Continuing our November “Dual Diagnosis: Mental Health in Recovery” series is the story of Alexis—a woman who has survived childhood trauma, mental illness, misdiagnosis, addiction, and profound loss, and who stands today as a radiant example of resilience, faith, and the healing power of recovery.
Adopted as an infant, Alexis’s earliest memories were shaped by fear and uncertainty. At just 18 months old, her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, beginning a childhood marked by hospitals, instability, and unspoken pain. By age thirteen, when her grandfather died, depression took hold. She began self-harming and reached out to her guidance counselor for help, entering therapy and group sessions with other struggling girls. She became a guinea pig for medications, enduring frightening side effects as doctors tried to stabilize her mind.
As a teenager, Alexis turned to cigarettes and marijuana, and later to ketamine, binge drinking, and harder drugs—desperate for relief from emotions she had never been safe enough to express. Growing up with a sick mother and an emotionally unavailable father, she learned to hide everything she felt. The “emo phase” tantrums, the screaming, the acting out—were all attempts to be heard in a home where no one had the capacity to listen.
Her mother’s illness worsened throughout her adolescence, and addiction became her escape. After a psych ward stay in upstate New York—where she first heard the message of hope—Alexis returned home only to fall into a toxic relationship that fueled even heavier drug use. Episodes of psychosis led doctors to misdiagnose her with bipolar disorder, a label she accepted rather than admit to her drug use.
When her life became unmanageable, she finally confided in her mother about her addiction and sought help. She found early recovery in Alcoholics Anonymous but eventually discovered her home in Narcotics Anonymous. She stayed clean for two years, but the combination of her partner’s addiction, the birth of their first child, and her father’s impending death led to relapse—and eventually, to the painful loss of custody of her children.
Her turning point came in the most unexpected moment: when her young son found an alcohol bottle and asked, “Mom… can we go back to a meeting?” That plea from a child saved her life. Alexis returned to NA and has never left.
Today, she has accurate diagnoses—PTSD, anxiety, depression, borderline personality disorder, and ADHD—and the humility to get the help she deserves. She is a mother in recovery who ensures her autistic son and her other children grow up with the emotional support she never had. She serves tirelessly in Public Information, Hospitals & Institutions, and as GSR for her home group.
She is a peer advocate and is working toward becoming a certified substance and alcohol abuse counselor.
Despite losing both parents, custody of her children, and surviving trauma most will never understand, Alexis stands today as a woman transformed—living proof that even the most wounded hearts can heal, and that the message of hope and the promise of freedom are real for all who seek them.
