This is My Recovery

“Recovery is not a return to who we were—it is a resurrection of who we were meant to be.”
— Unknown

An old friend I worked with in addiction and recovery sent me a short message the other day. Just a few lines. It wasn’t about anything significant, but it landed like a pebble dropped into still water. The ripples are still moving through me.

There was something mystically timely about it.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about recovery — not just from substances, but from the more profound disconnection that fuels all forms of numbing. We often speak of recovery as a return, getting back to health, back to normal. But what if it’s not a return at all? What if recovery is actually about rediscovering the self we abandoned long ago?

I didn’t wrestle with addiction in the traditional sense. But I know what it feels like to abandon yourself in the name of survival. I know what it’s like to numb through over-functioning, to bury your needs beneath duty, to mistake exhaustion for purpose, to crave that glass of wine (or two) after a rough day. For years, I was the one everyone leaned on, in the ICU, in the operating room, in my marriage, and in the mirror, and I slowly disappeared.

That’s the story beneath Savage Grace. It's not just a website — it’s a homecoming after a long absence. A long look into the places where I forgot who I was. Where I gave myself away piece by piece. Where I confused burnout with devotion.

Here’s the truth: recovery is never just about stopping something. It’s so much more than that. It’s about reclaiming the parts of you that made you whole. More awake. More true.

Addiction is the symptom of disconnection, from the body, from truth, from tenderness. Burnout is the same. So is trauma. They are different masks worn by the same wound.

The recovery journey, whether from alcohol, from grief, from overwork, or the long, slow forgetting of your own soul, begins the moment we decide to come home to ourselves. To our true selves.

That email from an old friend? It felt like a tap on the shoulder from the universe. A reminder that even after some time apart, the threads that connect us to others and the parts of ourselves we thought were lost are never truly severed.

We can find our way back.

We can begin again.

#ThisIsMyRecovery #SavageGrace #BurnoutRecovery #HealingInProgress #ComingHomeToMyself #GraceInTheAshes #ReclaimingMyself #SelfReclamation #BeginAgain #SoulWork #QuietCourage