PAGE A12, KEIZERTIMES, FEBRUARY 04, 2022
Sobriety at Simonka:
The redemption story of Laura Hammack
Laura Hammack works the front desk of Simonka Place on Jan. 28 as part of recovery in the New Life Fellowship program.
By JOEY CAPPELLETTI
Of the Keizertimes
It wasn’t Laura Hammack’s first time
in the hospital. A decades-long drinking
problem had resulted in four hospital
scares in the past. But the emergency room
visit in September of 2020 was different.
Hammack had been rushed to the hos-
pital after breaking three blood vessels in
a drinking accident and doctors had been
unable to stop the excessive bleeding.
“I just recall being in this very small
little room with like 15 people,” Hammack
said. “And I could feel when I was going to
gush out more blood and I would be apolo-
gizing profusely like I had control over it.”
As more and more of her alco-
hol-thinned blood spilled from her body,
Hammack began to accept that her years
of drinking may have caught up to her.
“I just remember laying there thinking
to myself, ‘I wonder if I'm dying,’ I'm get-
ting rid of all this blood and I wonder if
this is what it feels like to die,” Hammack
said. “And I thought, ‘I sure hope so.’”
‘All of it started crashing in on me.’
Raised in San Francisco, Hammack was
hired out of college as a secretary at Bank
of America. For 13 years she climbed her
way up the corporate ladder, eventually
becoming a supervisor. She was hired
away by the Intel Corporation where she
worked for over a decade.
“During my Intel years, I was raising
three teenage stepchildren with my then
husband. At the same time, I was ris-
ing at Intel and the stress of my job was
changing. I was traveling a lot. I wasn't
home very much,” Hammock said.
“My use of alcohol had begun steadily
increasing and eventually, all it started
crashing in on me,” she added.
Hammack divorced her husband in
2000 and soon after quietly resigned from
Intel. Her personal and professional life
having both been severely impacted by
drinking, Hammack entered her first res-
idential treatment in 2003. She relapsed
after 30 days.
In 2004, she tried residential treatment
once again after spending a night in jail
from a DUI. This time, the treatment was
successful. She began going to Alcoholics
Anonymous and even got a job as a drug
and alcohol counselor for Bridgeway
Recovery Services in Salem.
In 2012, after eight years of sobriety,
she relapsed and was fired from her job at
Bridgeway.
“Recovery will always be open ended,”
Hammack said. “A glass of wine here, a
glass of wine there, and you’re right back
to where you were.”
Having battled alcoholism for most
of her adult life, Hammack felt there was
“something was missing” at residential
treatment centers. She decided to give
faith-based recovery a try.
Hammack checked herself into
Simonka Place in July of 2020.
Located in Keizer, Simonka Place is
a faith-based women’s shelter that pro-
vides both short and long-term recovery
services. Union Gospel Mission operates
Photo by JOEY CAPPELLETTI of Keizertimes
Simonka Place in addition to a men's shel-
ter in Salem. The New Life Fellowship pro-
gram, which Hammack was attempting
to enter, is a substance abuse recovery
program.
After close to a month in the program,
Hammack was dismissed for bringing
alcohol into the shelter.
A month later, Hammack made her
fifth, and final, trip to the hospital. Covered
in blood, with her chances of survival
decreasing by the second, Hammack
didn’t care if she lived or died at that point.
But something happened as she laid
there, something that she wouldn’t fully
understand until later.
“I turned my head on the pillow and, at
the time I didn't know what it was because
I was kind of dazed, but there was just
kind of like this white ghostly figure. I just
looked at it and it didn't move. But I could
just make out an arm raised up over me,
almost pointing at me,” Hammack said.
“There were no words said, but I know
there was something else present.”
Hammack survived and four days after
being released from the hospital, she
began drinking again.
‘Scales fell from his eyes, and he
regained his sight.’
In just over a month, Hammack will
graduate from the New Life Fellowship
program at Simonka Place. Sitting in a
Keizer coffee shop, she recites her favorite
Bible verse.
“At once something like scales fell from
his eyes, and he regained his sight,” reads
a passage from Acts 9:18. The verse is
about the sudden clarity that Apostle Paul
has with Jesus.
Hammack’s "scales" began to fall a
week after leaving the hospital. She had
relapsed and was drinking all day, every
day. She received a voicemail from DeDe
Hazzard, a supervisor at Simonka Place,
asking for her to return to the shelter.
“When I heard that they wanted me
back, I started to cry,” Hammack said.
"And that was when I made the associa-
tion of the vision of Jesus in the hospital
and that phone call. He speaks through
other people.”
On Oct. 1, 2020, after a weeklong
detox, Hammack entered into the New
Life Fellowship program. Over the next 16
months, she would slowly work her way
LIFE