From Trauma to Triumph
Rebecca
recovery
Rebecca was born and raised in Tucson, Arizona, in a home full of both love and pain. She remembers her parents as deeply in love but her father’s addiction led to a cycle of arrests, deportations, and domestic violence. When she was nine, her mom finally left him for good and found steady work at the Casino but her mom’s hoarding and overspending created a constant sense of chaos: “Growing up in a cluttered home still has its effect on me till this day. Messes make me very uncomfortable, and my brain is never satisfied.”
Three Little Girls, One Broken Childhood
Rebecca is the middle of three sisters “Behind my older sister’s jokes and my younger sister’s carefree life there’s three little girls that went through a lot, and we’re all still healing from our childhood.” In the midst of all this, her mom started going to a Christian church, and the Bible stories they heard planted seeds of faith that would later save Rebecca’s life.
Seventeen Years of Addiction
At 13, Rebecca had her first drink “The obsession immediately kicked in, and I spent the next 17 years chasing that first relief.” By 14, after not coming home for a few nights, she found all her belongings outside. Moving in with people she barely knew, she was introduced to more alcohol, an older crowd, and “how to use my body for money” a life that was glamorized at first but quickly became exploitation.
At 16, she met the man who would become her husband. At 17, she had her daughter. “I see her and I see God,” she says. Having her baby helped repair relationships with her family, but not her drinking. At 19, after driving drunk with her pregnant sister and daughter in the car, she was arrested and sentenced to a year in prison. She was the youngest there: “I had to grow up really fast, really, really fast.” In prison, she felt God sheltering her, but after release, PTSD and anxiety pushed her right back to the bottle.
Loss, Shame, and Hitting Bottom
Later, she met her second son’s father. They worked hard, built a life, and welcomed their son, Mateo “He’s autistic and he’s nonverbal he’s an angel.” Rebecca felt both honored and overwhelmed: “God, you’re really trusting me with this precious child that requires a lot of attention, a lot of love, a lot of patience.” But inside, she was still deeply wounded: “My flesh was satisfied, but my spirit was broken inside.”
During a difficult season with her significant other she made a decision she would later regret involving a coworker. When she confessed, the relationship came to an abrupt end. Soon after, her worst fear came true her father died from addiction, unidentified and alone in a morgue in Mexico. “Addiction won. We lost him.” She named her third son after her dad, but spent that pregnancy drinking and smoking, full of shame and guilt.
Alcohol took everything: her jobs, her car, her stability. She isolated, stopped going to family events, and watched her life shrink around her addiction. “I couldn’t keep a job I was always shaky, always hungover. I couldn’t stop.” Eventually she was evicted, moved back in with her mother after 15 years, and continued drinking day and night. Violent, paranoid, and out of control, she was arrested twice in one month. “That’s when I was like, God, I have a problem. I can’t stop.”
Surrender and a Bed at Gospel Rescue Mission
In a jail cell, she finally surrendered: “God, I need You I cannot do this on my own.” When she woke up, something had changed. “The voices just stopped I didn’t withdraw, I didn’t feel hungover and that was one of the reasons I couldn’t stop.” For the first time in years, she felt peace and God’s presence: “I just felt Him comforting me and telling me, it’s gonna be okay.”
After 10 sober days in jail, she stayed in hotels with the little money she had left. On her last paid night, at 4 p.m., with nowhere to go and knowing she’d drink if she returned to her old address, she chose to walk by faith. She had applied online to Gospel Rescue Mission weeks before. That day, GRM called and they were reviewing her submission and had a bed available. “I had no money left and then here’s this opportunity. I was like, no, that’s God. I gotta go.”
When she arrived, she first looked at housing but quickly realized, “I could get a place, but I’m just gonna go back to the same thing as soon as they give me those keys, I’m gonna want to drink.” So she made a different choice. She asked if she could go to recovery. “And it’s the best decision that I ever made for my life.”
Healing and Hope
Rebecca completed the recovery program. “I learned a lot about myself and how to take accountability for my poor choices.” She came to understand addiction as a disease, which helped her give herself grace and begin forgiving herself. She faced hard truths “I was always the victim, I was manipulative, I was the abuser.” Instead of denying it, she let it humble her and started making amends and offering real apologies.
At Gospel Rescue Mission, she healed “mind, body, and soul.” She worked out daily in wellness, learned about healthy relationships, processed deep trauma, and grew alongside peers and coaches who each brought their own experience and wisdom. In the workforce program, she learned about motivation.
Today she is truly sober for the first time, she has a relationship with her kids and dreams of them all being under one roof again. She feels thankful and above all, she knows who rescued her: “Nobody could have done it but Jesus. He’s the reason that I was able to complete the program. He’s the reason that I’m sober right now.”
“Our pride wants to tell us that being vulnerable is a sign of weakness, but these resources are here just waiting for people to change.”
From a childhood of trauma and addiction to a life of faith, sobriety, and hope, Rebecca’s story is living proof that no matter how far you’ve fallen, greater is He in you than he that is in this world.
