Liz Nickerson
ESAAlliance President: 2021 - Present
The Insight Program Group Member: 2004 - 2006
I went through Outpatient in the Atlanta Insight Program in 2004 before there was ever a program in North Carolina. I lived in Atlanta for six months and bounced around between host-family houses and essentially couch surfing in different group members’ homes. I did not attend school during this time, rarely slept and developed a two pack a day cigarette addiction while having wild nights of fun and pretty intense and emotionally excruciating outpatient sessions. But with all the tears, meltdowns and panic attacks - I was told I was receiving the best treatment in the world for young people, and this is the type of therapy that works.
When I had six months sober, there were enough kids from Greensboro, North Carolina in the Atlanta Group, that we were moved back home to start the first Insight Program in North Carolina. It was a rocky start, my parents helped Clint Stonebraker secure what is now the Greensboro Shop and also furnished it. Things took a more drastic turn in my experience; while in Atlanta, I was one of 60 or so kids in Younger Group - but in Greensboro I was now one of 15 - and that meant more direct attention from Staff.
I stayed in The Group until days after I picked up two years sober. I had a pretty traumatic exit from The Group - but I have maintained my sobriety, with a lot of unlearning and a lot of additional help.
This survivor community has helped me so much in identifying, unpacking and providing resources for me to unlearn and toss out these old ideas that have caused unnecessary stress, impact myself esteem and conflict with my sense of identity.
I am so honored to be working with such a compassionate and empathetic survivor community as well as the members of the ESAAlliance Board of Directors. This journey has been rewarding, validating, heartbreaking and necessary. Even though this program was my introduction to sobriety, I would not wish anyone to go through the harms and abuses that I suffered in these programs.
Today I am happily married for almost 10 years to another person I met in sobriety. I bought a house in Portland, Oregon with my spouse, two dogs and two cats. I am back in school pursing a degree in Political Science with a focus on Social Justice and Policy Making and when I am not studying or doing ESAAlliance work, I am spending time enjoying the Portland food scene with friends and camping in the Pacific Northwest with my husband, dogs and teardrop camper.
To learn more about Liz and her personal experience in Enthusiastic Sobriety Programs, watch her interview from 2021 with Mark from Talk Beliefs.
LIZ NICKERSON is founder of the support site, ESAAlliance.org – a resource for those who have experienced abuse in Enthusiastic Sobriety Programs. In 2004, as a sixteen year old, she was sent to one of these facilities.
Today she campaigns and speaks out against these programs, programs that Liz now considers dangerous and cult-like.
MARK from Talk Beliefs hears Liz's story of her two years inside a Enthusiastic Sobriety facility, where prejudices, magical thinking, and bizarre judgments were the order of the day.