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...

I’m a 34-year-old mother of 3. I’m also a woman living in recovery from addiction. I'd like to share my story with you. I was born in California to a single mom. When I was a baby, my mom and I moved to Maryland – which is home. That’s where my entire family is. I had a good...

April 4, 2015. The absolute hardest, but most beautiful day of my entire life. The day I got clean and sober. How the hell did that happen? Well, it all happened so fast. I always thought I wasn’t an alcoholic because I wasn’t your everyday drinker. I would drink here and there,...

When you lose a child everything changes. You become very forgetful and walk around in a constant fog. There is no name for a parent who lost a child. Not widowed. Not orphaned. The magnitude of the pain is too large. As parents are not supposed to outlive their children. Every...

My name is Tiffani and I’m a grateful woman in sustained recovery from addiction. Growing up people always ask that one big question, “what do you want to be when you grow up?” Many kids answer “an astronaut”, a “movie star” or other endless possibilities. My will to do and...

My brother Garrett and I grew up in a “nice” family. We were taught about having good morals and values, about the “golden rule” and that family was the most important thing. We looked like the perfect family from the outside, but on the inside we were very dysfunctional. My...

My Name is Herb. And I'm a person in long-term recovery from addiction. The first time I used, it was alcohol and I was right around fifteen years old. I had no idea what was in store for me when I took my first drink. Addiction is a progressive disease, and mine was no...