COURAGE. CONSISTENCY. KINDNESS.
Three words I live by. Three words that have carried me through recovery, through building businesses, through the speaking and mentorship work I do for other healthcare providers — and three words that are now driving me into something harder than any of it.
My name is Mary Smiley Ford. I’m a wife, a mom, the co-founder of Smiley Aesthetics, and a nurse in long-term recovery from opioid use disorder. I am writing this because I need help. Many of you already know my story—or parts of it. For those who don’t, here is what I can tell you: I have been in recovery for over seven years. I have shared my recovery story publicly because I believe it helps other people in healthcare who are walking the same road. Silence and hiding are detrimental to recovery, so as scary as it is, I am advocating for us all.
This campaign is no longer just about me. It's about the thousands of nurses, doctors, PAs, NPs, and other healthcare providers who have struggled with addiction or mental health and have been crushed by a punitive licensure and monitoring system that was never designed to help them recover — only to control, surveil, and quietly remove them from the workforce.
The current process strips providers of their livelihoods, their dignity, and often their lives. Monitoring programs are expensive, opaque, and accountable to almost no one. Providers in recovery are treated as liabilities instead of the high-value, highly trained professionals they are. Many never come back. Many don't survive the process at all.
I'm partnering with Opal Advocacy and AK Strategies TN to change that.
Together, we are pushing for transparent, evidence-based, recovery-oriented reform of how state boards, monitoring programs, and disciplinary bodies handle healthcare providers with substance use disorder and mental health conditions.
This is the work courage, consistency, and kindness ask of me. Courage to put my name and my story on the line publicly. Consistency to keep showing up — to legislators, to boards, to providers in crisis — long after the headlines fade. Kindness as the operating principle: for providers struggling, for their families, and for the systems that need to be reformed without being demonized.
Your contribution funds:
Legal counsel: $15,000 - Policy/regulatory legal work/Mary's license defense
Coalition-building & national advocacy strategy: $3,500 - Strategy, mentorship, and connections to the national network of provider advocacy and reform groups
Lobbying days, capitol relationships, regulatory navigation: $3,000 - Face-to-face advocacy with Tennessee lawmakers, organized capitol days, and the inside-the-building work of moving policy through the regulatory process
Content & awareness: $1,500 - Provider testimonial videos, op-eds, social collateral
Travel — capitol & partner meetings: $750 - Mileage, lodging, meals tied to advocacy
Platform & processing fees (~3%): $750 - GoFundMe + payment processor
Total: $25,000
Funds are administered through an LLC owned by Mary. Donations are not tax-deductible. 100% of funds will be applied to the line items above.
If you've ever been a patient, a colleague, a family member, or a provider yourself — this fight is yours too.
Healthcare workers spend our lives taking care of everyone else. The weight of that work — and the silence around what it costs us — pushes too many of us into coping that destroys our careers and, sometimes, our lives. We deserve a system that helps us heal, not one that buries us.
It's time someone took care of them.
Here's how you can help — pick one, or do all three:
1. Donate today. $10, $25, $100, $1,000 — whatever you can. Every dollar funds the legal and policy work that will outlast any one provider's case. If you can give more, please do — we need a handful of larger donors to anchor this campaign.
2. Share this page. With one healthcare provider, one nurse, one friend who needs to hear it. Sharing is as valuable as donating. Most of the people this work will help do not yet know this campaign exists.
3. Tell me your story. If you are a healthcare provider who has lived inside this system, I want to hear from you. You are not alone, and your voice can change it. DM me, email me, find me — I will respond.
With courage, consistency, and kindness,
Mary