For over 30 years I was caught in the forceful grip of alcohol and prescription drug addiction. Despite many attempts to regain control of my life, I secretly believed that my destiny was to become a casualty of the disease; my legacy nothing more than a statistic. I didn’t get clean on my first attempt, nor my fiftieth, but I persevered and kept trying. I held onto a glimmer of hope, however dim, that change was possible. Even in the darkest times where I had all but given up, a part of me never let go of that glimmer, and eventually, I was able to create lasting and permanent change.

Now, many years later, I share my story as a speaker and author to inspire others who are affected by addiction to not let go of hope. Today, I feel incredibly grateful to be blessed with the disease of addiction.

Sometimes I wish it hadn’t taken me thirty years to get to that point, but that was the amount of time I needed. We have to live the content first before we can tell the story. I have a disease where the treatment is continuous self-improvement. That’s pretty cool.