Why I Built This Site

I used to think recovery was something you generally kept quiet about.

Like once you got clean, you were supposed to just blend in — go get a job, make some music, stay busy, and move on. That’s what I tried.

Two months after getting clean, I went to school for recording arts. I got deep into producing and even started making music that was gaining traction. But when I stepped into studio spaces, I felt the old habits creeping in, and fast. The energy. The drugs. The late nights. The pressure to grind nonstop.

It didn’t feel like healing. It felt like relapsing in slow motion.

So I pulled a James Harden level step back from the scene, from the pressure, from everything that didn’t align with how I wanted to live. I still loved music — still do — but I needed to rebuild my life in a way that actually supported my nervous system, not just my mechanical royalties.

This site is a response to that.

I have been clean for almost four years now.

But the recovery journey did not start on February 12, 2022, when I stopped using. It started when I learned how to live without escape. How to deal with OCD without numbing. How to show up in a world that moves fast when my brain needs slow. It started when I began to choose myself over drugs. How to choose myself over anyone else, time after time. How to choose myself again and again.

Skateboarding taught me presence and persistence through failure.

Music taught me how to release emotion and feel all my feelings.

Mindfulness taught me how to sit still when everything in me wanted to run.

All of it helped me stay alive.

This site isn’t a brand. It’s a lifeline.

I built How to Recover from Life to be a space where I could speak honestly about what helped me — not as an expert, but as someone who went through it and is still figuring it out in real time.

I don’t have a “method.” But I do have experience, tools, and scars. And if any of that helps someone else choose themselves for the first time, it’s worth putting out into the world.

If you're trying to rebuild yourself — from addiction, mental health, burnout, or just society’s noise — I hope this space gives you something to hold onto. Or lets you put something down you’ve been carrying too long.

Welcome to the project.

Welcome to the practice of choosing yourself.