From Felony Charges to Recovery & Redemption | Stephanie Nicholson on Sobriety, Accountability & Second Chances

In this episode of The Successful Life Podcast, Corey Berrier sits down with Stephanie Nicholson to discuss recovery, accountability, legal consequences, honesty, and rebuilding life after a felony conviction.

Stephanie shares the story of a drinking-and-driving incident that resulted in the death of another person, the legal process that followed, and the long road through probation, relapse, recovery, education, marriage, motherhood, and professional growth. She also explains how honesty helped her navigate job interviews, background checks, and a career in accounting after becoming a convicted felon.

This conversation covers the difference between attending recovery meetings and actually working a recovery program, the danger of secrets, the impact of distracted driving, and why second chances are possible when people take responsibility and keep moving forward.

Listen to this episode for a direct conversation about recovery, consequences, personal accountability, and rebuilding a successful life after major setbacks.

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Transcript

Corey Berrier 0:02

Welcome to the Successful Life Podcast. I am your host, Corey Berrier. I'm here with Stephanie Nicholson. Hey Stephanie, how are you?

Speaker 0:11

Good. How are you doing, Corey?

Corey Berrier 0:13

Good. I don't know a ton about Stephanie, but I know enough that I really wanted to have her come on today and tell us a little bit about her journey in recovery. And it's uh it's pretty fascinating. I did have the opportunity to hear this live, which was quite impressive, I'll have to say. And I think that you're gonna find this also pretty impressive. And so, Stephanie, before we get started, do you just want to give everybody a little high-level overview of kind of who you are and maybe a little bit about what you do and all that good stuff?

Speaker 0:56

Sure. So who I am, Stephanie Nicholson. You already started with that. That hasn't been my name my whole life because I got married a few years ago. So, you know, who I am today is a lot different than who I've been in my entire life. But today I am a wife, I am a mother, um, actually have another son coming in October. So I'll be a boy mom two times over. And I'm an accountant by trade, um, and I went to school for that and everything. It's a pretty interesting journey of how I got there, which I've we've talked about it offline, and I look forward to talking more about it today. But um I'm also a person that's in long-term recovery. I've been in and around recovery for probably the last 12-ish years, which there were some events that kind of led to that, but been pretty serious about that for the better part of a decade.

Corey Berrier 2:13

So does that mean you've been sober for 12 years, or does that mean that you've just been in recovery? The reason I ask is because I too have been I stopped drinking in 2009, but that but I haven't been in recovery that that whole time. I dipped out at the about the seven-year mark and started smoking weed and burnt my life down, and essentially was a dry drunk and came back in and picked up a white started over. And thank God I did, because if I hadn't have, the Lord knows where I'd be today. So it sounds like to me, when you say 12 years of recovery, maybe you haven't been sober for 12 years. Is that accurate or no?

Speaker 2:55

Yeah, that is definitely accurate. But I have been in and around the rooms of recovery for that long. Um but yeah, not sober for the duration.

Corey Berrier 3:07

Okay. Well, tell us how that whole thing started and let's get into it.

Speaker 3:12

Sure. Yeah, so I actually really didn't get introduced to recovery until I had some legal consequences in my life. And it was mentioned that maybe I should check it out. And really, it was mentioned. I don't know if my lawyer was seriously saying this or just trying to be nice to me. He didn't indicate that he was concerned about any type of substance abuse in my history. He just, like a lot of other people at the time, including myself, thought I just had a series of unfortunate events and bad luck, and had wound up in his office asking for some help. And he and he sent me to some recovery rooms, like different things. I've done different 12-step programs and checked out what I needed to at the time, and then that's how I found out about it. But I didn't get really serious about recovery until I'd say probably maybe nine years or so ago when I tried to just go to the recovery meetings and not do anything else outside of that. And really, even going to the meetings, oh, sorry, even going to the meetings, I found myself coming in a few minutes late, leaving a few minutes early, and not doing anything with anybody inside or outside of the meetings. Needless to say, I found myself drinking again, and I'm not wasn't quite sure how that had happened.

Corey Berrier 5:02

Because you were showing up, you were showing up, you were going to I was doing what I thought I was supposed to be doing, but and a lot of people do that. Yeah, a lot of people do exactly what you just said, and God almighty, there's just so much more to this than just going to meetings. It drives me nuts when I hear people say, Well, meeting makers make it, but that's bullshit because they just make a lot of meetings, yeah. It's just not true. Yeah, it's just not true. Or when people say, Well, you just gotta drink not just don't drink. Well, the drinking is like yeah, it's a tough part to get through. Don't I'm not minimizing that, but Jesus Christ, that's like the very first part of it. Like after that, it's the rest of the things that go on in your life and digging deep into your past and character defects and all these things that really that's what the program recovery is about.

Speaker 6:02

Sure. Yeah, Corey, you brought up a good point. Like, just the putting down the drink aspect does not like solve everything. I'd like to say that like I got sober about seven or so years ago, like this time and hopefully the last time, and that just life has just been wonderful and I haven't done anything wrong. But I've made a lot of mistakes also in in sobriety to where I'm like, I cannot believe that I've done that, especially as I already self-disclosed as a as an accountant. You know, I've done some sketchy things in that area personally that I wouldn't want to share with my employer or anything like that, right? And and so getting through those things without drinking has really been the more challenging part for me because it's like I don't have that to blame anymore, you know? It's just me.

Corey Berrier 6:57

Yeah, it's the secrets that you know, it's the secrets that we just God almighty, sometimes you just can't help sometimes you just gotta go through stuff. You just gotta go through stuff and you gotta make mistakes. And you do, I look at it like, God, how could you have been so stupid? But at the end of the day, like I needed to go through those stupid things. All right, so uh you you mentioned You wound up in a lawyer's office. I wound up in several lawyers' offices. So what landed you in an attorney's office? DUI or what was it?

Speaker 7:41

What did you say?

Corey Berrier 7:41

Was it a DUI or did you similar?

Speaker 7:46

It definitely uh was drinking related and driving related. A DUI was the least of my worries when I got to the lawyer's office because the DUI was showing up as a misdemeanor charge. Um, and I was also hit with two felony charges because I hit and killed somebody in my one time getting legal consequences. It was a pretty fast and serious consequence for sure for me. And I was 22 years old at the time. I didn't know what to do, and I really didn't think I thought my life was over. It should have very well been.

Corey Berrier 8:32

Can you take us through that night?

Speaker 8:34

Yeah. Unfortunately, there's not like a ton of it wasn't like a super standout night. It was just a typical Friday night. Went down, listened to some live music in Wilmington, which is where I'm from, and had a friend's house to stay at, went back to her, walked back to her house, and she goes off to bed, and I decide that I'm not ready to end the night. And I have a friend that texts me in the middle of the night, which that's always a good idea, right? 2 a.m. leaving somewhere. I proceed to just get in my car. I didn't really think about it. I'd done it plenty of other times, was very familiar with the roads I was taking and the speed limit. I was watching all of that kind of stuff very closely, right? To overcompensate. And I just happened to glance down at my phone for a second and and something hits my windshield. I don't know what it is, but it scared me enough to decide to just turn and go home, which was only about maybe a mile and a half up the road, instead of going to the friend's house and try to figure out what had happened. My car was not in good shape. So yeah, a few minutes went by there, probably 30 minutes or so. Um and I started hearing sirens. And I mean, I it was still close to downtown area, so didn't know if those were related to me or not. But it scared me enough to call 911 and and just let them know what had happened and where it had happened at. Um, and then police arrived shortly after. And they had already had all my information. There had been a witness that got my license plate, and a few hours later is when I was told that I'd hit and killed somebody.

Corey Berrier 10:32

But you did not know necessarily, you knew you had hit something, but you weren't really aware that it was somebody.

Speaker 10:40

Yeah, the part of my mind, it's interesting how our minds work because I say that and I mean it sincerely, but I really do question even my own recollection of do did I know that I hit somebody? And I just didn't want to it admit it even to myself, or I don't know. But yeah, I mean I didn't see the person as far as I know. And I just heard something and my windshield was cracked, and you know, I didn't do a lot of investigating, right? Until they they told me what had happened.

Corey Berrier 11:22

Well, maybe the sheer, even if you did know the shock of something like that, I think I mean, I don't know, I could very well see it being so shocking that there could be some disbelief in what really happened.

Speaker 11:40

Sure. Yeah, definitely. I mean, even when I was told what happened, there was shock for sure.

Corey Berrier 11:46

So you called it.

Speaker 11:47

Like I mentioned, it was my first, it was my first situation with law enforcement. I've never even been pulled over or got a ticket or anything for and that doesn't mean I'm not saying that in a bragging way, I'm saying it in just facts. Yeah, it's just it didn't line up on paper in my mind, right? Logically. And as a logical person, I think, especially when I'm sober, it didn't make any sense to me.

Corey Berrier 12:12

So they knock on the door, and what happens? They arrest you immediately, or what happens?

Speaker 12:20

They brought me in and I got to sit up front in the cop car and everything. I was very compliant with everything, which I think helped me a lot for sure. But yeah, I mean, I just went through, I went back to the station, they questioned me a few times. They would ask me to retell the story, I guess to see if my story changed, kind of thing. And then they told me, and the officers that have like that ended up showing up in court did attest to the fact that they could tell that I wasn't I didn't know and I was in shock and had remorse and all of those things.

Corey Berrier 13:03

Okay. Okay, so after you did I let you out that night? I'm guessing not.

Speaker 13:15

Yeah, so the the interesting thing. So I was living with a friend at the time in Wilmington, and she had actually just joined the sheriff's department for the county. Um I was able to get in contact with her. Well, she was there whenever I came home, and so she was checking in to see kind of where I was at in the booking process and all of that, and she had talked to whoever she needed to talk to, so that I was just held in a waiting area. So I never was in a cell or anything like that during that process. They allowed me, they said, as long as she's being compliant, which I was, they allowed me to just be in a waiting area with the people that worked there at the jail. And I got a bail bondsman and as far as negotiating with what needed to be paid to to get out. So I wasn't ever like really locked up during that process. And then I had my first uh hearing, and then I was held for I don't know, it it felt like forever, but it was probably only an hour or so until the bond was actually set and bail bonds and came and we paid it and everything.

Corey Berrier 14:45

What sort of bond do you get for something like that? I'm curious.

Speaker 14:49

I really don't remember what it was. I I really don't know. I I feel like it was pretty low in the grand scheme of things because it was the first offense. I couldn't tell you what it was. And the bail bonds for a felony you pay, I think it's 15% of whatever whatever the bond's set at. It is so I I don't remember if maybe 30,000 or 30 to 50, somewhere around there. It wasn't yeah. I've heard some really high ones, so I didn't feel like it was that high, you know, comparatively for sure. But all right, so and I was off, I was outside of like I wasn't held as I was awaiting deciding if it was gonna be a trial or a court date, that kind of thing.

Corey Berrier 15:50

Yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 15:52

So that process was about 15 months before I had a day in court. Yeah.

Corey Berrier 15:56

That was what okay, so what was life like waiting for 15 months to go in front of the judge? Because that I imagine would be a nightmare.

Speaker 16:11

Yeah, I think the best way I've described it is that if you can imagine, if you are religious and believe in purgatory, I feel like it's like purgatory on earth. I mean, it seriously is you don't know month to month, right? Like you can't, and I'm someone that likes to be playing like plan. I couldn't plan. I had kind of odd-in jobs at restaurants and things like that in between. I couldn't start a relationship. I mean, it was just like was I gonna go back to school? I couldn't decide that. All of these things that I felt like my life was pretty much just on pause. And not only that, but it was pretty like in my mind, it was on pause to then end up in prison. So it's like it's on pause, and then you also are gonna be in prison for an undisclosed amount of time. So you probably just like don't need to plan anything.

unknown 17:20

Yeah.

Corey Berrier 17:21

So the chances of not uh and I don't know the laws around whatever manslaughter, whatever it was, but the chances of not going to prison after running somebody over, drinking and driving, I would think is almost slim to none.

Speaker 17:38

Yeah, so particularly at the time, it was really interesting. So this happened in 2014. And a year or maybe two years before 2014, the laws had been changed. So actually, the felony charges I had were or I have are death by motor vehicle and felony hit and run because I left the scene. So those charges, death by motor vehicle got moved. I think it's a class F, whatever it got moved to, it was now it was the only charge of its of class, whatever class it was in, that a judge could do a split or suspended sentence. But up until that point, since it had gone gotten elevated, it had never happened. Meaning that the judge always has had given active time only. What a split sentence is either part-time active, so maybe a year or two in prison, and then the rest of its probation. And what's suspended is what I ended up getting, but suspended is they tell you how many months, um, I think it was maybe I don't remember, maybe six six years or something like that. So it would have been six years of active time if I violated probation. So I was given a probation sentence, and if I violated at any point and it was determined that I needed active time, the active time would activate and it would be for the full amount. It wouldn't be like any time served on probation or anything like that.

Corey Berrier 19:36

So full amount is what?

Speaker 19:39

So the full amount, so what was being asked by the DA's office was six to eight years. And and like I said, I think that the time that I got the sus or the suspended sentence was around that frame, maybe six years or something of what would have happened if I had violated or gotten caught violating anything like that. So I had a suspended sentence with five years supervised probation, which means I had to go see a probation officer every month for those five years. I also had an ankle monitor. It was just a regular ankle monitor. It wasn't like an alcohol or anything like that. Didn't even have a GPS, it was like attached to a box, and I had like a radius around that that I was allowed to be home basically. And my curfew was six six p.m. to seven a.m. I had to be inside at my house. And that was for two years.

Corey Berrier 20:45

Okay. Walk us through that day that you went to court and how that day went.

Speaker 21:00

Yeah, and I mean just to back up about probably no more than 24 hours before that day in court, just to place you in where my mindset was in those 15 months. I mean, I had been drinking heavily for those 15 months. I had at some point about maybe five to six months before the court date started going to to drugs because alcohol wasn't working fast enough. And and even up to 24 hours the night before, I think, the court date I was drinking. So I just that's just where I was at. And so going into the into court, I did opt to just have a a day in court, not do a trial or anything. Was never something that I was considering because I really at no point had not taken responsibility. I probably took on well as much responsibility as I could. I shouldn't say more than because I don't know that you could say that, but I took on a lot of responsibility for it. And so I pled guilty and I had prepared something to read because the victim's family was was there as well, and they were given opportunity as they should to speak to the judge and to me at the same time. So I heard from probably about four people from the family, and it was really hard. It was hard to hear. They were describing the victim, they were describing who he was, they were describing their relationship with him. I mean, it's just like any if you go to a funeral, right? You can hear these stories, and there was a lot of happy stories. But then there they were also describing when they found out, which was about two days after is when they first contacted or were able to get in touch with family. So yeah, they were describing just that massive shift that I also was experiencing, but like this kind of before July 19th, 2014, and after July 19th, 2014. And it was hard to hear that, but I did address the court, the judge, and I mean the family too, about just how I felt and the responsibility that I took and that I didn't take it lightly, and that I wanted to continue to share what had happened. Not because it was easy for me to do that, but because I had known people that had actually been in similar situations. I had two guys in high school that I knew that were out one night drinking, and one of them was driving, and one of them got killed. The other, the passenger was killed. So I had known that this had happened to other people that I knew, and I knew just the way that how how shocked I was, I knew that it was gonna keep happening. There's plenty of people I knew at the time. Like it wasn't weird to drink and drive. Like it just it that part wasn't the crazy part in all of this in my friend group. It was the consequence of it. And so just that mindset gave me pause to like this is gonna keep happening, it's gonna keep happening in my town, and people need to know that it can happen because I didn't think it was gonna happen to me. I thought you get a few DUIs, you lose your license, you have these warnings, and then maybe something happens.

Corey Berrier 25:15

Yeah, yeah, you skipped all that.

Speaker 25:18

Yeah, I went straight to it, but I also maybe not even at that time as much, but since like I know that like every time that I did that, and even in distracted driving, too, I talk about that too. The distracted driving is the gateway drug in my mind to other bad driving habits. It's just anytime you do something and you don't get caught, it's this feeling internally of like, eh, it's not that bad. Not that bad. Everybody does it.

Corey Berrier 25:56

One of the things that I remember that you that you mentioned the last time I heard this was that I believe you said something to the extent of whatever punishment that I get today still wouldn't be deserving of what happened. Something along those lines. Am I right about that?

Speaker 26:17

Yeah, I mean, well, there's one line that I said basically, I mean, that's definitely true. I mean, that's that's pretty much what the judge said, actually, was the what you were just saying. He said, you know, any punishment that I give today isn't gonna bring back your family member. But but I have a choice here to like take another life by sending me to prison for a long time or try to make a difference. And what I had said is that I thought the worst thing that could happen when I drank and drove was that I could die. And what I had found out was that the worst thing that could happen is somebody else dies and I live.

Corey Berrier 27:05

Jesus. Yeah, that puts things in perspective. Because then you have to sit and deal with the pain and the psychological warfare of all of that, opposed to if it would have been you, you wouldn't know how to deal with any of that.

Speaker 27:24

Sure. And I mean that in the sense of not just me though, you know, and the family member too. They have to live with that.

Corey Berrier 27:32

True.

Speaker 27:34

And unfortunately, I feel like in my case I've done more healing in that regard than the family has. And that's hard. It's hard for me because I I want them to be healed, but I can't force that, just like I can't force somebody to get sober or stay sober or all of those things, right?

Corey Berrier 28:02

So one would think that would have been the end of your getting that grace from the judge would have been like a bright light moment, would have been you would most people I think that are not alcoholic would think that well, that would be the end of that. Like, I would never pick up another drink if that happened to me, right? I think that's what most people might even be thinking right now is that was your sober day. My guess that's not exactly how it went down.

Speaker 28:35

Yeah, I mean it wasn't, and I wish it was just a little glimpse into the mind of a normal person, non-alcoholic. My mother quit drinking the night that I got charged.

unknown 28:52

Right.

Speaker 28:53

And that blew my mind. I mean, I just for me, I felt like I have a reason to drink now, a real reason. And so that could have even been the last day for people. But yeah, I mean, there was a pause in the drinking. There was a it was a bright light moment, it was a moment of clarity. It was what the clarity was, is that part of my sentence was not to drink. And also not to drive. And I mentioned that because I didn't drive. And I say to people, like, I don't have a driving problem, I had a drinking problem, you know. I heard that and I the first thought I had was like, I can't do that not drinking thing without some help. So it was it got me into, like I said, the rooms of recovery. I'd say that was when I started getting serious about it because I realized at least for that moment, I couldn't do it myself. Yeah, because I wasn't supposed to be drinking those 15 months prior. It wasn't like that was something I should be doing.

Corey Berrier 30:08

And so then you had a run in with the almost you had a pretty shocking experience with your probation officer, is that right?

Speaker 30:18

Yeah, yeah. I forgot I had mentioned this in my last in the last talking, but yeah, so I had I relapsed and it was on drugs, not drinking at this time. And I mean, seconds after I I consumed the drugs, I hear a knock on the door. And it was the only time that my probation officer ever did an unannounced visit in the five years that I was on probation. So that that really scared me. And that's again, it's this moment of clarity, right? And that was what led to my first two to two and a half years of total abstinence from drugs and alcohol, and actually working a program of recovery, not just attending.

Corey Berrier 31:16

Right. And the attendance was what you were alluding to earlier, where you were going to meetings late, leaving early, not really doing anything as it pertains to the work inside of staying becoming a recovered alcoholic. And so you relapsed at two, two and a half years.

Speaker 31:36

Yeah, yeah. And that was interesting because because I was doing all the things now at that point. And I had a good group of friends. I had done what I needed to do as far as probation goes. So I'd gotten the ankle monitor off. So I was able to go to meetings later at that point. That was a really hard time for me at the beginning, was being a young person, but not being able to go to like young people meetings or hang out with them by like getting dinner or like going to movies or just things like that. So I hung out with a lot of old people, which was probably good for my recovery, but at yeah, two and a half years I picked up a drink, and again, it's not like some crazy story, it's just it was just in the works because I had a memory crop up at about two years of something I'd gone through as a teenager, and I didn't have it on my inventory the first time I'd done that and talked about it. And I just thought it'll go away, the thought'll go away, and it kept creeping up every few days, and yeah, I just didn't want to talk about it. I just wanted it to go away so bad that I thought maybe it could. And eventually that led to me drinking, and and because I was already keeping that secret, it became easy and made sense to me to keep the secret that I had drank. So I I kept going to the meetings that I was going to. And I kept doing the things that I'd signed up and said I would do, right? So I was living in just this total double life where I was I I was probably doing more service-oriented work at that point than I ever have in my recovery. But it was guilt-based, and it was in my mind to make up for and absolve me of the fact that I had drank. And yeah, it was a hard, it was nine months of that of living with that double life. And the last time that I drank three times over the course of the nine months. So that was another thing that kind of messed with my thought process of am I an alcoholic, right? Like I wasn't drinking every day like I used to. Really, it was the whole like, well, then why am I still going to these meetings if I'm not an alcoholic, right? Or why am I still trying to keep up these appearances or whatever. And I think that I wanted to get caught with that last drink. I'm glad I did. It was it was what I needed. And yeah, I mean, I didn't at the time want to be sober. I didn't at the time think that I was an alcoholic. But I was pretty miserable living the double life, regardless. So it felt good just to get that off my chest of like being honest. And that's really like the only thing that I've done right in the last seven years is just be honest. And that doesn't always look pretty, but it's gotten me. It's helped me a lot.

Corey Berrier 35:24

Yeah. So you lost your license for a period of time, a pretty good amount of time. You didn't drive, and then if you you applied to get your license back after a period of time. How long was that?

Speaker 35:41

So I applied probably eight or nine years after 2014.

Corey Berrier 35:52

2020-ish, 2020.

Speaker 35:54

Yep, yeah, it was around the pandemic. Yep, it was.

Corey Berrier 35:57

And you got rejected.

Speaker 35:59

I got rejected, and that that was hard. I knew it was a possibility. I knew it was a high possibility. But yeah, I mean, it was hard, but it was also not hard because at that point it had been eight or nine years since I'd driven, so I was pretty used to not driving. Right. And people around me were pretty used to that. Yeah, I mean, it was that night I had an obligation and I kept the obligation, you know, and I think that's so telling of how I changed as a person in recovery, because at the beginning, the night that I got caught by my PO, well, I didn't get caught, but the night that PO knocked on the door, I mean, that was like a that deciding to use was after something really good happened. Like I didn't even know how to handle good things without drugs and alcohol. Having something that wasn't like great happen. It was pretty cool that I just did that.

Corey Berrier 37:17

And so you reapplied what a year later.

Speaker 37:21

Yeah, so you can reapply a year after the hearing date or whatever. So that was October, the year after was October of 2024. Yeah.

Corey Berrier 37:42

So you reap you reapply. Well, whatever the year you so you reapplied, and what happened?

Speaker 37:49

I mean, similar, it was a very long process. It's a very long process. Because I mean, you're a criminal. I mean, I get it. Um and you don't get to make the calls and call the shots, and you're dealing with the government, which is always historically slow, right? And DMV. So the process I just went through the same stuff. They turn in the same report, you have to pay this person and do this and a lot of paperwork. And I had a hearing in November of like 2015. Actually, I guess it was November of 2024. Yeah, I'm I was thinking about it in relation to my the reason I was focused on the year is because also at this point I was pregnant.

Corey Berrier 38:38

Okay.

Speaker 38:39

So that was major. I had gotten married since I had gotten denied. I had I I think I had met my husband, gotten married, graduated, grad school, pretty much a bunch of life events, right? And then I had gotten pregnant. And so I was about six months pregnant or so, five months, six months going into that hearing. And the last time I had the hearing had been five months before they gave me a response, and the response was no. So that's what I was expecting going in. And I ended up getting a decision that day that they were gonna allow me. And so what that means is they were allowing me to sit and take the driver's test. And as long as I pass the driver's test, I can get my license.

Corey Berrier 39:28

Unbelievable.

Speaker 39:29

Yeah.

Corey Berrier 39:30

Okay. The so I know we're getting close on time. I did want to ask you, and I don't, it's certainly not asking you for the company you work for or anything like that, but being a convicted felon, which I also am, and part of what I do is I help people in recovery find jobs, because you know as well as I do being a convicted felon, uh, no matter what it is, it just doesn't it doesn't bode well, especially in a profession like you're in, of course. I would imagine it would almost seem impossible that you were ever going to work in that profession again, but it was a little bit different for you, right?

Speaker 40:12

Yeah, going back to the honesty piece, it really all comes back to that for me. And also not taking what people, well-meaning people say as the gospel truth. I had experiences over the course of like going through a recruiting process and all of that, where recruiters would tell me that I needed to set my sites lower and that I needed to work at like a local accounting place or something. And I ended up securing a job out of college, out of before I even started grad school. I had a job waiting for me after grad school with like the seventh largest accounting firm in the country or in the world, actually, internationally. And now today I work for a public company, publicly traded company in accounting. I think that when I actually got down to it, it was just knowing how to talk about my experience, what had happened, because it's gonna come up, right? Not waiting for the background check, but saying, hey, this is gonna come up. Let me talk about it. It was really owning that narrative and explaining what had happened and what I'd done since. As time went on, it became easier. And it's pretty surprising what you'll find out about people in doing that too. I found out one of the partners at one of the places I applied for, and actually I got an offer, but their company, due to some like legal things, they couldn't hire me because they had some forms to fill out and so on and so forth. But I found out one of the partners there, his sister, had been in a similar situation, and she hadn't handled it well, and she hadn't changed much. And just having somebody to talk to about that was helpful. I was able to be helpful to that person by being honest.

Corey Berrier 42:29

Yeah, honesty is the key, even when it doesn't feel good.

Speaker 42:34

Yeah. Well, I've told I've talked through a lot of people, a lot of people have come to me that have heard about my situation and my story and kind of where I'm at in my career and things like that, and feeling like they're not gonna ever get a second chance. And they wanna like lie. They wanna that's the natural feeling is like maybe they won't look. Like maybe they just say they're gonna do a background check. And I just I get to go into work every day without looking over my shoulder, you know, and that feeling it's worth more than a paycheck. But it's like just being able to like be honest about who you are, and you're not worried about Googling you or are they gonna randomly do something, start a new process or a new procedure? It's like it's just it's really I can't really put it into words very well, but I just tell people you can do what you want to do. But for me, not living with that shadow or looking over my shoulder, it's it's worth it.

Corey Berrier 43:48

Yeah. Look, I totally agree with you. I just started a new job today, and when I was sitting in the office with a guy, he did he well, he asked me, you suggest we do a background. check. I just laid it out there because at the end of the day I literally have nothing to lose. I just have nothing to lose by just telling the truth and it was fine. Like it's fine. No big deal. But uh I do think it's the uh thing it's the right way to go and you'll be a ma it's amazing what can happen if you just walk through that just being honest. And I'm not always great at being honest at every area of my life. My natural inclination is to tell you what you want to hear. But uh in those situations I just don't do that. And I don't intentionally do it ever old habits just creep back in and I just I just spit something out of my mouth before I think about it. And then I have to fix it immediately. Yeah. Which I have no problem doing I've got a ton of practice. Well Stephanie I you know I really appreciate you coming on and being so honest again back to the honesty thing and so vulnerable and just sharing this with the my audience I think it's such a powerful story for people that have that that may be listening to this that are still in active addiction or people that have been charged or convicted of a crime or a felony and think that their life is over because you got two people sitting here in front of each other that are both felons that our lives have far from been over and there's hope for for anybody that wants to uh walk through this process and and and get sober yeah and I appreciate you having me and I just last thing I'll say is I look back on having the days that I had that ankle monitor on and I had that curfew and it sucked and I thought what am I gonna do?

Speaker 46:09

I'm 23 24 25 26 years old right I'm still young it gave me a lot of time and what I did with that time is I I went back to community college which turned into going to a four year university which turned into getting my master's degree I just kept doing the next thing and and yeah I mean I probably wouldn't have gone back to school if I didn't have all that free time to do nothing. I felt like I needed to fill it and I filled it with education in my case.

Corey Berrier 46:48

How long have you been in Raleigh?

Speaker 46:50

I've been in Raleigh for since 2022 so come up on four years.

Corey Berrier 46:57

Did you used to go to primary purpose?

Speaker 46:59

Yep.

Corey Berrier 47:00

Holy shit that's so that is nuts. I remember I remember somebody telling me about you and knowing that you didn't have a license at that time and I thought God that girl's life is freaking over like it's completely over it just dawned on me that was you. Yeah how about that interesting world it really is always world well thank you again I really appreciate it and we'll see you soon okay thanks Corey have a good one. You got it