During the holidays last year, B. Rae and I made a documentary about our recovery stories. We named it Fixed Up after Chip & Joanna Gaines’s show, Fixer Upper, that takes place in our hometown of Waco, Texas. B. Rae and I have been social media friends for over a decade, and are both reformed party girls working to make a change in the recovery world while living on the East Coast. But we never met in person until the day we started making this film. We thought the idea of making a movie about this might be interesting…and clearly it was. Last night, we won an award for “Best Hope Film” at the New Jersey Recovery Film Festival!!! The presenter/festival director, Chris Capaci, said our film provides hope and progress in the recovery community. 🙂

But let me back up a bit to describe how our magical day began…

The Panel

B. Rae drove in from D.C. and my buddy Gene and I drove in from NYC. B. Rae and I spoke on a panel about art and advocacy in filmmaking. We discussed our recovery stories, why we made the film, and answered questions from the audience. We shared the panel with Alfred Giancarlo who later won an award as well for his film, Apurar Cielos Pretendo.

After the panel, we mingled with interesting folks and watched some powerful recovery-themed films.

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The Situation

Then Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino and his fiancé, Lauren, got on stage. Mike has been sober since December 2015 (like me!). He and Lauren talked about how Jersey Shore fame enabled his addiction to opioids and excess. They openly shared how his addiction impacted their on and off relationship of ten years. They’re both happily engaged now and Mike is a passionate advocate for the sober/recovery community.

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The Screening

When it was time to watch our film it was tough not to self-critique it. The self-deprecating writer in me always wants to edit my work, but I let it be what it was: a film that documents our recovery and where we were six months ago. And it’s clearly pretty freaking good if we were accepted into a film festival and won an award. We did another Q&A after people watched the film. We talked about how much we love our hometown of Waco, Texas and how badly we want to see Waco overcome the stigma of addiction and mental health. Maybe this is a step.

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The Award

We had no idea that there would be awards given at the end of the evening. I actually suggested we leave after the screenings ended because I figured there was no way we would win something. We couldn’t believe our names were called after the words “Best Hope Film“. When we went on stage to accept the award, we were completely surprised and feeling giddy. When handed the award, I spoke into the mic “Let this award prove that sobriety can be fun! This award is dedicated to our hometown of Waco, Texas. Without it, we wouldn’t be here today”.

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Shout out to Road Recovery who sponsored my mini road trip to New Jersey and provided the photos for this blog post.

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This isn’t the last you’ll hear about our movie, Fixed Up. Stay tuned for more exciting news 🙂

If you haven’t seen Fixed Up yet…check it out here.

If you live in the NYC area and you’re free on June 20th, check out the PRIDE-themed Readings on Recovery on 17th & 5th. Reserve your free tickets here.

Now my award and I are going to go out for some tea…

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