Healing Isn’t Linear: Tammy Jo’s Journey from Pain to Spiritually Sober
There’s something powerful about hearing someone share the truth of their transformation—not just the highlight reel, but the hard, messy middle too. In this blog, we spotlight Tammy Jo’s courageous and inspiring story of what it really means to become spiritually sober.
She didn’t just recover. She reclaimed.
The Early Pattern: Seeking Worth Through Others
Tammy Jo grew up believing she wasn’t enough. Like so many of us, she learned early on that love had to be earned—by being quiet, by pleasing others, by not taking up too much space. That wound led to relationships where she overgave, overlooked red flags, and lost her voice.
The irony? On the outside, she was strong, smart, and wildly capable. But on the inside, she carried a deep sense of unworthiness.
She tried to fix it the way most of us do—through external achievements, validation, and love from people who didn’t know how to love her back. And when that didn’t work, she numbed. She disconnected from herself in order to survive.
The Awakening: When Enough Becomes Enough
There’s always a moment when the soul says: no more.
For Tammy Jo, that moment came like a lightning bolt. After decades of abandonment—by others and by herself—she made a choice. She wasn’t going to abandon herself anymore.
That was the start of her spiritual sobriety.
Spiritual sobriety doesn’t just mean abstaining from substances. It means reclaiming your truth. It means getting clear on who you really are, what you’re no longer willing to carry, and how to create a life rooted in inner safety and alignment.
Rebuilding: Learning to Love the Woman in the Mirror
Tammy Jo didn’t just walk away from pain. She walked toward something greater.
She started asking better questions:
- What would it look like to be fully honest with myself?
- How can I hold myself in love even when I feel unworthy?
- Can I believe I’m lovable, even when I’m messy?
The more she practiced spiritual sobriety, the more powerful she became. She wrote a book. She joined forces with Anita to co-create the Manifest Like a Powerhouse platform. And most importantly, she stopped giving her power away.
From Survival to Manifestation
Today, Tammy Jo is a powerful voice for anyone who’s ever felt broken, ashamed, or lost. Her story proves that healing is possible, and manifestation doesn’t require perfection. It requires presence, honesty, and faith.
She’s not just manifesting a better life. She’s living one.
💬 Favorite Takeaways from Tammy Jo’s Story:
- You don’t have to hit rock bottom to decide you’re worth more.
- Spiritual sobriety is about coming home to yourself—not running from pain.
- When you stop betraying yourself, the Universe starts responding differently.
📘 Want to Go Deeper?
Tammy’s story is rooted in the themes of her powerful book, Becoming Spiritually Sober. If you felt something move in this episode, the book will take you even further.
👉 Grab the book on Amazon: Becomoing Spiritually Sober
And be sure to visit Tammy’s official site for more wisdom and resources:
👉 https://tammyjophiel.com
🎧Hear From Tammy Directly:
Listen now: 👉 Listen on Apple Podcasts | Listen on Spotify | Watch on YouTube
📄 Full Episode Transcript (Part 1)
Prefer to read? Here’s the opening of Episode 6 from the Manifest Like a Powerhouse Podcast:
ANITA: Welcome back to Manifest Like a Powerhouse! I’m Anita —
TAMMY JO: —and I’m Tammy Jophiel!
ANITA: And today, I get the distinct honor of turning the spotlight on this incredible woman next to me. We’re diving deep into Tammy Jo’s Story—her path to what she calls Becoming Spiritually Sober. You’ve heard her brilliance in every episode… but today, we’re pulling back the curtain on how she got here. Buckle up—this one’s going to be raw, real, and ridiculously empowering.
ANITA: Tammy, you’ve shared in your book that your childhood felt like walking on eggshells—around alcoholism, abuse, and depression. For listeners who haven’t read your story yet, take us back. What was life like for little Tammy Jo?
TAMMY JO: Let me give you a little background info first…
My parents’ relationship began in an intense whirlwind—they married just six weeks after meeting in Florida. My mother had been born and raised there, while my father was in the midst of recovering from the emotional impact of a brief, intense brush with fame after surviving two of the most devastating non-wartime Navy plane crashes in U.S. history.
They soon relocated to Illinois, settling near my paternal grandparents. It was there that my mother—still navigating the deep emotional wounds of her own childhood—began learning how to be a parent under the guidance of my grandmother. Her own mother had been lost in the grip of depression following the tragic death of my grandfather in a car accident on Christmas Eve when my mom was just eight years old. The loss had left a gaping hole in her sense of safety and nurturing, which deeply influenced how she entered motherhood herself.
It’s fair to say that my parents brought significant unprocessed pain into their marriage. Despite their best efforts, the emotional weight they each carried made it difficult to create a stable foundation. They had three children together, and I was the oldest. When their relationship began to unravel, I found myself quickly stepping into the role of a co-parent—something many eldest children in complex family systems come to understand too well.
I was taught to do the laundry, make dinner, and became the one responsible for caring for my younger siblings. I even picked up my youngest sister from the babysitter on my way home from school after my mom returned to work full time. I took on adult responsibilities while still very much a child myself.
After the divorce, both of my parents sought to reclaim parts of themselves they had lost in the early years of parenting. Each of them had been the eldest child in their own families, tasked early with responsibility, and now they were yearning for fun, freedom, and connection—often expressed through nights out with friends and drinking, which was very normalized at the time.
My mom struggled with feelings of abandonment, and my dad seemed to feel liberated from the pressure of a role he wasn’t prepared for. There was a lot of unspoken grief, frustration, and unresolved anger between them. Tensions ran so high that, at times, I found myself physically intervening in their arguments—once even stepping in front of my mom and unintentionally taking the blow meant for her. That moment was a defining rupture and, I believe, a turning point in their decision to finally separate.
Through it all, I knew they loved us. But they were overwhelmed, submerged in their own pain, and trying to survive in the best ways they knew how. Parenting in the midst of that kind of emotional flood is incredibly difficult.
My grandparents became a grounding force during that time. They would take my sister Kelly and me on trips, offering us moments of peace and joy. Those memories stand out as small but powerful reminders of stability and care during an otherwise chaotic time.
ANITA: That image you use—of constantly tiptoeing mentally—hit me hard. You talk about how these cycles repeated into adulthood… even though you loved your kids fiercely, you found yourself stuck in the same patterns. When did you know something had to change?
TAMMY JO: I always knew something needed to change in the way I had learned to use alcohol as my parents had for a coping mechanism to an unhappy marriage. I too found myself in a very unhappy marriage to the father of my younger two children with a man whose family I had developed a very close relationship with as my mother had within my dad’s family.
🎥 To see more, watch the full episode on YouTube.