“I drank every day, starting at 5. I’d pour vodka into mini shampoo bottles. When I moved in with my husband, I hid vodka in the closet. It was like my secret, a game.”
‘He pulled out a baggy from his sock. ‘I think you might like this.’ I’d do anything for him.’: Woman recovers from drug and alcohol addiction, ‘I needed to change for ME’
‘We caught each other’s eye on the way to addiction recovery. Two hopeless addicts, from completely different sides of the world.’: Couple beat addiction together, ‘There is always hope’
“It’s strange how love works.”
‘She missed school events, birthdays. I longed for a mom I didn’t have to constantly worry about dying every day.’: Woman shares ‘heart-wrenching’ reality of growing up with an addict parent
“I was afraid to have friends over at my house because I didn’t know if she would be sober or not. When she was out, I lived in constant fear of her getting hurt, dying, or going back to jail. She was tired of fighting. I wanted to fight for her.”
‘He presented no remorse for his actions and was in and out of jail. I watched my family wilt and fade.’: Sister expresses gratitude for brother’s sobriety, ‘My brother is back’
“My brother didn’t care about his existence. Nothing could save my beautiful brother until he decided to save himself. My parents, they refused to give up.”
‘Something hard cracked over the back of my head. I could feel his fingers on my neck, checking for a pulse to see if he’d just committed murder.’: After surviving domestic abuse woman says ‘don’t stand by in silence’
“I woke up that morning and I just felt this bad feeling. I felt a searing pain. I remember dropping to my knees, the cat taking off, and my bag going flying. As darkness was taking over, I felt my body being flipped around. The last thing I saw before everything went black were C’s eyes looking down at me. It was my own personal horror story.”
‘She called the police on me while in my dorm because I didn’t text her back soon enough. I finally committed to cutting her out of my life, for good.’: Woman says narcissist mother ‘showed me everything I do not want to be’
“‘Mommy will be so happy and proud of me!’ Suds started pouring out of the machine. Her eyes turned the deepest shade of black I’ve ever seen. She withheld my food and called my stepfather to tell him to come home and beat me, just to watch me suffer. My mother showed me everything, with extreme clarity, I do not want to be.”
‘I found you barely breathing. Lifeless, sleeved roll up, hunched over, gasping for air. I shook you and shook you. I was numb.’: Woman’s bittersweet realization loving heroin addict ex-boyfriend, ‘saving you will always be my best decision’
“I was so focused on not letting heroin kill you, I almost let it kill me. You pushed through to one year sober. But you decided to share that milestone with someone else. Forget about me and our life together. After everything we went through, you cut off communication with me through a text. You told me you were seeing someone else through a single text. That was all I deserved to you. ‘We can’t do this anymore.’ That was the most I could get out of you.”
‘I could’ve killed myself, or my precious son. I’m riddled with guilt. I’m so ashamed of things I’ve done in front of my child.’: Mother in the throes of addiction, ‘I don’t want to do it anymore. I want my son to have a sober mom’
“I have a toddler at home who I will not be able to take to get his picture with Santa. I will not be able to take him to see all the pretty Christmas lights. I sat in the shower and let the water run down my body as I cried. Then demons creep in. ‘It was boring getting high at home, taking care of a toddler all day. It would be fun to stay at a motel and just get high. I just want to do it ONE MORE TIME.’ I’m riddled with guilt. I’m so ashamed.”
‘I was prostituting. We had sex, he paid me, but I didn’t leave right away. I was infatuated.’: Woman credits abusive relationship for sobriety after meth addiction, ‘I got sober for a man, stayed sober for my baby, now I stay sober for me’
“I became pregnant at 16. The partying escalated. To pay for my habit, I started prostituting. Most of the guys were married men wanting to cheat. They disgusted me; but then again, I disgusted me too. One night, I got a text from someone new. A John that would become more than that. I got pregnant with our daughter. It was awful. I lived in fear of him taking her from me, and when she was 6 months old, he tried and failed.”
‘I’d be single and a virgin forever. ‘The boys called me ‘big girl.’ I’d never be able to be naked in front of a lover.’: Woman loses 115 pounds after drug addiction, traumatic childhood, ‘I regret nothing, I finally had an opportunity to blossom’
“‘Are you using drugs again?,’ one of my professors asked me. I am a recovering drug addict, who lost 115 pounds and changed my entire life. I had a girl assume I was sick, a close friend expressed to me that I ‘took the easy way out.’ The smaller I got, the more attention I got, the more confused I was. I had sex for the first time after my dad died with a guy who blocked my number the day after he took my virginity. I wanted to stop hating myself, I wanted to be genuinely happy.”
