Who Is Recovery For? (My Story of Healing)

Welcome back to She Asked: Tools for Practical Hope with your host and friend, Anna McBride.

Let me (briefly) walk you through decades of recovery.

Not just from one addiction or label, but from a lifetime of trauma, codependency, and loss. With honesty and some hard-earned wisdom, I walk you through how she reclaimed my voice and inner knowing.

This episode is for anyone walking a recovery path—from love, food, control, substances, or the lingering wounds of growing up in a dysfunctional home. If you've ever wondered why your patterns persist or how healing really unfolds, this conversation will meet you right where you are.

✨ In this episode, we explore three powerful lessons from the healing process:
1️⃣ Healing is non-linear
2️⃣ You’re not broken—you were adapting
3️⃣ Community is the medicine

Thank you for listening. If this episode resonates, know that recovery is possible and that you are not alone.

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#SheAskedPodcast #RecoveryJourney #CodependencyHealing #InnerChildHealing #EatingDisorderRecovery #ACOA #SLAA #12StepRecovery #TraumaHealing #AnnaMcBride #PracticalHope #YouAreNotBroken #EmotionalHealing

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome back to.
She Asks Tools for PracticalHope.
It's your friend and host, annaMcBride, and I am so glad
you're here.
Today's episode is one I'vecarried close to my heart for
years.
It's about recovery, but notjust from one addiction or label
.
It's about reclaiming our innerknowing, our dignity and our

(00:27):
right to heal.
If you're listening, maybeyou've walked or are walking
your own path of recovery.
Maybe it's from food, love,substances, control or
codependency Whatever brings youhere finances, control or

(00:48):
codependency Whatever brings youhere.
I invite you to take a breathwith me now.
Take a long, slow, deep breathin and then exhale.
Let it go.
My hope is you can now listenwith the part of you that is
already brave, as you may knowby now.
I like to begin my podcast witha story.
Today I want to share how myown path of recovery unfolded.

(01:13):
My journey with the 12-steppath began in 2003 when I
finally decided to come cleanabout my eating disorder.
I wish I could say I was comingclean because I had hit a
bottom and knew I needed help,and then sought it.
It was because my then husbandand I were separated for the

(01:36):
first time, and it was in thatseparation I felt I couldn't
live without him.
Think about that statement fora moment.
I was so codependent that Iactually felt I couldn't live
without him.
Think about that statement fora moment.
I was so codependent that Iactually felt I couldn't live
without him.
So my sick mind thought it wasa good idea to confess my
shameful secret and get healthy.
That way I could show myhusband that I was worthy of

(01:59):
reconciliation and his love.
Getting help for codependencyor love addiction hadn't
occurred to me.
I was just so desperate to holdon to my marriage so desperate.
My therapist recommended Iattend Overeaters Anonymous, oa,
as a part of my healing from myeating disorder, which I did.

(02:22):
Unfortunately, or fortunately,I didn't stick with OA and my
marriage continued to strugglefor another 16 years.
So did my eating disorder.
In 2017, after the death of myyounger sister Tish to
alcoholism, I was cracked openby grief.
I was cracked open by grief andI walked into my first Al-Anon

(02:46):
meeting not knowing what I waslooking for.
Just that I couldn't carry thatgrief alone.
Two years later, after mymarriage ended, I found a
sponsor in Al-Anon and beganworking the Al-Anon steps.
Slowly, I began to see howdeeply my childhood, growing up

(03:06):
with two alcoholic parentsshaped everything the way I
loved, the way I coped, the wayI over-functioned.
This led me to ACOA, which isAdult Children's of Alcoholics,
which I learned there that I wasliving out.
Emotional blueprints formedlong ago and recently I entered

(03:30):
another 12-step program, slaathe Sex and Love Addicts
Anonymous Program.
After another relationship thatI had devastatingly fell apart
and it was there that I foundthe language for my anxious
attachment, my fantasies and mypatterns in romantic

(03:54):
relationships.
Alongside all of this was mydecades-long struggle with
disordered eating.
I began restricting and bingingat age 12.
It wasn't until I foundOvereaters Anonymous and worked
through my pain in therapy thatI began to truly heal and

(04:14):
eventually I became a therapistfor families of addicts,
supporting them through the samestorm I had weathered.
As I moved through theseprograms, I started to see
patterns, not just in myself butin so many others, my clients
especially, and it wasn't justanecdotal.
It was something that's beenstudied and deeply understood in

(04:38):
the recovery and trauma worldstudied and deeply understood in
the recovery and trauma world.
Dr Janet Warditz, one of theearliest research in adult
children of alcoholics,identified traits common among
those raised in homes withaddiction.
These traits include difficultywith intimacy,
over-responsibility and aconstant search for approval.

(05:01):
I saw myself in all of them.
Wardet's work helped me realizeI wasn't dramatic, needy or
broken.
I was shaped by the instabilityaround me.
I adapted and now I had thepower to unlearn and to heal.

(05:21):
This shift in understandinggave me permission to soften, to
stop fighting myself, to startreclaiming a new narrative.
So what has recovery taught me,not just as theory but in
practice?
What wisdom has emerged afterall the meetings, all the tears,

(05:42):
journaling and all of thespiritual surrenders?
Let me share three life lessonsthat continue to guide me today
.
Number one healing is non-linearand holistic.
Recovery taught me that healingdoesn't follow a straight line.
One layer reveals the next.

(06:05):
I didn't plan to get an SLAAwhen I first sat in an Al-Anon
meeting.
In fact, my sponsor recommendedit from the beginning and I
thought no, I'm not a sex addict, that doesn't apply to me.
But open-mindedness allowed thepath to unfold organically.
Healing has looked like lettinggo of timelines, like

(06:30):
recognizing that the grief fromTisha's death still visits me,
like admitting that I'm stilllearning to receive love, not
just offer it.
Lesson number two you are notbroken.
You were adapting.
My ACOA work helped me see thatmy need to fix others, to

(06:52):
anticipate emotions, toover-function these were all
protective adaptations fromchildhood.
These were the ways I tried tokeep the peace in my home, where
unpredictability was normal.
In recovery, I learned to holdthose parts with compassion, not

(07:13):
shame.
I've learned to say thank youfor protecting me, but I'm safe
now.
The third lesson community isthe medicine we heal in
relationships, whether it's asponsor, a fellow from recovery

(07:33):
or a client family.
Every step forward wasco-regulated.
Recovery reminded me thatvulnerability is a bridge, not a
burden, and that true belongingdoesn't require me to perform.
It only requires me to show up.

(07:54):
As you reflect on your own life, I invite you to listen for the
threads of survival that onceserved you and the stirrings of
a new way that calls you forward.
So ask yourself what have yousurvived?
What parts of you were simplydoing their best to cope?

(08:17):
Let those questions sit withyou as gently as a breath and I
invite you to write about it,journal about it, share about it
, so that you can have someclarity about what might be
holding you back and also whatto do about it.

(08:38):
Remember, recovery is not justabout abstaining.
It's about re-becoming.
It's about saying I deservetenderness, structure, truth and
freedom.
Today, I walk with an openheart, not because I have no
wounds, but because I havelearned to love myself through

(09:02):
them.
I want to offer you thisaffirmation that I often say and
it goes like this often say andit goes like this I welcome the
path as it unfolds.
I trust that every turn is apart of my becoming.
Thank you for tuning in anduntil next time.
I'm your friend, anna, and thisis she Asked, where healing

(09:26):
meets practical hope.
So until soon, be well.