I started writing this book when I was thirty seven years old, had been in prison for seven years, and clean for barely three years. When I started writing, it wasn’t my intention to publish a book. It didn’t cross my mind until I started letting other people read what I had written and they encouraged me to continue writing. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. It gave purpose to what felt like an otherwise meaningless existence.
I went back to the beginning of my life and wrote until I reached the present. By then, I had turned thirty nine and had close to five years of uninterrupted sobriety. I learned a lot about my addiction while writing this book, much more than I would have learned otherwise. The act of sitting down and writing for many hours each day made me think long and hard about my inexplicable behavior. After I finished writing my first rough draft, I continued to learn more about addiction by reading everything about the subject I could get my hands on. The urge to keep adding what I was continuing to learn was strong, but at that rate, I would never have finished. Life is a work in progress.
It may seem falsely conceited and egocentric to write a book about one’s life and expect others to want to read it. But I feel like it is something I had to do. The alternative would have been to do nothing, and in prison, there is not a whole lot one can do anyway. If I’m expecting anything from the readers of this book, I’m expecting to scare the hell out of anyone who is using drugs or is even thinking of using. Not everyone who uses will go to the extremes I went to, but why take the chance? Why play Russian roulette.
My story is not unique. I’ve heard these same war stories over and over again in prison. Just different places and different faces. I just happened to put mine down on paper.
I’ve said all that to say this: most of what I’ve written, I wrote while blindly groping for answers to my problem. A lot of my opinions are just that – opinions. If I offend anyone, I apologize for not being wholly enlightened or politically correct. I once read that we do not see the world as it really is, but we see the world as we are. This book reflects how I was and what I thought of my past at this brief window in time.
Right now the thought of publishing this book feels similar to thinking of standing naked in front of a crowd. Here are all my flaws and imperfections on display. Ugly, but human. No excuses.
And finally, some names and identifying characteristics have been changed.
