A Short Preview of My Memoir

For the month of March I am focused on finishing the Pyramid of Power, but starting in April I will begin writing my memoir about my experience with drugs, addiction, depression, prison, and turning my life around.

Here's a small snippet of what I will be sharing:

Scene: In my first solo apartment, surrounded by people I didn't know or trust, becoming more addicted daily

I wore a bandana on my face everyday. Black or red. It was likely obvious to everyone but me that it was my security blanket. My last shield against a world that felt increasingly out of my control. Just one piece of fabric between me and the pressures of being a depressed, wandering (but not lost!), fucked up 20-year old man-child.

Behind my bandana and my hoodie I watched as my apartment (and my life) slipped out of my hands and into the lap of an intimidating and reckless associate named Brian. Months after I sobered up from my addictions to Xanax and alcohol, Brandon and some of my old friends from highschool popped up on the scene and slowly became regulars at my apartment.

There I was standing on the line between addiction and a new, potentially improved life without drugs, when Brian and co appear and convince me to go further down the road of criminality and self abuse. I don't blame anyone else for my actions, but with the benefit of hindsight I can see that I was being taken advantage of. My clean, spacious apartment offered what every young miscreant craves - a place to get fucked up without parental or legal interference.

The apartment was simple enough - a front porch for sitting and drinking and gossiping, a big open living room to cram as many people in as you can possibly fit, a kitchen that would be largely ignored once the hard drugs were introduced, a bathroom to have sex and vomit in, and my bedroom - one of the last places I felt safe in, at least for a time.

This apartment originally saved me from crashing at friends houses, and breaking into my mom's apartment when she refused to leave the door open for me. I had high hopes and positive intentions for living in that space. I took the fact that I was able to finagle my way into a new job cooking at a barbecue restaurant, score this new apartment, and smooth out things with my girlfriend as a sign that my life was finally heading in a more sane direction.

Which brings me back to Brian.