Today we’d like to introduce you to Lena Fancher.
Lena, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I was born in Saratov, Russia in 1989, was adopted at age 5 and moved to Steamboat Springs, Colorado where I spent most of my childhood. I played sports, was active my entire life but I had a secret of using drugs/alcohol as well as being gay in a small country town. I moved to Northern California during my high school years where I begin to attend boarding school. I’ve always struggled with dyslexia due to English being my seconded language, so my boarding school was for helping with this as well as I wasn’t doing good in public school. I managed to graduate high school and get a full scholarship to SNC (Sierra Nevada College) for Snowboard racing and at that point in my life, I was heavily into drugs and alcohol but it was all a big secret to the outside world and my family/friends. I dropped out of SNS after a semester and moved to Santa Cruz California to begin an art degree. When I say I never actually attended classes and my drug addiction took my life over. I slowly begin to lose my internal self, stopped believing in anything that was worth believing in and I was spiritually bankrupt. My family began to see a radical change in my behavior and the way I looked. In 2009, I was trapped in an intervention, where my whole family was and some healthy friends. I was relieved if I’m honest and while looking back now, I thank god for that moment. I wouldn’t be where I am today without the love and support of that day in 2009.
Today, my life is very different than it used to be. I have 8 years sober, I own a business called: Lotus Place Recovery that caters to the LGBTQIA community for substance abuse. In the May 2018 issues of Fight Magazine, I will be on the cover along with my business partner discussing how lotus became what it is today and what we do for both the substance and LGBTQIA community. I have found the woman of my dreams that I will soon be marrying and I have a wealth of friends that have never stopped believing in me during all my years of being sober.
Has it been a smooth road?
I was dealt a deck of cards that I’d like to say, I’ve played as well as I could. The road has not been smooth but it’s been beautiful along the way. My life has been incredibly bad and it’s been incredibly good but it’s never stopped being incredible. I had to relearn an entire culture when I was 5 and a different language.
Drugs took over my life in my teens and early twenties. I had to come out to the world, I was gay/ lesbian But if I can say anything to any women it would be that the world needs you and if at any moment you ever think you’re not enough to remind yourself that you are in fact allowed to be seen for exactly who you are and nothing less. Don’t stop believing in your dreams. We need you to continue to pave the road for the next generation.
We’d love to hear more about Lotus Place Recovery.
I founded Lotus Place Recovery in 2015 at the age 25. Lotus Place Recovery is a gender diverse conscious organization. The vision is to continue to innovate, educate, and implement current practices within the LGBTQIA community. We are a substance abuse Treatment Center that caters to the LGBTQIA community. We are currently the only Treatment Center available for the LGBTQIA community in Orange County. There is about 1,500 Treatment Center in Orange County but none for the LGBTQIA community. This is what makes me proud and really on the front lines of what is needed for a specialized community!
So much of the media coverage is focused on the challenges facing women today, but what about the opportunities? Do you feel there are any opportunities that women are particularly well positioned for?
Ahhhhhh. We as women have faced a lot of challenges but if I’d be damned we have persevered through so much more. I know for myself there have been many women before me that have paved a road that if we as women continue to fight, we will have more opportunities open up than we ever thought possible. I feel like we have a hard battle to continue to fight for equality for women but we have made progress, not enough through my eyes. I believe every woman can be who they want as long as we, as women stick together and fight the social, economic, education and political issues we as women have in this world. Being a woman with the president we currently have is less than ideal in today’s world, but we need to continue to fight for the right that should have always been our rights as women.
Contact Info:
- Address: Lotus Place Recovery
16480 harbor Blvd Fountain Valley, CA 92708
Suite 200 - Website: Lotus Place Recovery
- Phone: 888.735.3832
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Lotusaplaceforgrowth/
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