Music, family, faith and love: Bridget's story

Less than three years ago, Bridget — a talented harpist — was in an induced coma, her organs failing due to an illness linked to alcohol use. Her family had gathered at her bedside to say their goodbyes. Miraculously, she survived — but had little hope until she connected with a Salvation Army addiction recovery service, setting her on a new path of faith and hope.

Today, she helps others on their journey to recovery and remains firmly connected with the Salvos. Bridget’s Easter testimony reminds us that faith-based recovery can offer true hope.

At 13, Bridget was a happy, musically gifted girl who grew up in a loving family. Her passion for music started early.

“I think I was in my first choir just shy of five and stayed with choirs and orchestras all through school. I played the cello for a while, but we had a harp at home, and I loved [and still love] it to bits,” she explains.

“I was lucky enough to grow up in a house with my mum and my dad. Both were lawyers. My early childhood was amazing — lots of craft, lots of art, lots of music. My family is musical; my poppy was always singing and playing his ukulele. My mum is wonderfully talented — she can play just about any instrument — and my brother is a really great singer.”

A downward spiral

At 14, Bridget’s life changed.

Her parents divorced, school dynamics shifted and she experienced bullying. “I felt like everything was outside of my control. My self-worth plummeted, and I thought being thin and pretty would fix it,” she says.

Her determination to control her weight spiralled into anorexia nervosa. Eventually, she was hospitalised for a year and fed via a nasogastric tube. A turning point came when a stranger, a youth minister who knew her brother, visited her.

A message of love

Bridget says, “This lady I never met just sat down across from me and said, ‘I just want to share something with you’. And I was 14 years old, bad attitude, malnourished, stuck in hospital and I just hated everything and everyone. And she said to me, ‘God loves you and he thinks you're perfect’. And I just fell apart, collapsed into tears.

“Not long after that, I woke up one morning and had a light bulb moment. I realised, ‘I am the only reason I’m still here’. I started eating all of my meal plan, enduring overnight feeds and putting on weight steadily.”

While the journey was far from easy, Bridget says: “[Looking] back, there’s no way I recovered from that on my own. I had no strength. And now I’m better, it seems so obvious I wasn’t doing it on my own. It was God,” she says.

After a full year in hospital, Bridget returned to school. Having missed Year 10, the very bright student struggled but managed to make it through her senior years.

Pain and response in life

Bridget’s recovery from anorexia was followed by another bombshell. At 18, a traumatic event triggered post-traumatic stress disorder, and she turned to alcohol to cope.

Doing a chef’s apprenticeship at the time, she says: “I started getting night terrors. I started drinking to put myself to sleep, so I could get up to go to my next shift, and that became really bad. I started shaking a lot during the day and I ended up having to quit.

“After that, I ended up sleeping rough and couch surfing a bit. I really wasn’t in a good head space.”

Reaching out to her mother for help, Bridget was treated by a range of mental health specialists who soon determined she also needed to go through addiction recovery. The years that followed were marked by psychiatric treatment, rehab stays and relapses. The cycle repeated itself until she came to the brink of death.

Finding hope at Salvos Moonyah

By the time she arrived at Moonyah — The Salvation Army’s Brisbane Recovery Services Centre — Bridget was still weak from her life-threatening illness. She had spent years in and out of treatment programs, but something about Moonyah felt different.

At that point,” Bridget reflects, “the only thing I really had [apart from a loving and very worried family] was the gift of desperation.

“I saw the words ‘There is hope’ on the wall [at Moonyah]. I really hoped it was true because I didn’t know how to get better. I was desperate, but I didn’t have a clue how to change.”

A different kind of recovery

Moonyah offered something she hadn’t encountered before: spiritual support and connection.

“I wasn’t looking for a religious or spiritual connection before. I hadn’t done any 12-step work or gone to meetings. But at Moonyah, it was different. There were people like Major Laura and Major Tim, who were just so generous with their faith and how they shared it.”

Bridget also attended groups like ‘Exploring Spirituality’.

“I remember thinking, ‘Oh no, churchy things’, but it wasn’t like that at all. I saw people with this incredible peace and, for the first time, I didn’t want to ridicule it. I wanted what they had.”

Faith and transformation

Through her 12-week rehabilitation program, Bridget began to embrace the 12-step process and her relationship with God. “Every morning, I [still] hand my day over to God and say, ‘Use me in the ways you see best’. I’ve tried doing things my way, and it’s almost killed me every time. God’s way has been different — it’s worked,” she smiles.

Bridget feels closest to God when playing and singing hymns and praise music. She is involved in The Salvation Army’s Streetlevel, where she plays in the worship team, and she is a volunteer on the cooking team at the Salvos’ GSA (God’s Sports Arena) church. She also shares her story at Red Shield events and has performed music for Salvation Army Christmas events.

The meaning of Easter

Thinking of Easter, Bridget says Jesus’ sacrifice was “mind boggling”.

“Grasping God’s grace and God’s love is so hard, especially if you are feeling particularly bad about yourself, particularly unworthy. The idea that Jesus, who could have just walked away from earthly punishments and saved himself pain, instead subjected himself to humiliation, excruciating bodily pain and ridicule for us, is the very definition of grace — which is undeserved, unearned love in abundance,” she says.
Learn more about the good news of Jesus and Christianity

Bridget, who today works as a client outcome facilitator in addiction recovery, has a message for others who are struggling: “I’ve heard an acronym around HOPE — ‘hold on, pain ends’. For anyone who is feeling desperate — not only is there always hope, but you are never alone!

“If you just open that door, even a fraction, to teachability and acceptance to God, you can find fulfilment and reassurance and honestly, a hope unlike any other!”

If times are tough, we encourage you to believe in good for yourself this Easter. Contact the Salvos to start a conversation and find out how we can support you.