only thing I can do is work on me. That's it. That's all I could do in there. So I just set about, physically, spiritually, [00:28:00] mentally, emotionally.
Like I became the best version of myself I'd ever been. There were drugs in there too. It never phased me at that point. I knew with His help that I would stay okay. And my relationship with Him—I went from having formal prayer, it was really important growing up to say “thee” and “thou” the right way.
And I'm not saying that's not important, but I remember one time praying and I think I said it like the wrong context. I think I said like thou instead of thee or something. And I was like, “Heavenly Father, sorry, you know, I'm not trying to be disrespectful. And I was like, you know what, nevermind. This is ridiculous.” Like, He just wants us to pray to Him. He doesn't care what we call Him. He doesn't care, if it's formal. Just reach out, just open that relationship. And so I remember it became a friendship really, instead of this formal, glorified being that felt so far away.
I feel like it became my best friend in there. I was afraid to get close to [00:29:00] anybody really, because there were fights and things like that all the time going on, and I didn't want my time to get extended. Or my visitation with my kids to get taken or my phone privileges. I had one friend in there, and that was it, and the rest was heaven. My father was my friend, basically in there. I don't know. I grew. I had people ask me all the time, like, “How are you happy in here? You're always happy.” I'm like, “Why not? I get to choose. I get to choose to be happy,” and feeling like myself.
When I had been in active addiction, the depths of the darkness of addiction. Even being in prison, but being not shackled to pain pills, felt like such a relief. And I think when you recognize that your Savior is there, that I don't have to carry this anymore.
The Atonement is for me. It is for this very thing. I just felt the weight of the world off of my shoulders at that point.
ASHLY
It's crazy how you can feel more [00:30:00] free in prison than you feel when you're on drugs. More freedom when you're actually locked up than the shackles of the pills. Yeah. The thing that you said that just stuck out to me so much, and it's a common theme in a lot of stories, is that you felt the Spirit tell you, like, “I've been here all along. I've been waiting for you to come to me.”
LAURA
So fast forward. Prison, like I said, I don't wanna ever go there again, but I wouldn't take it out of my story. And I'm so thankful for the perspective that it gave. I think being raised LDS, I realized. Some of the girls that I was teaching, I would think I wasn't judgmental. I'd think that like I'm a good person, but I remember thinking, “You don't know what two times three is? How is that even possible?”
And so come to find out, they didn't get to go to school because they were covered in bruises, and 'cause they were being abused, or one of my students' [00:31:00] moms was selling her for heroin at the age of eight. So she quit going to school. So I realized at that point, like there's a lot more out there than I realized. And it changed my heart in the sense that I am the most empathetic; I judge nothing and nobody, because it was so eye-opening to realize that .
While I had struggled for a few years, there are people who struggle their entire life it's no wonder they end up in prison and they stay in prison and they come right back to prison because they've been set up to fail by their parents. And those people's parents were probably set up to fail by their parents.
They didn't have the blessings that I did, and so that just was forever cemented. I'm just so thankful for the perspective that I've been given and blessed with because of what I went through. I wouldn't trade it. I don't ever wanna go back, but I wouldn't take it out of my story. I really wouldn't.
So I got outta prison and it's been, you know, life's been [00:32:00] lifeing. It has its ups and downs, and it's tough. I got out. I was really super active in the beginning, and then when I got home from prison, I moved in with my parents, but I knew I was gonna probably be getting married soon. My husband and I got divorced when I went to prison and all of that. Rightfully so. He was just done with it. So I started dating my husband now while I was in active addiction, and he just stuck by me through prison.
So I knew I was gonna be getting married pretty quickly after I got out. At least I thought it was quite a bit longer than I thought it would be. But, so I waited to do my repentance process. Once we got married and moved into our ward so that I could just do it and stay with the same bishop and stake president and all of that.
So I went through that process, and I look at repentance and having a court as a blessing. I feel like they're there to help. They're there to be a conduit back to Him, and that's what it was really. I wasn't mad about it. I knew it was just a formal process [00:33:00] that needed to happen, and I was grateful that it was even an option.
I cannot imagine that if the Atonement wasn't a thing, you know, and not only just to be forgiven of my own sins, but I had so much work to do to make amends to the people I had harmed. I stole from every family member in my family. I was the worst human when I was in active addiction, and I'm so grateful that the Atonement allows forgiveness , and from others as well.
So married, there have been times where we kind of were inactive for quite a while. I stayed active for a long time. I hadn't been to the temple or taken the sacrament in 12 years. Finally my bishop just was like, you need to start taking the sacrament.
This is actually ridiculous. There's gonna be more blessings from taking it than you withholding still. Let's just, let's do that. So while I worked through my repentance process, I was able to start taking the sacrament again [00:34:00] and you become different, I feel like, when you don't take it for such a long time.
I remember just telling myself, like, “I'm fine without it, obviously, because I haven't taken it in 12 years and I'm okay.” But when you get to start taking it again, I realized, what I was missing. Just the ability to actually have a physical thing that I could do weekly, that felt like I was being forgiven and made clean every single week, was so powerful.
It was something that once I started, I really recognized that I was missing. But we were just inactive. We just faded out a little bit. That was for five-ish years off and on. I'd had many reasons to go to the temple, but I didn't feel called back to it.
When I went to prison, I didn't have my garments, so I got out of the habit of that. And again, I felt like I was fine because what option do you have? And being away from it for such a long time, you really do kind of [00:35:00] forget the blessing and the significance and what that means.
My son finally came to me in November. He was getting married the beginning of November. He said, “Mom, are you gonna come to my wedding?” When he left on his mission, I did not go through the temple with him.
My ex-husband has been amazing. He's super great. Dad and my kids have had that constant support with him. But I didn't go. And so in September when he asked me, I just said to him, “I don't feel like a social event is the right reason, but I will pray about it.” I remember praying about it and getting the answer that, “You need to go talk to your bishop.” My bishop is my husband's cousin's husband and he had taught Brooklyn Seminary, and I just was kind of like, “Eh, I'm not sure,” you know, but I got this answer loud and clear that I needed to go meet with my bishop.
And I thought, “All right, of course he's gonna tell me to put my garments on. He is gonna tell me to go to the temple.” So I show up at his house and when I walked in, and I remember the [00:36:00]night before I had said to my Heavenly Father in prayer, “I will go, but I don't sometimes know when it's the Spirit talking.”
My trauma intuition, like I get confused. I feel confused a lot, and I doubt myself and those are things I'm working on. I just basically said, “You're gonna have to hit me upside the head with the answer, Heavenly Father, 'cause if you leave it up to my trying to be able to decipher feelings, I may not be able to.”
I walk in and my bishop says to me, “In preparation for this meeting today, I just feel super impressed to start with this scripture.” And he reads D&C 84:88 to me, and it's the scripture that says, “And whosoever receiveth you there, I will be also. For I will go before your face. I'll be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and my angels round about you to bear you up.”
The reason why that scripture even was so significant was when I would call home when I was struggling, [00:37:00] my mom would quote that scripture to me every single time. I knew in that moment, there is no way that my bishop could know. That is the only scripture I can even quote or that I even know, right?
I hadn't been reading scriptures, right? I just immediately knew, He hears my prayers, and He answers them in a way that I can understand when I asked Him to. There was no doubt, that was so clear to me that I knew what I needed to do, and that the answer was I needed to go back to the temple.
I'm so thankful for leaders who are worthy to have the Spirit to get me back because I don't know, had it just been a normal interview, I don't know that I would have, but this was crystal clear to me. So I met with him and met with my stake president, and I just said to them, I know we're short, time-wise; if I don't make it to my son's wedding, [00:38:00] that's okay. I know I need to go back to the temple either way. And they were like, “Nope, you need to go. You need to be in his wedding. You need to be there.” So , I got my recommend, went to his sealing, and I cannot tell you the feeling of being back in the temple.
I know that I had been forgiven and I know the grace that was extended, but to just have that moment of being back in full fellowship, I have all of my blessings restored. We can go through hard things. We can be horrible, the worst human, and He still loves us and He still waits patiently for us to come back.
It's been awesome going to the temple. It's been great. I actually was just recently asked to be an ordinance worker, so it's been amazing. I ended up just speaking at Stake Conference a few weekends ago because addiction's rampant. I don't know any household that isn't either being touched [00:39:00] by it in one way or another by somebody in their family or something. I don't know what the right word is, almost a duty, if you will, to wanna try and help people see it different. I'm an ex-convict, I'm a felon, but those words typically have a negative connotation, right? They, they stand for something negative. And I think we need to teach our kids, or even just within the church, that you know what? Good people can also struggle. I am a good person and I also am a felon. You know it, and that's okay.
I think the more we can have these honest conversations, the church is doing so well at moving towards less judgment. I feel so thankful that I get to be a part of that, that I get to share my story without shame. To try and help people realize that forgiveness is all encompassing.
We don't have to carry the shame. We don't have to be afraid of who we are [00:40:00] and what our past is. I can stand at the pulpit and tell them my story because I'm whole, I've been forgiven. Why am I gonna keep shame? Why am I gonna be embarrassed about it? I've overcome something. A lot of people don't, and that's awesome.
I don't know. I get people that say all the time too with judgment, “Oh, you must be an LDS, and having gone to prison, you must be so judged. Your church people must be terrible to you.”
ASHLY
I can't wait to hear what your thought is on that.
LAURA
Here's my thought: you find what you're looking for. I never looked for the judgment, so what I found was love. When I went back to church, “Hey, we've been praying for you.” “So good to see you.” I'm not saying judgment doesn't happen, but, when I started hearing that all the time, I'm like, I'm gonna do this little investigation.
So when people would say that to me, I started asking them, “Will you share with me your story of your judgment? How have you been judged? I'm so sorry that's happened.” And nine times out of 10, the answer I get is, “Well, I personally haven't, [00:41:00] it's just, I've just heard of this,” or “I've just heard somebody else's story.”
Mm-hmm. So I started on social media, I've been putting out there like, “If you are perpetuating somebody else's trauma or somebody else's story, stop. Because how much of it's actually happening, versus how much of it is a rhetoric that we're just regurgitating?”
I know there are people who are judged. I know there are, but I have to think that there's probably far more people talking about it and making it a bigger problem than it actually is. I'm not trying to invalidate anybody, because I do hear stories of people that have been judged. And anyway, like I said, I'm grateful that I get to hopefully be a tool to help progress this lush judgment forward within the church.
I do see it happening. It's awesome, the changes, but myself personally, I don't know if people have been judging me or not, because I don't look for it.
ASHLY
I feel the exact same way. I’ve been to jail, heroin addict, all the [00:42:00]things, and I never felt more loved coming back to church. That was what I felt. I felt loved and welcomed and accepted, and that's how I felt.
Sure people do feel judged, but like you and I both—we've got a pretty good reason that people should judge us, but that's not been either of our experience. It's pretty cool to see that you're exactly right. You find what you're looking for.
LAURA
Yeah. Yeah, I work with people in the addiction world now, and I mean, that's just confirmation bias, right? Whatever you're looking for, you're gonna find the evidence to prove what you're thinking is accurate. If you're thinking that people love you, you'll find love. If you're thinking, oh, everyone's judging me, you'll find people whispering.
And whether they're actually talking about you is to be determined, but you'll think that they are, either way. But I do know what happens. I don't want anyone to hear this and feel like I'm [00:43:00]discounting if they've been judged, because obviously it happens and it's horrible for those people that have not felt love like I have. But I'm, grateful that I haven't really had much of the other.
ASHLY
And the truth is people are just people inside and outside of the church. People don't just judge in the church. People judge because they're people, not because they're members of the church. And if people are judging you, who cares what they think?
Easier said than done, but honestly, who cares? Their opinion does not matter. It doesn't matter.
LAURA
Yeah. What other people think of me is none of my business. I didn't really understand that quote, but that's a huge recovery quote. It's exactly right.
If you are worrying about what other people are thinking of you, there's work to be done within yourself. Because it shouldn't matter if you're your best version and you're showing up and doing your best every day. Who cares what somebody else says?
ASHLY
Yes, absolutely. And this is coming from two former drug addicts that have been to jail and prison. Who cares what they think? [00:44:00] Honestly, it can be really freeing to step into that space and be like, you know what? I'm gonna go to church because I want to find God there and I want to strengthen my relationship with Him.
If somebody thinks I'm weird or whatever, I don't care. That's not why I am going. It can be such a freeing experience to show up in that way.
LAURA
Speaking at stake conference, there was a line of people that wanted to talk to me because they're either struggling, their son just passed away, their husband's struggling, their wife is struggling, they're all struggling.
And they come and tell me, thank you so much for sharing your story. You're so brave. They're not looking at me in a negative way. They're looking at me as, man, that's awesome what you've overcome. I choose to gravitate more towards those people than anybody else.
ASHLY
Right. If we're honest and open about the things that we actually go through, it's shocking to see how many people relate and are so grateful for the honesty and the authenticity.
LAURA
Yeah, you think of TED Talks, right? Every one of them is rooted in a failure [00:45:00] or a horrible fall-on-your-face moment. And everybody looks at those people and thinks they're amazing. They clap for 'em, they cheer for 'em.
But when it's us and we have those stories, we think we're a loser. Why do we do that to ourselves? For anybody else, we see them as, “Oh man, that's amazing what they've overcome.” That's just shame at its finest. And honestly, shame is what keeps people sick. That is the work I try to do now is to help people move out of the shame so that they can just be a hundred percent open, and because the shame and the secrecy will just continue to perpetuate addiction, you have to have to heal that to be able to stay in recovery.
ASHLY
I love that so much.
Laura, your story is so amazing. I am so grateful—this is the third time that we've tried to do this and I know it's because that's what happens when you try to do something good. Satan tries to stop it, and your story is so amazing. I am so excited to share this with the world. So thank you [00:46:00] so much for taking the time to come on the podcast.
LAURA
Thank you for having me. It's awesome what you're doing too. It's super, super neat to just hear so many awesome stories of coming back. I never was completely away. Because, I knew I never wanted to leave the church. But honestly, being away, just inactive and away from those blessings is away enough, you know? So anyways, it's been awesome to hear all the stories, so thank you for what you're doing.
