A personal reflection on family addiction, survival, and sacred healing
I almost didn’t write this.
Part of me wanted to stay quiet until everything settled, until there was a clear ending, until I knew what would happen next. But life doesn’t always give us neat conclusions before asking us to keep living.
Right now, my family is walking through something painful. My sister is struggling deeply with addiction and mental illness, and recently survived an overdose. As I write this, there is still uncertainty. Still fear. Still waiting.
And if I’m honest, it has stirred something ancient inside me.
I already lost one sister to suicide when I was 21 years old. Our family carries a long history of addiction, trauma, mental illness, survival, and pain. I know firsthand what addiction can do to a person, to a family, to the nervous system of a child trying to make sense of chaos.
There was a time in my life when I lived in survival mode almost constantly. Walking on eggshells. Bracing for the next explosion, the next crisis, the next heartbreak. My body learned vigilance long before it learned peace.
And yet somehow, through grace, healing, therapy, spirituality, community, nature, creativity, and a thousand small choices over time… I found my way back to myself.
Not perfectly.
Not completely.
But enough to build a life that feels grounded, meaningful, and real.
In many ways, these experiences shaped the direction of my life. Losing my sister to suicide forty years ago changed me forever. It became part of what led me toward my own healing journey and eventually into the work I do now as a therapist, guide, and space holder for others walking through trauma, grief, addiction, anxiety, and transformation.
I did not come to this work through theory alone.
I came to it through lived experience.
Through heartbreak.
Through survival.
Through searching for meaning and healing in the aftermath of pain.
And somewhere along the way, what once wounded me also began teaching me how to help hold light for others.
That does not make moments like this easy.
One of the hardest truths I have had to learn is this:
you cannot heal someone who does not yet have the capacity or willingness to heal themselves.
You can love them.
You can pray for them.
You can hope.
You can hold compassion for the wounded child beneath the addiction and suffering.
But you cannot carry them across the threshold.
For years, I struggled with boundaries because they felt cruel to me. Especially with family. Especially with someone I loved. But I have learned that boundaries are not punishment. They are acts of survival. Acts of self-respect. Acts of ending cycles.
And still, my heart aches.
It aches for my sister.
It aches for the little girl I once was.
It aches for all the families quietly carrying stories like this behind closed doors.
There is a particular kind of grief in loving someone you cannot save.
And yet, even in the midst of this pain, I notice something else too:
I am no longer disappearing inside crisis.
I am walking.
Breathing.
Reaching out.
Working.
Praying.
Resting when I need to.
Letting people support me.
Feeling my feelings instead of abandoning myself to survive them.
That may not sound revolutionary to some people, but for those of us who grew up in dysfunction, it is sacred work.
Healing does not erase grief.
Spirituality does not make heartbreak painless.
Nervous system healing does not mean the body forgets.
But healing does change how we hold the pain.
And today, I am holding it differently than I once would have.
Tenderly.
Honestly.
One breath at a time.
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This poem came to me while waiting for news, trying to stay grounded in ordinary moments while my heart was somewhere else entirely…
While Waiting
There are moments when the body remembers danger
before the mind can make sense of it.
The phone rings.
A text arrives.
A voice trembles on the other end.
And suddenly the air changes.
You stand in the kitchen holding ordinary things,
a coffee cup, a towel, your own breath,
while somewhere else
someone you love is unraveling.
So you do what women like you have always done.
You keep moving.
You shower
as if warm water might steady the soul.
You walk beneath the sky
trying to hand the fear back to the earth.
You iron wrinkles from fabric
because you cannot smooth them from a life.
The body knows ritual
even when the heart is afraid.
Steam rising.
Shoes on pavement.
The hiss of the iron.
One small act after another
to keep from collapsing into the waiting.
And underneath it all
the little child inside whispers:
Please let her live.
Please let this not become another grief.
You busy your hands
while your spirit keeps watch.
You fold towels.
Check your phone.
Look out the window.
Breathe again.
Wait again.
This is the strange holiness of crisis,
how ordinary life continues
while love sits beside a hospital bed
somewhere beyond your reach.
And maybe this too is a kind of prayer:
the shower,
the walking,
the ironing,
the trying to stay here
inside your own body
while fear circles like a storm.
Tonight, you do not have answers.
Only this:
the steady rhythm of your feet,
the warmth of clean clothes,
the breath moving in and out,
and the quiet refusal
to abandon yourself
while waiting to see
who will survive this night.