Question 1

What inspired you to start writing and create ‘Progress is Progress,’ and what keeps you sharing your story?

Accepted Answer

‘Progress is Progress’ started out as a survival instinct and turned into a mission. For years, I was just looking for a story that sounded like mine—a recovery story that let the mess and setbacks breathe instead of editing them out. What kept me going, and keeps me sharing, is knowing that it matters when someone sees real life in your words, especially on those dark nights when hope seems like a joke.
I’m equal parts professional and raw human—you get both, because that’s real. I’m a clinical counselor today, but I’ll never pretend I got here through sheer willpower alone. My background is recovery, meth addiction, poverty, violence, all of it. I write and share for the person who’s just trying to believe that a better day is possible, even if it’s not a fairy tale. I want to be the counselor, the writer, the human I needed early on. Turns out, a lot of people need that too.

Question 2

What’s one misconception about change or healing that you wish people would drop?

Accepted Answer

That transformation is some kind of birthright for the privileged, or that change happens because you read one good book or have one sweet epiphany. It’s not like that—it gets ugly, it loops back on itself, and sometimes you backslide more than once.
In my clinical work and my writing, I fight this idea constantly. Recovery (from anything) is about imperfect progress, not perfection. Change isn’t about waking up “fixed;” it’s surviving, crying, screaming, getting mad, forgiving yourself, and sometimes just holding the line. Anything else, to me, is just selling people shame

Question 3

How do you handle days where you feel stuck, or things aren’t moving at all?

Accepted Answer

As a counselor, I tell my clients that “stuck” is a feeling, not a fact. As a human, I know stuck inside and out. On the worst days, survival is still a power move. Sometimes handling it is clinical—checking in with skills, structure, crisis plan. Sometimes, it’s just getting through by grabbing one thread of hope: a supportive text, an old notebook, a memory that things can change.
I bring this gritty, unscripted truth into both my sessions and my writing. A lot of my most read pieces come from those exact moments, when I admit to being in the weeds. It matters to tell people: you’re not broken if today just means you made it through.

Question 4

On your journey, are there tools, habits, or ‘small wins’ that have made a difference for you?

Accepted Answer

I’m obsessed with the power of tiny, doable things—whether that’s from a therapist’s lens or my own lived experience. Journaling saves me all the time. Connecting with community, whether that’s a group meeting or a fierce online circle. Giving myself permission to measure progress in inches, not miles.
My workbooks were born from this exact principle—helping people find themselves after chaos, or get real about codependency in a world that usually wants tidy answers. Even the simple act of writing a letter to the version of myself who survived, or asking my kids how they see our story, has kept me grounded and honest.

Question 5

What do you hope someone scrolling past your posts or reading your blog really hears?

Accepted Answer

I hope they feel truly seen, not just diagnosed. I don’t care if you’re coming from the professional clinical side or the lost-before-coffee side (“both” is often the answer in my world). Your mess, your struggle, the fact that your life doesn’t fit some recovery montage—you’re allowed. You can belong here. The shame and perfectionism you’re dragging around? Drop it. This is a space where you don’t have to be okay to show up.

Question 6

How do you decide what to share online, especially with the tough stuff?

Accepted Answer

Boundaries are everything for me, in both my counseling and my public writing. I share what has shaped me, what I wish I’d seen, but not at the expense of my own healing or anyone else’s safety. No one gets all of me, not even my readers—my license, my ethics, my kids, my clients, they all deserve protection too.
But hiding my humanity helps no one. So you get the counselor who’s cried in her car, the writer who’s lived through hell, the mom who co-authored a novel with her son about our true story. I let the messy parts breathe, but I still know where the stop signs are.

Question 7

Is there a past article, post, or piece of content that still feels especially meaningful to you? Why?

Accepted Answer

If I had to pick, ‘I’m an Addict and I’m Not Sorry’ still guts me. But if you want to see the heart of what I do beyond blog posts, check out my novel “The Circle Stays Unbroken.” Writing it with my youngest kid, letting him add his honesty to our chaos, made the whole messy, broken-but-hopeful story real and useful, not just for us but for anyone crawling through their own version of it. The feedback has been proof: our stories—unpolished, ugly, but still fighting—are the ones that save people.

Question 8

Who or what inspires you to keep going, especially when your own motivation flags?

Accepted Answer

It’s everyone who shows up when life should have knocked them out for good—my clients, my readers, my family, my recovery community, and that quiet voice inside that somehow never quite gave up. My kids, who helped me write a novel because writing was the only way we made sense of things. Every person who says, “You said what I couldn’t say,” gives me fuel.
I stay inspired because I know what it’s like to want to quit, and because I know someone, somewhere, is looking for one line that might stop them in their tracks and make them think: maybe, just maybe, there’s a way through.

Vital Voyage Blog

Expert voices, human stories, real recovery.

Vital Voyage
Author of the Month: Belinda Morey

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Belinda's Books

Why This Series Matters
This series reflects Vital Voyage’s mission to tell recovery stories that matter. Through Belinda's deeply human voice, readers see how compassion, accountability, and resilience can rebuild a life — and inspire others to do the same.”