Jesica Gutierrez finds her way after a dark detour

A dark detour in life enabled Jesica Gutierrez to find out what’s meaningful.

“My life was all wrapped around what do I have, how much do I make,” the 27-year-old Santa Rosa single mother said. “Now it’s all about how much I can give back.”

Reading to her daughters, Elizabeth, 11, and Nyalanna, 2, and tucking them into bed is the focus of her life. That and helping the less fortunate at her job with Catholic Charities.

Today, the trio will be at two Thanksgiving family gatherings in Windsor, surrounded by dozens of relatives.

For slender, raven-haired Gutierrez, the holiday marks a comeback from devastation, a year and half addicted to alcohol and crystal meth that cost her nearly everything: A home in Sebastopol, two cars, a high-paying job in the mortgage business.

“My whole life crumbled,” said Gutierrez, who grew up in Santa Rosa and Windsor.

Pregnant at 16 and married to Elizabeth’s father at 18, Gutierrez thought she had put it all together, with a family and money. But a traumatic divorce at age 21 plunged her into drugs.

“I had morals, I had values,” she said. “It just all went out the door.”

Her second pregnancy triggered Gutierrez’s rebound. “My wake-up call,” she said. She kicked alcohol and meth through a 12-step program, got a minimum wage job at a wholesale beauty supply shop and enrolled in Catholic Charities’ transitional housing program.

Now she’s working fulltime at the nonprofit and has a modest condo in west Santa Rosa. Gutierrez is attending Santa Rosa Junior College and wants to resume making wedding cakes as a side business.

“It’s good to be back with my mom,” Elizabeth said. “I’m thankful for my family, my sister and all my friends.”

Jesica Gutierrez appreciates the vagaries of her life.

“I think everything I experienced was for a reason,” she said. “I am very proud of who I am today.”