Pivoting When the Digital House of Cards Tumbles

I poured my time, creativity, and energy into constructing my small business social media presence for almost 13 years. My personal Facebook and Instagram pages have been part of my digital identity since their inception. My business pages—Social Butterfly Digital, the brand I created from the ground up in 2013, and Shit I Do Sober, my healing passion project that demonstrated my recovery journey—were thriving. And just like that, Meta crushed it all.

My accounts were erased without forewarning, valid reason, or a single chance to appeal. My personal and business pages are gone, and my livelihood is at risk. Two of my client business pages that I "owned" vanished along with them. Years of content, connections, and dialog have been wiped out. When I tried to fight back and appeal, Meta's resolution was simple: log in and appeal.

How the fuck am I supposed to log in to an account that no longer exists?

I've spent hours scouring forums, hoping someone, somewhere, had found a way through this digital torment. I've called numerous business associates, and reached out through an old Meta email, only to be told I'm out of luck if I can't log in. I called an old Meta support number that was still lingering in my call log, but the robotic message made it clear: it was for outgoing calls only.

This is shredding me. My business is invisible, and my book launch—live since January 2025—is dead in the water before it can float. Years of work, strategy, marketing, and relationships were extinguished instantly by a faceless algorithm that decided I am no longer relevant in its virtual world.

What guts me even more is how this has impacted my clients. When I work with clients, they become family. I don't just create content for them—I invest in their businesses, dreams, and stories. Losing my platforms was devastating, but knowing that my clients have lost their business pages, visibility, and engagement because of something out of their control makes me sick. I created my company to help people evolve and bring their brands to life; the helplessness is suffocating.

For two days, I cried and fumed in desperation—the sleepless nights, the anxiety, the gut-wrenching actualization that my career might never recover from this; do I need to shift gears? But I'm sober. And that means I have the opportunity to navigate this storm with some amount of grace. I have to live in the solution, not the problem.

Sobriety has given me tools that I never knew I would need so desperately in a time like this. I breathe. I pray. I meditate. I go to meetings and talk to friends who remind me that nothing lasts forever, no matter how lousy. I take everything one step at a time. Because I know damn well that a drink or a drug will only make this worse, it won't fix the unjustness of it all. It won't fix my career or undo the harm that's been done. All it will do is take me away from the fight. And I refuse to let this be the thing that breaks me.

I don't know what my next move is, and I don't know if there's a way to pivot in digital marketing when big tech and their bots can annihilate a career with a single click. But I know this: I've rebuilt my life from the ground up before, and I will do it again, even if I have to start from scratch. Again.

You can now find me here: (Please note: my old Shit I Do Sober Instagram is still visible for another 170 odd days - I do not have any access to this).

X - @shitidosober

IG - @shitidosoberbook

FB - @shtidosober2

I have not had the opportunity to rebuild any of my Social Butterfly Digital accounts. I will get to those eventually. Maybe.