You probably wouldn’t have even noticed if you saw me last week. Maybe we bumped shoulders. Maybe we made eye contact. I probably smiled. You probably smiled. We both kept walking. But you wouldn’t have known- I felt like my body weighed a thousand pounds. I felt so, so tired. I kept thinking about positive…
Time and again, I talk to people about their current struggles and time and again, I hear them express to me their frustrations. How they feel like they’re doing something wrong or they’re failing because they’re struggling. Often I catch myself feeling this way. Why is it that we berate ourselves when we struggle? Here…
Monday is my birthday. 36 years on the earth and 12+ years of living freely, without being shackled to pain or tied down to a past I believed defined who I was and dictated my abilities. Every year, the closer I get to another birthday, the more surprised I am to be here. The more…
I went to a meeting last month. Crazy, right? For those of you who don’t know here’s some quick history. I began my recovery in a 12-step program. People like to proclaim that these kinds of things aren’t treatment- but I have to strongly disagree. For some of us- it is all we have to…
I remember watching my brother free fall alongside me, feeling a sense of comfort and connection with him. We both knew we were living aimless, empty lives, but we felt better about it knowing that we were in it together. We were both hurting deeply in ways we couldn’t process. There were things that we…
I’m not sure if I’ll ever stop talking about Jesus and what His love did for my life. I remember the girl I was walking through the doors of my first Celebrate Recovery meeting, and I will never forget how I felt that evening My overwhelming fear of failing. The hopelessness and feelings of being…
I think sometimes people make things way too complicated. My story is mine to tell, the details of my story are mine to tell. Your story is yours. Your details are yours to share. The fact that I choose to share my story and my details has no effect whatsoever on you, your program of…
Sometimes I forget how far I have come. It’s not that I just completely forget how much work I’ve done, I think it’s more that I get too caught up in looking around at what’s going on with other people and their progress. For me this just isn’t a battle of staying away from substances…
We will be able to make it through. We can endure.
Using the synonyms listed for endure-
We will be able to persist.
We will be able to survive.
To live through.
To go on, continue.
To suffer patiently.
This month I am officially reflecting on twelve years of sobriety. Perspective is such a badass thing. My recovery has transformed dozens of times. Every year in December, I take some time to let myself soak it in; I feel it all and I take stock of how things have changed. The phases. The tears, the…
I have a thing for taking notes. I am a notebook hauling kind of person; the kind of person who keeps a notepad in the compartment of my driver door in the car and plenty of working pens in the console, ‘just in case’. I have never had a decent idea pop into my head…
The leaves have fallen. Bell ringers sign up for their two-hour shifts. I transition from my regular generalized anxiety to my fancier, more prevalent, Holiday anxiety mixed with a dash of seasonal affective disorder. It’s time to celebrate the holiday season. There is an ora of excitement that fills my house. I always decorate for…
There aren’t many Sunday morning’s that I don’t find myself standing in awe, with tears in my eyes as I sing praises to Jesus. I am not one to stand with my arms held high, outstretched toward the ceiling of the sanctuary, but am more inclined to feel weighted; yet completely free, with my head hanging…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wo-eoECRErM&t=12s
Every line of this photo is very personal to me. I have felt the weight and have allowed myself to be held back by each word at some point in my journey. A large chunk of my past causes my gut to tense up, seizing my breathing, causing my reality to pause as I cringe…
Anytime I have unrealistic expectations for something or someone, I am solely responsible for letting myself down. This is what I have done with the idea of “Family Recovery” that I formed in my head for the better part of the last decade. My picturesque vision of family recovery resembled those stock photos slathered on so many treatment center websites:…
Every night I listen to the 5 o’clock news broadcast as I cook dinner and if I can, I sit down and give my attention to the short two-minute portion of the news called, State of Addiction. For months, (for obvious reasons) this segment has been solely focused on Fentanyl and heroin-related stories, but yesterday…
Life in the Bottle, written by Jeremiah Kirmse (7-11-2018, shared with permission) I love to be drunk but I don’t drink all the time, I am sitting in jail writing this rhyme. Popping the bottle, drinking has put me through hell, I love back on my life as I sit in this cell. I destroy…
https://youtu.be/QcYgNR2Hsfc
https://youtu.be/yIDP6Kdvg54
I’m breathing oxygen by Grace, living on borrowed time, and often I feel overcome with guilt. Why me and not them? Why not now? Did we do enough? When will it be their time? Have we gone and done too much? Do we forgive seventy times seven times? No, forget that. Have I forgiven seventy…
Sometimes our problems can seem like they are just too complicated to sort out or that maybe because our manilla file folder is exceptionally thick, we might just be stuck or deemed to live in toxic cycles forever until we die. I was a cornucopia of all things unhealthy and adverse, with a past much more…
Throughout my life, there was this one thing that I ran from. For years. I refused to embrace it. I didn’t dare dream of getting too close. There was no way I was going to feel it or attempting to use its strengths. I definitely wasn’t going to become carelessly reliant on it. Vulnerability. What…
YOU GUYS! Last night we created my final book cover and today, I ordered my proof! I am IN DENIAL. (Which isn’t a completely foreign place to me, LOL)! I just wanted to share my excitement with you guys. This has been an incredible, stressful, exciting process. If you knew how many times I second-guessed myself, or…
Even a donation of $5 counts, friends! Please consider helping me reach my goal this year of $150. Last year was the first annual Shatterproof 5k in Kansas City. We had an amazing turn-out! It was overwhelming to read the stories, listen to testimonials, and see survivors and those still fighting TOGETHER in the same…
I know, I know. Here I go again, but when you love someone who struggles with addiction you are on their ride, and when you follow this blog, you’re a guest rider. One minute things are okay, the next you’re blogging about contradictory and confusing feelings as you ride the hill back down….again. Regardless of…
How I feel when people blow my accumulated sober-time out of proportion without knowing how deep my dysfunction runs: It’s not that I don’t genuinely appreciate a compliment and it’s not that I still haven’t learned how to gracefully accept one. I know exactly how hard and long I have worked so…
I have read, learned, experienced, and listened to enough TED talks to understand that the particular brand of shame I experience runs deep in my bones. Shame is different than feelings of guilt. The shame I feel is an underlying feeling of being inherently damaged, despite knowing the truth about who I am and who…
My experience with dishing out different shades of tough love the last fourteen years has not always been productive. I have made so many mistakes. I have gotten it wrong time and time and time again. My resume as an enabler is expansive and reaches the darkest parts of my personality. My propensity to honor…
Ezekiel 37:1-14 (MSG) Breath of Life God grabbed me. God’s Spirit took me up and set me down in the middle of an open plain strewn with bones. He led me around and among them—a lot of bones! There were bones all over the plain—dry bones, bleached by the sun. He said to me, “Son of man, can…