By Carlee Perdue, LCDC-II
On June 5, 2013, I got dropped off after dark on the stoop of a sober house in Reynoldsburg, Ohio with nothing but a trash bag full of belongings. At that time, anyone who cared about me wasn’t really talking to me and I was completely without any sense of hope. Within that first week, I finally made a decision and I embarked on a journey to leave behind fear, shame, insecurity and codependency among other undesirable things. These were things that all of which ruled my life previous to that summer.
Since then, I have been empowered to pursue the things I want. I have learned how to be responsible and honest, how to be a real mom who puts her children first, and I strive to always advocate for other women who don’t believe in themselves just like I didn’t believe in myself. I have created a life that I couldn’t have fathomed before. Extreme commitment and real, real hard work, and most remarkably, Jesus are now the foundation of all I have been blessed with. I surely didn’t get here on my own accord.
Anyway, to share on my entire point here: today, after five years of work in the SUD field as a CDCA, I passed the exam to officially be credentialed as a State Licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor (LCDC II). Aside from regaining the trust and respect of my children, and establishing marked recovery, this is the most significant accomplishment of my entire life. I just wanted to share my gratitude for this because although getting from there to here was certainly not easy, I am so blessed I found the courage to walk through all of it to get here. Those first couple of years required a whole life surrender to my lifelong way of thinking that fostered false and negative beliefs, BUT today, my life continues to become even more amazing.
I want to thank anyone and everyone who stuck by me during those last moments of my former life, it could not have been easy, but I hope all who read this knows that anyone can change at any given moment if they truly want to. A little bit of love and support goes a long way, so don’t give up. Ever.
Thanks for allowing me to share my unconditional gratitude on this loooong post and lots of love to everyone! Just like Drake use to say back when this all started, “We started from the bottom and now we’re here!”
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