It was early 2019, and I had made a promise to myself that I would go 90 days without drinking. I wasn’t thinking about recovery. I didn’t even know what recovery meant back then. I just wanted to prove to myself that I could. And somehow, I made it through St. Patrick’s Day sober, which for me felt impossible.
But by late March, I was coming undone. The anger. The irritability. The depression sank deeper each day. I remember standing in the bathroom one night and suddenly feeling it all crash over me, this overwhelming heaviness, like I was being buried alive under something I couldn’t crawl out from.
I slid down, sobbing, and the words came: I think I know what it feels like to want to take your own life.
I didn’t want to die. I wasn’t planning anything. But in that moment, I understood. I understood how someone could reach a point where the pain felt endless, where the days stretched forward with no hope of light, and suicide seemed like the only logical way out. It scared me, not that I would do it, but that I could feel it. That I knew in my bones what that darkness was like. And it horrified me to think of the people who felt that same thing and had no hope left to hold onto.
Keith, my partner at the time, knew I had been struggling. When I told him what I had just said to myself, he didn’t judge me. He didn’t try to talk me out of it. He just wrapped me in his arms and sat with me. We put on something funny, something light, and for that night, the darkness loosened its grip. A few days later, I told my therapist the same words. I was careful to be clear: I didn’t want to die. But I understood now why people did.
That moment has never left me. It was the first time I heard addiction’s darkest whisper.
September is both National Recovery Month and Suicide Prevention Month. My story sits at the intersection of both because many recovery stories are also a story of suicide averted.
The torment of addiction is physical: the shaking, the cold sweats, the hangovers that feel like death. But it’s also emotional and spiritual. That night in the bathroom was proof that my soul was being crushed. The whisper of suicide was a turning point. It told me I didn’t want to die, but I also couldn’t keep living that way.
I wish I could say that was the end of it. But my rock bottom didn’t come until months later. On my 40th birthday in Costa Rica, after months of trying and failing, after relapses that broke me, I lost the fight again. The celebration turned into chaos, and the woman I became that night was vicious, unrecognizable. That was when I knew: if I didn’t change, I would lose everything.
So I did the only thing I knew to do. I made a drastic change. I committed to 90 meetings in 90 days. Back then, I didn’t know about SMART Recovery, or Dharma, or any other options. I didn’t know there could even be a path for witches. All I knew was that I needed something stronger than my willpower.
Walking into those first meetings was like stepping onto a stage I never wanted to be on. My body was rigid, my hands clenched, tears running down my face as I listened to strangers talk about their rock bottoms. About the chaos of drinking, the shame, the regrets. Their stories mirrored mine, and for the first time, I didn’t feel completely alone.
I heard people talk about finding a higher power, and it stirred something profound in me. I knew their God wasn’t mine. But I also knew they were pointing to a truth I couldn’t ignore: recovery had to be spiritual.
For witches, this doorway can’t just be about abstaining. It has to be about dissolving the patterns we’ve carried lifetime after lifetime, about reclaiming our gifts, our magic, our sovereignty. Addiction narrows our world until all that exists is the next drink, the next escape. Recovery reopens the mystery. It teaches us that we alone are responsible for shaping the life not just that we desire, but that we deserve: a life filled with love, peace, laughter, friendship, beauty, and hope.
We do this through ritual. Through ancestral healing. Through working hand in hand with the universe and letting our guides and spirits show us a new way forward.
This is why we are building The Sovereign Phoenix. A spiritual fellowship for the practice of witchcraft, the path of recovery, and the ritual of magickal rebirth. Our mission is to reclaim the sacred path of recovery through witchcraft, spiritual sovereignty, and soul evolution. We provide a protected ritual space, community support, and transformative teachings, so that no witch in recovery ever has to face that level of isolation and despair alone.
We are building this so that no one has to reach that point. And we are proof that if anyone ever does, there will be a sacred space waiting to receive you, to welcome you, to hold you, and to help you rise from the ashes into the life you deserve.
This September, as we honor both Recovery Month and Suicide Prevention Month, I ask you to remember this: every story of recovery is also a story of suicide that did not happen. And that is holy. That is worth celebrating. That is worth building a temple around.
Love and magick in recovery,
Sunshine
About Sunshine
Sunshine is a Psychic Medium, Soul Healer, Reiki Master, High Priestess and the pink-haired trailblazer behind The Sober Witch Life movement. As a recovering alcoholic and spiritual mentor, she helps witches in recovery rediscover their magick and align with their highest purpose.
✨ Explore her transformative work at IlluminateUnschool.com
📱 Download the Sober Witch Life mobile app for free tools & weekly recovery circles available on both iOS and Android
🌙 Join the Free Weekly Recovery Circle for support and a community of sober witches
📖 Get her book Sober Witch Life: A Magickal Guide to Recovery
