Listen Linda

Addiction doesn’t burst in like a thief. It whispers. It lingers. It waits. Not in the corners of our minds—but in the cracks of our souls. It doesn’t care what name it wears—heroin, alcohol, pills, cocaine. Substance is substance. Pain is pain. And we didn’t use to chase a high. We used to run from a depth we didn’t know how to swim in.

I didn’t wake up one day and say, “I want to ruin my life.” I woke up in a life that felt impossible to carry. So I numbed. So many of us numb. The trauma, the loneliness, the silence. We put substances between ourselves and the screaming truth. Until the silence became lethal.

They tell you treatment is where healing begins. But healing doesn’t start in detox—it starts the first time you say, “I can’t do this alone.” And even then, the disease doesn’t leave. It doesn’t give up. It doesn’t grow tired. It just walks outside your door, drops to the floor, and does push-ups. Waiting. Training for your next bad day.

We go to meetings not because we’re broken, but because we are warriors. We don’t call sponsors because we’re weak, we call them because we remember what it’s like to cry in the dark alone. We don’t work steps because it’s tradition. We work steps because it’s survival. Because this disease claims bodies and brilliance every single day.

There’s no shame in relapse. There’s honesty. There’s pain. There’s someone on their knees praying for clarity. And maybe—hopefully—reaching out for help. Because recovery isn’t just staying sober. Recovery is choosing to feel. Choosing to fight. Choosing to build something that addiction swore we were never worthy of.

We are worthy.

We are the 75% who rise after falling. The 68% who crawl through detox and say, “I’m still here.” The 41% who keep one foot in today and the other in hope. Those statistics are blood and breath and names. And we carry them.

So yes, the disease is still out there, waiting. But so are we.