Walking into the room with people around tables — it’s never expected.
If you would have asked me four years ago if I could even imagine myself where I am today, I would not know what to say.

The first six months were a blur. I can’t even tell you how many times my fight or flight response kicked in and said “nope, I’m out of here” before it was time.
I was a blubbering mess. Anyone remotely brought up grief, loss, death — I couldn’t even stay for the first year. It took everything I had to plant myself through the hard conversations to just listen, to hear what I needed to hear. I had no idea at that time in my life, my grief, my numbing was so deep I couldn’t feel it myself.

My flight response was so high that my instinct was to run. How hard the struggle was to stay, how the pit in my stomach would make me want to throw up. But I just had to sit through, because there was healing if I could just hold on. There was hope in the hard things if I was just willing to listen and keep coming back. But I had to be willing to give this a good, honest try. I was finally so exhausted — my left side had given up. The doctors had given up — but there was something inside me still fighting, still trying to keep going, getting up and fighting. I was willing to do whatever it took to feel, laugh, love again.

Today I choose Recovery because Recovery is worth it.
Not because it is easy. Because tomorrow is not promised. But I want people to know they matter. I want the person who thinks they’re too far gone, too broken, or too late to realize that recovery is still worth it. I’m not a professional — I’m a person who has lived it. And if my story helps even one person believes they can take one more step, then it’s worth telling.

My nephew Josh tried hard to sober, but his story ended. He didn’t get the sobriety he always wanted — but you can. Sobriety is worth it!
I can’t change the past and I am ok with that, because the past is who made me who I am today.

Today we choose Hope!
Today we choose Freedom!
Today we choose sobriety.
You Matter. Tomorrow needs you. I need you.
Thank you for letting me share.
— Tammy Rose