Mary Beth O’Connor was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and grew up in North Jersey. She suffered severe child abuse growing up. She started drinking and smoking marijuana at age 12. At 16, she found her way to methamphetamine which was a drug that worked best for her to abuse. Mary Beth attended and graduated high school and college while she was abusing meth. She earned her undergraduate degree from University of California, Berkeley in history. Mary Beth applied and was accepted to Berkeley Law School. She very quickly figured out that she couldn’t focus enough for a top ten law school curriculum. Her addiction ebbed and flowed from bad to severe and back as the years went by. She withdrew from Berkeley Law School the “right way”. Mary Beth then was addicted for another ten years of her life. She made her way to a five month rehab and spent the next 6 years putting her life back together. Eventually she applied to Berkeley Law and was rejected. She applied and was accepted to University of California, Hastings Law School for two years, rose to number 3 out of 400 students, reapplied to Berkeley and she was accepted! She earned her JD from Berkeley Law, a top ten law school nationally! Mary Beth went on to be appointed as a lawyer for the federal government and eventually became a federal judge! More about Mary Beth: “For Mary Beth, childhood abuse and other traumas led to substance use disorder (addiction).
Beginning with alcohol at age 12, she spent several years abusing various drugs. She found methamphetamine at 16 and started shooting up at 17. Mary Beth struggled with meth until she was 32 years old.
By incorporating ideas from multiple sources to build a secular (not 12-step or faith based) recovery plan that works for her, Mary Beth has been sober since 1994. She used similar techniques to address the trauma and related anxiety as well.
Mary Beth is a board member for LifeRing Secular Recovery and She Recovers Foundation. She speaks on behalf of these organizations, about multiple paths to recovery, and about all topics related to substance use disorder and recovery. She also speaks about sexual abuse and rape, child abuse, domestic violence, ptsd, anxiety, and recovering from these as well.
Mary Beth’s award-winning memoir, From Junkie to Judge: One Woman’s Triumph Over Trauma and Addiction, is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bamm, Indie Bound, and other sites, and at your local bookstore. She also has placed essays in publications such as The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and Recovery Today.
Professionally, 6 years into recovery, Mary Beth attended Berkeley Law. She worked at a large firm in Silicon Valley, then litigated class actions for the federal government. In 2014, Mary Beth was appointed a federal Administrative Law Judge, a position from which she retired in 2020.”
Thank you for being our guest on The Mike Litton Experience Mary Beth! We are so proud of you!
For more information about Mary Beth and her amazing work visit: https://junkietojudge.
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