I Was Never That Person: Emily Shares How She Overcame Grief and Addiction

At 21, Emily Rhodes got a phone call that split her life into before and after. In the chaos following Hurricane Katrina, her father was shot and killed on the wrong side of town — a case that was never solved. Months later, a minor car wreck led to a prescription for pain medication, and Emily discovered it numbed something the doctors hadn't been treating: the grief she had no idea how to carry.   What followed was years of addiction — first to prescription painkillers, then to street versions of the same relief — hidden from almost everyone who knew her, because, as she puts it, she was never supposed to be that person. This conversation traces that unraveling honestly, without shortcuts, alongside the slow work of recovery through her Catholic faith, a 12-step ministry called Catholic in Recovery, and a mother who refused to give up on her no matter how far it went.   Emily talks about rock bottom, about relapse, about the lies addiction tells you about who you are, and about her five-year-old daughter Lucy — deaf, hilarious, and her biggest cheerleader. It's a conversation about how grief and forgiveness can exist in the same body at the same time, and what it takes to believe you are more than your worst years.