Ashley's Recovery Journey

“ The choices were just symptoms of my eternal pain and the continuous insanity of my addiction was just a pattern I accepted in a time of deep sorrow. “

My name is Ashley Russel,

I have struggled with addiction from the age of 13 years old. It all started as CLOUT, a way to be accepted and to be cool and fun. I struggled with mental health and abandonment issues, trauma, neglect and molestation.

I grew up in a household I felt I didn't know, I never truly felt love, but I observed a lot in my young age to gain access to the visual of what love was, captured in my mind as beautiful. It was only something I wish I could have felt myself.

My mother struggled with addiction as well, a woman I loved regardless of who she was or what she did. But I carried great resentment, remorse and hatred for her very being because I craved her to the point it made me hate myself. Because the world hated me first, (at least that's what my thoughts told me). They were just answers my thoughts told me because I was too shy and afraid to find the answer, but now I am LOVE!

Then I became the very person she was, the very personality that took her from me. But I am proud enough to say I am breaking that family bondage and saving my future generation from addiction. Doing what she wasn't able to do. The traits and the characteristics of addiction is what held me there. With my fellow addicts we all bared a great pain that was never expressed in words, but with actions. We all were slowly killing ourselves, burying our destiny and helping dig each other's graves with unconscious intention and no love for ourselves. This was inevitable though, the trauma of not having my children, voices in my head on repeat deeming me nothing. Telling me I was better off dead, unlovable. Trying to build a castle with no foundation and all the LOSSES I willingly took because I tried to find purpose and will in an unwilling place. The damage and hope was being crippled and torn to pieces. I was the only one though holding myself captive in this disease that wanted to steal anything that I thought was possible. I followed the doors of hopelessness and without fear of dying because for years I felt dead.

The choices were just symptoms of my eternal pain and the continuous insanity of my addiction was just a pattern I accepted in a time of deep sorrow. But see, I believed in a lie right along with the enemy who told me that. It was in a moment of consciousness that I gained the knowledge that I had the POWER to choose better even though I felt weak. Even though the vision of getting better seemed so complicated and unobtainable. But with that little seed of faith I had left residing in me, I took INITIATIVE and gave hope and the unknown a shot, because I had no other choice.

My health got bad, and I felt so, so out of myself, almost like my soul was leaving. Like the times I had looked into people's eyes and all I saw was emptiness. I didn't even see light behind my own eyes and that was scary. I didn't know or believe that these people were even aware of who they were. Drugs really demonize your core and blind you to ALL possibilities and truth. Why would I want to die on PURPOSE, rather than without one? I didn't want to be another statistic, another sad soul lost to a 20-dollar bag, for someone to be rich by gaining a lifeless soul.

There is hope out there, but faith is strengthening your perception and stop believing the lies we believed for all the years we used. There is ANOTHER TRUTH- and I promise you, I have been in recovery for 6 months. I used IV drugs , I have overdosed, been resuscitated, I have felt I died and came back to life. I wrote a suicide note and purposely shot up with the intention of not waking up. And before that I got on my knees, but the energy of not wanting to live was so FORCEFUL. There was a piece of me inside that wanted to live, but it was weak. So I prayed to God in that hour that I was apologetic for what I was going to do and to spare my life if he could. But I wanted to leave this world, the pain and the self-worth was so low, I was willing to die. But God had a plan and allowed me to live. God allowed another addict to hear his voice and find the Narcan and save me.

But all it takes is a chance at change, a chance every day, great or small. Just don't lose sight of the possibility, because possibilities pull you out of the water, and the other hand pulls you under! Your choices are VITAL, and that one choice may become your final destination. Your choice is your power, so RECLAIM your power and get back all you lost. Patience is a power and is a gift from God to be patient with yourself, no one owes you anything more than you owe yourself!

LOVE YOURSELF, FIND YOURSELF, WHO ARE YOU?

WHEN THOSE VOICES SPEAK TO YOU, ASK YOURSELF “WHO TOLD YOU THAT?”

The meaning of life is to find a purpose or reason to live. That is what life is all about. The purpose must be bigger than your pain because it is love, and LOVE always wins.

God bless all. I am praying for my still recovering and suffering addicts, and I am doing the work of recovery because I owe it to myself, the ones I love that I hurt, and also for my friends and family who have LEFT this earth to this insidious disease. The reality is we are suffering each time we use. Help yourself, don't wait for someone to save you when you still have ABILITIES.

My purpose is my FIVE children and GOD has opened doors of hope and opportunity. I closed the doors of difficulties and new ones appeared, sometimes it's even so pensive and so much to consume how far I've come.

God is waiting for you. You have a purpose and you deserve love and joy.

The treasure is where the heart is, so find the treasure!

You got this.

Love you, Ashley Lynn Russell