I am writing today to try and offer up a message of hope to anyone that is struggling with an addiction or some kind of affliction that’s robbing you of quality of life or that is making your life unmanageable. I struggled with addiction to opiates, and later heroin, and really any drug for many years and I had no reason WHATSOEVER to turn to end up leading the life that I did for 15 years. When I say that I was as bad of an addict as can possibly be, I mean exactly that. I was on the needle there at the end and would go as far as to shoot triple-drug cocktails (heroin, cocaine, and lorazepam or Ativan) straight into my jugular… If it seems like I’m being really open about stuff that’s seemingly embarrassing, it’s because this is not a sob story, it a story of hope, of rebirth, and of redemption. I’ve been 100% clean and in recovery now for 2 years and counting, I’m back in school full-time pursuing 2 masters degrees, working nearly full-time, in my own place, paying all my own bills, and 3 years ago, I was rotating with a prison gang in the toughest prison in Michigan, the Michigan Reformatory. I’m saying this to say that ANYTHING is possible if you want it and are desperate enough for it to come to be. Unfortunately, however, the only thing that will drive and motivate and active addict to give up the drug is pain, and usually a lot of it. I experienced every kind of consequence one can conjure up before I’d had enough of the life I was living. Today, I find gratitude every single day that I wake up clean and not inside a prison because there was a time when I couldn’t say either one. Y’all have a good rest of your day, and stay blessed!