From Broken To Breathing…

There are dates in life that quietly split your story in two, even if the world keeps moving as if nothing has changed. For me, that date was January 18, 2014. It became my second birthday, not because it was easy, but because it was the first day I chose to live instead of simply survive.

My life had already carried more grief than most people ever see. In October 2000, I lost my soulmate husband in a sudden car accident after an argument. That loss lodged itself deep in my body. I carried guilt, grief, and unanswered questions for years. On the outside I kept going, but inside I was exhausted and wounded.

When I opened my heart again, I believed I was choosing safety. Instead, I walked into another devastation. My partner brought ice into our home, and when I later uncovered his betrayal and the existence of child exploitative material, my world imploded. He left, and I was left alone with the trauma, the shock, and the drug that had suddenly become part of my life.

That is when coping turned into full addiction. Not because I wanted to destroy myself, but because my nervous system was overwhelmed and my pain felt unbearable. I was not weak. I was drowning in compounded trauma, first from loss, then from betrayal that shattered my sense of safety.

January 18, 2014 did not fix everything. It did not erase my grief or guilt. But it was the day I stopped running from my pain and started facing it. It was the day I decided my story would not end in darkness.

Recovery was messy, lonely, and confronting. I had to sit with my grief instead of escaping it. I had to look at my choices without hating myself. I had to rebuild trust in my own body and instincts. There were days I wanted to give up, and days I believed I already had.

Slowly, something shifted. Each clean day became proof that I was still here and still capable of change. I did not just get clean, I rebuilt myself from the inside out.

If you are reading this and your life feels heavy or broken, please know this. You are not alone. Addiction is not a moral failure, it is often a body trying to survive pain that has nowhere else to go. Grief can live inside you quietly for years and betrayal can fracture you in ways you never saw coming.

And still, none of that defines you.

Every minute I have been clean since that day is proof that healing is possible, even after unimaginable pain. If I could find my way back from that darkness, then so can you.

Your story is not over because you have struggled. In many ways, it is just beginning.

If there is one thing I have learned, it is that healing rarely arrives all at once. It comes in small, quiet moments, in choosing yourself one more day, in getting back up after you fall, and in being kinder to yourself than the world ever was. You do not need to have it all figured out to begin. You just need the courage to keep going, even when it feels uncomfortable, uncertain, or slow. Your future does not require you to be perfect, it simply asks that you stay.

Jo