A little girl grew up surrounded by trauma, abuse, addiction, and loss — and carried it all for decades without the language to name it or the power to escape it. What follows is not a story of a person who had it together and then lost it. It is a story of a person who found the only anchor that held.
The weight was not a single event. It was the accumulation — things done to her before she had the capacity to understand them, things she did in response to the pain of them, and the long years of managing both while the world expected her to function normally.
Addiction, in this story, was not the problem. It was the solution to a problem that had no other solution available. The problem was unbearable pain. The substance made it bearable. And then it made everything else unbearable instead.
Hebrews 6:19 describes hope as an anchor of the soul — sure and steadfast. Not optimism. Not a positive attitude. An anchor. Something fixed. Something that holds when the storm is not metaphorical.
The anchor that held in this story was not a program or a method. It was the God of the Bible, encountered personally and specifically. Not a concept of God. Not a higher power. The God who knows your name and knew what was done to you before you were old enough to understand it.
Tiffany Howard's story is told in full in Hope Anchored My Soul. Faith Set It Free. — available through the RRN Recovery Bookstore. It is written for people who have been through things they do not have words for, and who need to know that the anchor holds even there.
Get the Book →