In 10 years, I want to be working at a Level I Trauma Center’s Emergency Department while also providing specialized care as a part-time nurse in an addiction treatment center. I am incredibly passionate about healing in all of its forms, and above everything else, I only pray for one thing – happiness. Everything else, I can accomplish through perseverance, but happiness has to come from within.

Personally, after marrying my fiancée Moani in Spring 2028, we plan to become foster parents to young girls. Before my father passed away from an overdose in 2008, I spent much of my young life with him without basic needs, sleeping in bar booths and on bare mattresses, going door-to-door for meals, and carrying the burden of adult secrets. I strive to one day give young girls a safe haven filled with safety, stability, clean sheets, abundant food, and zero shame. I want them to know what stability actually feels like. That when they call and they’re in trouble, there won’t be anger. That they can sleep peacefully and without fear. And that there will be support, unconditionally. Above all, I plan to stay grounded in my own recovery, continue sponsoring other women, and build a loving family that permanently breaks the cycle of generational addiction and trauma.

I went into nursing school thinking I wanted to heal the external by going into aesthetics. Within the first few weeks, I realized my heart was solely in healing the internal. Spending time in the ER as well as with addicts and alcoholics heals something inside me too. I wasn’t able to save my father from addiction, nor was it my job or duty, but I am able to help save others, or at least set them on the right track. What I hope to gain from this experience is exactly that: the ability to be the right person at the right time for someone else, the way people once were for me.

I also hope to leave this program having absorbed some of what the CSUN nursing faculty have modeled for us. I don’t have words to fully describe how inclusive this program has been. I have never felt any semblance of stigmatization about my own journey, something I was genuinely afraid of when I was applying. Instead, they have embraced my path and encouraged my future. The level of support the faculty offer their students, and the lengths they go to for our success, is awe-inspiring. From the program director down to individual faculty, they lead by example and are images of everything a nurse should strive to be. I don’t want to leave with just a degree. I want to walk away having emulated the success I’ve seen in the people who guided my journey.

What motivates me most is little Nikki – remembering that this life is everything she could have ever wanted, plus more. She didn’t get a say in what was happening around her and to her. Adult Nikki does. She craved the stability I get to have today, and I am driven every day to break generational trauma, help other women and girls recover, and honor how far I’ve come.

That drive is rooted in hope. Growing up with an addict and alcoholic parent in an environment shaped by neglect left me with intense pain and rage, and I ultimately turned to substances and alcohol to escape it. Getting sober in 2023 allowed me to begin transforming that anger into empowerment.

Taking my stepfather’s last name reminds me daily that safe, compassionate people exist. He provided structure, created a safe environment, never gave up on my own recovery, and was the gold standard of what a parent should be. My AA sponsor has been that too. Both of them believed in me when nobody else did, and neither one ever gave up hope that I could recover and succeed.

I also hold onto the beliefs that “God doesn’t give you hard stuff. Life is hard and God helps,” and “If you share your problem, it gets cut in half. If you share your joy, it doubles.” I choose community involvement over self-destruction, one day at a time.

My advice is this: give yourself the grace to grieve, but do your best to turn your pain into power. Your lived experiences give you a level of empathy, compassion, and insight that no textbook can ever teach. That hypervigilance, the way you can read a room, stay calm in chaos, and notice someone hurting before they tell you is fuel just waiting to be funneled into your fire. Use your journey to build the life you deserve and break the cycle for those who come after you.

Someone once told me that “ten percent of life is what happens to us, and the rest is how we react to it.” The anger you may hold is valid, but letting it gnaw at your soul day to day just allows the pain to further build within you. I can’t and won’t promise it’ll be easy, but I can tell you that the same raw pain and rage I once carried has been redirected away from self-destruction and turned into self-empowerment. Getting sober in 2023 was the turning point, and I remind myself daily that this is everything little Nikki ever wanted – she didn’t get a say in what happened to her, but I get a say now.

For other children born into the chaos of addiction and alcoholism, one day you will feel safe in your own home, with clean sheets, enough food, a loving family of your own design, and the freedom to pursue your dreams. I know because I’m living it now. Do not run from your past. Run to it for the strength to carry on. Children should never carry shame or keep secrets for adults, but for those that did, I know you can one day find the same serenity and strength that saved me.