“Dad, you’re nothing but a crackhead. I don't ever want to see you again.” My son was 15, and he was right. He and my ex-wife had come to my apartment and found me getting high, again. I’d been a functional addict for more than two decades,...
I used to think everyone’s book was already written. Mine was always going to be about a rough childhood, a prison term, broken relationships and decades of heavy drinking. One night I looked around the cheap hotel room where I was living and thought: This...
I was 14 when I first got into trouble with drugs and alcohol. At the restaurant where I worked, I could get any drug I wanted. I used drugs pretty much every day from then on. In my late 20s, I fell into 12 years...
I quit my factory job in South Beloit in March 2020 – unfortunately, just a few days before the lockdown started. I regretted the decision, of course, because when everything shut down it was hard to get another job. I got a few odd jobs...
