My life started out like many others. I was born in Madison, Wisconsin and raised in a middle-class family. My father was in the Marine Corps, so we moved around a few times but I had a fun childhood and a loving and caring family who would do anything for me.

When I got to high school things changed. I felt distant from people, and had to fight harder to have friends -- and I was shy all the time. Then I began hanging out with older kids, going to parties and skipping school. My parents didn’t like my new friends and enforced strict rules. I quit school and my relationship with my family fell apart. I started smoking pot and drinking heavily. I was taking mushrooms and acid daily. Finally I wasn’t shy around people anymore. I had more “friends” than ever before and for the first time I felt like I was a part of something. People wanted to hang out with me. I felt cool.

My parents made me do random drug testing to prove that I was sober. To get around this I found someone who didn’t use and carried her urine around with me in case I was tested.

I started dating a girl who introduced me to Cocaine. The first time I tried it I felt great – very social and unafraid of anything. It started out as a weekend thing. Eventually I was using so much I began selling it.

I lost weight and started having bloody noses. My parents became suspicious. They questioned me but I always denied everything. Eventually they had our phones tapped and heard me buying drugs and selling drugs. One night I came home from a six-day binge and they questioned me again. Still I denied it. So they pulled out the tape recorder. Busted! My parents urged me to go to rehab but I refused. They threatened to kick me out if I didn’t do something, so I agreed to quit doing drugs. But after two weeks I gave in.

I started drinking again and quickly fell back into my old habits. I left my parents house and went to live with a friend. For the next three years I was drinking, smoking and doing coke -- and selling drugs to support my habit. I was out of control. I had to use just to feel okay. Wherever I went anywhere I had to first get high.

I was staying at different people’s houses. Eventually I gave up my cocaine addiction for pills. I figured if I ate pills instead of snorting cocaine I was doing all right. WRONG! My pill addiction grew worse than ever. Everyday for the next two years I used morphine, methadone, Percocet, Vicodin, Ultram, OxyContin, Xanax or just about anything I could get my hands on. I kept telling myself as long as I’m not using coke I’m okay.

One night I couldn’t find anything -- no pills, no pot, I even looked for coke. Eventually I stumbled across heroin and snorted it. Some people told me that the high was a million times better if you shot it. So I did. Two seconds after pushing the heroin into my veins I felt like G-d. Nothing in the whole world compared to this experience. I fell in love. I shot heroin for almost six months. I was friends with the dealer so it was easy to get.

When I woke up on the seventh day I felt horrible. I could only think about where I could get something, anything. No one had any drugs. So I started drinking so heavily that I’m lucky I’m alive today to talk about it. I was stealing beer and borrowing money almost everyday. Eventually the drugs came back around and I felt okay again.

I met a girl through work and we started dating. She partied just as much as I did. We would go out and party together, using, selling and doing whatever would get us high – including coke. Things seemed pretty good for a few months. I stopped using heroin and cocaine and I slowed down on alcohol. I still ate pills everyday but at least I wasn’t using the heavier drugs.

Then my girlfriend started feeling nauseous and we found out that she was pregnant. This changed everything for us. We decided that we wanted to keep the baby. We made an agreement to each other to stop using everything: cigarettes, alcohol and all drugs. I thought it would be easy because now I had a real reason to get my life back together. I was wrong -- it wasn’t any easier for me to quit this time than any other time before.

My girlfriend was able to quit but I couldn’t. So, I lied to her and secretly continued to take pills. I was hardly making enough money to sustain us and I was selling drugs on the side to support my habit that no one knew about. At 6 a.m. December 17th 2002, the Drug Task Force team knocked on my door with a warrant for my arrest. My girlfriend, who was six-months pregnant, and I were both charged with the sales of narcotics and spent the night in jail. The next morning our parents got us out -- her bail was $500 and mine was $5,000.

At this point I was scared and had no drugs. But I was ready to get some real help -- I admitted myself to a four-month intensive inpatient stay.

In the beginning I fought the program. I was scared and hated being away from my girlfriend. I was also coming off of some heavy drugs. During the halfway point of the program, they held a family weekend. My family expressed how my drug use had affected them. I saw what I’d put them through all those years. I also learned about my girlfriend’s nervousness and distrust and how mad she was at me for lying about the drugs. My parents said this was the last straw -- if I didn’t stop after this they would basically disown me, and my girlfriend said she would take our child and leave me no matter how hard that would be for her.

Basically I realized that I was hurting the people that loved me the most. I didn’t want to lose them. I decided to give sobriety a hundred percent. I wanted people to know me for ME, not as a drug addict. It was a very emotional weekend for everyone. After the visit I was more accepting of the program and I successfully completed it on March 25.

I returned home three weeks before the birth of my beautiful baby girl, Deja Kai, on April 13. I was so excited to be able to be there. My girlfriend and I had gotten married two weeks earlier.

Today I struggle with my sobriety. I attend a weekly outpatient program, go to meetings almost every day and to family counseling with my wife. I’m learning to live a whole new life than what I’ve been used. I never knew how sucked in I was until I got sober. I feel like drugs will always be a part of me. I have to work hard every day of my life. Because of my addiction and the sales of narcotics I’ve been charged with six felony counts of sales. This has caused more stress and anxiety than I’ve ever experienced. My state does not have drug courts yet so the state is trying to sentence me to go to state prison for several years. I’m currently fighting these charges because if I weren’t using drugs I would never have sold them.

Life is completely different being sober. I now wake up each morning and can get to work on time. I have extra money to pay my bills and do activities with my family. I’m writing music for a new band that I’m in called Side Project. I feel great! It feels rewarding to be clean, sober and focused. In a weird way, getting arrested was the best thing that could have ever happened to me -- because I got sober!

Since my sobriety I want to help as many people as I can who struggle with drug addiction. I feel that I owe it to people who suffer from this disease. If I can find true happiness in my sobriety than I believe that everyone who suffers from this disease, deserves to find true happiness in their lives as well.