Breaking The Cycle

05/09/2025

WE'RE GOING LIVE IN AN HOUR!

Join us for a Facebook Live event today at 12 p.m. CT to learn more about the free Companion App and how it can support you!

Are you a family member or friend of someone facing mental health or substance use challenges? You're not alone! The Companion app is here to help you navigate this journey. With peer support, educational resources, and community connections, you're just a click away from a supportive network.

We look forward to seeing you back here at noon to take part in the live discussion.

01/09/2025

Man, it’s been a long time since I’ve written anything. The holidays came like an uninvited guest, disregarding our usual schedules and plundering our free time with cooking and planning and purchasing. It’s usually by now that I can breathe again; yet somehow , on this snowy January day, the air feels thick and polluted by my own grief, leaving me gasping beneath the weight of my disappointment for the way things have turned out....

Man, it’s been a long time since I’ve written anything. The holidays came like an uninvited guest, disregarding our usual schedules and plundering our free time with cooking and planning and purcha…

11/17/2024

I guess my page didn't get deleted 🙌. I just got home from church and while the pastor was preaching about spending time in the word daily using the analogy that people who only read their car's owner manual when something is wrong, I was convicted.

I also thought about this: at least I'm at a point in my life that when things are going wrong and I'm in pain, I cry out to God and seek his face; Because there was a time in my life, not too long ago, when I would turn to anything else...men, drugs, food, spending, even exercise could become an idol if I let it.

I'm not sure why I'm compulsive in this way, or why everything I do must be to extremes, but I can tell you that all of those things fell into the endless pit of self without satisfying...until I put my relationship with God first.

Then my life somehow became more satisfying. My relationships, exercise, my jobs, my family, the food I eat...somehow I can balance everything else appropriately when I put my relationship with God first....and when my life becomes so busy and things begin to feel less satisfying and my relationships are struggling and I find myself overindulging in activities that release dopamine; I know that it's because I forgot to put God first and it's time to get back on track.

There's nothing wrong with reading the owners manual when something goes wrong..as long as you know where to turn when repairs need to be made.

Luckily, I'm constantly running hot and under fueled and every warning light known to man is lit up on my dash....which keeps me ever-seeking my Maker for the underlying issues. Luckily, I know where to turn.

11/03/2024

I know you're probably wondering if there were any good memories from my childhood and adolescent years, and there are definitely good memories. My childhood wasn't all bad and I truly believe that there are other children who had it much worse. When I was with my father, we never went without food or electricity. We were poor but never went without having our basic needs met....

I know you’re probably wondering if there were any good memories from my childhood and adolescent years, and there are definitely good memories. My childhood wasn’t all bad and I truly …

11/02/2024

I told my dad over the phone that I was pregnant at fourteen, and to my surprise, he didn't seem disappointed; He actually seemed happy. "I thought you would have been disappointed in me; you always said I would be a pregnant dropout by the time I was sixteen....I guess you were right," I shuffled my weight from one foot to the other as I adjusted the cold receiver between my ear and my shoulder....

I told my dad over the phone that I was pregnant at fourteen, and to my surprise, he didn’t seem disappointed; He actually seemed happy. “I thought you would have been disappointed in m…

10/29/2024

A couple nights ago I was watching Haven and Jackson play after my 8 pm call for electronics to be turned off. They were drunk and silly with exhaustion, fighting their own biology to stay awake like children often do. Suddenly I had a strange thought cross my mind, "What if getting to raise them was God's way of giving me all my children back?" This sent me down a rabbit hole of deep thought....

A couple nights ago I was watching Haven and Jackson play after my 8 pm call for electronics to be turned off. They were drunk and silly with exhaustion, fighting their own biology to stay awake li…

10/15/2024

When I left off, I was still thirteen, living in South Carolina with my mom. I had my first serious boyfriend and we were as in love as two kids can be. Summer turned to Fall and I turned fourteen with less climax than the leaves changing. The sun began to set earlier, and the air began to cool but Winter in South Carolina wasn't like the bitter-cold, windy Winters I grew up with in Oklahoma....

When I left off, I was still thirteen, living in South Carolina with my mom. I had my first serious boyfriend and we were as in love as two kids can be. Summer turned to Fall and I turned fourteen …

10/04/2024

I got a message that this page is set for deletion for breaking some sort of trademark laws...I have no idea what that even means, the only thing I have done is post my own story on here, anyways I hope you all subscribe to my blog if you want to keep reading what I write b/c I really didn't want to post it on my home page.

I am asking for a review but y'all know how that works out most of the time.

They didn't even say what I did specifically or what post it was. Weird.

09/21/2024

Billy"s Aunt Phyllis passed last week and we found ourselves traveling to Ft.Worth to attend her funeral on a hot September morning. I have always adored my husband's family. His mother is the most loving and warm woman I could have ever been blessed with as a mother-in-law and every single member of his family has always made me feel accepted and loved...but Phyllis or Red, as her family called her, was my favorite of them all....

Billy”s Aunt Phyllis passed last week and we found ourselves traveling to Ft.Worth to attend her funeral on a hot September morning. I have always adored my husband’s family. His mother…

09/07/2024

When I was in second grade, our class visited a nursing home and we were told to write them a poem and I remember putting my entire heart into it. I had written stories and lyrics to songs, but I had never written a poem before. I remember wondering, "should poems always rhyme?" and deciding that it wasn't as important as the story it told....

When I was in second grade, our class visited a nursing home and we were told to write them a poem and I remember putting my entire heart into it. I had written stories and lyrics to songs, but I h…

08/10/2024

The house that my mother stayed in with Matthew was directly across the street from a basketball court and a park with a track. It was an amazing location in retrospect and I think the adult me would have loved to live so close to recreation. I wasn't exactly a basketball player, but I had played some at school and at the church I grew up across the street from, so I would go over there from time to time and watch the neighborhood kids play....

The house that my mother stayed in with Matthew was directly across the street from a basketball court and a park with a track. It was an amazing location in retrospect and I think the adult me wou…

08/06/2024

Yesterday morning, as I hobbled through my dark home at 4 am, getting ready to go coach my Muscle and Conditioning class at the new Healthy Living Center, I noticed a huge water bug crawling towards me across our laminated wood floor. I kicked at it with no intentions of killing it, but instead it flipped over onto the shiny black shell that covered it's back and was stuck there, kicking his tiny little bug legs in the air, struggling to right itself....

Yesterday morning, as I hobbled through my dark home at 4 am, getting ready to go coach my Muscle and Conditioning class at the new Healthy Living Center, I noticed a huge water bug crawling toward…