I was born addicted to cocaine.
My father was a drug addict, an alcoholic, a drug dealer and was physically, mentally and emotionally abusive.
My mother was a drug addicted prostitute who abandoned me when I was just a baby.
My father passed me off to my grandmother who passed me off to my aunt who passed me back to my grandmother who passed me back to my father. Repeat that pattern 3 times over 16 years.
By the time I was 16 years old I had revived my father from three drug overdoses, witnessed two murders, including my best friend who was shot dead in his own front yard, got kidnapped, blindfolded, bound to a bed and raped by three unknown men who beat me almost to death and left me to die in the middle of a field four miles from my home, got held at gunpoint in nothing but my underwear in the pouring rain while the feds raided and searched my house, died in a car crash and got brought back to life by the paramedics, attempted suicide, lived in a car, lived under a bridge, lived in a tent, got shot at, got stabbed, got in countless number of fights, was suspended or expelled from almost every school I ever attended, attempted suicide again and graduated two years ahead of time, with honors!
I never once turned to alcohol or drugs to escape from the pain that life dealt out to me.
You ALWAYS have a choice!