**TW: Addiction, ED, and Recovery**
It’s not every day you wake up celebrating just how much the world holds for your life.
But for me, it’s a profoundly special ritual I’ve gotten to experience many times within the last decade. For the first time ever, Carli and I sat down to have the conversation surrounding my journey with sobriety on our Related podcast.
We shared both our collective + individual encounters while I navigated hitting my rock bottom, the struggle to get back up, then open the trap door and somehow dive head first into the level BELOW rock bottom.
And of course, everything monumental that followed after…
Nine years ago (on April 6th), I had what I would consider an awakening. It was the much-awaited beginning to a very RAW + REAL narrative that I was unable to see as one I could experience for myself.
TBH, my story didn’t start like many others. I wasn’t introduced to my vices of choice until the end of my college career! But make no mistake… I was your typical party girl (and played the role well lol). After moving to a nearby town on the Jersey Shore post-grad, I continued living my vivacious lifestyle.
At the time I didn’t see any of this as more than having fun. However, I think it’s CRUCIAL to note that there is a fine line that people try to balance like a tightrope when it comes to addiction- and I was one of those people.
There are so many stigmas that surround addiction and how it manifests in people. But guess what? Addiction doesn’t discriminate, it sure as hell doesn’t cherry pick who succumbs to it and who walks free. So when I moved from NJ to NYC that was the final nail in the coffin but I didn’t even see it. It was because I lived a life so different from the addicts I stereotyped partying my way down the city streets.
Addiction got in my way of showing up for myself in my career, relationships, even my relationship with Carli. Carli + I share the day she dragged me back home where a dear friend of mine offered to bring me to my first N/A meeting.
Spoiler: I said no.
I was not at the point in my addiction where I saw it getting in the way of becoming my most aligned self, and that’s a real setback many addicts face. If you don’t want to change for yourself, then you’re never going to break free from the cycle.
Through my journey of sobriety + recovery, I’ve encompassed the importance of building family, restoring love for myself AND my life, but most importantly rediscovering that I always have an inherent purpose.
Despite the last nine years of rising from the ashes as a more empowered version of myself, there’s never a day goes by that I want to take for granted the resources, support, and opportunity I’ve received. Carli + I want this podcast episode to serve as a potent reminder to all of you that you NEVER know who is struggling, and more importantly who needs that support system to be there as they push to get back up.
Check out the FULL episode on Apple podcasts– and stick around until the end for a juicy baby announcement + our weird AF 4/4 portal experiences!