Melissa Petro

When I first got sober, I started to accept that the “happy” occasions in life — holidays, birthdays and other special events — might not only feel happy. When I’m “supposed” to feel good, I feel nervous, anxious, and embarrassed. The center of attention, I feel vulnerable and on display.

So, I got an email from my brother yesterday telling me that he’s not coming to the wedding. “I want to be there,” he writes, “I really do, but the idea of being consigned to [our mother and her boyfriend’s] care for the duration of the trip is driving me mad. You know, the whole lack of autonomy and being on someone else's time and all that.”

The other day my friend on Facebook had made a remark about how there are people who have multiple income streams and travel abroad constantly and drive cars and eat at restaurants every week and then talk about class privilege like they don't have it and in my mind I was like, Oh. Yeah. She’s right. In the past six months or so, my life has dramatically changed.

There was nothing easy about recovery, but it helped that living the trainwreck lifestyle had stripped me of everything. Within sixteen months, I was unemployed with no job prospects, barely scraping through my last semester at school. I was drinking every day. Sex with classmates had led to casual encounters which bottomed out at trading sex for cash, something I spent a whole lot of time justifying.

Would Sheryl Sandberg be able to get away with leaning in while donning Zuckerberg's signature v-neck T-shirt and jeans? History says no.

Want to work responsibly on the issue of sex trafficking? Here’s some of what you should know.

If you watch TV and movies hoping to be emotionally moved or intellectually challenged, you know that means you’ll some

Guys, stop eating instant noodles. Seriously, they found lead in them. LEAD. Besides this, our stomachs can not digest them.

"Certainly, my life as an alcoholic was not what most would imagine. I was a writer, living in the West Village of New York City, enrolled in a prestigious graduate program and working on a book. At least, this was my cover story."

Drunk or not, it’s a fact that white people are more prone to acting like assholes to authority figures—because we’re more likely to get away with it.