Melissa Petro

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.

Teaching sex ed the right way doesn’t have to be weird or hard.

It's pretty well understood in 12 step programs that "who you see here and what you say here, stays here."

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.

For any couples thinking about moving in together, I thought I’d share my Dos and Don’ts, and how my husband and I are making my small and unattractive (but inexpensive!) apartment work for our family.

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

We’ve all been in a situation where we've thought NO ONE CAN EVER KNOW THAT THIS HAPPENED TO ME.

Without a doubt, going to AA meetings saved my life. But after six years of devoted participation, my attendance dwindled until, about a year ago, I stopped going entirely. Contrary to what I was taught when I was in the program, my sobriety’s just fine. You can stay sober without AA — at least, I can. Here’s how I do it.

Stock photos seemed to get pregnancy and parenting all wrong. When a Facebook friend posted looking for a real life pregnant stock photo model, I offered.

You may have heard the old joke that 98% of people masturbate, and the other two percent are lying.