On her website, Hilary Phelps – best known as the sister of Olympic medalist Michael Phelps – has a quote that reads, “Shame hides in the darkness but we recover and heal in the light.”

That quote could describe much of Phelps’ battle with addiction and sobriety, as well as the local efforts of OpenDoor Women’s Recovery Alliance, which partners with women overcoming addiction.

Phelps shared her story with men, women and clergy during OpenDoor’s “Morning of Hope” breakfast held at New Albany Church of the Resurrection’s ministry center on Saturday, Sept. 14.

The morning also featured a panel discussion with Rachel Muha, co-founder of OpenDoor; Aimee Shadwick, director of RecoveryOhio; Judge Jodi Thomas, a Franklin County Municipal Court judge; and Oyauma Garrison, the president and CEO of Maryhaven.

The event was moderated by Angela An, an anchor on local WBNS-10TV.

Sharing her story with the audience, Phelps said she struggled with alcohol and drug use for 15 years. She began sharing her story a couple of years ago after the COVID-19 pandemic when the percentage of alcohol use by young women at home soared.

“I decided that I didn’t have the luxury to stay silent anymore when there were women who were dying and struggling and suffering, and the shame around women in drinking and drug use and recovery, and so I started sharing my story out loud,” she said.

Phelps continues her recovery journey, choosing sobriety each day. While no longer drinking, for years her story was still largely hidden in the darkness. She decided to bring it into the light.

“When I was straddling the line between recovery and staying silent, there was still a part of me that I was hiding, and for me, it felt shameful,” she said. “Once I shared my story, I truly felt free.”

Phelps began drinking when she was 14. She tried drugs, including lysergic acid diethylamide, known as LSD or acid, and marijuana when she was 13.

Like her brother Michael, Phelps was a swimmer. She swam year-round in school. At the time, she was the fastest swimmer in the country for her age group, she said, but that all was taken away.

In hindsight, Phelps said, she believes she had depression, but the illness was not openly talked about, so she carried much of the pain internally. Keeping it in the darkness only caused it to worsen.

“I started cutting; I started taking a pin, and I started cutting my arm because, as an athlete, the physical pain was easier than emotional pain, and I didn’t know how to get through the emotional pain, so when I found drinking, it numbed all of those thoughts of not being good enough and not knowing where to fit in and not knowing who I was,” she said.

Her parents and friends expressed concern, but Phelps said her response was only to hide her addiction more. She said hiding her illness led her to turn inward rather than outward to seek help.

Phelps said she wanted to overcome her addiction on her own. She viewed asking for help as weakness, and she did not want to be weak.

She said the shame she experienced eventually led her to seek treatment. For a while, treatment was a cycle of attending a meeting, not returning, falling into addiction and returning for treatment again.

Phelps was told during one of her treatment sessions, “you’re only as sick as your secrets.” From that moment, she said, she began healing in recovery, bringing her addiction from darkness into light.

She had a sober buddy, Claire, who she called each time she wanted to drink. The two became friends: vacations, traveling and attending Thanksgiving dinner together. 

Checking in with a buddy consistently helped Phelps stay sober, but the journey was difficult.

“Sobriety is hard,” she said. “It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done – getting sober – because you have to change people, places, things, thoughts, behaviors.

“Drinking was the only tool I had in my toolbox. And so, that first year, other than hanging out with Claire, I did everything somebody told me (in treatment) because I did not want to go back, but I had support, and that was everything because community is the opposite of addiction, which is isolation.”

Five years into her sobriety journey, Phelps was diagnosed with severe depression. She said she never would have uncovered the illness had she not been sober. For 15 years, Phelps used drinking as a coping mechanism to “stuff down” her emotional pain. Now, her illness was brought into the light.

Ten years into sobriety, Phelps gave birth to a son. When he was days old, she brought him along to a meeting in which she received a “10-year chip” for 10 years of sobriety.

In June 2022, around the time she began sharing her story, Phelps endured what she described as the most difficult year of her life. She divorced, became a single mother with no income and her father, who she described as “her person,” died. He accompanied Phelps through her drinking, recovery and sobriety journey.

“At 15 years sober, I never wanted to drink more than I did in that moment,” she shared.

Phelps said the craving to drink remains today, and it will likely always be there.

“Every single day I wake up with a choice,” she said. “I wake up with a choice to choose recovery, choose me, choose to show up for myself, my partner and my son or go back to addiction that’s going to take everything away.

“I knew in that moment if I went back out and started drinking, I would lose my son. There’s no guarantee I would come back to sobriety, and there’s no guarantee I would live.”

Phelps said women in similar situations need to feel supported, seen, heard and understood. “When we can connect with another human, another person, we feel less alone in our struggles,” she said.

Phelps stressed the importance of community for recovery. Surrounding herself with others is instrumental for a woman’s recovery and continued sobriety. It can also have a profound effect on the people around her.

“One woman getting sober and one woman seeking treatment and one woman having a community means she shows up better for her family, her friends, her loved ones,” Phelps said.

Stephanie Cohn, who was served by OpenDoor during her recovery from alcohol and drug addiction, also shared her story. Cohn began as an OpenDoor participant in April 2023, a few months after receiving inpatient treatment for her addiction.

Having women walk alongside her during recovery was instrumental for Cohn. She met with a small group of OpenDoor volunteers, known as a “table,” every week for a year. Their last meeting was earlier this month.

“The program is really great because, being in recovery, you have to have a good support system, and these ladies are that good support system. They’re there for you friendship-wise. They’re there for resources. They’re there just to be there,” she said.

The panelists discussed how OpenDoor’s efforts in helping women recover from addiction correlate to their own work.

Thomas explained how she helps women recover through her work in the local judicial system. 

She currently presides over Helping Achieve Recovery Together, known as the H.A.R.T. Program, an opiate-specific drug court giving defendants with history of treatment, refusal or non-compliance an opportunity to engage in addiction treatment.

She also presides over Creating Authority Through Collaborative Healing, known as the C.A.T.C.H. program, which exists to break the cycle of abuse for victims of human trafficking, prostitution and sexual exploitation by providing resources, community and accountability.

At the state level, Shadwick said Governor Mike DeWine’s RecoveryOhio initiative, which was created after the governor took office in 2019, is working toward making Ohio the most recovery-friendly state. The initiative is geared toward prevention and education as well as treatment, harm reduction and recovery support.

For recovery, Shadwick noted that equally important to treatment is social connectedness, as it creates a better likelihood for maintaining long-term recovery.

Muha shared the impact that drugs had on her family. Her youngest son, Brian, and his roommate were killed in their campus house by two men high on crack cocaine. The killers had received drugs from their older brothers, who received them from their mother.

“I learned over the years that – you’ve all heard of generational poverty – there’s generational drug use, and it’s devastating, especially in the inner city,” she said.

Muha forgave her son’s killers and founded The Brian Muha Foundation and Run the Race Club, which serves inner-city children in the hope that they won’t choose the same life as her son’s murderers.

“They are suffering because of their parents’ addictions,” Muha said of the children she serves. “When their parents do heal, the children are so proud of them, and they can start to heal, but they can’t heal before that happens.

“It’s so important that their parents get help. The children in the inner city, no matter what they’ve been through, and they’ve been through hell, love their mothers – they love their mothers. Very few of them know their fathers, but when their mother heals, they are the proudest children on earth.”

Garrison shared that Maryhaven, a local nonprofit addiction treatment center, helps individuals and families lead healthy lives free of addiction and mental health challenges by providing education, treatment and support. The center has facilities and serves patients in Franklin, Delaware, Union and Morrow counties.

Maryhaven, originally named Mary’s Haven, was founded by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd in 1953 upon the request of Bishop Michael Ready. The then-bishop asked the sisters to create a home for women struggling with alcohol addiction.

Today, Garrison said, “We provide one of the only centers that keeps the entire family together, that comes in and can stay for upwards of eight or nine months with their kids, whether it’s alcohol, illicit drugs or mental health.”