Lisa Marie Basile

It’s Monday, 6 a.m. and Sarah, 30, wakes up — as she does five days a week (but really, it’s seven, because the body is a fickle thing).

No addiction or recovery story is the same. You don’t always kick the habit and you don’t always find the forgiveness which you seek. Around 60% of addicts relapse, according to the U.S. government. Others die. Others end up prison. Others lose their kids. Some make a full recovery.

I grew up knowing my family always had its very own black cloud. Like a backyard pet that comes and goes when it pleases, a room locked but filled with things we weren’t allowed to look at or set free. And it was all passed down to me like some broken heirloom — my ancestor’s weaknesses and fears, swirled into DNA’s mad ritual. Does the body sometimes take into itself — take from its creators — what it cannot heal from? Sometimes, yes.

My happiness is what undid me, ironically. I worried so much about being OK with the happiness that I fell apart.

Some grief is inert. Some grief is an engine. Sometimes actively participating in grief, I’ve learned, is one small way we can learn to escape its riptide.

This is the one time of year, Scorpio Season (Oct. 23 to Nov. 22), when getting a little closer and looking a little deeper is, in some ways, inevitable.

Is there a certain quality to letter writing or diary keeping that inspires the confessional? I believe so.