Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ally Evans. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Ally, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s the kindest thing anyone has ever done for you?

The kindest thing anyone can ever do for another is love them without condition.

My boyfriend did that for me. He wrote me a love story, and it’s forever written in my heart.

Preston Evans held my hand at sunrise on April 27th when I reached this story’s bitter end.

Floating in a sea of alcoholic shame and regret, I was determined to END this broken life.

That day I died an alcoholic death, not physically but of a spiritual kind. I was the epitome of the walking dead.

Drowning in spirits of the desperate kind, it’s no wonder despair was a companion for my final ride.

But- there was a miracle that happened in the story.

It was in the stillness of our cramped apartment balcony, with the echoes of my self-pity filling the air, that Preston persuaded me to go to a treatment center.

By God’s grace and a copious amount of alcohol to lure me there, Preston drove me to treatment at House 4. That “little red corvette” was a rescue boat for a drowning girl.

For 30 days in rehab, I wrestled with God. Every day he gently broke down my pride, until I finally came to the end of me. Preston helplessly watched in angst, as every emotion roared through me like a freight train. I was running from all relationships, especially with God.

Yet that’s how God found me. I was suffocating in fear, with my face in the mud beneath an old oak tree at House 4.

The God I met in rehab was vastly different from the God I knew before. He didn’t scold me but wooed me like a lover does instead. With tenderness and grace so pure.

He held me in the darkest times and showed me compassion and strength as we confronted my greatest fears.

It was HIS LOVING kindness in other alcoholics that restored my sanity.
“There’s a grace when the heart is under fire. There is another way when the walls are closing in. And when I look at the space between who I used to be and this reckoning, I now know I will never be alone.”

It has been nearly 4-months from rehab to redemption. Though it is by the grace of God I share this story that I am a part of, it is my soulmate who I thank for getting me here.

God’s kindness conquered alcohol and Preston’s love set me free.

I might not know how this story ends, but what a beautiful page-turner each day holds. The story I live in looks a lot different now that I’m reading it with a new pair of glasses. I once heard it sung, “Let the redeemed say so.” By the grace of God, I am redeemed.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am a storyteller.

My bloodline is full of storytellers.

Recently I went back to my biological roots in the sunshine state of Florida.
What I found there, besides a speeding ticket and sand in my crack, was that The Howards were gifted this ravenous hunger for storytelling emotion. We will salivate at the mere tinge of passion.

We are natural-born seekers, always chasing a feeling.

This extreme spiritual sensitivity or no filter mouth is undoubtedly a genetic gift or curse, depending on who is doing the talking, us or God.

If you ever needed proof of my storytelling- I’d share with you that I was the former co-host of the Grit and Glam Podcast, or that I wrote for a local magazine called “Hometown Journey,” but what I’m realizing is that those are just the art of storytelling.

A story is WHAT WE ARE.

A song with no story is silence.

A picture that doesn’t speak a thousand words is a blank canvas.

Art in all its forms is just telling all of our stories.

While in treatment at House Four, surrounded by detoxing hormonal women, I bore witness to these miraculous transformations happening all around me. Seeing a light once snuffed out in alcoholism, ignite from the ash of despair and blaze waves of revival across a spiritual darkness- THAT is an awakening!

I witnessed an army of phoenixes RISE and FLY!

What began as a journal documenting these unbelievable moments became what God later revealed as a book.

The STORY God was writing in these women.

There was only one problem that remained, I had no publisher, and the whole “just out of rehab thing” might cause a bit of a hurdle in the dependable and honest section on my resume.

I am now living a life, or at least to the best of my ability, where I trust a power higher than myself with things, I am powerless over.

And guess what?

That’s almost everything!

So, I prayed and did the next right thing.

When I received an email for this interview, I honestly didn’t know how to say, “I lost my old book deal in my alcoholism. Now I am starting over again.” I was so accustomed to living a life of delusion and deceit that being authentic seemed somehow a difficult feat!

But I guess today I am telling the truth.

Honesty is one of the things that saves my ass!

Hi, my name is Allison.
I am an artistic, passionate, recovering alcoholic who loves to tell a story.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Sometimes living a life in recovery can be a painstaking process. One that requires MUCH unlearning of toxic cycles in areas many take for granted.

A big one for me was that secrets are not good, they keep us sick!

THIS WAS A REVOLUTIONARY UNLEARNING!

I might be a blabber mouth for others, but I used to be an outstanding keeper of MY OWN secrets!

Telling on your thought life is another one, because that’s where the war begins-and in my secrets and shame I’ve lost enough battles before they even left this crazy head.

For some, changing toxic life-long patterns comes quite easy, but I was gifted the double-edged sword of tenacity and alcoholism. (Apparently, chronic uniqueness is a struggle too) So, it often takes me half a lifetime to learn what those less hard in their head can change in weeks.

I’m a believer that God sets us free “What the son sets free is free indeed.” But- he also calls us to walk in obedience. That requires choosing to yield to His transforming power in our life. “Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.” (Heb. 5:8)

Suffering?! Ah- the self-pity suffering can so easily invoke in me. Haven’t I suffered enough? Poor me.

But what did suffering look like to Jesus? He felt each slap, each insult, each thorn, each swing of the whip, each nail. He endured the suffering of hanging on the cross and struggling for every breath as He scraped His raw back up and down on the rough wooden cross….and all HIS suffering was for me to be free?!

The “suffering” Process is a PRESSING time.

This morning, after a conversation about a stubborn tree with my boo-thang, God reminded me of an Olive Tree. In my thoughts, I saw the beautiful branches (which symbolize peace or a truce) and immediately I felt deeply in my heart that peace was coming, “But for peace to come, first there must be the pressing.”

An olive PRESS.

First, the olives must be plucked, and cleaned of all the dirt and contaminates. (I can get pretty contaminated)

Then they are placed into a pressing machine and the PRESSURE that is smashing them produces oil.

The PROCESS is still not complete, because, after all the cleaning, and the pressing, there is one final step before you get the oil. If pressed, the mush that remains of the olive is allowed to stand until the oil floats to the top, eliminating any impurities that might remain.

That is what God is doing with me. With us all if we surrender. He presses us in the process, and the oil of peace will begin dripping from our veins….

I may not SEE it yet…. but I feel it…and I have faith in HIS pressing.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Two years ago, my career and life changed dramatically due to my alcoholism.

All of this was the result of Allison operating in her strength.

Manipulating life and circumstances to control or provide for myself. Numbing, running, burning down anything and anyone in my path.

Losing jobs, that people gifted me was just one of them; hurting and disappointing others who placed hope in me, was another.

Some days regret could quickly begin to freestyle its lyrical battle inside my head. And before I know it, the hype-men shame and guilt aren’t far behind, rapping their heart-wrenching war cries at my heart.

But- in recovery, God has gifted me hope and a promise through the women who have walked this path before me.

One of those women is my boss, Becky White, owner of Becky Does Botox.

I was fresh out of rehab, and doing the best of my ability to maintain recovery and stay financially afloat via Uber Eats, when Becky reached out her hand and offered me a position as a Patient Coordinator.

A vessel of redemption, and a sister to my heart, Becky gave me the most undeserved gift of that recovery. She injected HOPE inside of me! (And she gifted me a J-O-B)

She has shown me that no matter where you come from, where you are going, or where you sit right now- THERE IS A FIRE IN YOU WAITING TO UNLEASH!

Thank you, Becky, for seeing that fire in me.

Contact Info:

• Email: amyallison1982@gmail.com

Image Credits
Photography by Ally and Preston Evans