Brenda Dennehy

Would compassion without accountability leave survivors and children unprotected?

Partners and families are not collateral damage.

We are people whose lives were profoundly altered.

Survivors should be allowed to speak honestly about what we lived through without being told we don't understand addiction.

We understand it intimately because we lived inside its impact.

I also want to add this.

I've had my own comeback.

I've moved on.

I've rebuilt my life.

I'm happily married now and together we're raising three beautiful children.

I am proud of the life I created and I've worked incredibly hard to heal and move forward.

That's why this topic can still be triggering for me, not because I'm stuck in the past, but because the narrative so often centers the addict's redemption while overlooking the survival and resilience of those they harmed.

This is absolutely no reflection on you or your work and I genuinely love following you and your podcast.

Seeing conversations open up like this is important.

I just felt compelled to speak from the perspective of someone who lived the other side and who is still navigating the echoes of it.

Thank you for giving space to this perspective.

It matters.

R.

Wow.

Wow.