F is for Fran. That’s me!

I am a forty two year-old sober, married mom, coach and crafter. My favorite things in this world are my family, healthy competition, inspiring moments, and belly laughs. I’m in recovery from a myriad of dependencies and primarily relate as a recovering alcoholic, bulimic and major depressive. My ups include graduating from college, working my dream job, owning a home, and becoming a wife and then a mother of three daughters and a stepson. My downs include opting into more than 20 psychiatric lockdown facilities, receiving 21 ECT treatments, experiencing thousands of demoralizing drunken and food driven horrors, and losing my infant daughter. I’m here to talk about it all.

Why ‘All the Fs’? Well, my name is Frances, so I’ve had a lot of years to play with F alliterations. Fancy Francie was a favorite nickname in my youth. Farthead was my sister’s pet name for me (So sweet I know, but it bothered my mother enough to stick. Kids are great). My friends like to call my silly screw ups or bumbles ‘Classic Frans’. Aside from my name, in my early sobriety, my very dear, oft crass, sponsor would snap me out of self pity with, “For Fuck sake Fran! Get over yourself and go help someone!” Then,

there are all the other ‘F’ words that color life: Fabulous, Frantic, Frazzled, Frozen, Fresh, Feelings, Food, Fun, Family, Faith, Frenzied, Failure, Finesse, Finances, Full, Falsehoods, Fibs, Fitness, Foolishness, Fuss, Fear, Funky, Falling, Feminine.  

And so, to paraphrase a short prayer that I was taught along the way, “F it. Let’s do this”.