Ken grew up with parents who were both alcoholics. But in trying to escape the chaos in his house, he started spending time with the wrong crowd. “I tried to stay away from home as much as I could, and I ended up hanging out with the wrong kind of friends. I tried drugs at age 12 and it put me on a …
Scott didn’t know how to cope when he lost his mom, dad and brother in a period of about six years. “I had a lot of confusion and loneliness and hurt, and just wondered ‘why?’ I started using drugs to numb the pain and fell into substance abuse. Things went awry really bad.” Throughout his …
Owen turned to online video games as a teen to escape from daily life. “I was struggling with loneliness. Students at school were harassing me and making me feel unworthy of love,” he says. But what started as fun quickly spiraled into obsession. Owen also developed an addiction to pornography, and …
Richard spent 20 years driving trucks and enjoying his life on the road. Then a doctor’s diagnosis changed everything… “I got diabetes and it disqualified me from trucking,” he says. “I couldn’t drive, so I lost my truck, which was also my home.” Now homeless, Richard also felt completely alone. As …
Lisa was hiding a dark secret – when she was young, her older brother had abused her. “There was a lot of anger there and I didn’t tell anybody.” Unable to cope with the pain, Lisa let a boyfriend talk her into using drugs as a teen. “The first time I got high I thought, this is what I’ve been …