Dear Wyatt,

(and anyone still fighting their way through the dark),

I’ve spent years trying to understand addiction — my own, yours, the addictions of people I love and admire, the great poets, artists, and writers, and the quiet aching souls who hide in plain sight. And after all this time, with guidance from my spiritual mentors, I’ve come to a truth that might sound strange at first, maybe even impossible, because it runs contrary to everything we’re taught to believe:

What if the thing that nearly destroyed you was actually trying to save you?

I don’t say that lightly. I know the hell of addiction isn’t poetic. It isn’t romantic. It’s brutal, lonely, and unforgiving. It takes and takes until there is nothing left. But beneath all of that, I believe something sacred has been happening inside you.

Because you —and all of you reading this who feel lost—are not weak. You are not broken. You are not a mistake, a disappointment, or a problem to be fixed.

You are a mystic who lost your way. A soul reaching for transcendence, but grabbing the wrong door.

Addiction is never just about substances. It’s a spiritual crisis wearing a chemical mask. It’s a deep hunger for meaning, for connection, for the experience of being whole. You weren’t searching for the high—you were searching for God, for truth, for home.

I remember a psychic reading I had years ago, back when I wondered if I might be an alcoholic. She told me I used alcohol “to get there faster,” and she was absolutely right. I’ve always preferred my connection to Spirit over my connection to humanity — any day. It’s through my work that I’ve found a measure of temperance and healthier ways to connect.

That longing in you has always been holy. The method was the only thing that betrayed you.

The substance made a promise it couldn’t keep. It offered a moment of freedom, a moment when the walls dropped, and you felt connected, peaceful, creative, alive. And then it snatched it back, leaving you emptier than before. Not because you were weak, but because you were trying to satisfy a spiritual hunger with something that could never feed it.

And here’s the part I need you to hear: Your sensitivity is not a flaw. It’s the gift. You’ve always been sensitive. It’s my favorite part of you. People like you feel everything… in high definition. You absorb the world. You sense what others miss. You see beauty in uncommon places, as well as absurdities you cannot reconcile. You are wired to receive messages most people never notice.

That kind of sensitivity is divine circuitry—and it’s painful until you learn how to use it. Trust me, I know.

I also know addiction has stripped you down. It has taken your identity piece by piece—your pride, your certainty, the stories you told yourself about who you were supposed to be. And in that destruction, it felt like you were losing everything that mattered.

But sometimes life has to empty us completely before it can fill us with what’s real. It’s the dark night of the soul that every authentic awakening requires. You have to die before you can be reborn, metaphorically. You have to descend before you can rise because you can’t solve a problem from the same level of consciousness that created it.

The false self must fall apart for the true self to rise. Not because you deserve the pain, but because you were always meant for depth.

You have been and always will be deep. Painfully, beautifully deep. And that’s what causes the distance between you and your family; however, you’ve internalized this truth as if something is wrong with you. It’s not you. It’s them. You will someday see this as clearly as I always have, and you will value your depth. Ain’t nobody got time for fake, shallow, consumer-driven living.

Let’s talk about when you’ve relapsed—and I know you’ve carried so much shame for that—I want you to understand something:

Relapse is not failure. It’s feedback. It’s your soul saying, “There’s still something here you’re not ready to face. Let’s try again.” The universe has infinite patience with those who are learning to come home to themselves.

I won’t sugarcoat the reality, Wyatt. Addiction is hell. It steals years. It shatters trust. It breaks hearts—yours and everyone who loves you. It’s waking up sick, looking in the mirror, and not recognizing your own eyes. It’s loneliness that sits heavy in the chest and whispers lies about your worth. It’s losing your sanity.

But if you are in that darkness now—if you feel like you’ve ruined everything, like there’s no way back—I want you to know this with every fiber of my being:

You are not beyond hope.
You are not beyond healing.
You are not beyond God.

What if you are exactly where you need to be—not because the pain is good, but because the fire is where transformation happens? Every mystic, every prophet, every awakened soul in history has walked through their version of the wilderness. You are not being punished. You are being forged. In fact, ironically, you are getting everything you were looking for… just in a different package.

Your suffering has been shaping you for something you cannot yet see. And when the running finally stops—when you surrender not to the addiction, but to truth—you will realize something astonishing:

You were never separate from God.
You were never unworthy.
You were never alone.

You were the ocean pretending to be a wave. You were the infinite experiencing limitation. And the addiction itself was the alarm clock trying to wake you up.

Freedom isn’t the absence of craving. It’s understanding the craving—recognizing it as the longing for home, for unity, for the truth of who you’ve always been.

Then, you stop fighting yourself.
You begin to see your depth.
You start carrying the wound with wisdom, rather than shame.

And this is where everything shifts:

The addict becomes the healer.
The wounded become the wise.
The lost becomes the guide.

Not because the pain disappears, but because you learn to alchemize it into purpose. You become someone who can sit with another suffering soul and say, “I know. I’ve been there. And there is a way through.”

That is the hidden gift inside the curse. That is the light born from the deepest darkness.

If these words found you—Wyatt, or anyone reading this—they were meant to. Not everyone will understand. They don’t need to. This message is for the ones who feel something stir inside as they read it.

You are not broken.
You are not behind.
You are not a lost cause.

This is your initiation. And your story is just beginning. Trust the path, even when it makes no sense, especially when it makes no sense. You were chosen for this. And you are exactly where you need to be. You’ve had the power all along to reconnect with Source. You’ve overcomplicated the process “to get there faster.”

Be simple. Step into you.

With all my love,
Mom

PS. If you want a Shamanic view of addiction and mental illness, read this post: The Birth of a Healer
PPS. It was the same psychic who told me when you were about ten that you would grow up to be a healer.