How I Lost my Mom to Addiction—and Found the Road to Recovery Some of my earliest memories are of my mom hanging out with her friends, drinking wine and getting tipsy. When I was little, it [...]

TRIGGER WARNING ♥ Cozy Blankets and Coffee Needed ♥ (This content deals with PTSD flashbacks and childhood sexual abuse).   It was a bitter November night in 2014 when I found my 3-year-old [...]

I walk the halls like the old me is here, but I cannot find her since she disappeared. She’s been replaced by darkness; the light flickered out Childlike spirit abused and spit out.   [...]

TRIGGER WARNING ♥ Cozy Blankets and Coffee Needed ♥ (This content deals with suicidal thoughts, depression, and childhood sexual abuse).   It happened many years ago, but I’ve never [...]

  On September 1, 2020, my co-authors and I released The Addiction Diaries —a collection of 18 stories intended to humanize addiction, end the stigma, and offer hope to those who are [...]

Today is International Overdose Awareness Day, and even though I have lost many people to opioid overdoses, including my dear cousin, Joey, on this particular day, I would like to remember Lance [...]

How to Heal Depression by Making Friends with the Dark   “Truly, it is in the darkness that one finds the light, so when we are in sorrow, then this light is nearest of all to us.”    [...]

  TRIGGER WARNING ♥ Cozy Blankets and Coffee Needed ♥  (Content deals with sexual abuse, flashbacks, dissociation in PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder – PTSD).   A wave of [...]

TRIGGER WARNING ♥ Cozy Blankets and Coffee Needed ♥ (This content deals with sexual assault, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder – PTSD).   I died Christmas of 2013. Broken like a [...]

Chelsea kneels in the grass with her hands buried in the rich soft soil as she positions a fern into its new hole. She fills the extra space with dirt and gently packs it down before rubbing her [...]