It all started back in 1976,i was just getting into high school..i wanted to fit in with the end crowd.i found that beer and weed was my way in. There? was a group of kids in my hood that bounded around getting high. my 9th year grade of school was pretty good. one teacher even told me that if i stayed on course i would have no problems. That summer i started to smoke weed and drink beer.I would also began to drink alcohol and use cocain.i started to mixed drugs coke, dope, weed, hash, opiinan..i was off to the races.For me it was cool to be as high as hell everyday. It was easy for me to bond with friends over getting high. It was a way to hang with the girls over drugs.i did not know that 40 years later i would still caught in the grips of addiction. i did not know that after over 60 arrests i would still not know how to stop.i reached great lows ,robbings stealing and a host of others.The thing that you need to take from this story is that it's easy to head in the wrong direction but hard to head in the right direction.it can be done.you just have to stop using and give yourself a break.i had to change the way i was thinking. My mind told me that it was alright to do the dumb things i was doing. i had to want to live drug free first.i first had to admit that i had a problem and my life was unmangable..then i had to know that no matter what ,do not use..I had to be ready to deal with what every life threw at me and NOT USE .i had to get new play things.new people that did the thing that i did..most of all i had not to kid myself that i knew how to use right.It always came out wrong..The bottom line if you try as hard as you did to get high to stay clean it can work.i am finally going on 5 years clean now.i do not kid my self?.I must everyday, make sure that I?am watching the most inportant thing,the way i think.AS LONG AS I KNOW THAT I CAN NOT USE I CAN GET ANOTHER DAY CLEAN NO MATTER WHAT ONE DAY AT A TIME I PUT SOME YEARS ON THE MAP.