 My name is Carolyn Delaney, I'm the founder and CEO here at Journey Enterprises, we're a media company on a mission to make recovery from addiction visible because it's important. It saves lives. There are over 26 million of us in recovery and we want those who are still sick and suffering to know that there is a path for them. There's millions of us here on the other side of active addiction and that it's probable that people can and do recover. Our videos share personal intimate stories of what people's journeys were like going from what it was like to what happened to what it's like now in an effort to let people know that we're here, we care and that there's a way out. Visible recovery saves lives and we want the world to know that. So if you have a story about recovery and would like to share it, please contact me carolin at recovery-journey.com. I hope you enjoy our video, have a great day. I wonder if you'd start out by just introducing yourself and telling us a little bit about yourself and what forms of recovery you identify with. I honor it, I respect it, so to me that is the number one reason why I am sober so I can be connected in my life. I find it to be a privilege. It's not effort, it's I guess it's almost a passionate experience because every day is a journey. Tell me about your experience with addiction and how you found your way into recovery. What was that like for you? I don't think I was ever kind of like that textbook drinker. You know, I had a couple college degrees, I came from a middle-class family, I had a fairly normal life. I mean, I personally was always an incredibly creative person. I have always been a very, very sensitive person and not that I would have to like go to the doctor or go to it. It wasn't anything like that and I didn't know if this was normal or abnormal or and so my art was always a vehicle for me to kind of be able to handle life here and you know as life went on challenges came up. You know the years and I felt so insecure. I didn't understand why and I didn't know what to do with that so these things really stacked inside of me. I was almost conflicted but outside I wanted to present myself the best I could so I continued to do my art. I got my college degrees but the more time went on the more my internal suffering increased and I didn't understand that you know and I tried so many things you know I mean as a a fitness person and an artist it was like I was on the eternal mission to fix myself. It was like Willa with her line and Willa with her art and Willa with her athletics and it looked great on the outside but the inside I had a conscience about my behavior you know and that's what started to stack up and I started to feel very conflicted because inside I was not loving Willa and outside I was acting like look at me. I mean I'm sure at times I probably wasn't the best example of how to like hold your alcohol but I can't say that I also was the representation of like that girl needs to quit. Some people were like what you quit drinking like what's her issue and for me it was more an emotional issue it was more a mental issue. I was terrified for the world to really see who I was on the inside and if that was the case would you still love me and so I never thought like for the life of me the idea of a 12-step program or recovery was like what not me no way like no way and so I had a real conflict with my beliefs around this and but I kept attracting people in my life that were in recovery very beautiful healthy illuminated souls yoga teachers I just the lifestyle that glow and so what I realized was like this isn't about drinking or not drinking this is about walking walking in the light it became real clear that there was a calling inside of me that the game was over that going against myself and numbing myself in the form of drinking wasn't going to work and I was pretty desperate meaning I was trying so many things on my own and it wasn't working I can go three months without and then I'd celebrate with thank you bottles of wine so so I ventured into this the halls and I was terrified because I really didn't think that that was for me and I could understand how all these people could do this one book thing and what I learned even in the first 90 days was my judgment showed me how much judgment I had in general with myself and that whether I am right or wrong that's not what this is about anymore and that took a lot of time that took a lot of energy to every day one day at a time change my actions change my behaviors ask for help when I don't know how to ask for help that becoming a woman that was going to be sober day after day after day I had to admit to myself I didn't know what to do or how to do it I've conditioned myself I'm an expert at that and when you know you're an expert at that it's kind of cool because you start to becoming like you understand you start to like understand that instead of your limitations mastering you you become a master of your limitations you start to understand what your limitations are and they don't have this power over you anymore I'm picturing that person maybe a woman maybe not a woman who is watching this video and she's trying to decide whether or not to open that bottle of wine or to do something different today and so what would you say to her if you were in her kitchen with her I would say give yourself a chance you deserve it you stop numbing yourself out so if you want to drink right now and if you want to go and do that forgive yourself as fast as possible and try again take a risk a really big one and commit to yourself commit to yourself that you're going to give yourself the life you deserve because no one else will you mean go to that meeting do that like two-week thing where you think you're going to you know commit absolutely commit and I've learned from betraying myself so many times that I am not willing to betray myself again ever and so I would tell that person let go of the self-betrayal I would love to hear you talk about what you know from a recovery perspective what does a day in the life look like for you I honor being a human and I honor having like this biomechanism work for me so I love to be physical so every day I will work out and there's days where I have rest days but it doesn't mean I'm just going to lay on the couch and nature is an enormous source of connection inspiration I will always find time even if I don't have a lot of time I will literally go outside and just lay on the lawn and and like ground you know I want to connect love and connection is really important to me um family friends when people come into my shop you know intimately connecting with people very very important to me so that's another piece of my sobriety that I work on that's how I'm showing up more as a human you know I isolated a ton when I wasn't sober another part is nutrition I'm not really psycho about it but I'm also not going to be at like McDonald's drive-through I think what we put on our body also affects our energy our moods our feelings our energy I like to take care of myself I like to drink a lot of water I like to sleep a lot not a ton but enough and most of all the two more helping people I'm fairly transparent like if you go on my own personal Facebook as well as my business Facebook I write about my personal experiences because those experiences influence my work and my work influences who's going to wear it one thing I've absolutely loved about recovery is the help that I've had and that the people that are in my life that and that is what this journey has taught me and continues to teach me there's no destination you know and I'm on it for the long haul is there any uh anything else any last closing thoughts that you want to convey about your journey to recovery and your life today in recovery I made a decision it was 2012 I was in Mexico I was traveling by myself I remember I was on top of this pyramid and I literally had this like I mean I saw like in my mind's eye half the sky was black the other half was bright white and I believed it always to be white and I was like oh my god like this is I'm creating that darkness and that did scare me but in the right way like that fear motivated me be decisive so that person at home I would say take everything toxic in your life put it on the table but when it comes to toxic relationship with yourself that's what I'm talking about put that on the table whatever is toxic and literally cut it out I was still living in the same place I still look the same way I still went to the same gym I relatively ate the same food I just didn't drink every night day after day after day when pain came up I felt it and then I was like and that got better and better and better I got stronger I was like wait I can transform myself my name is Carly um I'm 29 years old I currently live in Scarborough, Maine and my name is Brynn and I'm Carly's sister older sister I'm 34 and I just moved to Portland from Brooklyn after being there 11 years growing up I lived in a great house I have the best family ever um I got everything that I ever needed and ever wanted um but I still have this disease the gateway to my substance use disorder was um not fitting in I felt like um you know all my friends were really smart and got great grades and I didn't or you know my sisters were they also did really great in school and they were and are skinny and I wasn't so there was always this um hole that I couldn't fill so I started drinking when I was probably 13 um and I the first time I drank I just remember feeling like thank god I found something that can fill that void and then I started smoking weed and I did notice that you know my friends would be like no I don't want to drink this weekend or no I don't want to smoke pot today Carly and I'd be like why you know um and they could stop and I couldn't um you know it took me a really long time to know or accept that I'm a drug addict or I'm an alcoholic I went to college I stayed for a semester I couldn't I just couldn't do it right and so I came home lived with my parents and that's really when things got um messy my family dynamic started to um break if you would say um a lot of fighting and that's when I started to get into you know harder drugs and you know start dating people that you know I probably shouldn't have dated so I had this group of friends as well um as this boyfriend who like I said we're doing harder drugs and I figured why not do these drugs with them finally I have this group of people who accept me for who I am so that's really like I said when things got pretty bad um started getting into opiates which led to doing heroin when my parents wouldn't give me money I would never do normally um I stole from my family I stole from somebody that I was um working for I would never do that normally you know um my family and myself basically did not own a piece of jewelry anymore because I would sell everything in the house my addiction led me to overdosing at my parents house my dad found me in my bathroom I stayed in the ICU for four days and I just remember my mom excuse me my mom kneeling down and crying and saying what are we gonna do at this point because before this I didn't mention this but before this I had gone to three treatment centers I had been in I don't know five sober living facilities I had been to a place for like mental health that focuses on like helping you find a job and going back to school and I had relapsed four or five times I couldn't stay sober you know so this really was a turning point for me what am I gonna do um the last treatment place I had been to said we're not gonna take you back because clearly we're not helping you so I went to a place in Massachusetts so I had a way to week before I went and yeah I went to this facility in um Massachusetts called Spring Hill and it was the best thing I I'd ever done uh I really decided that I have to do this and I stayed there for 45 days they uh encouraged me to go to Portland, Maine I came up here and I went to a sober house um it's called Grace House for Women and I stayed there for about nine months and I dove into the steps I work a program of of AA and um yeah I got a sponsor she took me through the steps I really found out a lot about me I have a community of women up here that I got sober with almost seven years ago so my sobriety date is October 4th 2014 and the women that I got sober with they're still sober with me today I do things that I love doing again uh I'm on a softball team I you know sing when I can um originally I have gone to school for singing I just that's what I do the past nine months have been really really hard for me um I got diagnosed with epilepsy last October um you know I've had a lot of medical issues since then I have I've gotten out of a pretty um rough relationship that I had been in for almost five years the one thing I didn't do was go back to drugs and alcohol because I have these tools that I can use that it doesn't even cross my mind I don't have to pick up a drug or drink alcohol to feel better um you know my life is it's really beautiful I no longer feel like I don't fit in where I have to feel some sort of void um I'm exactly where I need to be so that is my story Bryn so holy smoke you know you're the older sister and you're watching your younger sister who you love and adore imploding so what was this what was this journey like for you I saw quick more quickly than everybody else um that it was really not gonna end up well for everybody um and I didn't think I tried to talk to my parents about it it was just all red flags to me and me trying to get the family to understand what was going on and that it was just getting bigger and bigger our family is really close and having to face that um was just going to be really hard for everybody and I just stopped sort of coming up to things that we would do together my family being like we don't do we don't not participate in things together so what's going on with you and I was just like I can't watch this continuously happen and the way that I tried to get more help was you know I had had a therapist at the time she wasn't an addiction specialist um you know we didn't have any we really didn't have the knowledge of what was going on either you know I know my family my parents found meeting up near there that they went to for a while and then you were doing well and then they they stopped going to it I have found like exactly what I need in people that understand this disease when people don't understand you know none of my friends really got it they when it was bad with Harley um I think everybody my group my tight group of friends was just like oh that's that's strange or um that's sad we're sorry and so I I had to find that community for myself I can pick up the phone and people in this community answer it's awesome and I want to do that for other people too you know I have a little pride of place going on here because we we do have awfully strong recovery community yeah all forms in for the families for those who are whether it's alcohol or drugs or gambling or debtors or whatever like we've got a very strong community here and day-to-day recovery also looks like making sure I get exercise in when Carly Carly's recovery um she really wanted to get into an activity that wasn't like running around the block and she started lifting like heavy lifting power lifting and so when I got here last August she was like come with me to a session so exercise is big for me daily recovery um you know getting up early so I can like fit in some meditation before I'm working and we spend a lot of time together too now that I'm up here and that feels really important a shift in our relationship was was me coming up here and definitely I think getting a better understanding of what Carly's world looks like and how yeah that community piece is so big and so Carly when you think about your recovery what would you say that you have regained oh myself worth confidence I mean I was like a shell of a person before active addiction even um I like it's for me it's not like I gained what I had before addiction it's I started over after you know when I got to recovery in my relationship with Brynn it's really grown a lot and Brynn how about you what would you say that you have regained through this process yeah that conference piece is a big one um and yeah trusting myself um I think when you are in this with somebody who's struggling there's a lot of moments where you just don't trust you your own intuition um you're not trusting that person I can trust myself in this and I can sort of trust in God the universe whatever we want to call it when you work through recovery for the entire family I think that slowly regains um trust and confidence in the relationships that happen within the family the relationship to yourself my story is that I I found recovery before I actually went to prison and that made a huge difference in my in my personal and ultimately professional trajectory I got sober or at least mostly sober in early May coming up on what now 14 years I believe 2007 at that time I was involved in selling drugs doing all sorts of other stuff you know just very uh low bottom terrible highly you know late stage chronic substance use disorder and doing whatever I could really to to just stay alive pay rent so it was May 2007 and I went to my doctor's office who I normally would go to and because I was on all sorts of different prescription medications I felt so so broken and desperate and in such pain that I knew I needed to either seek help or no longer continue living that's that's how I felt at age 24 I got to a point where I was still ingesting all the substances but I could find no no relief from rewinding back to age about 12 or 13 when I first really discovered alcohol and drugs once the alcohol started flowing down into my system and I could feel it you know forcing through my body or ultimately the you know cocaine going up my nose or the pill dissolving and going into my bloodstream as soon as that started to happen what I felt was this feeling of that's the best way I can describe it all of my internal anxiety pain fears inadequacies whatever all of that stuff melted away for about a decade my external life was amassed pretty quickly but as far as how I felt inside the alcohol and drugs really masked a lot of trauma a lot of emotions a lot of insecurities I go to this doctor and for the first time in my life I told I told most of the truth I I did open up he said okay great well in that case you're not going to need detox and you probably don't need inpatient so let's get you into the mercy outpatient intensive outpatient program at Westbrook I'd never really fully experienced withdrawal from all the substance believe it or not for all those years I was more or less on a substance or a combination of substances the whole time my mom welcomed me home when I said I wanted help for the very first time at age 24 we had to change the sheets every couple hours because I was just drenched in sweat the 12 steps in a strong recovery community I have not had to have that experience since and it's been you know around 14 years now since that happened and how that made such a big difference in my life what happened was several months into my recovery we were able to hire a lawyer and I don't even know what they had for dinner in jail that night because about two hours later I was home I left jail that day solely because of the fact that I was already in recovery and had already been doing some internal work I was already aware of my own privilege in that situation and so when I left I became committed to becoming an attorney ultimately I did end up going to federal prison and then continuing to work a program of recovery and planning for my future while I was there while I was in prison I try not to use this language but the name of the program is residential drug program in federal prison and I was part of that program I filled out all my FAFSA forms of course I'm not making any money in prison so I was 100 eligible for Pell Grants to return to the University of Southern Maine and so as soon as I got out I was able to resume my education primarily at the state level I work with the federal government as well particularly right now related to voting rights for people with convictions is my main goal right now with the federal government now in the year 2021 what what what's your life like personal professional now my life is is really full it's full of all of gifts full of blessings I recently got married now we have our little home but on on several acres on the Puget Sound or here the Puget Sound outside of Olympia Washington I think recovery journeys and paths evolve so while I was early in recovery it was really going to 12-step meetings was really essential for me and I never consciously left 12-step meetings but what I've done is I've also in in addition found other ways to be part of something bigger than myself in addition to all the work that I do with prison reform and the entry for the for the governor and stuff like that I most recently joined a mountain rescue team I got really into hiking and mountain climbing and mountaineering and learning how to rock climb and mountaineering and what I wanted to do was add an element of service to that area of my life