After months of trying to manage my life, my emotions, my losses, and the overwhelming weight of reality, I finally came face to face with the truth of my disease — inside the county jail.

This wasn’t the first time I had ended up behind bars, but this time was different. This time, something in me shattered. The cold, concrete floor didn’t just bruise my body — it broke through the denial I had been clinging to. I had hit what some people call “rock bottom,” but for me, it felt more like a complete unraveling.

This situation was utterly unacceptable to me (not that spending waking up on the cold concrete floor of a jail cell was ever acceptable, but this – somehow, was different) I spent the first day in a thick fog, still hungover from the vodka I had drowned myself in the night before. The night before ended with red and blue flashing lights, me ultimately in handcuffs, and a DUI charge. As I lay there regretting the choices of the prior evening the next morning with a head pounding and body aches, I repeatedly ask myself: How did I end up here — again?

It always begins with same old delusion that I can handle: “Just one”. (of anything) I believed I deserved AND needed it to cope with the grief of losing both of my grandparents within the same month, who I cared for in their dying days. Losing them was unbearable, and weight I was not prepared to to face or accept and deal with. However, the truth is, I never learned how to sit with pain, I only ever learned how to run from it and drinking, and using became my coping skills. I thought they protected me, but they only ever destroyed me. The result was always the same: desperation, degradation, guilt, and shame.

This wasn’t the first time I had tried to drink away grief, or the first time I convinced myself I was fine. But that’s the cunning nature of addiction it makes you believe you’re in control right up until everything falls apart. And once again, I was facing the wreckage of that delusion. The pattern was all too familiar: use, spiral, crash, regret. Rinse and repeat.

Even in that dark, hopeless place, one thing remained constant: God was still there, my constant. Even when I had nothing to offer — no strength, no willpower, no self-respect — He found me. He sat with me in that jail cell. Not to punish me, but to remind me that I wasn’t alone.

I was being held on a parole and probation violation tied to a specialty court program I had been participating in after a prior possession charge. ( Which in short means, I was not eligible for bail) And while I sat in jail waiting for release, time kept moving without me. During this time period, I missed my grandpa’s funeral. This was the moment the weight of everything I had lost and given up finally caught up with me. There was no undoing, rewinding, or making wishes that I could do to set right the choices I had made.

I remember the heartbreak of knowing I couldn’t be there, and the feeling of guilt and helplessness. The sharp, painful regret. I would have given anything to rewind time, to undo what I’d done, to make better choices. But I couldn’t. And in that moment of complete defeat, I felt something I hadn’t let myself feel in a long time: powerlessness.

That feeling didn’t make me weak — it made me human. I couldn’t hide behind my pride or my excuses anymore. I was sick, and I needed help.

After being moved to female general, off the cold concrete floor, I finally got the luxury – as some might say- lying on that cold metal bunk, surrounded by the crowd of noisy women, who were screaming, sobbing, pacing — I had never wanted my freedom more. Not just the freedom to walk out of jail, but the deeper sense of freedom: the kind that breaks chains, lifts shame, and makes healing possible. I wanted freedom and to break the cycle from active addiction. Freedom from the cravings, from using, the behaviors, and freedom from myself.

Recovery wasn’t immediate, nor was it flawless. Yet, it began at that moment of surrender. For me, the foundational seeds were firmly planted that day on the cold concrete floor. I discovered acceptance, freedom, and a part of myself that marked the beginning of my healing journey.

If there’s one lesson I’ve gained since the beginning, it’s this: you can’t escape pain and find peace. You must confront it. You need to learn to sit with yourself, acknowledge the truth, recognize your brokenness — and believe that something greater can help restore you.

That’s where my journey truly began. On the floor of a jail cell. Amidst the wreckage of everything I thought I controlled.

But rock bottom, I’ve learned, can also be the foundation on which life can be built.