*WARNING: GRAPHIC*

On February 25th, 2009 I found him. Dead. Laying on the couch like he was asleep, but with a bullet hole in his head and blood everywhere...

His face was pale, his eyes were open, his hand laying over the gun. Fresh track marks surrounded by various bruises on the inside of his elbows lay plain in sight. A syringe on the end table. All the alarms in my head sounded off. I put my hand on his chest to see if I could feel him breathing, a heart beat,...

I had possibly one of the worst nightmares I've ever had last night and that's saying something because I've had a ton of nightmares. It made me think that I gotta finish this because it was all about earlier this year when I really hit my bottom, I think. One of the main motivations that I wanted to get clean was not only my dad being a total incompetent father, but also me getting stabbed by a trippin friend.

This happened in late July of 2008, so not to long ago really (at least...

The age of 15 had to be one of the worst parts of my life. Sure, I'm trying to straighten up now, after everything has fallen. I keep saying "Oh my dad has lost everything but me." But you know, now that I think about it more, I've lost everything but him. Lost my mom and sister, lost my own feeling self-worth, lost the few smart friends I had, lost money...the list goes on. I'm trying to make it up now and trying to shape a better future for myself but that will never erase what I've...

I think this where all the trouble with my path really started. 13 was when I started to fall into the group of "outsider" kids. I met kids like John, Cody, and Keaton. John was pretty crazy, still is, Cody and Keaton both lived how they wanted, their parents seemed to not give a damn about what they did. We started to hang out a lot. Later Tommy and Mike joined the group and told us "You should really try this." It was pot; I refused for a little bit, just because I thought...

Fast forward a little to the age of 12. When I reached 12, my dad was still actively taking heroin and disappearing for nights at a time. He overdosed again when I was 12, technically he was dead for a minute or two from respiratory failure until they brought him back. That's when my mom finally decided I needed to know what the hell was going on. She couldn't just wiggle her way through my questions anymore and just dismissing me without a thought. I wouldn't let her. I kept asking her stuff and...