Fixing, Healing & Changing: a never ending story.

The Strong Ones Are Often the Most Tired

My sister would have been 50 by now.
An age I’m slowly approaching myself.

Her death has always carried bitterness for me—not just grief, but the weight of struggle and sadness. For her. For me. And for the children she left behind. Addiction is never one person’s burden. It ripples outward, embedding itself into families, relationships, and future generations.

Some say you can’t escape addiction.
Some say you can become very good at it.

I believe both are true.

Growing up with addiction from birth, and later watching societies normalize it as celebration and connection, I’ve seen how all-consuming it can become. One addiction replaces another. One loss follows the next. What begins as coping quietly turns into inheritance.

I’ve spent much of my life trying to outrun the wolves I inherited at birth.
It hasn’t been easy.

I feel the pull of my genes, and of cultures and families that normalize alcohol as joy, bonding, and reward. My path has always felt heavier than my friends’. I see now how my constant drive for self-improvement—the endless fixing, refining, healing—wasn’t ambition. It was survival.

I wasn’t trying to become better.
I was trying not to become lost.

I lived in cognitive dissonance for years.
Should I be able to drink?
Shouldn’t I?
Am I strong because I resist—or broken because I struggle?

I’ve been lucky in one way: I became a fierce warrior.
A woman who learned to shield herself from inherited pain.
A woman who ran from one extreme to another, hoping neither would claim her the way addiction claimed my sisters and my biological father.

This year marks 24 years since my sister’s death. And standing here now, I see something clearly for the first time:

I didn’t survive because I fixed it.
I survived because I refused to stop longing for safety—
for calm in my body,
for quiet in my heart.

And here is the truth I’ve come to, 25 years later:

Some things cannot be fixed.

They must be sat with.
Held.
Cradled.

And one day—when you’re ready—softened enough to be released.

For many, this is not a wound that disappears. It’s a life sentence you learn how to live inside of without letting it consume you. It drains your energy. It whispers at your edges. And even being “stronger than it” can become its own kind of exhaustion.

So today—on a thin day—I ask this of you, if you’ve read this far:

Pause for a moment.

Consider how the strongest people you know may also be the ones hurting the most. The ones constantly outrunning inherited demons. The ones trying to alchemize pain into purpose.

And then do one simple thing:

Call your strongest friend.
Ask them, Are you really okay?
Ask them, Do you need anything?

Sometimes survival looks strong from the outside.
Inside, it’s just someone who never stopped trying to make life gentler than the one they were given.