Introduction – Sitting Side by Side

There is no graceful way to describe how it feels when your life dissolves beneath you.

I used to believe that collapse would be obvious. Loud. Maybe even dramatic, like something out of a movie. But when it happened to me, it arrived quietly—like a slow leak I couldn’t patch, no matter how hard I tried.

Some of it came in a single sentence: You’re HIV-positive—November 1993.

Some of it came in the silent decisions to keep pretending I was okay, even when I knew I wasn’t.

Some of it came when my body began to give out, when my energy disappeared, when the world I’d built—my career, my identity, my sense of belonging—started to crumble piece by piece.

If you’re anything like me, you might know what that feels like: the slow erosion of everything you thought you could count on. The loneliness that settles in when you’re surrounded by people yet convinced no one could ever truly understand. The quiet terror that maybe this is all there is now—this ache, this emptiness, this question of whether you still matter.

I wish I could tell you I met that season of my life with grace and certainty. But the truth is, I didn’t. I numbed myself to get through the days. I disappeared into the bottle, into the pills, into anything that could keep me from feeling the shame and grief pressing on my chest. For a long time, that was my story.

Then one night, I heard the smallest voice inside me—a voice I hadn’t heard in years—that said, Not like this.

It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t even hopeful, exactly. But it was clear. And in that moment, I understood that if I was going to keep living, it couldn’t be the way I had been.

That was the beginning of what I now call R4 Style—a framework born from my experience of breaking down and building something new. Over time, I began to see that these four stages can guide us through any profound challenge—not just addiction or illness, but the countless other losses and transitions life inevitably brings:

Rock Bottom—the place where everything false falls away, leaving you with nothing but the truth.

Recovery—the uncertain, unglamorous work of learning how to stay alive, one minute at a time.

Resilience—the practice of showing up for your life, even when you feel unworthy of it.

Reinvention—the choice to build something new out of everything that broke you, to create a life that feels honest, authentic, and wholly your own.

While my story includes the struggles of addiction and chronic illness, this isn’t solely a book about those things. It’s about something bigger and more universal: the ways we navigate life’s upheavals—grief after losing someone you love, the loneliness of starting over, the heartbreak of divorce, the shock of job loss, a crisis of identity, an unexpected disability, or the slow unraveling of a life you once thought secure.

Maybe your struggle has nothing to do with a diagnosis or addiction. Maybe it’s the sudden ending of a marriage you believed would last, or the grief of watching someone you love slip away. Maybe it’s the quiet dread that comes from wondering if you’ll ever feel like yourself again after moving, failing, or losing your sense of purpose.

Whatever it is, adversity has a way of stripping life down to its rawest truths. These moments can feel unbearable. But they also reveal what matters most. They challenge us to grow in ways we never imagined. They teach us resilience, courage, and the possibility of beginning again.

If you’re holding this book, maybe you’re standing at that crossroads—wondering if you’ll ever feel like you belong in your own skin again. Hoping someone, somewhere, has been where you are and found a way through.

If that’s you, I want you to hear this from me, as plainly and honestly as I can say it:

You’ve already taken the first step—the hardest step—realizing that where you are is no longer where you want to be.

You are not too far gone.
You are not beyond repair.
You do not have to do this perfectly.
You only have to take the next step.

And if that feels too big right now, that’s okay. You can sit here beside me for as long as you need. We can take this one breath, one moment, one small act of courage at a time.

This is my story of falling apart and finding a way to rise again. I wrote it for the person I once was—and for you, if you’ve ever wondered whether you could survive what tried to break you.

I BELIEVE you can.

And I’m honored to walk this road with you.

At the end of each chapter, you’ll find a set of reflective questions and a self-care activity. I included these not just as exercises but as invitations—to pause, to check in with yourself, and to bring these ideas into your own life in a way that feels real and personal.

Reflection can help you see your story with greater compassion. Small acts of self-care can remind you that you deserve gentleness, even in the midst of change. My hope is that these prompts help you engage more deeply with your journey and offer you something to hold onto when the path feels uncertain.

Let’s begin—together.