Kim Manlove

Two years after he died, I was drinking a quart of tequila a day and I was taking probably at least a couple weeks' worth of Xanax in two or three days, i could drink and use all the time, then try to pull myself together when everyone would come home.

I make less money than I did before, and yet couldn't be happier and more fulfilled, who would have thought that addiction could enrich a person's life, but in some ways, it transformed it because we look at the world differently today, and it's through a lens of extraordinary gratitude for what has been, what has happened and what we have now.

We've been in the shadows for too long, if we really accept that addiction is a chronic medical disease like cancer and hypertension...we've got to start putting a face on recovery the way people have done with other types of disease.

We not only honor his struggle, but we honor his life, and we continue to celebrate it in wonderful ways that keep him close to us in ways we could never have possibly imagined, finally, today I have hope, joy and gratitude for the continued presence of my son who has, and is, showing me not only the path for recovery from my own addiction but to new understandings and appreciation of life.