I’m a bookworm, a fiancé, a mom, a little bit of a chaos gremlin — and I’m a person in long-term recovery. This September, I’ll be celebrating 15 years clean. Fifteen years since I put down the heroin and meth, and started trying to rebuild a life I wasn’t even sure I wanted to save at the time.

And for the most part, it’s been good. It’s been messy, beautiful, heartbreaking, exhausting, and sometimes downright hilarious. I’ve built a life filled with people I love (2 of them, I made myself), responsibilities I (mostly) show up for, and little joys I didn’t think I deserved once upon a time.

But there’s something people don’t always talk about when it comes to recovery: addiction doesn’t just go away. The thing that lives inside of us — that need to escape, to disconnect, to chase something that quiets the noise — it looks for new ways to survive. And sometimes, those new ways are harmless hobbies. Other times, they start to feel a little too familiar.

For me, it was books.

Last year, I read 265 books. Two hundred and sixty-five. I’m not sorry about it either. Books are my safe place. They let me step out of my own head, out of my anxiety, my past, my trauma. They let me exist in worlds where pain makes sense, where darkness is acknowledged, and where characters fight through things even uglier than what I’ve faced. I gravitate toward the darker, demented, heavy stuff — and there’s something about losing myself in those stories that feels both cathartic and addictive.

This year, I did something I said I wouldn’t: I spent $100 on a special edition copy of a book. It’s gorgeous. The kind of book that makes your shelves look like a piece of art. And I’m stuck somewhere between no regrets and what the hell was I thinking. Because while it seems small — it’s just a book, right? — it’s also a reminder that addiction isn’t always needles and bottles. Sometimes it’s impulse buys. Sometimes it’s reading until 3AM when you have to be up in two hours. Sometimes it’s isolating with fictional characters instead of facing your real-life people.

And the truth is — reading is a far better escape than what I used to choose. I’ll never deny that. I’m grateful to have something so healthy, so meaningful, to turn to when life gets heavy. But like anything in recovery, it’s about balance. It’s about awareness.

I don’t want to lose myself again — even if this time, it’s between the pages of a book instead of the bottom of a spoon. I don’t want to miss out on real moments with my family because I’m too wrapped up in a fictional one. I don’t want to spend money meant for memories on collector’s editions I’ll never open.

So this is me, checking myself. Being mindful. Remembering that addiction wears a lot of faces, and even the ones that seem harmless can take too much if you’re not paying attention.

I’ll always be passionate about books. I’ll probably always overindulge from time to time. And that’s okay — as long as I stay honest about it.

If you’re in recovery too, and you’ve found your own “harmless” vice, you’re not alone. It’s part of the process. It’s part of being human. Just remember to look up from the pages sometimes. Reality might be messy, but there’s beauty in it too.

And hey — if you also dropped an irresponsible amount of money on a special edition book this year… you’ve got a friend in me.