About the Contributor
This story was written by Ashlea Walton, shared as part of The Impactful Voice Project™ — One Voice. Infinite Impact.™
Ashlea Walton, a mother of eight shares her lived experience of addiction, domestic violence, child removal, and recovery, reclaiming her voice and inspiring others.
🔸 Category: Life-Changing
🔸 Country: Australia
🔸 Connect: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashlea-grainer-walton-6927133ab/
Why this story matters:
It matters because it reframes addiction from moral failure to trauma response. It shows how education, accountability, and support can interrupt generational harm. It demonstrates that lived experience can become leadership. And it offers something powerful to anyone still in survival mode: change is possible, even after years of chaos.
This story touches on themes of:
Addiction recovery and breaking intergenerational cycles
KEY POINTS
- Survival can feel normal when chaos is all you’ve known, but awareness is the first turning point.
- Addiction often grows from trauma, control, and isolation, not weakness.
- Accountability, structured support, and community can break long-standing cycles.
- Education and purpose can transform lived experience into leadership.
- Recovery is possible, even after repeated setbacks and system involvement.
A young mum, who felt like her world could only be headed in one direction and that there was not much hope in changing that direction. Until I found recovery and all previous thoughts I had suddenly changed for the better.
“I didn’t know I was surviving. I just thought this was life.”
If this story resonated with you, please share it. You never know who might need it today.
#AddictionRecovery, #LivedExperience, #SobrietyJourney, #DomesticViolenceSurvivor, #WomenInRecovery, #HealingFromTrauma, #RecoveryIsPossible, #CommunitySupport, #BreakingTheCycle
