I guess I should start at the beginning. I was born February 17th, 1982 in Flowood, MS. At a very young age, my dad was transferred in the military to the Tacoma, WA area. I cannot remember any of this, as I was less than 2 years old. Some really shady shit went down and I ended up back in Jackson, MS. Fast forward a little bit to the ripe age of 3. I ended up living with my mom's mom, Gama. She and her husband, Papa, raised me as their son. I was given anything that I ever asked for.
I went to public school in Jackson and Brandon from K-5th grade. I was very popular (if you can call it that at that age). I had a lot of friends at school and in the neighborhood. Starting in 6th grade, I went to Jackson Academy. I didn't really care for it because they were a year ahead as far as academics went and my first year there was made worse when Papa passed away on my 11th birthday. That's pretty much when my anti-social behavior kicked into high gear. I quit doing homework, but made A's on all the tests, so I passed all of my classes with a low B or high C.
In 9th grade I started smoking cigarettes on a regular basis. Gama knew I was smoking and one day confronted me about it. I told the truth and she said she would rather buy my smokes than have me steal them from her. So I've been smoking for about 17 years now. The summer before 10th grade, a new family moved in down the street with two kids my age. I started hanging out with them all day every day during the summer and after school during the school year. The younger of the two brothers, Philip, introduced me to marijuana that first summer. That was some of the craziest fun I had ever had up to that point.
Things went on like that for the rest of the summer, and I pretty much put it down during the school year. Tenth grade was my last year at JA, and I went out with a bang. I was becoming more and more popular, working my way up the pecking order if you will. It was this year, during the football season, that I started drinking. It was a gameday weekend in Starkville. My best friend had friends that went there and had an off-campus apartment. We went up there for the weekend and I stayed drunk from Friday night until Sunday afternoon. I didn't know it then, but I was an alcoholic from the first drink.
I continued to get drunk every chance I got after that. I managed to pass 10th grade with a low C average. I think I went off on Gama during a drunken stupor (which would be a recurring theme) at some point during the summer and she packed all my clothes and dropped me off with Non, my dad's mom, so my dad could pick me up. I got a pretty good ass-kicking that night when he picked me up. I moved to Brandon High School starting in 11th grade. I stayed clean for long enough for my dad to give me a trailer and a plot of land to live in by myself. Big mistake on his part. I had my best friend move in and there were parties, alcohol, drugs, and women pretty much every other day. I dropped out of school near the end b/c I couldn't keep up with school and my new lifestyle at the same time.
I had odd jobs making good money for a long while after that, continuing to drink and dabble in drugs. Things really jumped off when I got a job with a collection agency in Ridgeland. My manager and most of my coworkers did a lot of cocaine. I did too. I was so addicted that I moved in with my dealer and sold out of the apartment. I had access to any drug that I wanted. While doing ecstasy, some of the guys were talking about raves in New Orleans. I had been to a couple of them here, if you can call them that. They were more like house parties thrown in any venue they could rent. I started making regular trips to the State Palace in New Orleans and getting completely fucked up.
I got my first wake-up call when I went to a rave in New Orleans one night and had to be at work at 10 the next morning in Ridgeland. The party was over at 6 and my ride decided they wanted to go to an afterparty. I was already rolling balls, so I agreed. We were there for about an hour and probably did 4 different drugs in that time period. We left around 7:30 and headed back. I'm glad I had the foresight to get my uniform before leaving. They dropped me off at work at 9:55 trolling my ass off. I got fired.
Shortly after this (February 23rd, 2002), I met my now ex-wife. It was lust at first sight. She said she would never allow drugs or alcohol around her, so I gave them up. We dated for about 7-8 months and she ended up getting pregnant. We got married December 19th, 2002. My daughter was born less than 6 months later. Things were rough financially the entire time we were married, but we made it. My son was born Valentine's Day 2007, seven weeks premature. I spent every night for 6 weeks sitting next to his incubator in the NICU.
This is where my severe depression kicked in and my opiate addiction started again. I used an old knee injury as a reason to get Loracets from the MEA pretty much every month for around 3 years. As my addiction got worse, my marriage suffered more and more. We both withdrew from each other and barely spoke near the end. We separated in the Summer of 2010 and were divorced in the Spring of 2011.
While my ex-wife and I were going through our problems, I met someone online and became very close to her. She and I became closer than my ex-wife and I. About 6 months after the divorce was final, I drove to where she lived and brought her back here to be with me. And this is where my alcoholism picked up again. We began to go out to bars at least every other night, drinking more and more as time went on. One particular evening that we didn't go out (but still drank), we got into an altercation. I don't remember everything that went on because I blacked out, but I remember coming to sitting on her with my hands around her neck. The friendly folks from the Jackson Police Department showed up and thought it would be a good idea if I went downtown with them. I didn't want to go, so they thought it would be cool to handcuff me and put me in the back of their car.
I got out the next day, was forgiven for my actions, and surprisingly things picked up right where they left off. It went on like that for a while longer, until I flipped my shit and told her to go back to where she came from. That should have been wake-up call #2.
About two months later (Dec/Jan 12-13), I started dating someone else. She brought Benzo's into my life. Woo! That really messed with me. She and I dated off and on for 5 months. At some point when we were off, I went and tried to kill myself. I got to spend a week in a psych ward and I came out as being bipolar. We got back together and I mixed her Benzo's with my bipolar meds and alcohol. That was an almost lethal combination. We finally broke up for good around the beginning of May.
While she and I were off again before May, I started talking to this chick in California and things got serious fast. She and I decided to move me out there and all that good stuff. I sold my car and any belongings that wouldn't fit into a large tote and got ready to fly out there. A couple days before I was to leave, she gets evicted and breaks up with me. This started the ball rolling...
I had about $3k and no job. I put half of that down on a car on May 28th. That night I went to 2 bars and a strip club. The total there was about $400. The next night, I did the same. And the same again the next night. That brings us to May 31st. I left the bar at 2a and headed home. I get a block from the house and there's a roadblock. I blow a .20 and go directly to jail. I was there 3 weeks. I had 2 months of drug & alcohol classes, 6 months of probation, MASEP classes, and fines.
I finished the A&D classes and started going to AA. I went to AA for a month and then came to Harbor House. There ya go.
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