Rock Bottom Was Only The Lobby
A 40-year field guide on what NOT to do, by a woman who’s still here in spite of herself.
I’m 44 now, and if you’re here, you probably already know life can kick you so hard and so repeatedly that “rock bottom” starts feeling like a fucking joke. Because every time I thought I’d hit it, bam, there was another level below. Turns out rock bottom wasn’t the basement; it was just the goddamn lobby.
My childhood was a dumpster fire with extra accelerant. Dad slamming meth like it was oxygen. Mom hooked on opiates, smoking Dilaudid right there with me when I was 16. Grandma crashing with us, drunk off her ass every day. Parents split, then my first stepdad decided to build a pipe bomb in our garage and blew himself up. We were all home when it happened, felt the house shake, heard the blast, saw the aftermath. Mom bartended nights, so the rest of the time we were feral kids running wild. Sex, drugs, booze, whatever I wanted, no one was watching close enough to stop me.
I grew up, got married, had kids. Then I left my husband for a woman. That crashed and burned too. Remarried. He killed himself, dived headfirst off a creek turnpike bridge. Three years later, my boyfriend accidentally shot himself in the head. Right in front of me. I watched it happen.
After my husband died, I went full tilt into drugs. Started shooting up. Lost count of how many times I should’ve been dead. Overdoses, bad decisions, toxic people everywhere, including family who kept dragging me back into the same shit.
But here I am. Alive. And, holy hell, actually happy.
I didn’t get here by some miracle or twelve-step fairy tale (though those helped some people; they just weren’t my path). I got here by finally stopping the people-pleasing bullshit that kept me chained to every asshole and every bad habit. I learned to say NO like it was my new religion. I cut out toxic people, family included, without apology. I traded self-destruction for extreme self-care. I rebuilt from scratch, piece by painful piece.
This blog isn’t about how to be perfect or how I “fixed” everything overnight. It’s the opposite: a brutally honest guide of what NOT to do, drawn from four decades of spectacular fuck-ups. If I can claw my way out of that lobby and into something resembling peace, maybe my mistakes can save you a few floors of descent.
Stick around if you want the unfiltered truth. Just one woman who’s still here, smarter, tougher, and for the first time, genuinely fucking happy.
Let’s talk about the ride down, and how I finally walked out the doors.
Rock Bottom Was Only The Lobby 