Micaela’s Story: From Mental Illness and Drug Use to Recovery

September is National Recovery Month—a time to bring increased awareness of mental illness and substance use as well as the hope for recovery. This campaign promotes the benefits of prevention, treatment, and recovery for mental health and substance use disorders, celebrates people in recovery, lauds the contributions of treatment and service providers, and promotes the message that recovery in all its forms is possible.

This brief, moving video chronicles Micaela Fissel’s journey through mental illness and drug use and her road to recovery. Micaela struggled with bi-polar disorder, which she says led to her substance use. Hers is an all too common story. Left untreated, mental illness can often lead to drug use and these co-occurring disorders can be particularly difficult to treat. Micaela says, “Recovery gave me the opportunity to live a meaningful life and now I am a contributing member of society with a purpose and a future.”