Chosen by the profession All Joshua counselor has found a home
Jessica Hilton, one of the addiction counselors at All Joshua, likes to say she didn’t choose the addiction counseling profession. It chose her. Hilton, who joined the All Joshua staff in June, had a longstanding interest in the science of what makes people “tick,” and mental illness, which had touched her family decades ago, when Hilton was a child in Pasadena, Md. “The differences between people always fascinated me,” she recalls. Hilton went on to earn a psychology degree at the University of Maryland and took a counseling job at an inpatient rehab center. “My supervisor encouraged me to get my addiction counseling license. I had no expectation of using it; then, my boss came to me one day and said, “I need you to counsel.”
Along with her formal training, Hilton is also qualified through personal experience; she is a recovering alcoholic who has been sober since 2010. Looking back at her own history, Hilton recalls “the first photographic evidence,” of herself tasting beer as a four year old. She began drinking heavily at 13, and by high school, had become a daily drinker. Still, she was able to earn a community college degree and hold down employment in a flower shop, while raising a son and daughter. Then, “by 2010, my ability to be a parent, wife, employee and student was gone,” she recalls. “So I made a few phone calls. My plan was to take some time off and then go back to drinking like a lady.” But her plans changed after she attended her first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting on September 22, 2010, an important date in her life. Hilton found sobriety and recovery through dedicated commitment to participating in AA, which has continued to help to this day. Weekly sessions with a therapist for the first five years of recovery also helped.
“What I love about Joshua House the most is that their heart is in the right place.” - Jessica Hilton All Joshua Counselor
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