For this week’s Sundays with Seegers podcast, County Commissioner candidate Jake Seegers sits down with Sequim resident Anniemarie Hogenboom for one of the most powerful and personal conversations he has ever recorded.
Anniemarie’s story begins in places most people can scarcely imagine. As a teenager, she was trafficked, became addicted to heroin, and found herself living on the streets of San Francisco. Looking back on that period of her life, she recalls, “I was trafficked at a time when it was definitely not something anybody talked about.”
What follows is a remarkable story of survival, recovery, and redemption.
Listeners will hear Anniemarie describe the moment she reached rock bottom, withdrawing from heroin alone in a doorway in San Francisco after deciding she no longer wanted to live the life addiction had trapped her in. “I ran out of drugs. I didn’t want to turn tricks. And so I went off of heroin cold turkey.”
The conversation explores not only her recovery, but how a pair of compassionate mentors helped her rebuild her life through accountability, work, and expectations rather than enabling destructive behavior. “They saved me,” she says simply.
From there, Anniemarie went on to build a successful career as a teacher and administrator, raise a family, and eventually become an advocate for women recovering from trafficking, abuse, addiction, and other forms of trauma. Today she leads the New Resiliency Group in Sequim, helping women navigate many of the same struggles she once faced herself.
The discussion also tackles some of Clallam County’s most controversial issues, including homelessness, addiction, human trafficking, incarceration, recovery programs, and what genuine compassion looks like. Whether listeners agree with all of Anniemarie’s conclusions or not, her perspective comes from lived experience rather than theory.
Perhaps the most moving part of the interview is her insistence that people struggling with addiction are not hopeless cases. Having once been written off herself, she sees value and potential where others see only problems.
“Each human being who’s living on the street is a precious life,” she says.
That belief is rooted in her own experience. As she reflects on the life she has today—a family, a home, and a purpose—she remembers where she came from:
“I was absolutely thrown away.”
This is more than a discussion about public policy. It’s a story about resilience, second chances, and the difference between helping people survive and helping them truly recover. If you’ve followed the community’s ongoing debates about homelessness, addiction, harm reduction, or recovery, this is an interview worth hearing in full.
Listeners who are moved by Anniemarie's story can learn more in her memoir, Thrown Away Found, which tells the remarkable story of how a trafficked and addicted teenager became an educator, mother, advocate, and mentor to other women seeking recovery. The book expands on many of the experiences discussed in this interview and offers a powerful testament to resilience, redemption, and second chances.
Looking for Support? New Resiliency Group Has Found a New Home
During the interview, Anniemarie discusses the challenges her support group recently faced while meeting near Seal Street Park. Since recording the podcast, the group has secured a new location and continues its mission of helping women heal from life’s hardest challenges.
The New Resiliency Group is a free, Christ-centered women’s support group focused on recovery, healing, accountability, and hope. The group welcomes women dealing with anxiety, grief, illness, depression, addiction, codependency, family dysfunction, abuse, abandonment, and other life struggles.
Meetings are held every Saturday from 10:45 a.m. to noon at OBRIA, 660 N. 7th Avenue in Sequim. The program uses scripture-based recovery principles and emphasizes mutual support, personal growth, and practical healing.
As Anniemarie explains in the interview, her goal is simple: to help women discover that their past does not have to define their future.
For more information, visit www.newresiliency.com or call Annie at (707) 495-3698.
Editor’s Note: CC Watchdog editor Jeff Tozzer also serves as campaign manager for Jake Seegers during his run for Clallam County Commissioner, District 3. Learn more at www.JakeSeegers.com.
