Beyond Addiction

My years growing up as a child were not normal compared to what most may have experienced. I would consider my childhood nothing less than dysfunctional. My father and my mother were only together for one year after my birth. After that first year the only time I saw my father on occasion was through a thick glass plate window while he was incarcerated for his on-going problem with drug abuse. I remember touching that glass and only wishing I could have physically touched him. Unfortunately that was something I never received. My mother and father were addicts. When I viewed that, it was something I perceived to be normal in the early stages of my life. I believe I started those addictive characteristics at birth, through the genes that were placed upon me. After my mother and father separated, my mother raised me by herself. Growing up with my mother was very tiresome. We moved continuously from ages one through nine. Living in many different apartments and with various family members, I never lived in a place called home. The definition of a home was not in my vocabulary.