My whole life was always turmoil. Growing up I watched my mother take pills and try to cut her wrist, shoot herself and overdose. My father was a very smart, hard-working engineer, but at the end of the day the suit came off and the Scotch went in.

Kicked Out of School
I started using and drinking around the 5th grade, getting into my dad's alcohol and my mom's pills. By the 6th grade I was kicked out of school for taking cigarettes to school. As time went on I became worse. I dropped out of the beginning of the 10th grade and hitchhiked across the U.S. four times.

I came home to my dad's and he got me into Job Corps and I stayed there 1-1/2 years. A week before graduation day, a friend and I got drunk and beat up a bunch of people and got kicked out of the school.

I Went to Prison
As the years moved on, so did my addiction. By the 80s, I was slamming methamphetamine and robbing people and connections as a way of life. I was eating out of trash cans and sleeping in abandoned houses, until my arrest record caught up with me and I went to prison.

From that day until today I have been clean and sober and love my new life. It's really not easy some days, weeks and even months, but it was always worth it.

I went back to school and worked as a counselor in a drug and alcohol treatment facility. I have a beautiful woman in my life. And just to think, I could have missed it all.