I had the house.
I had the job.
I had my education.
I had a graduate degree.
I was a Division I athlete.
But I couldn't find happiness.
I had thrown away everything for drugs.
I just knew that I needed my pain to stop.
And the only thing that I could think of at that moment
was that I needed to go home.
And I didn't understand any other way to do it.
The next morning, or the next day,
or two days later--I'm not really sure--I woke up,
and I was really cold.
I couldn't move, and it scared me.
I lay there for probably about eight hours
until I could get my faculties and my strength
back enough that I could actually go down the mountain.
And I slept for, I think, two days.
And my roommate finally came up to me
and she said, "I'm really worried about you.
What's going on?"
And I just started crying, and I told her exactly what I did.
And she took me immediately to an emergency room,
and they put me in a psychiatric hospital.
And I knew exactly where I needed to go after.
My brother has been such a good role model for me
throughout my life.
I could feel something different in his home.
I felt this love and the way that his family communicated.
I knew that's what I wanted.
All the steps are in order for a very specific reason.
I believe that step 7 is exactly where it
needs to be, is because after you confess all of your wrongs,
all of a sudden, all these little things
start bubbling up.
Those are the character weaknesses.
Those are what drive us to do what we did.
Step 7 is where I asked Heavenly Father
to remove my shortcomings.
Something very, very powerful and spiritual and sacred
happened.
I felt my Father in Heaven's arms around me,
and I felt His love.
And I knew that everything was going to be OK.
It was made very clear to me at that moment
that I had some work to do.
It was not something that was going to be
something easy to overcome.
Everyone has problems.
Everyone has struggles.
But some days it feels impossible
even with the program, even with the gospel.
One of the sayings that I go back to
is "God gives His toughest battles
to His strongest soldiers."
I don't walk around happy every day.
I walk around with peace.
Whatever has happened in my life, if I submitted
to His plan and if I was truly honest about my weaknesses,
I knew that everything was going to be OK.