Soulfully singing a Southern gospel tune, Monroe Alise welcomes us to join her virtual room for a short interview:
“Come onnnn in the room.”
She finds joy in sharing personal stories, providing comedic relief and having authentic conversations with her fan base on Instagram, which has grown rapidly since her debut on Starz’s new hit TV show P-Valley.
Monroe pursued the entertainment industry for nearly two decades, but it wasn’t until after she sought SOME’s substance use disorder residential treatment program that her career flourished.
It was also the same time that she fully embraced her transgender identity and found God.
Here’s what this multi-hyphenate phenom shared during her recent interview with SOME:
What was your life like before you were introduced to SOME?
Monroe: My life before SOME was complete and utter chaos. Sometimes, I like to refer to it as the abyss—it was a lot of nothing. I was doing so many things to fill the numbness and void created by others that I intentionally stayed in it. It was a mess.
I was a people-pleaser. I was the victim and the villain. I was in a very dark place, trying to find some light and something.
I hit a lot of bottoms—many, many times. Only to hit my last bottom, extremely hard.
What led you to seek out our SUD treatment program?
Monroe: I found myself overusing and abusing alcohol and in some compromising places and spaces with people, like waking up in places I didn’t even remember visiting or being.
That last day [before seeking treatment], I found myself in that same compromising position again.
I was admitted into the hospital [in 2018], where I had to detox for a couple of days. They had to pump me with several bags of fluid (vitamins and minerals) because I was literally knocking on death’s door. That’s when I voluntarily checked myself into the psychiatric ward for three days.
One of the psychiatrists came to me and told me that mental health and substance abuse go hand in hand. And he invited someone to come and talk to me about treatment. The next day he told me about the 28-day program and suggested long-term treatment. He also told me that there was a 90-day program in West Virginia and that he would guide me through each step of the process.
I completed the 28-day program, then was taken to SOME’s 60 O St. NW location in Washington, D.C., where I waited for the van to take me to West Virginia to start my long-term treatment.
SOME offers comprehensive treatment options that empower adults to break the bonds of addiction, reunite with their families, and rejoin their communities. SOME’s residential treatment facility is in West Virginia. SOME also offers a safe house for clients prior to going to residential treatment and transitional housing for clients returning from that facility.
What differentiated SOME’s services from other substance programs?
Monroe: Besides the “complete defeat” and the complete surrender [of substances, on my part], SOME provided a space where I was free of misgendering. And, even then, I was the only transwoman in the program, and my name wasn’t legally changed. They called me by my preferred name. They made sure that people were gender-conscious and affirmed me with my placement when I got to West Virginia. (I was placed with the women.) And I was able to put that portion of myself on a shelf and solely focus on the problem at hand. I was so grateful that space was created for me to be able to let my guard of survival down and literally focus on getting help.
Tell us about your career after the program.
Monroe: I’m truly blessed because God has a way of doing for me, what I can’t do for myself. I have been pursuing the entertainment industry for over 20 years—with minimal success—but I thank God for that because I know that if I was still in that abyss, I wouldn’t have been able to show up and do the work.
By living authentically and free of societal norms of what I believed people thought I should be doing, I was able to start telling my truth on social media. And that truth birthed [my appearance on] a show that is not solely based on disseminating self-healing, unconditional self-acceptance and intensified self-care. Through comedic relief, I started to do “P-Valley” reviews [on Instagram Live], which led to the show discovering me and asking me to audition.
Monroe Alise is featured in Season 2 of Starz’s TV show “P-Valley” playing a character by the same name. By the end of the interview, she left us in suspense and encouraged us to watch the show to see what else was in store for her career. At SOME, we applaud her resilience and wish her continued success.
We encourage you to make a generous donation to support our substance use disorder programs so that we can continue to create more success stories for our growing community.