“I don’t know how I got here. I had a happy childhood with no trauma. I had good parents and went to good schools, but I also had a severe panic disorder. Everything felt like it was zooming in. When I was 14, my doctor prescribed Xanax. I struggled with thoughts of suicide and was 15 the first time I tried to kill myself.

The ages of 14-24 are a blur. I didn’t realize I was addicted to Xanax. I had withdrawals, but I thought they were just seizures from not taking it. I took my medicine and then I was better. I started using cocaine and then would take Xanax to chill out. I liked cocaine and the feeling of being up. I was a bartender, so getting cocaine was easy.

I bought Xanax off the street for years. I switched doctors, and my new doctor drug tested me and told me to come off the Xanax. I thought, absolutely not. I stopped going to him and started getting my pills from friends and dealers.

The last time I got Xanax from a friend, I took them and overdosed three times in a week. We didn’t know the pills were fentanyl.

The overdoses happened before my 25th birthday. I took an OxyContin and one of those Xanax at my friend’s house then woke up the next day in my bed wearing a hospital wristband. Why was I wearing that? My friend told me I overdosed and turned blue. He took me to the hospital. They saved me.

I didn’t know how that was possible. I only took one Xanax—I usually took 10 a day. I thought it was just a seizure, so I took another of those Xanax. I didn’t make it to a family dinner, so my mom got worried and asked my uncle to check on me. He found me turning blue and took me to the hospital. I wouldn’t be here today without him.

I woke up confused in the hospital. I was covered in my own s–t and my mother was trying to clean it off of me. She was terrified because the doctors told her I could be in a catatonic state the rest of my life.

My mom went to her first AL-Anon meeting when I was in the hospital. She knew I had a problem, but I wasn’t ready to admit it. I told her I didn’t need to go to rehab, I just needed my medicine so I wouldn’t have seizures.

I got home and realized the pills I had been taking must have been the problem-I needed the real Xanax. I stopped by my old job to steal a little money and drove to my dealer in Mississippi. I had a panic attack and took one of the bad pills anyway. I overdosed when I got to my dealer’s house, and he called an ambulance. I woke up and had no idea why I was in Mississippi.

My dad picked me up and told me they were cutting me off if I didn’t get help. That was my breaking point. I went to rehab for 28 days. They gave me coping skills for real life and ways to ground myself in the present.

I have been clean for a year and a month. When I got out of rehab, I went to an AA meeting while my mother went to Al-Anon and liked it much more than I expected. I go to AA meetings at least twice a week. I am proud of myself for being here, but it is still strange knowing I left a whole life behind. I want to help others trying to leave that life behind.

The overdoses affected my brain and now things seem scattered. I have to stop and repeat everything that I say at least three times in my head. It is much harder to get out the words to express the thoughts in my head. I fidget all of the time. My mom bought me fidget rings for my birthday. They help out a lot.

Recovery is the hardest thing I have been through, and I have been through a lot. I still have moments when I think I’m overdosing. At night, the dreams of using can be intense, but now I know how to calm myself down.

I am lucky to still be here. A friend in recovery helped me get my job, but he relapsed and died the day before I started. The drug dealer who saved my life by calling 911 overdosed and died a few months later.

I won this tattoo. It could mean that heavy is the head that wears the crown as she rises out of the water. But it also looks like the crown could push her under. I am still trying to figure out what will happen to her.”

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September is National Recovery Month. We have so much to learn from people in recovery or family or friends who lost a loved one to a drug overdose, so I am sharing some of these stories over the next few weeks.