The North Star Sober Living for Women

04/20/2024

15 years of The NorthStar today

04/20/2024

The North Star ⭐️ has been going strong for 15 years today!

This photo was taken at our 10 year Anniversary

We can't thank everyone enough that traveled to celebrate with us, showed up early to set up, and stayed late to clean up. What an amazing day! Here's to 10 more years of keeping it real!

10/16/2023

04/19/2021

We love you Lauren. Our deepest sympathies.
https://gofund.me/efbcbdea

I’ve been sitting here since I got the news of Jon's passing and just thinking, what would He do… Chrissy Glenn needs your support for Support The Waters Boys

03/22/2020

Imagine your house manager telling you to just stay home and watch TV all day. And you can stay in bed and Grace or Laura won't even yell at you.
Your dreams are coming true! Just stay home!
We love you! Stay safe...reach out if you need help!
❤ grace & laura

10/22/2019

This will be the best 13 minutes you have spent in a long time. Please take the time to listen - Kiely Johnson does an amazing job. A seriously powerful recovery story!

In this episode we hear from Kiely who's is the definition of grit and beauty. Reap what you need. Kiely's info...

09/25/2019

Kiely J. Part 3: Not only have I stayed sober through the past 6 and a half years but I've also found the love of my life and married him. We had a baby in January of this year and I'm so in love with him. His name is Cameron and he is the light of my life. AND life still happens! I thank God for the 12 steps and the North Star for teaching me how to live. I still make my bed as soon as I wake up ;)

The promise on page 63 that says "He provided everything we needed, so long as we kept close to him and performed his work well" continues to manifest in my life and in my recovery. I'm so grateful for the women who pray for me as I pray for them. I live The Dream today and I'm so grateful to God for that!

@ Kerrville, Texas

09/24/2019

Kiely J. Part 2: I was life flighted to a hospital in San Antonio. When the house owner, Grace and house Manager, Laura heard the news they rushed to the hospital. I had to be put into a medically induced coma. I had a long, hard road ahead of me. After many surgeries, a month long detox off the pain meds and a 5 month hospital stay, I went home to the North Star. I was in a wheelchair and was very fragile. I chose to go back because I still didn't know how to live SOBER. I chose to go back and fight for that life I had lived before the accident.

North Star taught me that life happens but I don't have to get loaded when it does. The women there made me feel beautiful and strong. I'll never forget that when my hair was falling out (stress from the trauma) that the women would doll me up. Hair, makeup, clothes. My legs no longer served me as I limped around and was usually chained to my wheelchair. At that time, my life was pretty limited. I couldn't grocery shop or cook for myself. I could really only go to AA and watch Netflix at home. I sponsored close to 25 women at that time. I had nothing else that I could do so I soaked it all up.

Shortly after I left the North Star, I lost my left leg to an infection. The right leg was elected to be amputated due to pain. I had 3 options: quit my job, med seek, or have it amputated and go through a chunk of pain and move on with my life. Since then, I havent let anything slow me down. I have had a total of 32 surgeries since that hot August day. I can do crossfit. I can cartwheel, do a handstand and of course, the daily normal things like grocery shopping, cleaning my house, etc.

09/23/2019

Kiely J. Part 1: I never once thought I had a problem. I could put co***ne down, but I picked up ecstasy in its place and so on. When I didnt have the hard drugs, I stole liquor, did beer runs and smoked w**d. I lived to get high however I could and I was okay with that. I started facing consequences pretty early on. It wasnt enough to make me want to stop. Tickets, groundings, jail stays, homelessness and bridges burning all around me and I still didn't think I had a problem.

In 2012, I finally had met my match, substance and consequence wise. I landed back in jail with my first felony. I sat in county jail for 6 months, when one day I called my dad. He had an offer. He gets me out of jail and I go to treatment and sober living for 90 days. So that's what I did. After treatment I went to live at the North Star.

The 12 steps provided a way out and I took it! I started sponsoring at 52 days sober and I had experienced a psychic change. I lived in a sober living home with 15 other women. I was out of my element because I "only hung out with guys" and "women couldn't be trusted". I quickly saw that those core beliefs were wrong and I started to love and care for each woman in the house. Although, to this day I laugh when I remember that I used to get drug tested 2 or 3 times a week because I was still sketchy. (Old habits die hard I guess!) I was learning how to live life on a spiritual basis and it was the best life I'd ever lived.

At 109 days sober, August 9, 2013, I tried to jump off a 50 ft cliff into a spring. I didnt make it to the water and landed on my feet on some rocks and tree roots. Sparing some of the more gory details, I broke 13 bones, bled out for over an hour. I was dying.

05/30/2019

Raquel T Part 2: I moved in on February 24th, 2017 and moved out on February 27th, 2018. During my stay, I learned so much about myself and the kind of woman I wanted to be in recovery. I built relationships with incredible women, received guidance from women in the fellowship, learned how to take care of myself, and for once in my life, how to be responsible and independent. I had the privilege of being assistant house manager and later, house manager. Being given this opportunity of trust and leadership really showed me that I was capable of so much more than just staying sober. Today I am over two years sober, I am married to the love of my life who is also in the program, I am back in college working towards my Bachelor’s Degree in Social Work, and I currently work at an Immigration Law Firm where we live in Dallas, Texas. I have my family back, support and love from my amazing friends, a connection with a higher power who has blessed me with so much. For a long time, I thought I wasn’t worth anything, that I didn’t deserve to be happy, or that everyone should just give up on me because I was a lost cause, but the truth was I wasn’t willing to give myself a chance. I want to thank the 12-step programs for giving me another chance at life and for showing me a design for living for which I could had not found on my own. I also want to thank the city of Kerrville for all its resources and wonderful people who helped me during my darkest years of my life. And lastly, I want to thank Northstar for showing me that recovery is possible and that I have a purpose today - and that is helping the next alcoholic or addict. “If you persist, remarkable things will happen. When we look back, we realize that the things which came to us when we put ourselves in God’s hands were better than anything we could have planned. Follow the dictates of a higher power and you will presently live in a new and wonderful world, no matter what your present circumstance!” pg. 100, Big Book

05/29/2019

Raquel T Part 1: Growing up, I was raised to work hard and fight for what I wanted, but little did I know, years later I would be fighting for my life that filled with drug addiction and alcoholism. I started my journey to recovery on January 20th 2017, I was put on a plane to Center Point, Texas to go to treatment for the first time. I was born and raised in McAllen, Texas, where recovery is practically non-existent, meaning I had never met a sober person or heard of any 12-step programs. I began abusing substances at 14 years old and drinking heavily by the time I was 17, and by 21 years old, I had been arrested, stopped going to college, put myself and my family in financial and emotional debt, and had been to a mental hospital three times within a year. My life was in complete shambles, I lost friends, my family’s trust, my sanity, my dignity and integrity, and I had no idea how to live or how to survive another day in my life of chaos. There were so many times I just wanted to end it all, but when I arrived at Northstar Sober Living for Women, I realized there was a way out.

04/15/2019

Congratulations Brittany Andry & Divine Promises! Thank you for being such an asset to the Kerrville Recovery Community and for providing women a safe place to recover! N⭐ loves you!

04/10/2019

What an amazing day!

The North Star is the oldest women’s sober living home in Kerrville, and former residents of the home recently traveled from all over the country to celebrate its 10-year anniversary alongside the local recovery community.

04/08/2019

We can't thank everyone enough that traveled to celebrate with us, showed up early to set up, and stayed late to clean up. What an amazing day! Here's to 10 more years of keeping it real!

04/06/2019

TODAY IS THE DAY!
North Star party at The Outpost.
Starts at 11
1230 North Star Round Robin
2pm Stacy S. speaks

04/04/2019

We all have many stories to tell. My most important one began on April 6th, 2007. I had just turned 34 and found I had come to the end of myself which was a pretty lonely place. After years of depression, alcoholism & addiction, I literally cried out to a God I didn't know or even believe in. He obviously showed up because I have been sober ever since. With the help of the 12-steps, treatment, counseling, and sober living - the trajectory of my life changed and I developed a relationship with God which has seen me through some pretty rough seas as well some beautifully calm waters.
There’s a few really important chapters in my story. One is Kerrville, TX - a small town in the middle of Texas that is full of hope & recovery. It was there that I met people that showed me how to have true freedom from drugs and alcohol. There is a huge section of my life called The North Star which is a sober living house for women I started and ran for many years. There’s the part where I become a wife in 2015 to an amazing and hardworking man named Chris (my sweetheart forever and ever). And then there is chapter about becoming a mom in 2017. That’s my most beloved chapter – partly because it took so much work to get there.
Right now I am in a story about living in Port Aransas, TX 18 months after Hurricane Harvey almost destroyed our town, starting a family at the age of 45, and continuing to grow in my relationship God and how to be of service to His people. Hopefully there will be lots more stories to come. - Grace Collins

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