When I was young, there were a few things subliminally distilled into my subconscious, that in later years would manifest itself disguised as “irrational behavior.” Most of these things ran streaks into each other and each idea and lesson taught to me were really all on a “case-by-case basis”. As a small child with a developing mind i did not recognize how to decipher when certain lessons or ideas applied and when they didn’t. Eventually this mistake would lead me further down a road of despair and tragedy than i was prepared for. I will keep to distant bits of anonymity but today i am a 22 year old guy with better odds than ever before to make it to the end of the day alive. Using drugs for more than half of my life, today i am living in a place of sobriety.

How it was…

I remember drinking at ages as young as 5 years old through 10 as my parents would give me an occasional beer (which i didn’t like), or taste of wine, etc. I also remember in those same years, quite unabashed, abusing my medications that were inhalants. I abused them so much my parents had to address the issue when the pharmacy took note of the very high volumes of these prescriptions were being filled for me. My first “real” drunk was at age 11 and only weeks difference from my first “real” high, also at 11. Money, whether spoken of as a sense of business, or a job, or an idea, or reasoning as a need for school, or hustling, or robbing ,etc; was always the center of my family and inevitably, my life. It seemed that everything could be measured or influenced by money in one way or another. So as my earliest memories of about age 5 i had only a few main focus’s in my life and the constant in all of them surrounds money.

When i began smoking weed at age 11, and already recognizing the incessant reason to make money, i saw to the only natural transition, selling drugs. Every time i was caught by my parents with drugs the best excuse i could give them is, “I’m not using drugs, I’m just selling them.” And like i explained about the relation to money that my family had, that was the best answer i could’ve given them. Left completely without an argument against the importance of making money, it was hardly anything except a slap on the wrist “because that is what they were suppose to do.” Eventually this attitude got me in a rapidly deteriorating lifestyle of drugs, violence, money, complete chaos, and no where for the parents of this !5 year old disaster to turn. So they found a youth institution to throw me in with no key and fences too high to climb. Actually to be more literal, i don’t know what the fences looked like, or if there were any, i never got close enough to being outside to know. This place has sister-facilities that movies about child abuse (physical, sexual, emotional) were based on. Learning from the mentally-ill and hardened criminals with all intention on doing evil things to anyone at any time, i came out exactly 362 days later; colder, hardened, and looking for a way to render my pain and anger.

What happened…

I had found that by using drugs i could numb those unbearable emotions i had and appear to live like the normal teenager i was suppose to be. I got back to public school where as a “reborn new-kid” with a bad-boy history, many girls had given me a second thought from when years ago i went down a different path. Now i became the popular kid through out my local few high schools. As people recognized me for dating good-looking girls and this mysterious respect given to me by anyone who had heard stories about my past (which very quickly seemed to be mostly everyone) i had found one particular girl that really stuck in my head and for the first time ever in my heart. She and I really fell in love, my first love. It was no secret that my girlfriend, for on-and-off 3 years, was the best looking girl in any of the nearby towns. We spent every waking moment together.

Somewhere around this same time, my father and all his business associates (including other members of my family) had been “RICO’ed”, Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Acted. This meant they were all indicted on federal charges and shipped off to prisons around the country. With my father in prison in West Virginia, my girlfriend would join me for beautiful weekend getaways and I’d use my early mornings on sunday to go visit my dad with my brother and mother. But now my mom had gotten lonely and depressed and went down her own path of prescription pill abuse and mental illness. Through out all this, my drug use was becoming more discovered by everyone who saw me. My girlfriend was a “good-girl” (at least before she met me), so she was an easy patsy to help me avoid trouble with the people in my life who tried to prevent my using. Between her, my mother in her own world, my brother using drugs, and my dad in prison; I was completely free to rip-and-run, and i sure did.

After seeking the next high constantly, i was introduced and found both crack and heroine, the two loves who fought for my heart before finally agreeing to share what was left of me. Of course my girlfriend had began using with me and this was an unavoidable recipe for disaster. Seeing that sex goes hand in hand with drugs, we both had made many unfaithful decisions that completely destroyed the relationship and each other. I only had two things in my life at that point, her and drugs, but they both wanted to be the center of my life. After she had hurt me so badly, and i had left her alone through my various trips to jails and rehabs, she had left me and i mutually abandoned her. Now drugs were free to take complete control over my life.
Nearing my third year in jail, i had a bunkie i became close with. We moved into a house in Trenton, New Jersey, where we sold drugs, guns, and women. That become my life mantra, “Selling guns, drugs, and women.” We had done a lot damage in every way imaginable from that block in South Trenton. I had everything an active user would want; a house, drugs, money, girls, and everything that came with it. Whether it be a spiritual awakening, or a moment of clarity, or anything you want to call it, something clicked in my head. During our usual cast of people filling up the house to get high and etc, i locked myself in my bedroom. I had entered cocaine psychosis with out doubt by now but i clearly remember hearing a voice in my empty room saying, “You need to get the f*** outa here, right now!” At that moment, around 5am, i left everything behind and hopped a ride to my moms house. I begged her for help to get back into a detox and she reluctantly did.

What it is like now…

Many seasons have passed since February of 2013, but I’m still only a beginner to this life long journey. I have made the opportunity to make a way to find peace with myself which i still work on to this day. I began forgiving myself for the things I’ve done, and people for the things they did to me. I gained real value to the world and not because of how much damage i can do to it, but because of how much better i can make it. I became able to sort through my legal problems and avoid any further incarceration. I get the opportunity to work great jobs and i even sell real estate in New York City now. I was able to gain the trust of having my own apartment on a beautiful street in the city. Im now able to find a girl who sticks with me and i won’t ever be in the position to put her through such terrible things. I figure if i survived the odds that i shouldn’t have, then there must be something so grand on the other side waiting for me to reach it. So i climb everyday, a little bit more, with the help of people who care for me, continuing to work on myself to take my abilities and turn them into a source of positivity.