Photo: Greg Endries/Bravo
Below Deck’sCaptain Sandy Yawnis facing mostly smooth sailing now, but many years of her life were tempestuous.
Yawn shares her background in a family contending with generations of substance struggles. After an uprooted teen life between her parents' homes, she fell into drug and alcohol misuse that led to multiple arrests and life-threatening accidents.
“Someone’s keeping me alive for a reason,” Yawn tells PEOPLE while discussing her book, which hit shelves on Tuesday. “I should have been dead 10 times over with the lifestyle I led.”
Laurent Bassett/Bravo
And though Yawn “felt bad for what I put [my family] through” during her volatile youth, she found catharsis while writing forBe the Calm or Be the Stormwhen she showed the pages to her loved ones and had the chance to hear their perspective on her past.
Yawn also explains that part of the reason she wanted to write the book was to inspire others, even if that entails sharing some of the rawer details of her journey.
“I have no shame and no fear,” she tells PEOPLE. “Everybody saw me when I was a mess. I’ve seen the bottom so I have nothing to fear.”
She continues, “My goal for the details of my past struggle is to show people, like CEOs of companies, that if you invest and actually help someone, the return on investment is tenfold because you are helping them change.”
Jeff Miller/Faceout Studio
For Yawn’s part, she woke up one day when she was 25 years old and decided she was tired of the hangovers and the drinking. She committed to sobriety and found the path that led toBelow Deck— and the fans who’ve been asking for years to know more about her story and her approach to leadership, both on and off a superyacht.
“I wanted to show people that you can change,” Yawn tells PEOPLE. “There is hope and if you are in the art of self leadership, anything is possible.”
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Be the Calm or Be the Stormout available now everywhere books are sold, andBelow Deckairs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on Bravo.
source: people.com
