Can you give us a little background about yourself?

My name is Anna Lee. I am 41. I was born in Rowland Heights, California. I’m a second-generation Korean American. I identify as female; my preferred pronouns are she, her, and hers.

Where is your hometown?

I pretty much grew up in Rowland Heights; my early childhood was in Rowland Heights. Then our family moved to Hacienda Heights when I was 6 or 7 years old.

My parents always worked pretty hard. At the time, my mom worked for the post office, and my dad worked at the Ralph’s bakery. My grandmother — my maternal grandmother — lived with us. She was probably the first person whom I really attached to; actually, interestingly, she’s the person who delivered me. I was delivered at home in Rowland Heights, in my parents’ master bedroom. At that time, my parents had been in the U.S. for two or three years, and they didn’t realize that you could use county hospitals or didn’t know about any of the resources. Hence, I was born at home. You know, I think all my early memories are of having my grandmother around. My early childhood was pretty normal, other than my parents working all the time, so I didn’t really spend much time with them. But having that close connection with my grandmother was very helpful.

Did your grandmother move to the U.S. with your parents?

My parents moved here in 1980. Then my grandmother came in 1981 or 1982.

Do you have siblings?

I do have siblings. I have a brother who is much older than me — 14 years older. He was born in Korea, so he came with my parents when they first moved here.

Did you spend time in Koreatown growing up?

To go clubbing [laughs]. Other than that, my early memories of K-Town were my parents coming out here to go grocery shopping. All the Korean community resources and everything were out here, so they would come this way. Eventually, my grandmother ended up moving to L.A. at some point, and I remember coming out to visit her, but other than that, my schooling and all of that were in the San Gabriel Valley area.

Do you have a favorite memory or a favorite place in K-Town?

I don’t know if I should answer that [laughs]. Let’s see … My favorite memory, I think, was probably Mecca [nightclub]. When I was younger, my cousin used to take me clubbing with her. Of course, this was when I was definitely underage. I had this cool older cousin who wanted to hang out with her absolutely cool younger cousin, right? No. Apparently, every time she was grounded, she wasn’t allowed to go out with her friends. So she would tell her parents that she was going to hang out with me, and she would take me along with her to go clubbing, which allowed her to go out with her friends. That was a lot of fun. That’s where my early memories of K-Town started, around the age of 15 or 16.

What was your relationship with your brother like?

My brother joined the military. At the age of 17, he joined the U.S. Army, so he left when I was about 3, since we have about a 14-year [age] gap. I didn’t have many memories of spending time with my brother, other than the occasions when he’d come back when he was just out on a break. Then, after the military, he lived on his own. Other than him picking me up every once in a while to take me out to do something, I don’t have much of a [memory] of the time that we spent together when I was younger. Now, we at least talk on a regular basis. I talk to him at least a couple of times a month. He travels a lot, and he works quite a bit, so sometimes he’s a little hard to reach. But he’s married and has a beautiful daughter — they’re out in Arizona. Even though he lives out of state, I feel like our relationship has been much closer.

What was your relationship with your parents like when you were younger?

You know, that’s the thing. I don’t feel as though I have as many memories early on, other than always seeing them work. The house felt somewhat cold. There was always a sense of tension in that house. As a kid, I didn’t understand their dynamic. I felt as though there was something that I was doing wrong, and so, growing up, I tried my best to be that sort of perfect child. Trying not to get into trouble, doing as I’m told, playing piano, practicing piano, all of those things.

In fourth or fifth grade, I ended up drinking for the first time. Neither of my parents drinks, so it wasn’t like they drank on a regular basis. They only had alcohol in the house for when they were entertaining guests. But I just saw all these little pretty bottles — the little mini shooter bottles. I don’t remember what compelled me, but I went and grabbed all the clear ones and drank all of them, then refilled them all with water, thinking, I’m never going to get caught. Unfortunately, I have that Asian flush syndrome. So my dad comes home and finds this bright red kid reeking of alcohol, and he’s like, ‘What the heck did you do?’ and I’m like, “I was just curious.” He was like, ‘Okay, well, now you know. Don’t ever do that again.’ So I said, “Okay, probably not.”

My grandmother died when I was in sixth grade, around the time I was about 11. That’s when some of the acting out began. That’s when I first started off being somewhat of a klepto. It wasn’t even that I didn’t have the money; it was just the thrill of walking out with merchandise. I don’t know; maybe that was just my way of dealing with my grief because I didn’t understand what happened, and there wasn’t anyone to sit there and let me express my feelings or anything like that. I needed an outlet. My dad smoked cigarettes his entire life — he still does — and around the age of 12, I started smoking his cigarettes, and that was kind of where I was headed. There was also the part of me that still presented itself on the outside like everything was fine, like I was still that straight-A student.

In eighth grade, I started playing golf. Initially, the idea was to get me started so that we could do this whole family weekend thing playing golf together, and it was supposed to be this so-called “bonding experience.” They got a family membership at a country club, but I think that was just kind of the facade we wanted to put on. Over time, though, I actually started to play competitively. [In] my first or second year of playing, I ended up Player of the Year in the Southern California junior region and won the L.A. Junior Golf Championship two years in a row.

Eventually, golf became a big part of my life. At the same time, there was also this part of me that was rebelling. [I’d often sneak] out at night [to go] clubbing with my cousin, ditch school, and was attracted to the little bad boys. I felt justified in that because my friends would always ask me, ‘Hey, you want to go hang out on the weekend?’ and I was like, “No, I can’t. I’ve got practice.” So I felt like, Well, if I ditch school, then I can go and hang out with them, and it’ll be fun. That was part of me enjoying this double life where, on the outside, my parents could continue to pretend that I was this perfect child, but on the inside, I was actually hurting pretty badly. Before any of the drug use started, I think my main issues were probably anxiety and depression. I mean, what 14-year-old or 15-year-old is sitting there asking questions about the meaning of life? [I was] having an existential crisis in the middle of my early teenage years.

Early on, those issues were there, and they were just kind of dismissed. I was the kid in high school where teachers would feel a little bit concerned and send me to see the school psychologist to get evaluated because I’d be sitting there writing some pretty morbid poems in class. Then, I did a lot of ditching, and eventually, my mom ended up switching my school. It didn’t really help. Drugs acted as an outlet or way to feel numb enough so I could function. The first time I started using [drugs] was probably when I was 14 or 15. I started with marijuana; it was with some friends from school, and I just liked the escape. I thought that as long as everything on the outside looked okay, everything in my life was fine. It’s just me having, once again, that justification of, I’m entitled to this because that part of my life is good. That was kind of where things started.

In my sophomore year, I went with a friend to a gathering where I was gang raped. Somebody put something in my drink, and I remember feeling like I couldn’t move. I was able to see everything that was happening around me, but I was not able to do anything. It was almost like that out-of-body experience. That’s literally what I felt like. I was watching what was happening to me at that time. That was somewhat of a catalyst that pushed me further into my addiction. I felt as though I needed to be numb, or else I was not going to be able to hold together the other pretty packaged part of my life.

To keep up that facade, I continued to use [drugs]. I had switched from marijuana, and I never wanted to touch alcohol, so I was introduced to meth. I felt like it made me invincible. It made me feel numb enough to function. I could study more. I could play golf better. I could do so much more and keep up this facade as long as I was using [drugs]. That was my sophomore year, so I also had to get a lot more serious about my golf. In my sophomore and junior years, I was hoping to get recruited. I was recruited by USC (University of Southern California). Toward the end of my junior year, I already knew that I was going to play for USC on a scholarship. So somehow I got through my senior year, continuing to use, continuing to play golf, and continuing to put on this mask every day. Then, I went off to college and started my freshman year at USC. I was on the main traveling team, so I got to play in the tournaments and everything as a freshman.

It was at that point that I initially started on antidepressants. I had a boyfriend whom I had been dating since I was about 17. He was much older. At the time, I was young and felt pretty naive about the world and relationships overall, but that was a rather toxic relationship. There was a lot of psychological and emotional abuse, a lot of this very controlling and possessive behavior, and it eventually turned physical at some point. College seemed like my getaway — it seemed like my way out. It was during my college years that we finally managed to split, but it was at a point where I felt that only happened after I nearly killed myself. I felt, to a point, that was going to be my only way out of this relationship, that if I didn’t take it to that extreme, there was no way that he was going to let me go willingly. After that, I gained my freedom, and things quickly went out of control.

In my sophomore year, I ended up losing my scholarship. I felt as though I couldn’t go home because, you know, I’d just put shame on myself and my entire family. My parents, despite knowing little bits and pieces of what was going on in my life, didn’t really talk about it. They weren’t going to ask me directly if I use drugs. I think they knew, but they were just afraid to ask. So I lost my scholarship. I couldn’t go home because I didn’t want to face my parents. I continued to use and house-hopped at friends’ [places] or lived out of my car and committed whatever crimes I could to support my habit.

I was probably about 20 or 21 when another incident happened. I was carjacked, kidnapped, and raped for five days. If I had any shred of humanity up until that point, it completely went out the door after that incident. I gave up. I didn’t care about myself, I didn’t care about the world, and I didn’t care who I hurt anymore. At that point, I got involved in things I shouldn’t have gotten involved in. Eventually, that caught up to me, and I was arrested for the first time when I was around 20 or 21. My parents didn’t know what to do. It was at that point that they decided, ‘Okay, we need to find some help. We need to actually find some form of treatment or get her out of jail somehow.’

They were pretty involved in the Korean church — they’re both Catholic. They didn’t want to talk to their friends about it because of the shame, but eventually, they did talk to some close friends about it, and it just kind of spread — the gossip just spread. At that point, my parents stopped attending that particular church and associating with those friends. The help that they managed to find me was a Korean Christian group home. I’m not going to say where, but that was the only place they could think of at the time because of their limited resources. They didn’t know who to ask about these things, and since all of their friends were Korean, they were not going to know many resources.

I was court-ordered to [stay at] this Christian group home for six months. I stayed there for a good four months, and then I decided that the first one wasn’t a good fit for me, so I left and then went to some other treatment program on my own. The judge didn’t like that. I had violated my probation, but one of the things that I became good at was using my so-called sob story as a tool for manipulation. I wanted to play that victim. I wanted just to say, “I only did these things because of what’s happened to me,” and this and that. I got mandated to go to therapy, which I didn’t go to; that was just my way of using another Get Out of Jail Free card. But I couldn’t stay clean. I continued to violate probation. They gave me multiple chances, and I somehow thought I was going to beat the system, so I continued to find [ways out]. [I used] system cleaners — trying all sorts of different types of cocktails to try to clean my system before drug tests, but they didn’t work. Eventually, it got to the point where the court was pretty fed up with me.

Luckily, the last time I was arrested, I got pulled over by a different jurisdiction. I had a new case with another court now, and I was offered a drug court. Drug court was an option that was available to me, and I felt like it was either a drug court or four years in prison, and I thought that drug court seemed a little bit more appealing. But to be completely honest, at the time, I don’t think I had any intention of staying clean. I was just like, I’ll jump through your stupid hoops, and I’ll do what you’re asking me just so that I can get the court off my back. Then I was going to go back to using, and I felt as though, somehow, like I said, I was entitled to use. I felt like I was only going to survive if I continued to use. So my thought was, Okay, just do what they asked me for now. But it was in drug court that I met a counselor who saw behind the mask. She was the first one who told me, ‘I need you to go to therapy. I’m willing to count your therapy as one of their court requirements.’ She was willing to knock off one of the groups I had to attend or some [requirement] — she bargained with me. So that was my initial start of at least somewhat addressing what had happened in my life up till then.

The other piece was with the drug court. At the time, the treatment program was going through Mid Valley Outpatient, which happens to be one of the Social Model Recovery Systems programs. At the time, one of the requirements was that you had to find a 12-step meeting and then find a sponsor. I remember my first experience with 12-step meetings was in two or three other rehabs before going into this particular treatment program. At this point, I was 23. I remember going into my first 12-step meeting — it was an Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting somewhere in Monrovia. I walked in and saw all these people, and nobody looked like me. I didn’t relate to anybody, but everyone was going around saying, ‘I’m so-and-so. I’m an alcoholic.’ It came around me, and I was like, “Well, I don’t have a problem with alcohol.” So I’m like, “I’m Anna. I’m an addict,” and some old timer got up and yelled at me. He’s like, ‘You can’t talk then!’ I’m like, F you, bye-bye.