About me

I'm Stephanie, and I'm not here to sell you some bullshit recovery fairy tale. At thirty-something, I finally got sober after a decade-long dance with addiction that started with a prescription pad and ended in a fight for my life.

For years, I was trapped in a prison of self-hatred, convinced I was too weak to ever break free. Getting high wasn't just an escape - it was survival. I couldn't face the person in the mirror, couldn't imagine living with the weight of my choices without chemical armor. Sobriety seemed like a death sentence.

Then I got pregnant. Losing another child wasn't an option, even in my drug-clouded mind. That was seven months ago. Today, I'm clean, but let's be real - this isn't some Hallmark movie ending. I'm still struggling, still learning how to be the mom I want to be, still figuring out how to look at myself without flinching.

Every day is a crash course in feeling again. The good, the bad, the fucking overwhelming. But here's what I learned: drugs don't just numb the pain - they steal the joy. They rob you of every genuine smile, every real laugh, every authentic moment of happiness until life becomes a gray wasteland of existence.

I'm sharing my story not because I have all the answers, but because maybe, just maybe, someone else is drowning in that same sea of self-hatred and needs to know it's possible to surface. It's not pretty, it's not perfect, but it's real. And real is all I know how to be anymore.