For a Good Time: Surviving Sex Work and Addiction to Become the Mother I Was Meant to Be

It’s 1953 in Southern California, Patty is five years old, and her mother hasn’t been home in two days. A police officer eventually arrives and takes Patty and her brothers to juvenile hall—their mother has been drinking again.

Twenty-eight years later, Patty herself is an alcoholic mother to three children. Divorced and homeless, she soon realizes that she can’t support her children with her job cleaning houses, so she accepts the offer of a man who works at the gas station: she’ll have sex with him for money.

For the next seventeen years, Patty lives a double life as a sex worker. Though she supports her family with the money she makes, she struggles to be the parent she wants to be, until she realizes she has become just like her own mother: an alcoholic who doesn’t give her children what they need.

When Patty gets sober, her life begins to change. She finds healing through therapy, spirituality, community, and, most importantly, speaking the truth to her children. Powerful and insightful, Patty’s story is proof that we all are capable of healing ourselves—and that forgiveness can transform our lives completely.

Patty Tierney worked as a prostitute to support her three children for seventeen years. After getting sober at forty-six years old, her life began to change, and she eventually began a career in caregiving. In 2005 she started her first caregiving company, which she successfully ran for ten years before selling it and shifting her focus to being a private caregiver.

Patty and her husband, John, together host retreats called Transform with the Tierneys, through which they provide a safe space for people to share their stories and practice self-love, acceptance, and forgiveness. For more about Transform, see www.transformwiththetierneys.com.

Today, Patty’s three adult children are thriving and successful, and she adores her three grandchildren. She and John live happily in Encino, California; they are best friends, and they love being together. When she’s not caregiving, hosting Transform, or spending time with family, Patty keeps herself busy with her passion for writing. For more about what she’s working on now, visit www.pattytierney.com.