Driving myself to the hospital, I worried because I had no insurance. Hopefully, a prescription would make me all better. Four hours in an examination room and hundreds of tests scared me in a calming way. The Doctor must’ve come in the room ten times to check out different symptoms. Each time, she became less friendly and more serious.

I grew up in a little city on the border of Detroit Michigan. My Dad struggled with alcoholism and my mom struggled with mental illness. My sister and I knew and felt the stigma of mental illness and addiction at a very early age. I am a Registered Nurse, my passion is to help people and ease suffering.

Our healing often takes place when we no longer feel isolated, singled out, alone, in our shame and guilt and find that others often feel what we feel. Often think what we think. Often have the fears we have. It is in the “what, you too?” Where shame subsides, stories are shared, safe spaces are set and together, we move forward arm in arm, towards home. And home is a good place to be…

My mom was a runner, leaving situations when they no longer worked for her and, when I was young, taking me along for the ride. I went to 13 different schools growing up, and this invariably showed me a way of dealing with life that wasn’t based on communication and understanding but on fear.

By the time I got to college, I was ready to party hearty.  “If you’re not wasted, the day is!” That was my motto.  And that continued to be my motto for many years.  This is also when a series of events directly related to my frequent heavy drinking should have been a wake-up call to me.

It’s that first sip of vodka, a shot, or that first line of cocaine—the euphoria we felt, and that feeling, however short-lived, of immortality. We take a mental snapshot of that moment, and whether we realize it or not, spend the remaining days of our addiction chasing that feeling; a feeling we can never truly duplicate. 

I didn’t want to believe I had a problem. That I was one of “those” people. I couldn’t handle the shame of that. I just wanted to be able to drink like a normal person, and I thought if I worked hard enough at it, that I’d be able to.

Before my sobriety, I missed studies and work because I couldn't do them. I had accidents and I was also stabbed. I suffered from anxiety and panic disorder. 

I’m a middle-aged 44-year-old woman who suffered many many years of uncontrollable addictions to many mind-altering substances. I started using at a fairly young age as a teenager. I definitely wasn’t the kid who listened when everyone said “Drugs are bad.” I wanted to fit in and had moved from Queens, New York to Salt Lake City, Utah at 11 years old.

By the time I was 14 I was glugging cheap beer in the park with my friends on the weekends. Time went on and beers in the park turned into cheap beer in local pubs, then cheap wine in nicer bars, then nice wine in fancy bars.

I wrote a memoir titled “Make a Home Out of You: A Memoir,” which will be released on September 3, 2024. It’s about the idea that I made homes in people, behaviors, and substances instead of in myself. Through the process of recovery, I began to learn to make a home in myself.

One night the swat team showed up looking for me and the next morning I was arrested. I spent 5 days in county jail and kicked all drugs and alcohol in a cell with a meth addict who I thought was going to kill me. I was released on bail and begged the judge to send me to a program, which she did.

Today, I am alive and sober for over a decade from deadly drug and alcohol addiction with the help of medical cannabis. Speaking formally, I use cannabis as form of harm-reduction therapy and as medication-assisted-treatment (MAT).

Beau has been through it all. He endured needless punishment, both physical and emotional abuse starting with his father. His journey of addiction takes him through unconscionable highs and lows throughout his life. From the streets as a young addict, fighting low self-esteem along the way. To the highs of being an MLB draft pick for the Marlins–two the lows of giving up baseball as he sinks deeper in addiction.

I grew up in Antelope Valley. Raised by my mother, I took on a life on the streets and started  selling to support my habit. I stopped going to high school in the 9th grade. Around the same time I stopped associating with my dad and sisters.

On September 12, 2020, I was saved for the first time; by my sobriety. I did not have a "rock bottom". Perhaps I could call it my own "emotional/mental/spiritual bottom".

I grew up in a small-ish town, a rural kind of suburb in Maryland. I lived there for most of my life, until I went down to Florida at age 18 to go to detox and rehab. I’m back in Maryland now, about to turn 31. I’m doing pretty well, actually!

I started drinking at 13 years old, and it got worse from there. Low self-worth and traumatic experiences throughout childhood forced me to create a façade. It was extremely painful living with a mask on, hiding my true self from the world; I didn’t think you’d like me. Essentially, I drank to face the pain I couldn’t reach when I was sober.

I can now testify to my battles with alcohol. I see where it stems from, and it sneaks up on you.I feel bad now that I'm older and see that he wasn't happy with himself, and just as I did, he separated himself from the ones he loved. I call it suffering in silence.

“I wake up every morning and ask myself: What can I do to help someone struggling with alcoholism today?” –Jimmy