#44 Caroline Beidler, MSW: 3x Author, Mom, Woman in Long Term Recovery, Advocate

Caroline Beidler is an author, speaker, and the Managing Editor of Recovery.com, a company that combines independent research with expert guidance on addiction and mental health treatment. Our mission is to help everyone find the best path to recovery through the most comprehensive, helpful network of treatment providers worldwide. She is the author of three books, When You Love Someone in Recovery: A Hopeful Guide for Understanding Addiction with Nelson Books, Downstairs Church, and You Are Not Your Trauma.Her own lived experience in addiction, mental health, and trauma recovery inspires her to help other others find recovery in all its varying forms. In five short years, she has built a global network of recovery supporters through her storytelling platform and accompanying newsletter, Circle of Chairs which reaches thousands weekly. She is a creative and visionary, founding an annual global event on International Women’s Day with different sponsoring organizations each year that brings in thousands of supporters, along with co-leading a global research initiative on family recovery with leaders around the world. Her writing is described as funny, gritty, relatable, and insightful. When she isn’t writing, speaking, or building community, Caroline lives in Eastern Tennessee with her husband and seven-year-old twins where she enjoys hiking in the mountains and building up her community’s local recovery ministry.In this episode, Caroline shares her experience, strength, and hope as a woman in long-term recovery (15 years!), past toxic relationships and trauma, being a sober mom and wife, her passion for the work she embodies, different seasons of recovery, reframing language, talking to our kids about addiction recovery, and the gentle invitation on a spiritual path. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kelleykitley.substack.com