This is deep, emotional, and full of pain — but what I’m about to say, you MUST hear.

Addiction is a DEADLY DISEASE.
If it doesn’t kill you outright, it will kill you mentally, emotionally, and spiritually — until you wish you were dead.

Addiction has many faces, and affects everyone differently.
Regardless, it carries familiar traits: selfishness, self-centered, self-seeking motives.

Addiction is progressive.
It is lonely, dark, and empty, filled with stories of horrific and painful things.
It destroys not only the addict but the people who love them. Addiction is a family disease.

As addicts, we didn’t wake up one day and decide, “I’m going to become a junkie.” Somewhere along the way, we found solace in a substance that numbed the pain — and that was the beginning.

In and out of treatments and detoxes, we fight for our lives. People on the outside judge and ask: “Why can’t you just stop?”

That’s a great question…

Why can’t we?

The reality is: it’s called powerlessness.

Have you ever felt like you had absolutely no control over something? No matter what you did or didn’t do, you couldn’t change the outcome?
Even knowing it’s killing you, making the changes necessary feels impossible.
That’s powerlessness.

Some people believe it’s all about choice. And in a way, they’re right. We did make one choice. But that one choice robbed us of the ability to keep choosing.

Addiction is sneaky and powerful. It looks like your friend, your lover, your everything — until you’ve lost it all.

By the time you realize what’s happening, denial has you convinced you need it.
Need it to get out of bed. Need it to go to work. Need it to talk to people. Need it to look in the mirror. Eventually, you need it to do life at all.

You may start to recognize the problem, but guilt and shame keep you from being honest with the people you love most. Fear of life without it keeps you trapped.

Slowly, you isolate. You stop showing up for family. Work suffers. Bills go unpaid. Life slips away, and you use even more to cope.

Now you’ll go to any length for that five minutes of relief — even if it costs you your home, your freedom, or the people you love. And still, you won’t stop.

Why?

Because powerlessness, mixed with guilt, shame, sadness, pain, and fear, makes a paralyzing combination. The road to recovery feels impossible.

This is the reality of addiction, and it cannot be sugar-coated.

For me, my story carries the same devastation. I shattered my family, destroyed relationships, and lost myself completely, more than once.

Recovery has felt beyond impossible at times. Fighting for my life has felt pointless. But even in my darkest days, one thing kept me reaching: there is a little boy who calls me Mom — a boy searching for safety, security, happiness, and love. To turn away from that would have felt like failing at life itself, not just to be swallowed by addiction.

Addicts need a reason to stay clean. At first, mine was my son. Today he gives me the power and strength to stay clean for myself.

Even when the disease tried to swallow me whole one last time, I swallowed my pride and fought for my life so my son wouldn’t have to grow up without his mom.

I have never felt more powerless than when I risked losing my son to this disease. My choices brought me to a new low — my deepest bottom.

But out of that storm came a light and a strength I didn’t know I had: the ability to surrender, to build a new foundation, and to begin a new journey worth fighting for.

I don’t want to bury my past, but I won’t let it strangle me either.

My past has made me stronger, braver. It’s taught me how to recognize the wolves and survive the cocoon.

Becoming a butterfly took time, pain, and transformation.
But today, I fly free.
Today, I have the freedom to choose life.