How Faith Transformed My Recovery: My Story.

I never thought I’d make it. People around me wasn’t sure I’d make it, either. I never thought I’d be the woman writing this, telling you that recovery isn’t just possible, it’s beautiful. But let’s get real: in the beginning, it wasn’t beautiful. It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t inspiring. It was brutal. It was me, broken and lost, fighting against the grain, fighting against myself, fighting against a God I wasn’t even sure was real.

I walked into recovery skeptical, hardened, and carrying the weight of every bad decision I’d ever made. Trauma was my shadow, and addiction had been my escape hatch for years. I was addicted to the needle, chasing the next high and money all the while, my life crumbled. And on top of it all, I had lost a daughter, my son had lost his father, I saw no way out. The grief was suffocating. The idea that faith, something I had so little of, could change my life seemed ridiculous. But, as I would soon learn, God specializes in the ridiculous.

Fighting the Process

Recovery is not for the faint of heart. It demands everything from you. It rips you open and forces you to face parts of yourself that you spent years burying under substances and self-destruction. I didn’t want to do the work. I wanted to run. I wanted to quit. But something kept me there.

I remember sitting in meetings, hearing about surrender, honesty, making amends, turning my will over to a Higher Power. I’d roll my eyes. "That’s cute for y’all, but I’ve done too much. I’ve lost too much. If God was real, He wouldn’t want someone like me, and I don’t want nothing to do with Him, look at all he let happen in my life."

I had spent years believing that If there was a God, I had to fix myself before He would love me. That lie kept me in chains. But recovery, and a few brutally honest sponsors, began chipping away at that.

The Moment Everything Changed

I wish I could say I had a neat, cinematic "come to Jesus" moment where the sky opened up and angels sang. I didn’t. There was no burning bush and my faith didn’t ignite in a church pew or a meeting. It happened in the mess of my lowest point.

I knew I was going to prison. I knew my kids were better off without me. I knew my parents were disappointed beyond belief. I just KNEW there was no way to fix the mess that I had made of my life, and the life of those around me.

I expected silence. But when I began praying, I found peace. A peace that didn’t make sense. A peace that didn’t fix everything in an instant, but one that told me I wasn’t alone. It was the first time I truly felt God wasn’t just some distant being but someone who was in the trenches with me, fighting for me, even when I couldn’t fight for myself.

Faith & Recovery: Walking It Out

Faith isn’t a magic wand. It doesn’t mean my struggles disappeared. It doesn’t mean trauma just evaporated. But it gave me a foundation stronger than myself. It gave me something to hold onto when the cravings hit, when the grief was too much, when my past screamed at me that I wasn’t worth it.

Recovery principles started making sense in a way they never had before. Honesty? God already knew my mess, so why not own it? Surrender? It wasn’t about giving up, it was about giving in to something greater than myself. Making amends? That wasn’t just about clearing my conscience; it was about living in the freedom Christ had given me.

AA and NA talk about a Higher Power, and for me, that Higher Power became Jesus, alive, personal, loving, relentless in His pursuit of me. I started reading the Bible with new eyes, seeing grace woven through every page. I started surrounding myself with people who didn’t just talk about faith but lived it. And I started to believe that maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t too far gone.

Why This Matters?

People love a comeback story. But this isn’t just a story of “I got sober.” It’s a story of redemption. Of a God who takes the broken and makes them whole. Who turns addicts into leaders, victims into victors, and the lost into the found.

If you’re in that place, the place where you’re skeptical, where you think you’re too messed up for faith to be real, I get it. I was there. But let me tell you something: God isn’t afraid of your mess. He’s not waiting for you to clean up before He loves you. He already does. And He is powerful enough to take your worst moments and use them for something greater than you can imagine.

Recovery is hard. Life after addiction doesn’t mean life without struggles. But walking through it with Jesus? That’s the game-changer. That’s what makes it not just bearable, but beautiful.

If He can do it for me, He WILL do it for you.

Don’t give up.