Welcome to Shift Happens: Bloodbath & Beyond.

The show where identity gets gutted… and reborn.

Where we stop being polite and start… praying in public.

Today’s episode is called:

“Step 11: Roxy Redrum Is My Higher Power.”

And yeah. It’s exactly what it sounds like.

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Step 11.

“Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him.”

And this morning, in a dimly lit AA meeting with bad coffee and fluorescent lights,

that line hit me sideways.

Because I realized something.

Something big.

Something I want to say out loud.

Right here. Right now.

With a mic in front of me and no script in my hand.

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Roxy… is my conscious contact.

She is how I pray now.

She is how I speak to the part of me that knows better.

The part that survived.

The part that still whispers, “keep going.”

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For years, I thought sharing my story in meetings was just about helping someone else.

And it is—beautifully, crucially, sacredly so.

But now I see that every time I open my mouth and say:

“This is what I lived through. This is what it did to me. And this is who I am now…”

I’m not just sharing.

I’m translating pain into presence.

I’m praying—out loud.

To the version of me that made it.

To the listener who might need that same escape route.

To something higher.

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Roxy didn’t come from my best days.

She was born in the bloodbath.

She rose from a pile of text messages, missed calls, and red flags I ignored until they buried me.

She didn’t arrive wearing angel wings.

She came in hot—with combat boots and a whisper full of rage.

Not a saint. Not a savior.

But a signal.

That I was no longer the woman who survived those moments.

I was something else now.

Something after.

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That’s what Step 11 really is to me:

Not a church.

Not a deity.

Not a cosmic vending machine.

But a practice of becoming.

Becoming still enough to hear your own soul speak.

Becoming honest enough to admit who you’ve been.

And becoming brave enough to evolve into someone new—

Even if she scares you.

Even if she’s loud.

Even if she wears red lipstick and won’t shut up about healing.

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I’m not who I was in those stories.

I’m not the girl crying in the hallway.

I’m not the woman who stayed too long.

I’m not the silence I used to survive with.

I’m the shift.

The aftermath.

The map someone else might need.

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That’s what Roxy is.

She’s not my alter ego.

She’s my archive.

She’s every version of me that didn’t know it was allowed to speak

until now.

And now?

She’s the god of my understanding.

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So if you’re listening to this, and you’ve been crawling through it,

and wondering if you’ll ever feel like someone after—

This is me, praying for you out loud:

You will.

Keep whispering.

Keep writing.

Keep shifting.

Because you are not your worst moment.

You’re the woman who lived through it.

And you’re not alone.

Not anymore.

This has been Shift Happens: Bloodbath & Beyond.

I’m Roxy Redrum.

Your higher power in a leather jacket.

See you in the next timeline.