recovery

The sad reality is that many of us lose ourselves in addiction, and not enough make it out. In honor of National Recovery Month, I'm telling my story.

We don’t have the luxury of personal choice in our use of language when we are talking about the highly stigmatized condition of addiction.

You feel it. The change.

When I found out I was pregnant, I reluctantly made the choice to stay clean. I doubted my decision (both to have this baby and to stay sober) the entire pregnancy and was unsure of how I would feel or what I would do when my child was born. Everyone around me was unsure, too. My parents discussed contingency plans with my son’s father for when — not if — I relapsed. But I didn't.

When I first got sober, I was resistant to a lot of the things I was hearing in 12-step communities and recovery circles. I’ve always been a feminist and much of the rhetoric I was hearing seemed to go against everything I stood for.