I am a believer in Jesus Christ who has been blessed with many trials and tribulations to work through, among them are chemical dependency, anger, criminal behavior, codependency, physical and emotional abuse, an adult child of family dysfunction and sexual addiction. With all of that going on you can believe I have some financial issues, too. I guess you could say that as I was younger I was an overachiever. My mother made predictions for me, such as, “you are going to be an alcoholic just like your dad and go to jail just like your brother.” I always tried to outdo her expectations, as you will see later. I wish that I could blame my beginning, but it was a pretty common start. My father and mother were on again and off again, but not when it came to their belief in God and Christ. I was brought up a Christian, and was up in front of the Church giving sermons by the 4th grade. My parents did not smoke cigarettes, nor did they use bad language. By the church's viewpoint we were the model Christian family. Three children, a collie, Church three times a week, a house on a double lot and the children and their father playing outside with each other on the weekends. Sadly, all was not as it seemed. My father worked 12 hour days at Caterpillar, and when he got home he drank in the garage. He still played with us kids and never was violent (although there were times my mother would hit my dad repeatedly and he would just stand there and take it), but eventually my mother had enough. She left him my first week of 5th grade without telling him where we went, and we did not see him for six months.
My mother sent us to live with her mother and father while she worked two jobs to get us a place of our own. This is where the story goes south, in my opinion. My grandfather was an abusive man, he would beat us to the point that he would not let us go to school for a week at a time. His combination of farmer and lots of money meant that when we missed school he said we were helping on the farm and he got away with it. We never said anything to our mother or the school because our grandpa threatened to kill my sister if we did and we believed him. After all, he shot at our uncle and got away with it. I began to fight a lot in the 5th grade, I would get beat at home and come to school and take it out on whomever. I guess that I have always fought since moving in with my grandfather and liked the pain; I guess that I figured I was to blame for my mom and dad splitting up and that was my penance. I also figured out that if I laughed while my grandfather switched me the beating would intensify and he would wear himself out and my brother would not get beat that day.
At a very young age I had managed to develop some severe anger and masochistic issues. I felt abandoned by God, and I stopped believing in him. Why believe in someone who was not there for me. My mother got a place of our own for us in the 6th grade, and she was smoking cigarettes by this time. I started to smoke too. It began with stealing her cigarettes and ended up my buying them off of other kids at school.
In the 7th grade my father got custody of me. He had not drunk in two years and had begun his own business that was doing well, but he worked overnights. I was quickly on the prowl late night, hanging out at the square and doing random acts of vandalism. I was a quick bloomer, the first weekend I got drunk was the first time that I smoked marijuana, did a line of cocaine, tripped acid, kissed a girl and managed to lose my virginity. From there it was all out. I began to hang out all night. My father tried to ground me for a week, and I came back a month later. It was the last time that he grounded me. He ended up getting remarried and we moved again, but it was more of the same; a lot of THC, alcohol, mini-thins, fighting and promiscuity.
I did not like my new stepmom, and I moved back to my mother’s for my senior year of high school. I was quickly in trouble with the law. I went to jail more times than I can remember for fighting, burglary and breaking and entering. I got into the world of methamphetamine, and soon after my world began to crumble. I was on probation and had numerous violations, and yet they never revoked my probation. They tried scared straight, county jail sentences and house arrest all to no avail. I actually liked county jail; I could catch up on my sleep and not worry about having to watch my back all the time. Finally I did not report to my PO for about 6 months. I had decided to take off and travel around the country without telling him. When I got tired of running I went to see him and told him I was ready for prison. He did not disappoint me, I was 20 and on my way to prison.
It was a long time coming, and I guess I saw it as inevitable. Some people have great stories about their 21st birthday. Mine sucked, I was in Booneville and it was a prison camp for kids 25 and under. It was nonstop fighting, and I learned how to be a better criminal. I also ended up getting my GED while I was at Booneville, which was the only positive thing that happened. I found God, but only to look good to the parole board. I got released to a party house when I paroled out. I was drunk an hour after I got out. I was high, spun and with a girl by the end of my first night out. How I managed to walk down my parole I will never know. I found out that manufacturing could get me more money, more dope and more girls and I was in. To make myself feel better I did good things with my money, like giving to charities and helping friends who did not do drugs pay their bills and raise their families. I cut the methamphetamine with a vitamin B complex powder because it was healthier than what everyone else used. I was making a lot of excuses to make myself feel better for what I was doing.
A year after I got out of prison I drove a car off an embankment drunk. Flew may be a better definition. I took a Firebird off a giant hill and flew 96 feet and was 32 feet in the air. I spent a considerable amount of time in the hospital and came out addicted to opiates. I was using IV by this time, as any other way was a waste in my opinion. Soon after I got arrested in Texarkana for possession with intent to distribute a week before my parole was up. I got off of parole just in time to get back on probation. My drug use by this time was getting ridiculous. I was using more and more meth to keep up with the amount of morphine I was using. I was staying awake for a week at a time, sleeping only on Sundays. I was working for most of the time as a bartender. It was an easy way to keep my PO happy and still sell a lot of drugs. I could always stop using a couple of days before I saw my PO, until the very end.
It got so bad that in 2000 I used an hour before I went to see my PO. When I walked into her office, she asked me a question that I did not want to hear. She asked me if I had been doing drugs. I went ahead and told her the truth. I was on meth, cocaine, opiates and benzodiazepines. She told me because I was honest she would give me a chance, and I turned 28 in a residential substance abuse treatment facility a few weeks later. I completed it successfully and got out ready to show the world they were wrong. I quickly needed money and got sucked right back into the scene. I thought I would just put together a batch, but my use and my quality of life started back up worse than before I had quit. My first use ended with me not sleeping for a few days shy of a month. I used for the next year, and I went through the worst times of my life. I was shot at and shot back at people, came within 5 seconds of shooting a police officer, watched a few friends die from overdoses, overdosed a few times myself, saw a few friends get 25 years in prison or more, was either raided or at places that were several times, beat up several friends and almost killed a few people. I no longer cared about anything or anyone, not even myself. I loved drugs, I loved they way that they made me feel but I hated the person that they turned me into. I had a death wish, and I would put myself in life or death situations because I truly wanted to die.
After an overdose and a really bad drug deal where one of my partners got shot I was emotionally, spiritually and physically exhausted. To steal a 12 Step slogan, I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. I went to my sister's house, which was my life line to sanity. She had never done drugs or even smoked a cigarette and actually had a legal job. She was the only person that I considered sane and safe left in my life. She was the only person in my life who I knew truly loved me for me and not for what I could get or do for them I told her that I wanted to get out and had no idea how. She told me she could make it easier for me. I asked her how, and her reply was, I want you to leave and get clean or I do not want to see you again. I cannot watch you kill yourself anymore.
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