*All of the names in this story have been changed to protect anonymity*
Every so often when I have a group of new followers on TikTok or Instagram, I’ll go live and tell my story from start to present. It’s important for me to do so for multiple reasons. If we recover out loud, we break the stigma, first and foremost. Maybe someone will hear my story and feel less alone. Beyond those reasons, I want my viewers and clients to know who they’re dealing with. I have
nothing to hide. Every single step of my journey led me to MoonGlow, and it’s been the best decision I’ve ever made. I’m grateful to share my story. If I inspire even one person to choose themselves, then I have accomplished my goal. For those same reasons, I have decided to publish a short version here for anyone who would like to get to know Mystic J, the MoonGlow Mystic Intuitive, and perhaps didn’t have the opportunity to catch me in a live stream.
I grew up with one older brother, in an upper-middle class family; a working class family, but a family full of union workers, so they were all paid fairly well. I say that to point out that I was very spoiled. I never wanted for anything. My brother and I had the latest video game console every Christmas along with a living room flooded with other presents. On top of which, my mother was an only child so her parents only had my brother and I as grandchildren, and you know how grandparents do. I was spoiled. What I didn’t have was the attention and guidance that I desperately longed for. I grew up resenting all of the “stuff and things” because all I wanted was a set of parents. I’ve since learned about love languages, and I can recognize that gift giving is/was both of my parents’ love language, and it has washed away most of the resentment.
The best way to describe my childhood is tumultuous. My parents got divorced when I was in second grade, and prior to that, there was always a lot of yelling and fighting, and just because they got divorced, didn’t mean that chaos ended. They spent a significant amount of time together throughout the divorce. We went on more family vacations with divorced parents than we did with married ones. Eventually, the two would get remarried to one another when I was in eighth grade… then divorced again when I was in college. Chaos. It was constant chaos. On top of which, my father had anger issues and took those issues out on my brother and I with regular physical abuse. To this day, my father will look me square in the eye and tell me that he was “just disciplining” us, but when my teachers are noticing the bruises, it’s not discipline anymore. My biggest takeaway from childhood is feeling not good enough. I can remember having a sense of depression as far back as kindergarten. I remember sitting at my window, watching the snowflakes, thinking “I’m trying my best. Why is it not good enough?”. Kindergarten.
Highschool and college are where my drinking and using career began. I wasn’t the person who has their first drunk experience and is off and running with alcohol. Alcohol became a tool later on. Pills, on the other hand, pills were my first love. The very first time I put a painkiller into my system, I needed more, immediately. A warm rush came over my body. It felt like all the hugs I didn’t get in my childhood. It just felt like everything was going to be okay. I was eighteen when I got my first script. From that point on, I looked for ways to get prescriptions.
I got married when I was young; too young. I was twenty-four. At that point in time, all I had ever wanted was to be married. To me, marriage signified success. Someone wanted me, and only me. I would later learn that I am extremely codependent.
As far as my use was concerned, I drank whenever the opportunity would present itself, but didn’t seek it out. One thing that sticks out in my mind is my husband’s shows. He was a musician. To be precise, he was a heavy metal guitar player. I hated everything about his band. I hated that he practiced three times a week. I hated the bandmates, and I hated the shows. But I loved how passionate he was about his music. And he was talented. A lot of my friends would later tell me that they thought he was arrogant when it came to music… and he was, but he knew what he was doing with a guitar. Whenever there was a show, I took advantage of the bar and made sure I was nice and tipsy by the end of the night. It was the only way I could handle being at the dinghy bars, (the likes of which make you want penicillin just by looking at the bathroom), the people, and the loud noises. So,
I used alcohol as a tool to cope with my surroundings. There was a point when my husband went on a North American tour, and left me at home for about six months. I think that was one of the turning points in the relationship. I was thrilled for him, but I was dying inside. And it showed. While he was on tour, I went from doing pills whenever I had a script, to buying them. Remember, this was 2009, 2010. Fentanyl wasn’t the major problem it is now. There are no circumstances under which I would ever feel safe buying anything off the streets these days. Fentanyl is in everything.
One of my friends who lived in Cleveland knew someone who got large prescriptions and sold the majority of it. I distinctly remember driving to Cleveland shaking, and shaking all the way home… just terrified that I was going to get caught. What if the house was being watched? It probably was. But the fear wasn’t enough to stop me from doing it. I needed my meds.
After the tour was over, the band really started falling apart and I got my husband back. But then a major bombshell in my life… My mother had gotten diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer. If you are not familiar with how the stages work, Stage IV means that the cancer has metastasized to various other parts of the body. She would survive just short of a year after her diagnosis.
My entire life crumbled. My husband was less than supportive during the entire process. I actually had an emotional affair with a longtime friend throughout the process of losing my mom. He was living on the west coast. I was in Ohio and most nights couldn’t sleep… so I called him for comfort. Did I know at the time what I was doing was having an emotional affair? Absolutely not. I thought I was just confiding in a friend. But when I look back on the situation, it was definitely some emotional infidelity. So, my relationship with my husband was hanging on by a string, my mom just passed, and I had absolutely no coping skills. I drank. I drank and I did pills at any possible opportunity. I was actually late to my mom’s funeral because I was in Cleveland buying the medicine that would help
me get through the day. I also had a water bottle full of rum throughout the entire day. At one point, I was spending my husband’s direct deposit paycheck on pills before he even got home from work. He had had enough. He moved to Florida to be with his parents, four months after my mom passed away. I felt so betrayed. I absolutely pushed him away, but the timing left me extremely resentful.
The next two years would be a whirlwind of men, pills, and alcohol. I worked part-time jobs here and there, trying to get by. But I lived with my dad who was classically not present or aware of most of my debauchery. The turning point occurred in 2015 when I was working part time at a jewelry store. It wasn’t high end, but it wasn’t Claire’s. It was somewhere in the middle. I had just had some dental work done, and a fresh script for Vicodin… but it was getting low. One of my coworkers happened to mention that they had a fresh script of that medication in her purse in the back room. Knowing full well that I was being recorded, I went into the back room and took some pills out of my coworkers bag. This happened on a Friday and by Monday I had lost my job… but that is all that happened. I only lost my job. The store could have pressed charges on me. My coworker could have pressed charges on me. But no one did. My angels were definitely looking out for me. And it prompted me to get help.
I spent that weekend calling various outpatient rehab centers trying to find the best fit. I landed in Glenbeigh which is a popular treatment center in the Northeast Ohio area. I did well for the month that I stayed. I shared a lot, grew a tiny bit, and got a brief idea of the twelve steps. But soon I got my doctor to write me a script for tramadol and I was off and running again.
People who have been through the Twelve Steps Of Alcoholics Anonymous say that it ruins your drinking. This is true. For the next few years, I would definitely curb my drinking to a more controlled state, and barely touched pills. At this point, I knew I was an addict, I just wasn’t ready to face it… until the OVI.
I was bored one night and decided to call an old boyfriend for a hookup. I had smoked about three bowls of weed, and ingested some benzos that I had been prescribed, but felt like I was okay to drive… because I was an addict. Once the arrangements were made, I headed out down a 45 MPH road with my high beams on. Coming the other way, towards me, was a cop who had apparently flashed his high beams at me as a reminder that mine were on, but I didn’t notice. So, they pulled me over. I was smoking in the car, and the officer could smell it. Immediately he asked me to get out of the car and do a field sobriety test, which I failed miserably, but when I blew into the breathalyzer, it was a 0.0, so they took me back to the station for a urine sample. By the time that was all said and done, I had called yet another ex boyfriend to come pick me up . I lied to my dad about why the car was impounded, and he helped me get it out. I did lose my job because I couldn’t get there for a few days. I was a wreck.
For three days I laid in bed just ruminating where my life had gone. I was miserable. And scared. By now it was 2018, and I had remembered a girl I worked with at a car dealership in 2016 who used to come in everyday talking about her recovery. She would speak so highly of the friends she had made and the events she would attend. At the time, I hated it, because I was drinking almost every night and knew I needed help. At that time, I wasn’t ready to speak up. But in 2018 when I knew my ass needed to get to a meeting, I knew exactly who to call. And that is just one of the reasons that we recover out loud! You never know who is listening. You never know who needs to hear your story.
So I called Jordan. She didn’t have a vehicle at the time but offered to meet me at a meeting in Parma, OH which was about twenty minutes from where I was located. I was terrified. But I knew I was exactly where I belonged. To the best of my recollection, it was a discussion meeting, where we read a little bit and then discuss what was read. I listened closely to every comment, looking for someone that sounded like they knew what the hell they were talking about. Enter Holly. Again, I don’t remember what was said, but I remember thinking to myself, “that is exactly the kind of person I need as a sponsor”. So, after the meeting, I made a beeline for Holly and asked her to be my sponsor. She said yes.
Because I cried almost every time we met, Holly wanted to get me right into my steps because I “looked like I was in a lot of pain”. And I was. I was fresh off the heels of my OVI and I was terrified. I didn’t want my family to know that I was just another loser in the family… because I believed the stigma that addicts and alcoholics are bad people. We’re not bad people. We are people with a disease who make poor choices. But that is not what I saw. I saw a worthless, hopeless, loser.
About one week into asking Holly to become my sponsor, I disappeared. I didn’t relapse, but I stopped checking in, stopped doing my gratitude list, and stopped responding to text messages. I was suicidal. I had a plan, and I was going to execute it. That meant not communicating with anyone who might sway my mind to stay. The method I chose is known as a chemical suicide, and it consists of mixing together two toxic chemicals to form an even more toxic gas that asphyxiates a person almost immediately. I purchased what I needed, wrote a note, and headed off to a truck stop one evening. In my mind, I thought I was doing my dad a favor. I didn’t want him to have to find me… so I went somewhere out in the middle of nowhere. I wrote my dad’s name and phone number on a piece of paper next to me, along with signs on the windows stating that toxic fumes were inside the vehicle. I taped off all of the windows, and I mixed my ingredients. Just before I mixed the two together, I cried and said to my mom, “I just want to come home, mommy”. Clearly, by virtue of me writing this entry, one can evaluate that my attempt was not successful. After about twenty minutes, I realized my mixture wasn’t going to work, ripped down all the tape and signs, emptied out my bucket, and drove home in tears. I was so broken.
My sponsor, who normally doesn’t chase sponsees, had sent a text message asking if I was okay because she hadn’t heard from me in a few days. I replied back to her, “No. I’m not okay. I just tried to attempt suicide and it didn't work”. Her response will stick with me until the day I die, ‘God must have some pretty big plans for you”. I simultaneously threw my phone and started bawling. I did not want to hear about God at that moment. But I surrendered. Things were not going well with my current self behind the wheel. I needed something different. So, from that point on, I dove into my steps headfirst. I worked every single step to the best of my ability… and when I got to my fourth step, my eyes were opened. I was a selfish, self-centered alcoholic, who was at the route of all of her own resentments and downfalls. I was finally able to let go.
Things were really starting to turn around for me. I was holding my job, I had met some amazing women who showed me what real friendship was, and I was starting to feel lighter. But something was missing. Oh, and by the way… remember the OVI? The urine sample ended up getting lost and no charges were ever filed. I didn’t find this out until 2020.
In 2019 I had wrecked my car… in sobriety lol. It’s important for me to make that distinction. I was stone cold sober when I wrecked it. I misjudged the width of my car and sideswiped a construction trailer. The entire length of my car was annihilated. While it was being worked on, I was trying to find ways to get to meetings. Occasionally I could use my dad’s car, but not always. Especially since he worked nights, I wouldn’t be able to use his car for nighttime meetings. I normally went to meetings in a different county, because my sponsor was from there, and it was just easier. I didn’t know anyone in recovery in my area, nor any of the meetings. One day I was at a local vape shop and I heard a very cute man talking to the owner about how he loves his vape because the zero setting was perfect for meetings. My spidey senses went off and I just knew what kind of meetings he was referring to. I was too shy to talk to him in person, but when I got home, I called the owner and asked her if she would put me in contact with him. She did. Like a good member of a twelve step program, Matt tried to put me in contact with other women that he knew… because that was the way. Women with women and men with men. But he was really cute. We started spending time together and eventually became a couple.
When Covid-19 hit, Matt and I were living together in a small rental. I was working for a car dealership, and he had just become the general manager of a major pizza franchise. His job was affected by the pandemic in that they were still open, and business skyrocketed. My job was to bring people into the dealership to look at cars. They refused to shut down during the pandemic, and I just could not ethically bring people into a building when there was a National pandemic going on. I left my job and was able to collect unemployment. Eventually I got hired at a local Recovery Community Center. And it was a really great place in theory, but in practice it falls short in a lot of ways. But it was a job in recovery, and my only dream since I was a little girl was to help other people. That was what I was doing.
But something was missing. I had literally everything I was supposed to want. Matt had asked me to marry him. We were to be married in 2022. And we were a damn good looking couple. I had the recovery job, the gorgeous man… but something was missing. I just was not happy. Since Matt was part of the community, I tried to blend in… I spent less time with my own friends from the other county and started going to meetings closer to home. There were zero people in the community that I clicked with. I just didn’t like it there. I didn’t like the people, the meetings, the vibe. I was miserable. BUT it was important to Matt that I try to fit in, so I pushed all of that unhappiness down, and tried to ignore it. I started taking Kratom. It wasn’t technically a drug, so I told myself it didn’t count. I hid it from literally everyone. Over the course of 2021, Matt and I started to grow apart. He was hell bent on opening his own store, and made that his primary focus. The relationship was no longer a priority, and I slowly became more and more miserable. Resentments began forming. I knew he wasn’t happy but I knew he wasn’t talking to me about it, so I wasn’t talking to him. It was awful. I began sleeping in the other room every night. We never talked. It got cold and dark. But I was determined to get to the wedding… Once we got past the wedding, we could get into counseling and fix the relationship… because again, marriage equals success in my eyes. Fortunately, Matt had had enough before either of us said “I do”. The wedding was called off. We were supposed to take some time apart and get back together… but I was out. Once I started gaining some self-love, I was able to look back and see just how terrible of a relationship it was. My self-esteem was too low at the time to recognize that it just wasn’t enough for me.
Something was missing the whole time. All of the anger I had been squashing for the past year and a half came surging out. I lashed out at Matt. Almost everyday, sometimes twice, daily, I emailed him. I said some pretty terrible things to him, some of which he deserved, but some of which he did not. And I honestly don’t think I’ll ever have an opportunity to make amends to him for the things I said, but they definitely are deserving of the amends process. I had a lot of anger. Again, some of it was justified… but some of it was self-hatred being projected onto Matt.
Matthew did a lot of damage, both emotionally and physically. For a while, I genuinely believed he was a narcissist, with actual Narcissistic Personality Disorder. After some time in therapy, I was able to realize that he honestly had no idea what he was doing. I’m not trying to be disparaging at all. It’s actually his saving grace. He was just not smart enough, and not self-aware enough to realize he was hurting me. And there was a level of comfort that came with that realization… at least he wasn’t doing it on purpose. I really thought he was doing it on purpose.
As I mentioned, I got back into therapy as soon as the split happened. One of the things I did in July of 2022 was jump out of an airplane. It had been on my bucket list since getting sober, and I needed to face my fears. After Matt and I split, I got my own apartment for the first time ever in my life. I had always lived with roommates or a spouse, never alone. I was terrified. Due to some of the psychological and sexual things I had experienced with Matt, I had developed an irrational fear of men. I was terrified. I was absolutely certain that something was going to happen to me while I was out and about, and no one would ever notice that I didn’t come home because I lived alone. If I jumped out of an airplane and faced that fear, I could do anything. So, I jumped.
Throughout my time in therapy, after a lot of journaling, a lot of tarot cards, and hours of talking, I discovered that I was not straight. I’d always known… but I never realized just how NOT straight I was. By the time my relationship with Matt finally ended, I didn’t even like him as a person, but I was willing to stay with him, because he was an attractive man who was active in the community. He was my mask. No one would ever question my sexuality. Not even me. Until I was faced with it in the mirror. To this day, I don’t know what to call myself. I still do find men very much attractive, but never again in my life do I ever want to date one. So, I don’t know. I guess I’m Pansexual… but I really don’t feel comfortable with most of the labels, so I refer to myself as queer.
So many things started to make sense once I admitted this to myself. Every single relationship I had ever had with a man… something was missing. Having had this realization has opened the doors for me to explore who I am and the person I want to be with, no matter what gender they identify with.
When Matthew and I split, I immediately found a full time job working as a Peer Supporter, or what my company referred to as a Certified Recovery Advisor. It was an amazing opportunity when I started but new leadership started making huge cutbacks and client care went out the window. That is when I decided to throw everything I had into MoonGlow. At this point, I was still grappling with my own sexuality, and having a hard time with it. I didn’t want to be queer. I wanted to be the straight little white girl I was forcing myself to be for forty years. But she was miserable. My kratom use increased. Soon I was spending all of the money I had on kratom and ignoring my bills. Something needed to change. Fortunately, my best friend and business manager called me out.
I cut myself off cold turkey. I started focusing on self-love and radical self acceptance. I do affirmations every single day. I started taking care of myself again by going for walks, getting in nature, journaling daily, writing a daily gratitude list, and attending meetings. These days I’m more apt to attend a Dharma Recovery meeting than a Twelve Step Meeting. I just vibe with it better. But AA will always have a special place in my heart, because it got me sober. As of the writing of this article, I can proudly announce that I absolutely love myself. Never in my life have I felt this free. I genuinely love who I am right now. I am a business owner, and a proud member of the queer community.
I should also mention that I don’t currently refer to myself as sober. One of the outcomes of my relationship with Matthew was PTSD. I was actually having nightmares of him while we were still together. Currently I use medical marijuana to help with some of my PTSD symptoms as well as ADHD symptoms. I don’t like to use the term “sober” because AA holds a pretty tight, unspoken, ownership of that word, and I don’t want to offend anyone. So, I refer to myself as in recovery. I’ve been in recovery since 2018, and my life has been substantially better ever since. If you’re struggling, I want you to know that you’re not alone. I want you to know that there are multiple pathways to recovery. You don’t have to go it alone, and you have options.
Comments