Some people have straightforward lives with only a few bumps or twists in the road. Others go through a few more turns and reversals before finding their path.

For Bryana Bleau McKee — known around Rifle as Bry Bleau — it’s been the latter. Her journey has taken her through addiction and recovery, across state lines and back again, and ultimately to a tattoo chair where she’s found purpose and peace.

McKee was born in Boulder, but has lived all around the valley — from Glenwood Springs to Rifle, with a few short stints in Florida — before returning to Rifle for good. It’s there that she’s rebuilt her life as a tattoo artist, a career she didn’t pursue until a couple of years ago. 

“I’ve been sober for about a year and a half, it will be at the end of November,” McKee said. “It wasn’t too bad in the first few years, but it was the worst for the last 10.”

She remembers one stretch in particular — a five- or six-day bender spent drinking around the clock.

“I was lying in my bed and my gun was next to me, and my best friend texted me and said, ‘I love you, but I can’t deal with this anymore. Let me know when you’ve got your sh-t together,'” McKee said. “In that moment, I realized I had even pushed my best friend away. I thought about what would happen if I used it, what would happen to my daughter, my friends, my parents.”

That was her rock bottom point. McKee got up, researched the best rehabilitation centers nearby and texted her friend to say she was ready.

“She called me and said, ‘If you’re truly serious, I’ve got a bed for you in detox and they’re waiting for you,'” McKee said. “I called my mom — who I didn’t have a relationship with — and asked my parents for money to get into rehab. I told them I’d pay them back.”

Her parents agreed, and McKee spent 30 days at a facility in Loveland.

“It’s a very intense program — no sugar, which was hard for me — and therapy almost every day,” she said. “I went there thinking there wouldn’t be AA meetings, but there were every evening. They weren’t 12-step, but they built a sense of community, which is what I needed.”

That community gave her the foundation to rebuild her life.

“I want to share my story for all the people who are addicts, to show them it’s possible,” she said. “We always say, ‘Don’t leave before the miracle,’ and I had mine.”

Before getting sober, someone had suggested McKee try tattooing.

“I couldn’t draw that well, but when I get into something, I give it everything I’ve got,” she said. “He told me that if that’s what I wanted to do, I should go for it.”

After rehab, she prayed and began looking for a place to start over.

“I decided I was going to walk into every shop I could find,” she said. “The first place I walked into was Inkology, and Rhonda was sitting there alone. I just said, ‘I need a place to tattoo.'”

Rhonda Hunter, owner of Inkology Tattoo in Rifle, took McKee in as an apprentice with one condition: no drugs or alcohol in the shop.

“I’ve been here ever since,” McKee said. “Rhonda’s great — she’s always telling me to learn whatever I can. She says she wants me to be better than her, and I appreciate that so much.”

McKee said she wants to do something different with her work — something meaningful.

“While I’m tattooing, people talk about their lives,” she said. “A few have been former addicts, and I wanted to film them getting tattooed while telling their stories.”

She said it’s still surreal that she gets paid to do something she loves.

“I’m so grateful to walk in here, sit in these chairs and be able to do this,” she said.

Recently, a member of her community died of an overdose.

“She was so loved,” McKee said. “I think if she knew how loved she truly was, maybe she wouldn’t have. That’s why I think it’s important to tell people I’m in this spot right now — to show them they can be, too.”

To get in touch with McKee for a tattoo or a conversation, message her on Instagram at @bry_bleau.