I can allways remember feeling different all my life even as a child I never felt like I was a part of or belonged in any of the little groups of kids around my neighborhood or at school so as you can guess I was a loner.See I was overweight most of my childhood and I can remember when the kids would play ball or anything else I was allways the last person chosen to play and I can remember the feeling of rejection and that played a big part in my life as a child.

I was basically raised by my sisters and the reason I say that is my Dad never was at home,he was a construction worker and he was out of town all the time and when he did come home on Fridays,he would usualy leave and stay gone all weekend.But the times he would stay at home he was so drunk he didnt know what he was doing and he was allways beating the crap out of my Mom or my brother and sisters...I allways would hide under the bed or under the house in the crawl space.

My Mom did the best that she could under the circumstances because she was in fear for her life and ours too!My Dad threatened to kill all of us on more than one occasion.She worked 10 to 12 hours a day just to feed,clothe and put a roof over our heads,so she wasnt at home much thru the week,she also worked the 2nd shift most of the time.So basically I was raised by my sisters and since there was a 7yr seperation in age between me and my sister closest in age to me we didnt have an awfull lot in common other than being siblings...But I did form a bond between myself and Rita the sister closest to me that is still there today.

I could probably go on and on about things that happend in my early years that affected me and the way I feel,but I will move on,so lets jump a few years to age 14 or 15 because I honestly dont remember which year it was.At this time in my life is the first time I used drugs,I can remember being at the baseball park in the neighborhood we had moved to and some of the guys that I had met were smoking a joint[pot,grass,weed]and they offerd me some so I smoked it just to try and fit in but after I started getting high from it it was like WOW I had found what I had been looking for all my life.And as it turned out I couldnt wait to hook up with these guys everyday I had found something that numbed all the feelings that I had been feeling for years.

The smoking went on daily for a year or more.In this time I had lost interest in school and about everything else other than chasing that high.Well folks then something else came along and it really blew my mind when I was 16 A girl in my neighborhood started showing me some attention and and like the good addict that I am my whole world revolved around this girl just because she showed interest in me,so as the story goes she ended up (pregnant).So me smart thinking me thought well here is a way to get out of the home that I hated living in at the time,so I talked my Mom into signing for me to get married and at 16yrs old took on the responsibility of wife and child....geez am I real smart or what!But reality set in real quick when I couldnt find a job making more than minimum wage so I decided to join the army.

Would you beleive it, I talked my Mom into signing for that too since I am only 17 and I cant join without her signature.So I went to Ft.Jackson took my physical and was sworn in.They let us come back home to take care of personal issues before we had to report for active duty,my reporting date was Sept.11-1980.so in the time that I was sworn in and my reporting date I found my Dad dead from the overdose!We had his funeral and three days later I was in Ft Jackson reporting for active duty.I went from there to Ft Benning Georgia for my basic training I completed it and was 3 weeks into my six weeks of basic infantry school when I hurt my back...so these guys checked my medical records back home and found out that I had been to the Doctor about some back pain about two years before I had joined so they decided it was best for them to boot me out with an Honorable discharge and cut there liability.

So here I was 17yrs old no high school diploma,no job and had come to realize that I didnt love the girl that I had married.But I did get a gift from God out of this and that is my daughter Kim.I decided in the spring of 1981 that I didnt want to be married to my wife anymore so we seperated.So I was single again and I started hitting the clubs looking for companionship,and spent a lot of time either drunk or hungover,see even at that time if I started drinking I allways ended up DRUNK.

In November of 1982 I met the lady who is my wife today and believe it or not we met in a club..The Morgan Manor..her name is Debbie.The relationship started out as us dating and being friends but I guess God had other plans for us because I fell in love with her! We got married Feb.4th 1984 and have stayed together even with all the shit I put her through.In the first few years of our married life I stayed drunk or high most of the time,oh yeah lets go back to 1983 because it was then that I was introduced to prescription pain killers because I had reinjured my back and had to have my first back surgery.I went pain free from that surgery for 5yrs,but I remembered the feeling I got from the medication.Through all this I was abusive to Debbie verbaly and on occasions physicaly and she still stayed with me.

In 1988 I injured my back again and had to have surgery again.My Dr, was writing perscriptions for all the pain meds I wanted,so i slacked up on my drinking because I didnt get hungover from the pills but I was eating these things like they were candy! Well to make a long story shorter I was finaly diagnosed with degenerative disk disease and between 1983 till 1996 I have had a grand total of 5 surgeries and have taken every pain medication that I know of and valium and xanax and anything and everything in between I was also introduced to powder cocaine and freebase.In 1992 I got into this huge argument with Debbie and I had gotten to that point of oh yeah watch me I will, hurt you by hurting me, so I ate a whole bottle of flexaril a type of muscle relaxer and I ended up in intensive care at the hospital with tubes down my throat, they also told me that my heart stoped at some point during all this but they brought me back. Well I ended up in the psychiatric hospital after being in icu and on a ventilator for 3 days, go figure! While in there I did some praying see I had not worked since 1988 and really had no memories of the last four years so I asked God to give me something to do with all my free time and he answered it within a month of me getting out of the hospital Debbie got pregnant with our oldest son Zachary and for about the next 2� years I stayed off of the pills but I started drinking again in fact I was stone cold drunk when she went into labor! I cut back a lot on my drinking after that until Feb.4th 1995. I wanted to get messed up on our anniversary so I bought some crank to keep from getting so drunk and from that it progressed back to the pills. I also had my last surgery in 1996 and the doctor put me on liquid Dalodid while I was in the hospital,right after this surgery we find out that Debbie is pregnant with Nicholas our youngest son.

Well my using continued to progress even though I had the responsibility of raising Zach, I had gotten to the point that my whole life was centered in drugs in one form or another the getting and using and finding ways and means to get more! Nicky was born in August of 1996, and that still wasnt enough reality to make me quit.I was eating xanax on a daily basis and had someone supplying me with all that I could buy! In January of 1997, I had gone to this persons house and I was wasted to the point that I was nodding off, and this person brought out a pipe and said here smoke some of this and it will wake you up so you can drive.....so I did.....it turned out to be crack cocaine and it took only one hit for me to be off to the races. So for the next four months I chased that all elusive first hit, I ended up getting myself and my family into dept beyond beleif, I was spending about $300.00 a day on this stuff, and I went to any lengths to get it. So as the story goes I had gotten to the point that I honestly didnt want to live anymore so on 5/20/97 I bought enough of this shit to blow my heart and I tried to take that big hit and check out of this world, but it didnt work.I was really miserable all day that day I wanted to quit but didnt know how I did finaly run out about 7:00 pm that night and I decided then that enough was enough, I went to bed that night and didnt get a wink of sleep and the first thing that I thought of after I got out of bed the next morning was getting more. So I had came to the conclusion that I was either going to buy more or kill myself so I decided to blow my brains out, I took my gun down to the building that I had in our back yard and stuck it to my head and the first thing that came to my mind was my kids...and I couldnt do it...so i came in the house and called Deb and asked her if she would come home that I had to do something important.See she didnt know how bad I had gotten, I was very adapt at hiding it from her. So she came home and I went to the same hospital that I had been in when I overdosed on the muscle relaxers and got real honest I told them I wanted to stop but didnt know how,so they put me in detox and I found out that I have the disease of addiction!

I spent five days in detox and I learned a little bit about addiction.Hey I had all the symptoms, so i diagnosed myself, see thats one of the things that they let me know! It is the only self diagnosed disease in the world.I also must tell you that I knew about A.A. before I went into detox but I didnt know anything about Narcotics Anonymous,I was set to go through a 28 day treatment program but because of money problems I didnt get to. Instead I left the hospital and I went to an N.A. meeting. Most of the people that were at the treatment center bet against me showing up at a meeting that night....guess what all those that bet against me lost, see I didnt have anywhere else to go.