What did the beginning of your final steps into sobriety look like? I had been thinking about my relationship with alcohol for a couple years. […]

I got through it alive, though, and now my mental health has been stable for years. I now know the value of rest & boundaries and I implement both regularly.

On my hardest nights I’d pinch the inside of my palm and I’d think to myself: I don’t know how, but you’ll do this. My tattoos are my external armor—one even says, “I don’t know how to do this, but something inside me does,” (a quote from my friend Lauren McKowen), but my gut is my internal armor.