“You cannot heal what you refuse to confront.” ~Yasmin Mogahed
At sixteen, I walked out of my mother’s house with track marks and a half-packed bag. No big fight. No slammed door. Just the silent resignation of someone who couldn’t look his mother in the eye anymore. I wasn’t leaving home—I was bailing on it. On everything.
I didn’t know the word “addiction.” Well, I knew it; I just didn’t understand it. I didn’t know that the flu I kept getting was withdrawal. I thought I was just weak. A loser. A burnout who couldn’t even use the right way.
Over the next few years, I would burn through twenty-two treatment centers and detoxes. Not metaphorically. I mean actual beds, actual paperwork, actual roommates, each one thinking they’d seen someone like me before. I gave every counselor the same script:
I’m ready this time. I just need a reset.
I’d be out within days. Sometimes hours.
I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t even close.
The Real Lie
You’d think the biggest lie I told was to my family. Or the judges. Or to all those people who loved me even when I gave them nothing back.
But the worst lies? They were internal.
I told myself:
“This is just a phase.”
“I can stop if I want.”
“I’m only hurting myself.”
I convinced myself that survival was the goal. Not growth. Not connection. Just survive the day, or at least numb it out enough that it passed quietly.
That internal voice doesn’t yell. It whispers. It’s slick. And when you’re lonely, exhausted, and chemically dependent, it becomes your best friend. Your only friend.
A Moment I Can’t Forget
One night in my early twenties, I found myself strapped to a hospital bed in Delaware after a suicide attempt that didn’t go as planned. I came to with tubes in my arms, the taste of iron in my mouth, and the sterile white ceiling staring back at me like it knew something I didn’t.
There was no grand awakening. No movie-scene moment with tears and violins. Just silence, and this strange, unfamiliar feeling: I’m still here.
Something cracked open that night—not in a way anyone else could see, but in the quiet back room of my own awareness. A voice I’d been ignoring for years—maybe my whole life—started whispering a little louder.
I didn’t listen to it right away. I moved to Florida not long after, trying to outrun the damage and the shame. Spent nearly a decade bouncing through treatment centers, sober houses, friends’ couches—living on repeat. That voice showed up now and then, like a static signal in the background. But I was still too busy numbing out to really hear it.
And then one day, years later, something changed. I finally stopped trying to shut it up. I sat still long enough to let it speak.
The first thing it said wasn’t poetic or profound. It was blunt. Look around. So I did.
And what I saw hit me like a slow-building wave:
I was in Arizona. Thousands of miles from my family.
I had a daughter, two years old, living in another state—barely part of my life.
I missed everyone. I missed myself. And I was scared.
That voice didn’t accuse or condemn. It just kept going:
You’re allowed to want more. You can change. Start now.
Where I Finally Stopped Running
I got sober in Arizona on September 26, 2010. But the real work, the soul-level renovation, started in the days and weeks that followed.
There was no lightning bolt, no sudden surge of motivation. Just a quiet commitment to stop lying to myself.
Healing came in moments that felt ordinary:
Brushing my teeth in a sober living house and actually looking in the mirror. Making it to a job on time. Letting someone ask how I was—and answering without deflection.
I learned that sobriety wasn’t just about quitting substances. It was about telling the truth. Especially to myself.
I stopped performing. I stopped pretending I was fine. I let myself want better, and then, I started doing the boring, uncomfortable, necessary things that actually create change.
Arizona, the place I’d originally come to because of a fling, became the ground where I finally planted roots. The place where I learned how to show up—not just for others, but for me.
What I Know Now (That I Wish I Knew Then)
We don’t change because someone tells us we should. We change because something inside us starts to believe, however faintly, that we’re capable of more.
The catch is: You have to stop bullshitting yourself first.
That means:
Calling out the voice in your head that wants to keep you small.
Sitting in discomfort without escaping.
Letting people in, even when it feels like exposure.
You don’t have to have it all figured out. Most people don’t. But you do need to get honest about where you’re at, and what that place is costing you.
Sometimes rock bottom isn’t a single event. It’s the accumulation of tiny self-abandonments that pile up until there’s barely any of you left.
For Anyone in the Thick of It
If you’re reading this in the middle of your own mess, I won’t throw platitudes at you. Life isn’t a Hallmark movie, and recovery isn’t a montage.
But here’s what I can offer:
You’re not broken. You’re buried.
There’s still a version of you under the pain, the denial, the self-sabotage. And that version doesn’t need to be created from scratch; it just needs to be remembered.
You don’t need a plan. You need a moment. One honest, gut-level moment where you stop running. That’s enough to start.
And yes, it’ll be uncomfortable. But growth always is.
About Tom Fay
Tom Fay is the founder of Gambit Recovery, a national sober living network built on structure, honesty, and connection. With over 14 years of sobriety, Tom’s passion is helping people stop lying to themselves long enough to find purpose again. Learn more at gambitrecovery.com or follow him on Instagram @gambitrecovery.
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