I started young with weed and alcohol, then graduated to cocaine and acid. By my twenties, the party life was all I knew. After getting hurt at work in 2014, pain pills took over, and I was eating enough every day to knock down an elephant. I quit the pills in 2015, thought I was free, but I just traded them for more drinking and drugs. I left Illinois trying to outrun addiction and crashed into an even darker meth addiction, suicide attempts, and hurting people I cared about. At rock bottom, the recovery community found me, and for the first time, I found hope. Today, I’m living a life I never believed was possible — sober, present, and grateful to be alive.