My Baby Passed In The Car Because I Blacked Out w/ Carolina Ayala | The Hopeaholics Podcast #348 Chad and Natalie sit down with Carolina Ayala, founder of The Happier Life Project, a recovery community organization built to give people the peer support she never had. She was drinking, using, and married by 15, and had watched two of her closest friends get killed before she was old enough to graduate. One night she drank too much, blacked out, drove home, and didn't take her daughter Crystal out of the car seat. Crystal spent three hours in the car and didn't make it. Carolina did nearly four years in prison for child endangerment and used meth for the next two decades because it was the only way she knew to get through what happened. #TheHopeaholics #redemption #recovery #AlcoholAddiction #AddictionRecovery #wedorecover #SobrietyJourney #MyStory #Hope #wedorecover #treatmentcenter #natalieevamarie Join our patreon to get access to an EXTRA EPISODE every week of ‘Off the Record’, exclusive content, a thriving recovery community, and opportunities to be featured on the podcast. https://patreon.com/TheHopeaholics Go to www.Wolfpak.com today and support our sponsors. Don't forget to use code: HOPEAHOLICSPODCAST for 10% off! Follow the Hopeaholics on our Socials: https://www.instagram.com/thehopeaholics https://linktr.ee/thehopeaholics Buy Merch: https://thehopeaholics.myshopify.com Visit our Treatment Centers: https://www.hopebythesea.com If you or a loved one needs help, please call or text 949-615-8588. We have the resources to treat mental health and addiction. Sponsored by the Infiniti Group LLC: https://www.infinitigroupllc.com Timestamps: 0:00:00 - Cold open: the night Crystal died 0:00:40 - Welcome / What is the Happier Life Project 0:03:01 - The gap between treatment centers and what happens after 0:05:10 - Treatment, psych wards, jails, prison 0:05:51 - Getting pregnant, giving son to CPS 0:06:38 - Getting custody, relapsing, returning to smoke meth 0:07:02 - Rock bottom in 2021: not wanting to be alive anymore 0:07:34 - Losing faith in God, 12-step, everything she held onto 0:08:12 - Outside the crisis hospital, too scared to go in 0:09:16 - Finding RA International's peer support center in Temecula 0:10:55 - The idea for the Happier Life Project 0:13:19 - Divorced parents, alcoholic stepdad, being the oldest 0:14:41 - Gifted programs and nothing in the adult world making sense 0:15:08 - First joint at 12 as a freshman in El Paso 0:16:51 - Following friend into gang life 0:17:43 - The four runaways: Jasmine shot in the head, Cynthia murdered and burned in the desert 0:19:48 - Why she stayed on the street instead of going home 0:20:43 - Meeting her husband at 12, marrying at 15 0:21:13 - Moving to Arizona with a Mormon family to clean up 0:23:38 - Husband falls out of car going 55mph 0:25:26 - The miscarriage that wasn't: Danielle is alive and 31 0:26:36 - Leaving her husband and daughter on her first birthday 0:28:34 - The guilt cycle: couldn't face going back, so she never did 0:30:32 - Daughter goes to a Mormon colony in Mexico 0:32:27 - Federal charges at 19, domestic violence, psychiatric holds 0:33:40 - Trying to kidnap her daughter and failing 0:35:42 - Arrested at eight months pregnant for cocaine trafficking 0:35:58 - Crystal born, alcoholic mother-in-law tried to sell her 0:38:09 - Crystal's Death 0:39:46 - Prison for child endangerment 0:40:25 - Blood alcohol, no drugs found, what the DA had threatened 0:41:08 - Planning to jump off the 15 freeway / bail raised to $250K 0:42:59 - Not qualifying for the substance abuse program because the charge wasn't drug-related 0:43:47 - No contact with anyone under 18, including siblings and daughter 0:45:06 - Two beers, blowing a .08 0:45:40 - Back in on violation / introduced to meth in prison 0:46:04 - What meth did that nothing else could 0:47:36 - First time in treatment 0:49:08 - Guilt, shame, and unaddressed grief 0:49:37 - $20 worth of meth, sentenced to five years in state prison 0:51:11 - Cooper Fellowship: three years sober, the longest stretch yet 0:52:01 - CBT: the first thing that actually made sense to her 0:53:23 - The pre-cycle nobody ever addressed 0:55:37 - This time in recovery is different 0:57:34 - Almost not coming back to the rooms after the last relapse 0:58:00 - What actually matters today: the daily work, not the time 1:05:32 - Crystal's birthday, deciding to honor her for the first time 1:06:01 - Psychic medium speaks with Crystal 1:09:26 - Chad and Natalie / walking through pain vs. sitting in it 1:15:41 - The Happier Life Project: where to donate, how to find them
