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Ashley, a young woman in recovery, tells her story of what it took to get to where she is today. After a relapse, giving up on her son, numerous incarcerations, hospitalization for life threatening issues; she returns to a life of being clean. Will she follow her own advice?

Did Loss of Child, Freedom, and Health Offer an Answer of What it Took?

Ashley, my guest, speaks of her adolescent years of meth and heroin as she began use at the age of 13. After many stints in treatment programs, she finally gains some time clean before returning to use and giving up her child, finds herself incarcerated, and ends up in the hospital with sepsis. What did it take? Listen to her advise at the end of the podcast as we realized that knowing and doing are two different things as she hopefully will continue down her current path in recovery and take her own advise.

In “Pain, Failure and Misery are the Stepping Stones to Success”, I ask a question that is relatable to her story. Can a mother’s love overcome the power of addiction? Drug dependency, for those who have never experienced it, have a hard time understanding that addiction has nothing to do with love. Ashley may have loved her child, but her drugs had hijacked and taken over the part of the brain that has to do with survival. The alterations that have happened will begin to affect the part of the brain that has to do with love, decency and morality. The prefrontal cortex. The manipulations that occur within our brains, will appear as an evil person that is willing to leave behind something that was important while clean and follow a delusion. This delusion says that I “NEED” that substance to remain alive, which is of least importance, and let go of those things that are most important because our brains will alter our priorities based on our survival needs.