I used to feel smart, pretty and confident that I was a good person. Then I experienced a fear-based relationship, became a single mother and did not feel like myself. I couldn’t handle conflict or connection. I went from having lots of friends to having none. I did not like myself. I wanted to work hard to be someone else. I tried relationships, school and stand-up comedy. I had completely run out of ideas of how to fix my life. Nothing worked. Alcohol and cigarettes were not my problems, they were my solution for my constant frustration. When I became a new mother, I wanted to quit smoking and drinking. I wanted to be a better person for my son, but I didn’t know why it was so hard to stop, or what else I was supposed to do.  

I liked drinking and smoking. I enjoyed the relief of a cigarette. I especially liked being drunk because it allowed me not to care about everything, all the time. I LOVED not caring, thinking and analyzing everything about life and all the people in it. After a long work week, when my son went to visit his father on the weekends, I had nothing to do. I started drinking and going to bars by myself. Slowly I began to feel like a different person. A person I didn’t like or respect. But I kept doing it. 

I told myself I needed to be strong, which meant being silent. I had become very isolated. I had some friends left, but I couldn’t connect to them. I couldn’t connect to anyone, not even myself. When I stopped doing standup comedy, I began attending a class and doing “Morning Pages” an exercise in Julia Cameron’s book, The Artist’s Way. I woke up every morning and wrote three pages about everything in my mind and heart. Some mornings I would end up in the fetal position weeping, and I didn’t even know why. This creative exercise broke something in me. It unblocked me from my spirit and allowed me to see my part in that fear-based relationship. With that wisdom, I was able to forgive him and myself. 

Through forgiveness, I gained the power to see the truth. I was able to ask for the help I needed because I know longer felt ashamed. I felt loved, understood & forgiven by my Higher Power. This was me coming back to myself, recovering my true authentic self —who I really am in my heart. 

The pendulum swung wide. I became a born-again Christian that was determined to do God’s will. I went back to my toxic relationship, having two more children eleven months apart. When their dad went to jail, we experienced severe poverty. I thought my life was a mistake, but today I believe everything in my life has happened for God’s higher purpose.

To maintain my sobriety, I aligned my entire life with recovery. My addiction to alcohol and cigarettes has been replaced with a passion to help others find the peace, purpose, hope and freedom possible in recovery from addiction. I want to recover out loud to fight isolation, shame and stigma because I believe they are the heartbeat of addiction, poverty and mental illness. I know today that addiction is not about what you use – addiction is about why you use. I used alcohol and cigarettes to escape myself because I was ashamed of who I was, until I recovered who I am and realized I have nothing to prove, only someone to be. For me, to be myself, the person that I have fought so hard to be, is to be sober. To move from victim to advocate has been the result of my process of recovery.  

Thanks for letting me share.