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Our Stories
Jane A. Hull
I am sober for 25 years as of June, 2004. I have experienced many successes in the last 10 years of my recovery; not so the first 10 years. The first 10 years I hid out; attending AA, trying to cope; trying to change several generations of poor parenting behavior; trying to heal from things that happen to children in alcoholic families.
But let me start at the beginning. I believe I became addicted to alcohol by the end of my first year of drinking. I recall knocking back 24 mugs of beer at the Malamute Saloon in Fairbanks, Alaska at the end of my freshman year of college on a Saturday night. I am the daughter, granddaughter, sister and ex-wife of alcoholics. I was raised in Alaska because my Dad’s geographical cure of moving there in 1949. I was part of a hard working heavy drinking culture; well educated and successful-to a point.
I fled the family and moved to the lower 48 states. I drank for 15 years in a semi controlled, daily manner overlaid by a binging pattern of heavy partying. During the time, I was married twice, had two children, and complete a bachelor’s degree in elementary education. When I met sobriety in 1979, I was actually trying to intervene on my father’s drinking, and the addiction counselor I contacted for information, intervened on me. On the surface, at that point, my life looked good: had a nice house, money, two cars, two kids, and a stable marriage to a physician. My internal stress increased in my first year of recovery as emotional issues of the past surfaced. I didn’t drink, but I did consider alternatives to living. I experienced a profound spiritual experience in the midst of the most painful, darkest days of my recovery, which healed my perceptions of past events as well as myself.
Over the nest three years of recovery, I lost nearly everything. Though my husband at the time entered AA, when I was two years sober, our marriage did not survive recovery. We were two adult children of alcoholic, abusive family systems and the word codependency had not been invented yet. The children paid the price of our divorce, but benefited from our sustained recovery, for over the years of their upbringing, both of us remained committed to do our best to bring emotional recovery to them.
I complete my Master’s Degree in Counseling and moved to North Dakota for Addiction Counselor Training. I have maintained a private practice for the last 20 years with specialties in dual diagnosis work, particularly in addiction recovery and trauma resolution. Over the last ten years, I have quit hiding out and rejoined the human race. I am open with my recovery and have spoken at social, educational, legislative, and professional events.
I have been appointed to several Governor’s committees that examine addiction services in North Dakota, and served on the Governor’s Board of Addiction Counselor Examiners for 8 years. I am currently completing a Doctoral Program in the Department of Counseling Psychology at the University of North Dakota where I am studying relapse, trauma, and spiritual experience for my dissertation work. I am Executive Director of Innerface Inc, Private Non-Profit that operates two residential treatment facilities for women seeking treatment that have children accompanying them. Life is Good.
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