My Story | Pretty Brandao — Recovery & Life Mentor

How it started

It started with an accident.

Not a choice. Not a party. An injury, a doctor, and a prescription — back when the opioid crisis was in full swing and pills like oxycodone were handed out like they were nothing.

I did what I was told. I took the medication. And somewhere in there, the medication started taking me.

What began as a prescription became a dependency. The dependency became something I couldn’t control. And eventually it became fentanyl — the most dangerous drug I have ever known, the one that has taken more people I love than I can count.

For more than ten years, my whole life ran on one thing: not being sick.

I don’t say that for sympathy. I say it because if you’re reading this and you’re in it — or you love someone who is — I want you to know I’m not speaking from a textbook. I’m speaking from inside of it.

What it cost

Addiction doesn’t take everything at once.

It takes it quietly. One piece at a time. Until you look up one day and there’s nothing left.

It took my marriage. It took my stability. It took my sense of who I even was.

There was a stretch where I couldn’t go a few hours without using — where every decision, every relationship, every hour of the day bent around the drug. I was losing everything, and I still couldn’t stop.

That’s the part people who haven’t lived it don’t understand. It’s not that you don’t want to stop. It’s that wanting to isn’t enough.

Rock bottom isn’t a place. It’s the moment you decide.

I came closer to not making it than I like to think about. And then there was a moment — quiet, not dramatic — where I understood it plainly: I was either going to stay there and lose the last of myself, or I was going to change everything.

I decided to change everything.

Rebuilding

Getting clean was step one. Building a life was the real work.

Recovery wasn’t a finish line. It was the starting line.

I had to rebuild structure. Routine. Trust. A reason to get up in the morning. The version of myself I had lost somewhere along the way. It was slow. It was honest. And it worked.

Years into recovery, I started doing the thing I never planned for: helping other people get out. Conversations turned into something real. Today — more than five years sober — that work has grown into sober living homes, a detox, and mentorship for individuals and families, including public figures who needed someone they could trust completely.

I went from someone addiction nearly killed to someone people call when they’re trying to survive it.

Why I do this

Somewhere along the way, this stopped being my story alone.

I’ve sat down with Soft White Underbelly and told the truth on camera. I’ve spoken on Cape Verdean national television to a community the opioid crisis is quietly tearing through. I’ve become a voice for recovery — not because I wanted attention, but because silence is part of what keeps people sick.

I’m Cape Verdean American. I’m based in Los Angeles. And I do this work for one reason: I know exactly what it feels like to believe there is no way out — and I know there is.

If that’s where you are right now, I’m not going to lecture you. I’m not going to judge you. I’m going to tell you the truth, and help you take the first step.

The journey