From Junkie to Judge: Recovery without God

Offering hope to anyone impacted by addiction, in her deeply personal, and ultimately triumphant new memoir, From Junkie to Judge: One Woman’s Triumph Over Trauma and Addiction, Mary Beth O’Connor shares her three-phase journey. The abuse and trauma that drove her to shoot methamphetamine at 17, the chaos from her addiction, and how she developed a personalized recovery plan, without a higher power, that led to twenty-nine years of sobriety thus far.

She is a Board Member, Secretary, and Founding Investor for She Recovers Foundation. She is also a Director for LifeRing Secular Recovery. And she develops relationships with other organizations, such as Women for Sobriety.

She regularly speaks on behalf of these organizations, about multiple and secular paths to recovery, and on a gamut of topics related to substance use disorder and recovery. She also speaks about recovery from trauma and PTSD/anxiety. This includes at conferences and recovery houses, and on podcasts, radio, and TV. She had an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, "I Beat Addiction without God," and one in Recovery Today, "How I Attained 28 Years Sobriety by Rejecting my Rehab's Submit to AA Order."

Professionally, 6 years into recovery, she attended Berkeley Law. She worked at a large firm, then litigated class actions for the federal government. In 2014, she was appointed a federal Administrative Law Judge from which position she retired in 2020.