My addiction began long before I experimented with alcohol or other drugs. My addiction truly began during adolescence when I can vividly remember feeling “not good enough” in pretty much every area of my life; school, sports, friends, etc. During middle and high school, when experimentation was a part of every different “clique” I desperately tried to belong to, I met the peer pressure filled offers with open arms. During high school my use became worse over time because while drunk or high, I didn’t care if my peers liked me or accepted me. I liked that version of myself, someone who wasn’t constantly concerned with acceptance or achievement. Academics and athletics came easy to me, so I managed to graduate high school without my use causing too many consequences in my life. After high school, I went to the local community college and was able to control my use in order to pass sports physicals in the spring and fall. During my first year of college, my mother became really ill and I did not know how to handle those emotions. I found a man who helped me hide those emotions because he liked to drink and use the same way that I did. I received my first DUI before I was even of legal age, and my boyfriend and my family helped me through it so that I didn’t see my use being the real problem at hand despite serving jail time for that offense. I transferred to 4-year college to finish my degree, and it was during my time there that my relationship and my use seemed to be managed for the most part. It was during my last year of school that everything changed, something happened that has forever shifted the outcome of my life. My father was diagnosed with stage 4 kidney cancer and was given 3 months to live. We went through countless chemo, radiation, and surgical therapies and ended up getting almost 2 years with him instead of 3 months. While he was going through all of this, I was somehow able to keep my use to the weekends in order to show up for him between my work and school schedules. When he finally passed away, that is when my use took me straight down towards rock bottom. Though I was grateful to be present for his last breaths, that image haunted me to my soul. I drank and used drugs to numb it all, and I quickly got in trouble with the law- on multiple occasions. I went to treatment 3 times in 1 year, and during my last stay- I was kicked out for breaking the rules. However, when that treatment center kicked me out-they sent me to a women’s sober living home and this is where my recovery took off. I didn’t have a car, a job, anything, but I followed the women in my house who had smiles on their faces and I tried my hardest to figure out how someone could be happy without drugs or alcohol. I reached out and met new people at NA and AA meetings, and found which fellowship I was most comfortable in. I began working with a sponsor and quickly became the manager of the sober living home. I went through going to jail clean for a crime committed while I was using, leaving my ex, finding a job, getting a car, and learning who I WAS- instead of who I was on drugs. The 12-steps taught me how to use my voice, show myself compassion, and help others to do the same. Life today, I have over 6 years of continuous recovery, I work helping others get connected to services they need, I volunteer at the same jail I went to helping other women-just like me, I am a wife, a daughter, a mother, a sponsee, a sponsor, and a friend. I recently earned my graduate degree, an MBA in Healthcare Management, in hopes of helping to change the way treatment providers are able to help those they serve. I am an advocate on the local and national level for peer recovery support services, those services allow for those suffering to be connected to people who have walked through their shoes, where a therapist might not be able to share their personal experience with recovery. I think there’s something innately special with hearing, “I’ve felt that way before too, let me show you how I found a solution,” because so many newcomers aren’t able to be connected to support groups (12-step, SMART, Celebrate, etc.…) as easily as they used to be. COVID-19 has changed addiction, treatment, and recovery. For someone working towards recovery now, I would encourage you to see that you are worth recovery. I remember feeling like I was not worth what recovery had to offer me, and boy was I wrong. The work it took to get into recovery and stay into recovery was a lot less than the work it took me to continue using and manipulating every aspect of my life. Once I saw that I was worth it, I was worth being sent to sober living-even after being kicked out of treatment, I was worth every blessing recovery had to offer me. So. Are. You.