When Gloria Espada boards the subway, she keeps at hand a change purse stashed with a few dollar bills, just in case anyone asks for money.
“I know what it’s like to sleep on a train,” she said.
It’s a remarkable change for Ms. Espada, 53, to now be able to help others.
In September 2018, she moved to New York City from Camden, N.J., hoping a new location would lead to sobriety and stability.
Four months later, she ended up homeless and in a shelter in East New York, Brooklyn.
Devastated that her plans had derailed again, she found herself on a three-day bender.
On the fourth day, she went looking for a pub on Atlantic Avenue and spotted a Pentecostal church, housed inside a pink building that used to be a movie theater.
Inside, an usher welcomed her with a hug. Down at the pulpit, the pastor made his altar call, and she moved forward.
“As I’m walking down, I could feel that God was telling me: ‘You’re in the right place. You’re finally home where you belong,’” Ms. Espada said recently, sitting on a burgundy chair in the back row of that church.
Eight months after coming into the fold, it feels like another home to her.
For 42 years, Ms. Espada’s life was marked by a dependency on drugs and alcohol. She would excel at work, then substance abuse would cause her to lose her jobs.
“I would go up five steps and come down 10,” she said.
Now, Ms. Espada spends her time sharing her testimony, ministering in parks and helping people in need.
The congregation “helped me get to where I am today,” she said. “I thank God I took that step in believing in a power higher than myself that could help me.”
When Ms. Espada was at low points in her life, help was hard to come by, even from her family. “No one ever cared for me,” she said.
Ms. Espada was born in Coamo, P.R., the third oldest of eight children. Her parents’ relationship was turbulent, and when Ms. Espada was 7, her mother moved the children to Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.
As Ms. Espada recalls, her gateway to alcohol came when she was 11 and her mother told her that she had tried to abort her pregnancy with her. Ms. Espada ran out of the house and met a friend, who invited her to raid the family liquor cabinet.
“That’s when my addiction to alcohol started,” Ms. Espada said.
In her early teenage years, she continually lost herself to alcohol. She was also sexually assaulted several times.
“I didn’t want to live. I was mad at God. I was mad at the world,” Ms. Espada said. “I was rebellious. I fought. I used to walk around with knives and guns. I wanted to kill anybody that was in my way.”
Ms. Espada’s substance abuse went from alcohol and marijuana to pills and cocaine.
At 26, she entered a rehabilitation center for the first time, beginning a long period of recoveries and relapses. For over two decades, she tried rehabilitation facilities and psychiatric hospitals to be treated for substance abuse and depression.
“I didn’t want to submit,” Ms. Espada said. “I wasn’t obedient.”
Throughout it all, she always had jobs, including working on an assembly line and directing a hotel. But the jobs did not last. “My addiction robbed me from a lot of things,” she said.
“I would do good for a couple of months and then I would just fall off the wagon every single time,” Ms. Espada said. Unemployment made her feel worthless.
And she was lonely, estranged from her family and unable to maintain relationships.
Ms. Espada was also arrested several times for shoplifting and once for drug use. During periods of homelessness, she said, she was driven to steal. In 2011 and 2012, she was arrested on charges of retail theft, and received probation each time.
After Ms. Espada quit her job at a packaging company in 2018, she could not afford her rent and started living in a trailer in New Jersey with two men and no running water. The situation pushed her to a breaking point.
She bought a one-way bus ticket to New York.
Ms. Espada stayed at her sister’s apartment in Gravesend, Brooklyn, for a month, but left after they had a disagreement.
She found refuge in a church she was attending in her sister’s neighborhood. The pastor allowed Ms. Espada to stay in the basement of the sanctuary.
Three months later, he asked her to leave after security footage showed her drinking and smoking on the grounds.
In late January, she entered a shelter in East New York operated by Brooklyn Community Services, one of the seven organizations supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. After struggling the first several days, she joined the nearby church that had welcomed her and later received permission to attend late-night services there.
During her time at the shelter, Ms. Espada also attended art classes, obeyed curfew and applied for jobs. The experience at the shelter, the discovery of her faith and her recovery have left her humbled.
“I learned to hop over the banana peel instead of slipping on it,” she said.
In June, she moved to an apartment in Long Island City, in Queens, and she has been sober for eight months, which she attributes to God’s help. Councilors at the shelter, church members and some relatives supported Ms. Espada during her recovery, she said.
This fall, she bought new church clothes with a $300 grant from The Neediest Cases Fund. “It’s been a long time since I shopped,” said Ms. Espada, who is unemployed. Each month, she receives $192 in food stamps and $171 in cash assistance from the Wellness, Comprehensive Assessment Rehabilitation and Employment program.
Ms. Espada wants to get her high school equivalency diploma and become a counselor so she can help people who struggle with substance abuse. “I want to give them a chance and tell them there is hope for you,” she said.
“Today I know where I’m standing. I know who I am and what I’ve been through,” Ms. Espada said. “If it wasn’t for Him, I would not be here.”
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