Recovery Tattoos

Sia Furler

LFI / Avalon / Photoshot
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“Whatever Dude” is Sia’s own personal interpretation of god and she has his name tattooed in red ink on the back of her right hand.

She has struggled with addiction to drugs and alcohol and entered Alcoholics Anonymous, whose 12-step program involves acknowledging a higher power. They don’t specify what form that higher power should take — so Sia created her own. “I trust in something greater than myself. A god called ‘whatever dude’. So I turn everything over to WD, and I feel relief,” she tweeted.

The physical form of Whatever Dude isn’t important to her. She once tweeted that Whatever Dude is a dog, but later told Howard Stern that Whatever Dude is “a queer, surfing Santa that’s a bit like my grandpa” and a feminist. These just seem like joking remarks really, the whole point of Whatever Dude is that he can be whatever. She sees god in everything that’s good and tweeted “god is just a name for light. or puppies. or rainbows. or gay babies.”

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Back of Hand God Handwriting Recovery Red Ink Writing

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Janel Parrish

Instagram / @janelparrish
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Janel Parrish covered up the old treble clef tattoo on her wrist with a lotus flower in May 2015.  The lotus symbolizes survival through hardships. “Finally got my lotus. A lotus is the only flower that can grow in mud. Through darkness blooms beauty if you let it,” she writes.

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Black-and-Gray Blackwork Cover-Up Flower Lotus No Outline Rebirth Recovery Romeo Lacoste Survival Watercolor Wrist

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Demi Lovato

Demi Lovato birds arm tattoo
screen capture / FOX; s_bukley / Shutterstock.com
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Demi Lovato added a flock of flying birds on her right forearm surrounding her “faith” tattoo in November 2012. The tattoo takes up the entire length of her forearm and was her first large tattoo.  There are twelve black birds with a little swirl behind them. This design later appeared on the cover of Demi’s self-help book Staying Strong: 365 Days a Year.

The birds are a symbol of freedom. She didn’t think much about the number of birds at the time, but she later realized a connection to the Alcoholics Anonymous 12-step recovery program, with each bird representing one of the steps towards her freedom from substance abuse. “I love the freedom that birds represent and I didn’t specifically have a huge reason why I got 12 of them,” she told iHeartRadio. “But one day, one of my friends that I was at Sober Living, I was living in her Sober Living house, and they asked, ‘So why’d you get … How many did you get?’ And I was like, ‘I don’t know. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve,’ and I was like, ‘Whoa, I didn’t mean to do that.’ But it’s like, it was kind of like a God thing, like I worked the 12 steps, so as I got that while I was in Sober Living, apparently it was really meant to be.”

The tattoo was done by celebrity tattoo artist Kat Von D, whom Demi happened to connect with through a friend. “I wanted more tattoos and I’d never done anything big, and it was very impulsive of me, like the night that I got it. Literally, I had a friend who had a friend that worked with Kat Von D. And so, literally at like 4:00 p.m. my friend hits up her friend, and that guy was out of town but Kat was in town. And so I was like, ‘Let’s get a tattoo,’ which by the way, people like book Kat way in advance! But it was so impulsive, so it was meant to be.”
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Black-and-Gray Flock of Birds Forearm Freedom Kat Von D Recovery Silhouette

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Ash Costello

Instagram / @ashcostello
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Ash Costello has a tattoo a razor blade cutting her wrist to represents her struggles with depression and everything that she has overcome. She writes:

“My Friday the 13th tattoo with the @nydrock boys. To remind me…..I have survived the worst times, the fucking worst, but I pushed through it and now I’m enjoying the best times with my best friends.”

She got this tattoo on September 13, 2013 as part of a tradition in which tattoo parlors give discounted tattoos on every Friday the 13th.  Usually the tattoos have the number 13 in them, and Ash’s razor blade has “XIII” which is the Roman Numeral for 13.

“I have a lot of Friday the 13th tattoos because I’m a big advocate of $20 tattoos. I have my razor blade, and the heart, and the Misfits, and other little things.”

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Black-and-Gray Friday The 13th Inspirational Mental Health Razor Recovery Red Ink Roman Numeral Suicide Survival Wrist Writing

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