Hello friends, today is day 88 sober. This is a longread but its necessary for my healing. This is my Teen years into early adulthood. It’s an extension from my childhood and middle school years post. It’s a bit dark and its filled with a bunch of life lessons learned from darkness. I am not trying to hurt my family just need to heal. So I hope this will help someone. The path you’ve walked isn’t really important. It’s the path you create now in this moment.

 The summer before high School my mother went to jail and my brother and I went to stay with my great grandmother. My father at the time was going through his own addiction. My day had created another family with my stepmom and my two younger brothers and at the time I felt he did not want us. My brother and I stayed there for a while. It was a great time. My great grandmother was a very kind soul that showed so much love. My father eventually came and picked up my bother and I because school was about to start. I came from different city and was very scared of high school. I was really small and looked like I belong in 5 or 6 grade. Freshman year was probably the worst year of my school years, at that time I just wanted to fit in and have friends. I did not have love at home so I was looking for constant approval from people. My freshman year, I only had two shirts and two shorts. I was so ashamed and Embarrassed, my clothes would smell really bad. My shoes had holes. My classmates notice so I was not only going through hell at home now I had to deal with it at school. I just wanted to be notice really so I would started to try and fit in anyway possible but I just did not look popular in anyway. So I meet a guy who was really nice so we sat together at lunch, we were cool. He smoke pot, I had never done drugs. He invited me to his house for the weekend and I went we smoked pot for 3 days straight with no food. Came home Monday and I was stone for days after, I was so scared. My father was never really around. My stepmother had to worry about her kids (my stepbrothers) and she worked fulltime. My freshman year I never went to school, that guy who was my friend one day just turn on me and started to beat me up in bathrooms. He would wait outside my classrooms, so can terrorize me. I would run from room to room. At lunch I found a safe place in the library but he and his friends eventually found me, and would beat me up in the library. I’ve been beaten my whole life by my own parents and never spoke up and so I just let it happen. That’s one of the reason I never went to school.

Eventually my mom got out of jail and so my brother and I moved back, she moved to Indio California, which is still in the same valley. My mom had a new man name Freddy who was drug addict but worked. I did not care I was out of that high school. Sophomore year was great; I excelled with straight A’s. Academic awards in health class and English. I made some awesome friends. I started acting in drama and did so good they bump me to drama honors, junior year comes and I started to work at a pizza place and was doing good in school College prep class for English and drama. I was old enough to work so after school I would get on a bus and head to work, I felt like life was getting better than one day I get home. We had to be out in 3 days, so once again everything comes crashing down

Freddy had a truck so we load whatever we had and parked in back of taco bell and slept there, it was right by my school but eventually we had to move back to be fathers. I did not want to go back to that old high school so I stayed at Indio, the only problem was it was so far away, I had to be up at 4am riding two busses to school plus working a job it just got to much and all those college prep classes and honors classes I started to fail. I wasn’t showing up, life was overwhelming for a 15 year old. At the time is when I met a man who was the manager of the pizza place, he was my first so we started seeing each other, and I would skip school to see him. He showed me affection, something that was rare in my life, so I feel quick. He was thirty I was fifteen but eventually that did not last. People from the pizza place found out and so they made a huge fuss. I ended up Quitting the pizza place and left the high school were I was excelling at. I started doing an independent school that was once a week. I was no longer in English or drama. Since I was working fulltime I had to pay 400 bucks a month to live with my father. My father was must have been on drugs because that’s when he became really abusive. I would wake up to him beating me several times. Stomping my back and face. Kicking my bother and I out the house because of gang’s stuff eventually going back home to see my father sitting on the couch with a gun on his lap. One time my brother who is a few years younger than me had to wash his clothes. My father was in the garage where the washroom was. My father would not let us wash are clothes because his friends we probably doing drugs but we need to for school, so my brother walked in and my father beat him in front of his friends to show respect. I kind of hate my father right now. I still can hear my younger brother cries echo.

My stepmother eventually left my father so again my brother and I moved back to my moms. My mom, her boyfriend, my brother and I lived in a small studio. I was working a grocery store as a bagger and started making friends, I start to come out as gay; I never had any issues with. I don’t remember my first drink but it happens around 17-18 but I was a light -weight drinking like two Smirnoff ice and that’s it. My mother couldn’t really beat me any more but she would say the most horrible things, like I wish I never had you, faggot, etc. she might have been coming down off here drug of choice. I ended up in a continuation school. I would walk a mile to school but I was so determine to graduate and I did. My mother was once again kicked out so we moved into a motel and lived there for sometime. I had already graduated and saved up to by my first car, everything I had I worked for myself, no help. My mom was still using, I found her meth pipe in the restroom and I always would get so hurt every time I found out she was using, I am sure Vince (My EX) felt that way about me..

I got my own place and moved my mom and my younger brother in. My mom did not work, so I had to take care of everything. It was hard but I was manage to do it for awhile, we had really no food. I turned 21 so I would go out, I feel kind of bad because my brother and I started to drift a part because I was 21. He would always want to hang with me but I pushed him away. He started hanging with people who smoked weed. He now struggles with addiction. At that time I was drinking a little but a friend one day offered me cocaine and I feel in love with it. I couldn’t party without it. It was a feeling at the time like no other. It took me away from reality. Life was too much and this helped me coupe. I was doing it for a while. One day I did way too much and spun out, my come down was so bad I was in the hospital. Since that I day I could not do cocaine without getting that feeling so I stop.

My stepmother and I became really close, she came and picked me up. I never went back to my apartment. I left behind everything including my younger brother. I felt bad, I couldn’t save him. I had to save myself. He is now struggling. I moved in with my stepmom and for 3 months I didn’t drink or do drugs. I ate really healthy and worked out, running 6 miles a day. I was working on the outside not the inside, I did not know I was an addict so I start going out but it wasn’t the same. I was not having fun because I did not have that numb feeling. I remember that day I transferred addiction. It’s crazy because I remember that moment. I was at toucans a local gay club and my friend at the time asked me what’s wrong. I told him, He said chug two whiskey and coke and ill get that same feeling. So I did, and that gave me a similar feeling. I think that was the start. I had a couple of short-term loves but it did not last they both cheated on me but I was still not dealing with my past issues. I was picking the wrong guys. One guy was such an ass; he was older and did not ever want to be around me. He wanted to schedule me in, emotional not an available, cold . He had his own issues but he was verbal abusive. I was so used to people abusing me so I took it for 3 months and it didn’t work. I stayed with my stepmother but I was not growing, all I did was watch film and drink. There was a point when I was like maybe I should stop but I did not know how too. I walked into an AA and it was so scary, all ex convicts. I walked in and I was this little gay boy at the time. Everything they spoke it was about with they have done, not the way the mind of Addiction worked. So I checked everything off my list and was like, oh I am not an addict.

I ended up getting laid off of work, I found this older man who basically paid me to hangout and sleep with him, he was an Alcoholic. So from morning till night we would drink, eat and have sex but not just with each other. I was so lost and just wanted some sort of love and I did not want to feel. In my early years I did sell my body for petty cash, it was a rush and I didn’t respect my body. This older man wasn’t giving me petty cash I did not work for two years. Being in my early 20’s making 3 grand a month wasn’t bad. It was two years of craziness. He is well known who had a house in Palm Springs.My addiction started to show. My family I think started to notice. I got arrested for public intoxication, I lost my cell phone that night and wallet and got my septum ripped out. My stepmother refused to pick me up. Tough love. I ended up moving in with my brother, sleeping on the couch. Not aware of my addiction, past issues, a lost soul. After a child is treated like I was you go from hurt kid to an angry negative person and that’s ok because that needs to happen so you can heal eventually. That older man eventually left.

So I was broke, car-less, hurt, had a few items, sleeping on a couch, no checking account at 23 years old. One day I decided to walk to brother hot tube with a glass of wine, and I found this cute boy on Facebook, we started chatting. Little did I know he was going to be one of the biggest teachers in my life so Far. I knew talking to him it would be my out of the hell I created and my parents co created. I rode a greyhound bus to LA. He was outside waiting for me, and I saw him we hugged and kiss. I just felt like home when I was around him, my whole body went numb and I lost my breath, till this day I still get that same feeling when I am around him. A month later I was moving to LA all I had was a bag of clothes and a huge gold bunny that was like 2 feet tall. I was unaware all the past pain I was bringing with me and Vince was also unaware. I still did not understand I was an addict. The relationship was good and also chaotic. There was know way I could have heal 23 years of a horrifying childhood, teen, and early adulthood in the time with Vince.

I sit here now fours years after moving to LA. Making the decision to move out here saved my life. I did not need really an convincing, I had nothing in the desert, I had a chance to be away from my parents. A new life but I had that same mind. I am not perfect but I am on my way to becoming who I am supposed to be. Using my past as the fuel to my rocket shooting into endless possibility. Staying sober, going inside to heal, spiritual practices, creating deep love for myself, writing, creating positive thoughts, finding me, forgiving, sober is the new black, hanging out with my inner divine, learning how to be alone, separating me ego from my soul, law of attraction, laughing, creating passion are just some of the things that will keep me on my path to becoming ADOLFO. Sober is the new black, I am grateful for life

Stay connect with love Adolfo

 Jennifer Hudson I am changing is a perfect song,

I am changing, I am going to start again,  I am going to leave my past behind me, Im change my life, make right, nothing going to stop me now.