From Junkie to Judge
One Woman's Triumph Over Trauma and Addiction

Mary Beth O'Connor has been clean and sober since 1994. She also is in recovery from abuse, trauma, and anxiety. Mary Beth is a director, secretary, and founding investor for She Recovers Foundation. She also is a director for LifeRing Secular Recovery. She regularly speaks on behalf of these organizations and about multiple paths to recovery. This includes conferences, podcasts, radio, and recovery houses. She also develops relationships with other organizations, such as Women for Sobriety. In August 2020, Mary Beth had an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, "I Beat Addiction without God," where she described combining ideas from several secular programs to create a robust recovery foundation. Mary Beth's memoir writings have been published in Memoir Magazine, Awakenings, the Noyo River Review, The Fault Zone, Carry the Light, and Ravens Perch. Professionally, six years into her recovery, Mary Beth attended Berkeley Law. She worked at a large firm, then litigated class actions for the federal government. In 2014, she was appointed as a federal administrative law judge.