It’s Mental Health Awareness Month and calls to the national hotline providing emergency help to people suffering from emotional distress are up 891% from this time last year. People are suffering, and the isolation and separation we are all experiencing as a result of this pandemic are taking a toll.

As someone who has struggled with mental and behavioral health issues my whole life, I’m feeling so grateful to be in a good place these days — though I picked a hell of a time to be stone cold sober.

It took me years to find the right anxiety medication, decades to work through the experiences which were fueling my previous addiction, and a lifetime to find compassion for myself in the midst of it all…but I’m there now.

Whenever the light in my life disappears I try and remind myself that light actually has to travel 6 trillion miles and takes a full earth year to move through space before we ever see it on this planet. That doesn’t mean the light wasn’t there the whole time. It just takes a light year to actually get to us. If you are in a place right now where it’s not visible, I promise it’s still there, and will make its way to you again eventually.

Please don’t suffer alone. If you text HOME to 741741 there are licensed professionals available 24/7 to talk with you and can help connect you to resources. And I’m here for you, too. Don’t hesitate to reach out. 🖤

As I approach the 12th anniversary of my being in recovery from cocaine and alcohol, I am genuinely feeling really happy to be here, and so excited about life.

This hasn’t always been the case, as anyone who has followed me for any length of time will already know. I was using drugs back then for a reason — many reasons, actually — and those reasons didn’t magically disappear just because I quit smoking crack and killing my body slowly with vodka. If anything, those reasons became clearer and felt worse as I was getting well.

I am forever thankful for my doctors, who allowed me to go on a journey of harm reduction instead of total abstinence at first. The reality is, this recovery would never have worked if I hadn’t been put on Naltrexone for cravings, or if I hadn’t been able to use medical marijuana during my transition from suicidal junkie to regular human person. Pot saved me for many years, and gave me the space and time I needed to become myself again after nearly two decades of orbiting the atmosphere alone.

A few months ago, the weed stopped helping like it once had, and I went back to the same team of docs who had saved me, to see what was up. I made the transition from medical marijuana to BusPar around that time and almost immediately felt that impending sense of doom I’ve had strapped to my back since childhood disappear completely.

This is all just to say, recovery looks different for everyone, and it changes over time. If medication assistance helps you, take the medicine. I certainly have, and I’m zero percent ashamed about it. If you are experiencing addiction but aren’t ready to go totally sober right at first, then just find ways of hurting yourself less. That all counts as recovery, too — and fuck anyone who tries to tell you otherwise.

If you had told me 12 years ago that this life I’ve been living would someday be mine to live, I would never have believed you…but here we are. Healthy, happy and loved. 100% sober. Alive, inspired, and grateful. This shit is a goddamn miracle. 🤘💛