What it was like?

In some ways, I feel as distant as an entire lifetime from the girl I used to be. In others, it feels like just yesterday that I was walking the streets. Sometimes homeless, sometimes hungry, but always desperate. Searching for relief from the shame that had consumed me since before I even knew how to spell my own name. I thought freedom came from a needle, or a pill, or the mouth of a bottle. Because that was the closest thing to peace I had ever known.

What happened?

I could tell you lots of stories of the darkness that my addiction brought me to. But on this day, only one moment from my past truly matters. May,1 2011... sitting in a prison for women... on a cold metal bunk surrounded by cement walls. I was looking out my little window at the small patch of grass we would walk circles around as we talked about lives we had never even lived. An overwhelming sensation came over me; I call it a divine intervention. And it finally hit me... that if I didn't find a way to face the pain I had been willing to die to avoid, this was going to be the sum total of my life until my addiction took me.

What it is like now?

Please don't tell me you can't do it! I, and so many people just like me, just like you... are living, breathing, proof that you absolutely can! And stop telling yourself that you're not worth it! Because oh my God, you are! No matter what you've done, where you've been, or what you've been through... you are deserving of a life full of hope and happiness! I have come so far! And I have been given the gift of the rest of my life to keep going! Today, I am no longer a slave to shame or substances. Today, I know what true freedom really feels like.