I nearly died from alcohol poisoning when I was seventeen. It was the bottom-shelf, plastic-bottle vodka from a liquor store in Portsmouth, the kind we see discarded in alleys and not recycling bins. I was hospitalized and intubated. The nurses accidentally ruptured and...

A friend accidentally sent me a text message meant for someone else: “Hi. Here with a friend who just lost her son.” Then: “Oops.” Although the text wasn’t meant for me, it was about me. I am that friend who just lost her son. I am the woman with that sobriquet of sorrow that...

Growing up, society taught me that I should not disclose that I am an alcoholic or an addict; that my addiction is something I should be ashamed of. I heard this message every time someone described someone’s behavior to be that of a “crackhead,” every time someone talked about...

Here’s the thing about overdoses: they never get easier. It’s not like a wipeout, like when you miss a trick and your board goes out from under you and you have about a tenth of a second to think about whether you’re going home with road rash or a broken kneecap. And it’s not...

The phone call that no parent wants to receive came on November 10, 2016 at approximately 8:15 AM, the day that forever changed our lives. If we knew more, questioned more, educated ourselves, the outcome could possibly be different. Tori made decent grades during her first year...

I started my recovery journey in 2012, when I took a stay in a three month long, all women’s treatment facility in Mobile, AL. Not long after I completed treatment I decided to take my will back and relapsed. I lived in the chaotic state of relapse after relapse for a year until...

Two years and one day ago, I took a dive head-first into a dumpster. Why, you might ask? I was trying to find syringes I had thrown away a few days earlier. The dumpster was full and I had to throw pieces of trash out one-by-one during the hunt, I cut my arm up in the process. I...

My name is Chris Reed and I am a person in long-term recovery who lives a life far beyond what I ever thought was possible. I got sober on September 20, 2009 when I was 19 years old. I lived a normal childhood: good friends, excelled at sports, did well at school, great loving...

Why am I here? That’s a good question. I will never forget when a student asked me something quite similar a couple years ago. He posed the unexpected question “what is the meaning of life?” As silence rang out over the auditorium, I remember trying to assemble my thoughts and...