Growing up, Kris thought alcohol was simply part of life.
Every birthday party, holiday, and family gathering included drinking. As a child, she learned to ignore the yelling behind closed doors, the arguments that followed family celebrations, and the chaos that seemed normal. It was simply the way things were.
“I had a wonderful childhood,” Kris says. “I had loving parents. But looking back, I realize alcohol was always there.”
As a teenager, Kris endured years of abuse in her first serious relationship. She buried the trauma so deeply that she didn’t recognize it for what it was until decades later.
“I talked about it like I was talking about the weather,” she recalls. “I had convinced myself it was normal.”
For much of her early adulthood, alcohol wasn’t the center of her life. She built a successful career, married her husband, and became the mother of four daughters. She devoted herself to raising her family and caring for the people she loved.
But life brought unimaginable loss.
When Kris was pregnant with her first daughter, her father was diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer. He passed away just weeks before his granddaughter was born.
A few years later, shortly after the birth of her third daughter, her mother was diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumor. Kris left her job, sold her home, and moved her family in to become her mother’s full-time caregiver while raising three young children. During her fourth pregnancy, she faced the heartbreaking reality that her mother would likely never meet her newest granddaughter.
The day after Kris gave birth, hospice called to tell her that her mother’s condition had suddenly worsened.
She signed herself out of the hospital against medical advice so she could be by her mother’s side.
Her mother died that same day.
“There wasn’t time to stop,” Kris says. “I had to bury my mom, take care of my children, and keep going.”
She never gave herself permission to grieve.
Instead, she carried years of unresolved trauma, overwhelming responsibility, and heartbreaking loss while convincing herself she was fine.
Eventually, alcohol became her escape.
What started as occasional drinking slowly evolved into something she depended on to quiet the pain she had never addressed. During the last five years before treatment, drinking consumed nearly every part of her life.
“I had to pregame to go to the grocery store,” she says. “I had to pregame to go to family events. I was trying to escape myself.”
Her family watched as someone they loved became increasingly unrecognizable. Kris had already survived two DUI arrests, yet she still couldn’t see alcohol as the problem.
“I thought my feelings were the problem. I thought life was the problem. I never believed drinking was.”
Everything changed in June 2021.
One afternoon, after returning home from a walk with a friend, Kris walked into what she thought was an empty house.
Instead, she found an intervention waiting for her.
Each of her four daughters had written her a letter. Her husband, cousin, and closest friends were there. Together, they lovingly asked her to accept help.
This time, she did.
“The first 24 hours were terrifying,” she says. “I was scared.”
But she made a decision that would shape the rest of her recovery: she said yes to everything.
Kris immersed herself in treatment, participating in every group, every therapy session, and every opportunity Ashley offered. She engaged fully with her counselors, peers, and recovery community, determined to give herself the chance to heal.
Each morning began quietly in the campus chapel, where Kris found a spiritual foundation she had never experienced before.
“I don’t know where my spirituality would be today without Ashley.”
Through therapy, she unpacked decades of grief, trauma, shame, and self-doubt that she had carried since childhood.
“So many things finally made sense,” she says. “I realized I wasn’t just treating alcohol. I was healing from everything I’d never dealt with.”
Then, just as she was beginning to settle into treatment, another life-changing moment arrived.
On her 29th day at Ashley, Kris met with her counselors and Ashley’s CEO. They handed her an email from her husband.
Her family didn’t want her to come home.
“Nothing could have prepared me for that,” Kris recalls. “All of a sudden, I felt like I had nothing.”
Rather than leaving treatment defeated, Kris chose to keep going.
She entered Ashley’s Women’s Extended Care program, giving herself the gift of more time to heal. It wasn’t easy. During those 90 days, she missed some of the biggest milestones in her family’s lives—including her oldest daughter’s wedding, her second oldest daughter’s 21st birthday, and another daughter’s bridal shower.
“I don’t know any mother or woman who gets 90 days to disconnect from everything and just focus on herself,” she says. “But that’s exactly what I needed.”
Something remarkable happened during her time at Ashley.
“The obsession to drink left me the day I drove down Ashley Drive.”
By the time she completed Extended Care, she had built a strong foundation for long-term recovery. Just four days after leaving the program, she attended her daughter’s wedding—not as someone consumed by alcohol, but as a mother who was fully present.
Recovery didn’t end when she left Ashley.
She committed herself to the daily work of staying sober. Guided by her sponsor, Kris attended 90 meetings in 90 days—sometimes two meetings in a single day. She worked the Twelve Steps, talked with her sponsor every day, and leaned on the tools she had learned in treatment.
“The key tools you learn in the beginning—they work,” she says.
Today, Kris has built a life she never thought possible.
She is present for her children and grandchildren. She has found purpose in helping others navigate their own recovery journeys. And perhaps one of the greatest gifts of her recovery came when one of her daughters began her own journey into sobriety.
“I knew how to help her because someone had first helped me.”
Recovery didn’t just change Kris’s life.
It changed the future of her family.
Today, Kris has built a life she never thought possible.
She is present for her children and grandchildren. She has found purpose in helping others navigate their own recovery journeys. And perhaps one of the greatest gifts of her recovery came when one of her daughters began her own journey into sobriety.
Instead of passing down silence, unresolved pain, and addiction, Kris is passing down hope, healing, and the possibility of a different future.
Looking back, she doesn’t define herself by the mistakes she made.
She defines herself by what recovery has made possible.
“I’ve found peace,” she says. “And now I get to be fully present for the life I almost lost.”
Every day at Ashley Addiction Treatment, people like Kris arrive carrying years of pain, grief, and hopelessness. Through compassionate care, evidence-based treatment, and the support of a recovery community, they discover that healing is possible—and that one person’s recovery can transform generations to come.
