It started when I was young. I couldn't party like everyone else—when I started, I didn't want to stop. Eventually my mind learned that using a substance was better than dealing with reality and paying bills. I used heroin until it controlled everything, every day the same struggle to get out of bed in the afternoon.

I finally found recovery in jail. When I started using it was because I wanted to, then it became a habit, then it was out of necessity—when I found recovery in jail it was out of necessity, then it became a habit, and now I'm here because I want to be. The recovery process has been the total opposite of active addiction.

Recovery has given me a new life, not my old one. I have learned what emotions are, how to feel empathy and how to share someone's pain, and how to help other people through this experience.