Healthy Community Initiative

October is Substance Use & Misuse Prevention Month, and we’re highlighting stories from our community! Sharing your experiences, reflections, and journeys is a powerful way to inspire others, and we’d love to hear them. If you have something you’d like to share, please email ashley@healthycommunityinitiative.org.

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My name is Shantel Arett. I want to start by telling each and every one of you hello and I’m happy that you’re still here.

Who Am I?

My name is Shantel Arett, and I’m a woman in long-term recovery. What that looks like for me is that I have not drunk alcohol in over seven years. What recovery means to me is that I’m on a continuous journey to a much better life. I get a second chance, a third chance, and even a fourth chance to be a better mother, sister, friend, partner, niece, granddaughter, coworker, advocate, educator and an overall better person.

How did I get here?

In September 2002 as I started my freshman year of high school in the Netherlands, it appeared to me and many other youth my age that drinking and smoking at that age was socially acceptable and that no one thought anything of it. The portrayed message was that it was okay for me to do so. So, I did and I did a lot for many years. This was the start of a 16-year, on-and-off binge only slowing down or stopping three times for a period of nine months or so. I welcomed my first son in January 2008 and the drinking slowed a bit, only to ramp up a few months later. In August 2008 I had quite a wake-up call when my best friend was killed by a drunk driver. One might think that would slow my drinking. But, it didn’t. It got worse. I then welcomed my second son in May 2009. I was on and off sober for almost two years at that point. But again, the urge to drink came back with a vengeance every single time. 

Over the next seven years I was in the daily binge of my alcohol addiction, and not many people knew. It was a pretty big secret. In April 2016 at age 29, I found out I was pregnant with my third son. I got sober the next day. You know what’s sobering? Having a baby in your 30s after being a younger mom the first two times and thinking you were done. It was amazing. I was sober again for almost a year this time, and I was able to do many things in life that I had never been able to do before. However, once again as my infant needed me less and less, the alcohol called more and more. This yet again started another two-year binge back and forth like before. Around this time my partner of six years returned to using the substance that he had struggled with in his teens, and he was also drinking just as much as I was. I knew that I could not continue down the path I was on and be alive much longer. My body was shutting down, and my health concerns were at an all-time high. During this two-year period I learned a lot about addiction trying to help my partner. However, I was not helping myself, and I couldn’t pour from an empty cup. At the peak of our use in September 2018, I finally woke up.

Sept. 2, 2018 – She believed she could, so she did

I woke up after another long night of the same thing I had been doing on and off for the last 16 years and decided never again. I had those same thoughts in the mornings many times before over the years. But this was different. In my gut I knew it was now or never. My journey didn’t start on this day. It had actually started 16 years prior, and it is all part of the journey. After diving in and doing research and gathering resources for my partner to get help, I realized that I too needed help and fast. I gained knowledge of the processes, steps, resources, and off I went. Not following anyone else’s journey or path but my own. For the first time in a long time, following my journey was mine and mine alone. Helping my partner made room for me to also help myself. My partner’s addiction got me sober. As my partner struggled in and out of active use for the next four years, I continued along my path knowing that for me there was no other successful option. What I’ve learned along the way is the value of no journey being alike and that recovery and sobriety comes in all shapes and sizes. 

My sobriety has been tested many times, and I have found that it’s important to be mindful of things. Once you get sober, that is not the end. It’s a lifetime of work and maintenance with many tests along the way. In 2021, three years into my sobriety, my children’s behavior was escalating in school. They were acting out and being bullied. Things escalated so quickly that I sent my oldest to Houston to live with his dad. In 2022, my second son followed his brother to Houston for a new start. I had to do what was best for them. This was the best chance they had at the time. I was sober. But, my life was still very much in shambles. Things still weren’t perfect. But, why? I was sober. I was doing what I thought was “the right thing.” I was struggling to maintain it. 

In June 2022, my youngest son, my partner, and I became homeless after an eviction. My partner and I of eleven years at the time went our separate ways. During this time, my partner’s use was the worst it had ever been. I often felt guilt that I couldn’t help him. In October 2022, I nearly lost the love of my life to an overdose. I knew something had to be done. Back to treatment he went, and back to the books I went to educate myself on what addiction was and why. I wanted to maintain what we had worked so hard for. 

My recovery journey has not been easy, and at times I didn’t know how I would make it. What has helped me along the way is the constant support and the work that my partner and I are putting into this journey every single day. After numerous harm reduction attempts, treatment centers, meetings, and overdoses, he was successful in getting sober just like I was. We reunited in May 2023 and moved farther from the Cities than we had been in the last 10 years. That was just the fresh start we needed. I started working in the recovery field, and my partner went to work at the Faribault prison. My little family of three was once again thriving, sober, and happy. I maintained a relationship with my older sons and saw them a couple times a year for a month or so at a time. In May of this year they came back for yet another summer visit, and guess what? They never went back to Houston. They finally saw the work, effort, and changes that we had made and that it was long-term and not a week, two weeks, or 30 days. 

Our struggles with addiction have brought to light a passion I didn’t know I had. I have now been sober for over seven years and my partner has been sober for almost three years. I am a Certified Peer Recovery Specialist with two endorsements, and I get the amazing opportunity to work with youth, adults, and families struggling with addiction. I enjoy walking alongside people in their journey and showing young and old alike that it doesn’t have to be this way, that things do in fact get better and we do recover.