My Breakthrough Story - raw edition
For many years of my life, I was addicted to substances and distractions—constantly escaping myself because I felt out of place. I had been bullied at school and struggled to find friends. I was such a people pleaser that I tried to befriend anyone and everyone, always doing my best to keep the harmony alive. But that only led to me being walked all over, because I didn’t know my value or self-worth. I didn’t know how to set boundaries. Growing up with violence and alcohol abuse in my family made me feel small for most of my life. As a young adult, I drifted from place to place, unable to find peace anywhere. For years I got drunk or high almost every day, until I eventually ended up homeless. At first, being homeless didn’t feel like a big deal—it was even a choice the first time, because I couldn’t stand my roommate. But the second time was different. That was the moment everything changed. It was late summer in Denmark, and I had nowhere to live. I decided that if I was going to be homeless, I might as well be homeless somewhere else. So I went walking through Europe and ended up in Bratislava, Slovakia. I stayed in a hostel there. If you’ve ever seen the movie Hostel, you know it’s supposedly set in Bratislava—it wasn’t quite that violent, but it was full of drug addicts, people who mirrored back to me exactly who I was at the time. I was broke, homeless, and stuck in another country without enough money to get home. So I started cooking for the guests to earn just enough for a ticket back. At some point, in the middle of that struggle, I had a realization: everything in my life was falling apart, and I was the common denominator. Nobody was coming to save me. That hit hard—and that’s when it clicked. I had to change. I was around 23 or 24 years old when that truth finally landed. When I returned to Denmark, I started doing 12-step programs. They didn’t completely transform me, but they kept me clean and sober long enough for me to realize there were other paths to healing. I drifted for a while before finding a job in a kitchen, and quite soon after, I met my mentor. I asked him for help, and he said yes. He taught me how to run a business, how to work, and how to take responsibility for my life.