I filed for bankruptcy at 30 for financing my cocaine use – now I earn over $ 13,000 a month

Sam Evans was only 23 when he was offered his first line of cocaine – at the funeral of a friend who died of a drug overdose.

After suffering a “heartbreaking” abortion, enduring horrific bullying and mourning, Sam was at an “all time low” – so she said yes.

Within six weeks, the 42-year-old was taking cocaine every day and spending hundreds of it every week. Her weight dropped from 147 pounds to 112 pounds and she was allowed to leave work.

It sparked a spiral of addiction that saw Sam, from London, forced to file for bankruptcy at the age of 30 after taking on $ 54,109 in debt to fund his habit.

Now Sam has changed her life, earning up to $ 13,527 per month as a life coach helping others overcome adversity, and she has written a new book “The Cognitive Switch”.

“Taking drugs was a cry for help that no one could hear. I was unhappy and have been since I was little. I was desperately looking for love, ”Sam said.

“It led to toxic relationships, and because of the way I behaved, no job had lasted more than 18 months.”

“But through the work I have done on myself with coaching and therapy over the past five years, I believe that what I am going through, I grow through to help other people. That I needed to get through the pain, come out the other side and show people how they can do it too.

Sam grew up in East London in a “predominantly white British area”, in a “strict” Indian family with his two younger sisters.

She felt like she did not fit into school and was bullied by classmates who racially assaulted her. At seven, she remembers praying to God to “take her back”.

“I didn’t belong because I didn’t look the same. Other children told me I was “dirty” because of my skin color. “

Sam, now 42, earns thousands of dollars a month from his coaching business.
Sam evans

“My parents were very strict, so I didn’t feel like I could breathe without being in trouble. It was the same in high school. I was desperately trying to fit in, but the friends were quickly disappearing.

At 15, Sam was “fed up” with living at home when her parents divorced, so she moved to live with her grandparents nearby, which allowed her to find a part-time job at Topshop.

But Sam would spend “every penny” on clothes and become addicted, hiding her things in her wardrobe.

“I loved the new outfits and the little tops, but I wasn’t allowed to wear them.”

After completing her GCSEs and A-levels, Sam studied a basic art course, then a massage course, but left both without finishing.

At 18 and in total, she began to socialize and met her then-boyfriend, falling pregnant at the age of 20.

“I didn’t know what to do, so I had an abortion. I only told my ex, so he came with me to the clinic. When I came back after the procedure, I was yelling at her to leave me alone.

“I separated from him and felt numb. Abortion was frowned upon by my family, but I finally told my mom and she really supported me, but my heart was broken for what I had done.

Over the next year, Sam was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, just as she was about to start her own business, a women’s clothing retail store.

Then, at age 23, one of Sam’s friends died of an accidental drug overdose. And his world fell apart.

“I was offered cocaine at his funeral. At first I said no. But I was at the bottom and I would never let go after an abortion. When I tasted cocaine, I thought “this is amazing”, it numbed my pain.

“In six weeks, I had been disconnected from work, my weight had dropped. I was addicted.

“I was doing one gram a day at $ 67 a day. I started borrowing money from friends, taking loans, and maximizing my credit cards to fund my clothes and drug use. I was getting out of control.

Working in the financial industry as a PA in London, Sam started dating.

At first, she spent $ 676 a night, buying everyone drinks and drugs to feel “in control.”

Sam is also reportedly spending $ 1,352 a month on clothes, opting for designer brands such as D&G, Versace and Prada.

“I just didn’t care about myself. I ended up rowing with my real friends who wanted me to stop using drugs and found other people who wanted to take cocaine.

“I would get out of my head. Sometimes I would go off on my own, hop in a cab and go dancing, even though I could barely stand. I am so grateful that nothing has happened to me.

“I had no sense of responsibility, and all of my jobs were on short-term contracts, so either I got fired or the contract ended and they weren’t asking me to stay.”

Sam ignored his growing debts, which were accumulating interest every month.

At the age of 25, Sam had $ 54,109 in debt. So she took out an individual voluntary agreement with a company that called her by phone and started paying $ 574 per month.

But her party continued and at 27, she met her ex-boyfriend, and she began to exclude her friends and family.

“I pushed for us to move in together, despite friends warning me that he was a bad influence. We stayed at home taking cocaine, sometimes awake for days.

“People called me a junkie. You can see from the photos how dark and sad my eyes were. I was a wreck.

“It lasted until I was 29. Then we parted ways and I was devastated. I found out he hadn’t paid the rent, so I had to pay the arrears.

“Then I got a call telling me that my IVA cheated on me, so none of my debts were gone. This money that I had paid monthly for five years is gone. “

“Then I lost my £ 30,000 a year ($ 40,000) job at a bank and had an emotional breakdown. I hit rock bottom.

Sam was able to recover, but it took him seven months to find a new job because of his bad credit rating.

When she was 30, she started working at the Bank of America, moved into a new apartment, and cut back on the drugs she took, but she was “still addicted.”

The following year at work Sam met her husband Barry, now 45, and it was “love at first sight” – after a whirlwind romance Barry proposed to Sam on his 31st birthday in 2011.

Finding someone who gave Sam the security she craved for, she let go of her drug addiction overnight. She found a ‘different high in life’.

“We had moved into his house in South East London and I was pregnant with our first child when Barry knelt down and I said yes straight away.”

Sam suffered from postpartum depression after Joshua, now nine, was born and decided to quit her banking career to become a Montessori teacher.

After welcoming their second child, Micah, in 2013, Sam started working in network marketing, which introduced him to the positive affirmations and the benefits they had on his state of mind.

This brought her into the world of coaching, and in 2018 she started working with therapists and mentors to “pull it off one layer at a time”.

“It was a very emotional time – I cried a lot during these sessions as all the negative emotions from my past were coming to the surface.

“I got to the root cause of why I turned to drugs and got addicted to buying clothes. “

In 2018, Sam – now a qualified emotional quotient practitioner and hypnotherapy coach – created his own business. Sam Evans Global, where she helps clients navigate personal crises and achieve their professional goals.

“I help people who feel stuck and feel like they’re going in a vicious cycle and no matter how hard they push each other, they feel like they’re backing off.”

“I reconnect their thinking, to forgive the past so that they can achieve whatever they want, whether it’s in a relationship, in a business, or as a parent.”

Through individual and group sessions, Sam’s business has skyrocketed, with earnings exceeding $ 13,558 per month.

Sam charges $ 2,700 per month for his individual program and offers these sessions or group sessions, which range from $ 405 to $ 1,600 per month. Its clients are based in the United Kingdom and the United States.

On top of that, she also earns money from royalties on books, her practitioner classes, and training other trainers.

She has written about her experiences and coaching techniques in a new book titled The cognitive switch: turn off self-sabotage and turn on empowerment as a simple switch.

“I shared these powerful tools for readers to take ownership of themselves. I teach them how to do it and walk them through the process, and they know I’ve been where they are.

“The book gathered all the information from my brain. It was as if everything I had been through had brought me to this point.

“I now feel aligned and now satisfied. I understand why I went through everything I did. I now know my goal, more than ever, and I now know that my goal is definitely bigger than me.

This story originally appeared on The sun and has been reproduced here with permission.


Source link

Comments are closed.