From as young as I can remember I felt set apart. Isolated. Different.

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Facebook: Breanne Alley

Bre Alley, Hairstylist

Clean and Sober: 10/13/2016

Drug of choice: Alcohol, Vicodin, oxy, anything that would change the way I feel. Stealing lying cheating.

From as young as I can remember I felt set apart. Isolated. Different. I never fit in. Whether it was with my family or with my friends or on the playground.

My parents divorced when I was young and my real dad was in and out of jail and on and off drugs. It was painful for me that my mother remarried and I resented her for it.

By junior high I became depressed and suicidal. I tried therapy, antidepressants and ended up being hospitalized. I hated my life and blamed everyone. I tried church, men, food, sex nothing worked.

Around the age of 22, I got pregnant with my first child and I thought this would solve my empty feeling of isolation inside. This in-fact did not . It lead to loneliness & despair. So, I began to drink. Drinking led and progressed to many years of loosing custody of that child and drug abuse and many failed attempts at rehab facilities.

I stayed clean and sober for awhile until I got pregnant again with my twin daughters in 2015. I was living with my boyfriend and my disease had progressed. I was abusing pills, or anything really that would change the way I felt. I was in the depths of hell and harming myself and everyone around me. I was breaking into peoples cars & houses. I was lying, stealing cheating and nothing and no one was going to help me but a divine intervention. 

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.

I had all 3 of my children taken away from me by their fathers. Off to treatment I went.

There I was introduced to the program of AA and taken to meetings, and I was all out of choices at that point. Back to jail or follow this new way of life that seems to be working for everyone else. I was desperate, terrified & wanted my
Kids back. Mainly terrified.

So with everything in me, I did exactly as they told me to do. 90 meetings in 90 days. Then another just in case.

I got a sponsor, went to meetings & worked the steps. I have been able to stay sober through some pretty gnarly situations—One-day-at-a-time. It is truly by the grace of God (that) I have my children in my life and have some pretty amazing friends who are family. However—the clean and sober part is a miracle, truly .

How are you doing these days?: I am having some health problems right now. I lost my dad to a suicide a year and a half ago. And it was a pretty traumatic experience for me. It’s taken a toll on me physically emotionally & mentally. I’ve also had some other family issues that have been out of my control but what I’ve learned is to live life on life terms. 

What do you do to maintain your recovery?: I practice the 12 steps of AA recovery.

What are you grateful for?: I do gratitude lists everyday with my sponsor, or else I would be in trouble.

To list a few: I'm grateful for allowing myself to take it easy, to focus on myself and accept that I am enough. I am grateful for all that I have been through in my life, my recovery and the progress I have been doing.

Any advice you would give to newly sober folks?:  I don’t like giving advice. I can only share my experiences, and what has worked for me. Nothing in sobriety has been easy. I have lived life on life’s terms one day at a time.

The thing about living life on life’s Terms is that you cannot control life and what it has to offer. I’ve had really complicated health issues, my father passed away and I’ve had some other very complex issues I’ve walked though.

I’ve had to search for God through all of it because I have lost everything. I mean EVERYTHING. So sobriety for me had not been rainbows and sunshine everyday. It has been gut wrenching get on my knees seeking God, looking for God, and begging God to be with me in the midst of excruciating painful times where I’ve felt alone, abandoned and betrayed.

If I did not have the 12 steps & the members of the fellowship as support as a light I don’t know that I would be sober today.