11 AUG 2019 · A northern California millennial who has spent the last 15 years of my life battling addiction and self-destructive behavior. In "Rebellion Against The Straight Edge" an Audiobiography, I take you through my life growing up here in Sacramento starting from my earliest recollections and memories all the way up to present day today.
Born in April of 1992, much of my earliest memories were being raised by my single mother in a pretty small close-knit family (Grandma, Aunt, and Cousin) in Rancho Cordova. As time went on my mother would meet and marry the man who I would come to know as my Dad. At about age 12 we would end up moving to a newly constructed suburb in Elk Grove where I would spend my adolescence until coming out around age 21 discovering and coming to terms with my sexuality. At the same time (about the age 15) I would also begin experimenting with mind alternating chemicals that would lay the very permanent cement ring around this bottomless well I would come to know as addiction. I have had experience with an extremely wide range of chemicals both illicit and pharmacuetical. I have dealt, I have grown, drank, smoked, ate, chewed, swallowed, snorted, dropped, popped, shot, bumped, twisted... I have stole, lied, cheated, manipulated, gambled I have loved and have been loved, I have burnt, I have been burned, I have been bullied and I have been connected, experimented, I have worked extensively in a pharmacuetical setting, I have lived on my own, lived with parents, grandma, dealers, I have been homeless, arrested, jailed, hit and ran, I have sold drugs on craigslist. I have also known recovery. I have been to AA, NA, and other self help meetings. I have been to rehab inpatient and outpatient. I have gotten sober on my own by running and exercising, through methadone, I have dealt to my counselor at the methadone clinic. I have alienated myself from childhood friends. I have been shunned and outcasted by my family. I have burned connects, I have found true love and learned that some addictions are stronger than even the strongest of love with someone who I thought I would never even have the chance to be with. Present day, I find myself very much alone wrestling very much still with addiction. If there was ever a time in my life I wanted so desperately to get sober and stay clean it is now. I have so much to live for and really, nothing more to lose. I have cut out negative influences, go to meetings, I have a sponsor, have conscious contact with a power greater than myself, I work the steps. I know it's not going to get easier for awhile, this well I dug extremely deep. It is my greatest and most sincerest hope that my story can help even just one person even if that one person is me.