This Was Never Just About Telling My Story

Living My Truth began with survival. It became recovery. Recovery became rebuilding. Rebuilding became purpose. And purpose became a responsibility to leave the light on for somebody coming behind me. For years, there were parts of my life I didn’t know how to speak about. Addiction. Abuse. Trauma. Harmful choices. Relapse. Broken trust. Fear. Silence. Consequences. The things that happened to me — and the things I eventually had to take responsibility for myself. There came a point when surviving was no longer enough. I had to decide what I was going to do with the life I still had. On April 26, 2022, I began breaking the chains. Not because everything suddenly became easy. Not because my past disappeared. And certainly not because I became perfect. I began rebuilding because I finally understood that if I wanted a different life, I had to start making different choices. One choice. One boundary. One honest conversation. One act of accountability. One day at a time. That is where Living My Truth was born. 16 Books. One Journey. One Testimony. One Life Rebuilt. Across sixteen books, I have written about more than addiction and recovery. I have written about what happens before recovery, during recovery, and long after the world thinks the hard part should be over. I wrote about survival. I wrote about coming home. I wrote about learning how to live recovery instead of simply saying I was in recovery. I wrote about purpose, calling and courage. I wrote about walking through changing seasons without returning to the person I used to be. I wrote about serving others, holding onto hope, breaking the chains that remained, building a legacy, accepting grace, finding gratitude, living beyond myself, keeping my promises and continuing forward. Through every book, one truth became clearer: Recovery wasn’t the ending of my story. It was the beginning of learning how to live it. For the Person Who Is Still Fighting Maybe nobody knows how hard you’re fighting right now. Maybe you have become good at smiling while everything inside of you is falling apart. Maybe addiction has taken more from you than you ever imagined giving it. Maybe you’ve relapsed. Maybe you’re ashamed. Maybe people stopped believing your promises because they’ve heard them before. Maybe you look at everything that needs repairing and wonder how you could possibly rebuild it all. You don’t have to rebuild your entire life today. Just rise today. Take the next right step. Tell the truth. Ask for help. Accept the boundary. Show up again. And when tomorrow comes, rise again. That is what J.R.D. — Just Rise Daily means to me. Not perfection. Consistency. For the Person Who Was Hurt by Someone Else’s Choices This mission is also for you. Because sometimes conversations about recovery become so focused on the person struggling that we forget about everyone standing around them. The child who didn’t understand. The parent who stayed awake. The family member who kept answering the phone. The person who loved somebody and eventually had to love them from a distance. The survivor trying to rebuild after somebody else’s actions changed their life. You matter too. Your pain does not become less important because somebody else was struggling. Compassion does not require you to erase consequences. Forgiveness does not require the absence of boundaries. And understanding why something happened does not mean pretending it didn’t hurt. You are allowed to heal too. Accountability Is Part of Recovery One of the hardest truths I had to learn was that my circumstances could explain parts of my behaviour without excusing every choice I made. There were things done to me that were never mine to carry. But there were also choices that belonged to me. Recovery required me to learn the difference. I couldn’t rebuild my life while blaming everyone else. But I also couldn’t heal while accepting responsibility for harm that wasn’t mine. I had to learn where my responsibility began — and where it ended. That changed me. I didn’t need better excuses for every wrong choice. I needed a foundation strong enough to teach me how to make better ones. Accountability didn’t destroy me. It helped me build character. For the Families Addiction and harmful choices can ripple through an entire family. That is why Living My Truth will never be only about the person in recovery. Families need somewhere to heal too. Sometimes loving someone means encouraging them. Sometimes it means helping them find support. Sometimes it means saying no. Sometimes it means refusing to rescue someone from every consequence. And sometimes it means protecting yourself while hoping they eventually choose something different. There is room in this mission for both recovery and family healing. One person’s struggle should never make everybody else’s pain invisible. Nobody Is Their Hardest Chapter I believe in accountability. I also believe in humanity. A person can have made harmful choices and still make better ones. Someone can relapse and get back up. Someone can lose years and still build something meaningful with the years that remain. Someone can carry a painful past without allowing that past to become their permanent identity. That doesn’t erase consequences. It means we leave room for transformation. Because sometimes people need someone to believe change is possible long enough for them to begin believing it themselves. Someone did that for me. Now I want to keep that light on for somebody else. Because You’re Somebody’s Somebody This might be one of the most important parts of the entire mission. When we talk about addiction, homelessness, mental health, abuse, incarceration, trauma, relapse or recovery, it can become easy to talk about people like they’re statistics. But that person is somebody’s child. Somebody’s parent. Somebody’s sibling. Somebody’s friend. Somebody’s person. And the family hurting beside them is somebody’s somebody too. Every story matters. Every recovery matters. Every family matters. Every life matters. Human beings deserve dignity even while being held accountable. From Survival to Service There was a time when most of my energy went into surviving my own life. Today, I want to use that life to serve. Through my books. Through speaking. Through advocacy. Through volunteering. Through community events. Through conversations people may have been afraid to start. And sometimes simply through sitting beside someone and listening without judgment. My greatest pain did not have to remain meaningless. I could turn pain into testimony. And testimony into hope. That doesn’t mean everything that happened was supposed to happen. It means I get to decide what I do with my life now. The Mission Is Bigger Than Me I didn’t write sixteen books because I wanted sixteen books sitting on a shelf. I wrote them because somewhere there is a person who needs to recognize themselves in a page. A family who needs to know their feelings matter. A survivor who needs to know their voice matters. A person in recovery who needs encouragement to keep showing up. A young person who needs to understand that another person’s choices are not theirs to carry. A community that needs to have uncomfortable conversations. And someone who needs to hear: Your hardest chapter does not have to be your final chapter. That is why I continue to recover out loud. Not for attention. Not to glorify where I’ve been. And not to pretend I have everything figured out. I do it because silence once had too much power in my life. Truth gave me my voice back. And now I want to use that voice responsibly. Living Forward Book 16 may close the written series. The mission doesn’t close with it. There are still people struggling. There are still families hurting. There are still survivors sitting in silence. There are still conversations our communities need to have. There are still hands to hold, boundaries to respect, stories to hear and reasons to keep showing up. My journey continues through the life I live when nobody is reading. Through the promises I keep. Through my recovery. Through my faith. Through service. Through accountability. Through the way I treat people. Through the hope I leave behind. And through every person who decides that today can be different from yesterday. This Is Living My Truth Tell the truth when silence feels easier. Take accountability when excuses feel safer. Set the boundary even when it hurts. Give yourself grace without giving yourself permission to stop growing. Remember the families. See the person, not only their struggle. Serve when you are able. Leave the light on for the person coming behind you. And when life knocks you down — Just Rise Daily. Because recovery is possible. Healing is possible. Rebuilding is possible. Purpose can come after pain. And no matter where you are standing today — your story is not over. Because you’re somebody’s somebody. The cover can close. But the mission remains open.