Unraveling the Chaos: Finding Freedom in Facing My Past

Sometimes, I look at the tangled mess in my own mind and it feels exactly like the drawing I’m sharing with you today. It’s a chaotic collage of words, memories, and doodles—some childish, some dark—all swirling around a central, undeniable theme: ADDICTION.

This image isn’t just art; it’s a map of my journey. It’s a visual representation of a mind desperately trying to process a life that, for a long time, was defined by a need to escape.

Normalizing the Dysfunction

I got addicted to things to escape my reality. That reality was shaped early, and it was shaped hard. Growing up in Fairbanks during the pipeline days, “normal” had a very different definition for me than it did for others.

Look closely at the drawing. You’ll see the word “Scarface.” That was the first movie I ever remember watching in a theater. A violent saga of drug lords and excess—that was my introduction to cinema. My late father had me around a lot of different things at a young age, things a child shouldn’t have to make sense of. But to me, it was just… life. It was normal.

That normalization is where the seeds of addiction are often sown. When chaos is your baseline, you find ways to cope, to tune it out, to numb the pain. For me, that escape became addiction.

The Price of Escape

The drawing also shows the consequences. Words like “JAIL” and “PAIN” are scrawled amidst the confusion. And that was my reality, too. My addiction eventually led me to a cell, a stark contrast to the freedom I was desperately chasing.

But the most devastating price wasn’t my own freedom; it was the lives of those I loved. I have lost siblings and friends to this disease. The pain of losing anyone to addiction is a unique, hollowing sorrow. It’s a grief that is forever tangled with “what ifs” and the bitter knowledge of a life cut short by a relentless struggle. It hurts more than words can express.

Speaking the Shame, Finding the Heal

For years, I ran. I ran from the memories, the shame, and the truth of what had happened. But you can’t outrun your own shadow.

The drawing has another important word: HEAL. It’s there, but it’s surrounded by the noise. Finding it required me to do the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I had to learn how to face everything that happened in the past.

I had to speak out loud some very shameful things that have happened to me and some things that I had done. I had to drag those dark, hidden memories into the light and give them a voice. It was terrifying. But in doing that, something miraculous happened.

It freed me.

Speaking the truth, no matter how ugly, broke the chains of angst and shame that had bound me for so long. It was the first step towards true healing, towards untangling the chaotic mess you see on the page and in my mind.

This drawing is a testament to that process. It’s a reminder that the journey from addiction to recovery isn’t a straight line. It’s a messy, painful, and courageous act of facing your own reality, one truth at a time. And in that truth, there is freedom.