In your 30’s you’d hit the trenches of trouble with addiction and debt. Can you share how you got there? Was it a gradual progression?

Upon reflection in sobriety I was able to recognize I always had the propensity for more. It first manifested in high school when I drank alcoholically. I grew up a very insecure child and so when I took my first drink, I became everything I thought I wasn’t – funny, smart, outgoing and pretty.

I found I could become who I wanted to become through outside substances. It was smoke and mirrors.

I got into “recreational” drug using after high school and the pattern of the next 18 years of my life was born. I’d use substances to the brink of insanity then I’d clean myself up. That was the basic ebb and flow of my life and I fooled myself that I had control of it all.

In my 20’s I had some years where I slowed down from drug use. However, with an unreconciled past and the failure to admit my problem, I was defenseless from falling back into it.

In my 30’s after I finished grad school, I was reintroduced to my drug of choice. I had no defense against it. I walked away from my dream of teaching and went down the dark road of addiction and abuse. Ultimately, this lead lead to my bottom.

Was there a ‘breaking point’ moment when you said ‘enough is enough’? What sparked that initial momentum to break free from those chains holding you back?

There was a breaking moment. Although, prior to actually breaking free, there were little epiphanies leading up to my departure from that lifestyle.

I remember on my 36 birthday I was standing outside on a freezing cold day in January with my dog, smoking a cigarette. I cried and cried for what my life had become.

Additionally, there were many episodes of me looking in the mirror and cursing myself. I would say things like, “I don’t know who you are anymore. You disgust me.” I was the quintessential self hating addict.

On a very dark but glorious day in August of 2009, I had a breaking point. I had a vision where I saw three distinct paths:

Me rocking back and forth in an insane asylum Complete blackness A glimmer of light

I knew if I kept doing what I was doing I would end up on path #1. I recognized the darkness as death and contemplated taking my life at that moment. Finally, I knew the glimmer of light to be a God I once knew.

At that moment, I got down on my knees and prayed for the first time in a long time and asked for help.

It took one more week and another vision before I got up the courage to leave the abusive relationship. Once I did this I was able to quit the drugs. I have never looked back except to understand why, how, ultimately heal, and help others.