I Didn’t Fail—This Is Where I Began
I’ve been in recovery for years now, and people sometimes ask me when I knew I was ready to get better. The truth is, I never felt ready. I didn’t believe I could. But I hit a moment—a rock bottom—that shattered the illusion that I could go on pretending I wasn’t in pain.
I used to think of my eating disorder and substance use as two separate beasts. One was about control, the other about escape. But over time, I came to understand that they were both trying to tell me something. They weren’t the same—but they pointed to the same truth: I was hurting. I was terrified. I believed I was broken beyond repair. And somewhere inside me, I didn’t believe I could get better.
There isn’t one single moment that defines rock bottom for me—it was more like a collection of moments where time stopped. When everything around me became silent and still, and I couldn’t run anymore. The loudest of these moments came unexpectedly. I was literally brought to my knees, broken open by exhaustion, shame, and grief. It was a moment when I let the devil be real, when I let hell be real. And in that moment, I accepted something I had never dared say out loud: I hated myself. I hated my body. I hated my mind. I hated my eating disorder, my addiction. I hated my family. I hated my sexuality and my gender. I hated God. I hated the world.
It was ugly. It was honest. And for the first time, it was mine, I didn’t feel shame. In that hate, there was also something else. A truth. To hate myself meant I wanted more for myself. To hate life meant I longed for a life I could actually live. To be angry meant I believed there should be something better. Underneath all that pain was the beginning of hope. The opposite of love isn’t hate, it is control. To hate meant I also loved.
For so long, I thought recovery meant fixing myself—like I was a problem that needed solving.
My eating disorder promised me that if I followed the rules, controlled everything, and obeyed every symptom, I would finally be worthy. My substance use taught me the opposite: numb it, forget it, run from it. At different times in my life, one disorder fed the other. When the pain of the eating disorder became unbearable, I turned to substances to feel relief. When the shame of using became too much, I clung to the rigidity of control. It was a never-ending loop of suffering dressed up as survival.
Both were trying to solve the same thing. Both grew from the same soil: a belief that I was not enough. That I was too much. That I didn’t belong here. That I was never going to get better. It took me a long time to realize: my eating disorder and addiction were not the problem. They were the symptoms of a deeper wound—and, in some way, they were also solutions. They gave me structure when I was drowning. They gave me relief when I was in agony. They gave me a way to exist when I didn’t know how to be myself. Rock bottom is not where everything ends—it’s where you finally stop running from what’s true. It is where you begin.
I wish I could say that after that night on my knees, everything suddenly changed. Recovery didn’t come to me as a light switch—it came slowly, painfully, imperfectly. There was no epiphany that “fixed” me. There was no checklist or 12-step meeting that made it all click. What did happen was this: I stopped pretending. I stopped performing recovery like it was just another symptom to obey, another rule to follow. I stopped seeing recovery as a series of things I had to do. Instead, I began to see it as something I had to live. I had to live it without a map. Without guarantees. Without knowing how. That’s what made it real.
The hardest part of recovery wasn’t giving up the behaviors—it was learning to stay. To stay in my body. To stay in my feelings. To stay when the grief felt too big.
For years, every purge, every binge, every drink, every pill, every line was a way to leave myself. And now I was being asked to stay. To face the pain. To look at the parts of me I’d labeled as monsters. To realize—they weren’t monsters. They were me. Me, hurting. Me, abandoned. Me, just trying to survive.
That’s what rock bottom gave me: the ability to face the truth and say, I give up. Not in defeat—but in surrender. And from that place, I began to build something new.
I still think about that moment on my knees. The sky above me. A plane flying overhead. And I remember thinking: If this is hell, we’re all in it together. I stopped fighting everything and everyone. I began to let go of the fantasy of becoming perfect. I let go of the belief that healing would be linear or beautiful. And I began. Not because I had it all figured out. Not because I was strong. But because I finally believed—even just a little—that I was worthy of beginning.
I am still gathering the pieces of myself. I am still learning to stay. But now, I stay with love. Because I know now: I didn’t fail. I didn’t break. I began.
A message to you about recovery this National Opioid Awareness Day. If you’re in the middle of your own recovery—or feel like you haven’t even started yet—I want you to know: You are not too broken. You are not behind. You are not alone. Rock bottom isn’t the end. Sometimes, it’s the first place we tell the truth. And the first place we learn we’re worth saving. The shadows always point you in the direction of the light.
