I was born here in Portland Oregon. I'm 49 years old. I don't remember either one of my parents. I was adopted around 1975 or '76. That's the earliest childhood memory I have, sitting in front of that judge, being scared because he was the only one in the room with me. I had to answer a couple of questions. I don't remember any of my childhood.

Both my parents were drunks. I'm a second hand drunk. My mom was a good person. She says she drank six beers. I never saw it. She was on her third marriage. My dad was on his third marriage too. He's a full blown alcoholic. He wasn't a drunk when we first met. Weekend warrior stuff, then full time alcoholic.
There wasn't any abuse. Only abandonment. My mother abandoned me.

My first drug was me rolling a big ol' fatty. And I was hooked ever since. I was in fifth or sixth grade. I remember rolling a joint then cleaning the house. That was the only time I got paranoid on weed. I smoked whenever my dad had weed. I wouldn't miss getting any too.

Then I became an alcoholic. I started mixing drinks when I was 13. Black Velvet and water. I couldn't handle just water and I couldn't handle pure alcohol. Next thing I know I'm getting as drunk as he is. To this day I cannot stand Black Velvet and water. The only time I don't like to drink. Alcohol was everywhere and it was legal. Then I went out to Northeast Portland because black people don't care how old you are. As long as you want to get drunk with them they don't care.

I was using Meth for a while, but just so I could drink more. I was up to a couple gallons every night. Whatever we could get to drink. Start with a fifth here and work our way up. That's what's burning my stomach.

Homeless

It was over 20 years ago. I gave up. Me and my ex wife, we were on our third miscarriage. It was the one I had to say "I think my wife is going to die so you better abort it". She looked at me in hate. I crawled into a bottle. She crawled into a bag of dope. And then we battled. Drug addicts and alcoholics do not get along. We'll find some reason to get pissed off at each other.

Then when you can't make it to work, then next thing you know, I went camping until I ran out of money. Then next thing I know I was homeless.

I didn't see it coming. I enjoyed it. Then I stopped seeing my mom and my sister around that same time too. They were moving across to Ohio. I don't like phones. Still don't like phones. I didn't keep in contact for many years. Till a year before my mom died is when I got a hold of her. My niece's got a hold of me and then my sister got a hold of me. So we separated on good terms. It gave me closure. I have no desire to go see my sister or her family. They have their own family. They know who I am and I know who they are. That's good enough for me.

Back then life on the streets were good. All the drunks hung together. If we had a tent we all used the same tent. Alcoholics don't sleep very well. It was more friendlier. We never got raided. We kept our area clean. We didn't pack no garbage in. If we could remember where we put our tent was the hard part. You know, ten people trying to remember where one tent is, don't really work. But I enjoyed it. Until I stopped drinking. Then it was miserable. Even in the winters it was Ok. Just get drunk. Pass out.

I'd get my wine about two o'clock at Winco. They were the last ones to sell wine. However long it takes to drink a bottle of wine between that and seven. So I had a good 5 hours of being sober, maybe. I could maybe make that bottle of wine last about two hours. So that's 5 hours I didn't drink. That's the only time I slept too. I still don't like sleep. Sleep sucks.

I'd go to Fred Meyers. I worked the machines. I'd shove my hand in there and get it pinched. Stick one can in there, running it over and over and over. I'd sit out there until I could get drunk all day. Run it until I got $7.50 and get a ticket. I'd sit there for hours.

One day I walked out of there with $150. I had three shopping carts full of cans. All the other machines were broke down. I was the only one there and I kept feeding them. People would drop their cans off. It was way too many cans. It stunk and I was tired of them. And I gave them three shopping carts away.

Then I'd steal from Fred Meyers. Shopping carts full of beer. I had a route. I would go see when the security guards were on break. I would go in the store. I'd grab at least 10 cases of beer. A couple singles of whatever. And one bag of potato chips. And that was it. Out the door I'd go. I wouldn't even make it to the end of the parking lot before I had a beer in me. I'd sit there next door at the Kendall center. I'd put them right in the bushes and wait a half hour and start drinking. Between me and a couple other guys we kept everybody else drunk. We did it daily at least for a half rack or a case of beer. But it was usually a shopping cart. I would say at least every other day I was doing it. I'd wake up every morning with no beer or cigarettes and do it all over again.

Nobody ripped me off on the street. I got drunk and lost my stuff. I'm proud of that. They got a bible every time they got my back pack. And I lost a lot of back packs. I'd throw them on top of brier bushes. It had my bible and maybe a pair of clothes. Come back in 20 minutes and it's gone. Thieves were getting on top of these brier bushes to get whatever was in there. I figured nobody was going to look up on a bush. There was foliage everywhere there. You had to know it was there. So they got a bible. But I didn't care. It was all free to me anyway.

It was a constant battle between the drug addicts and the alcoholics. The tweekers against the heroin addicts against the alcoholics. Everybody blaming everybody. Nobody wanted to take the blame for anything. I still think it's the alcoholics. They're the worst ones of all of us.

Mental health

I'd sure like to have some. I'm bi-polar and schizophrenic. I have PTSD. I don't have door phobia. Fear of leaving the house. But the rest of the list I have. They came with bad decisions. There was a lot of black outs. I would wake up all bloody and bloody hands. You don't know what you do in the middle of a black out. I don't remember a lot of that stuff.

That was when I was younger. I'd go out looking for the fights. Go buy and sell guns and whatever. That's just part of the business back then. Drug addicts love to sell guns, real cheap. You just go sell it to someone crazier than you. For a profit you know.

A lot of head traumas brought in a lot of the depressions cause I don't remember it as much as I'd like to. Head butting things. The last time I got hit by a car, that one really rang my bell. Head butting was an easy offence. You don't see it coming. Nobody's gonna smack you with their own head. Telephone poles were my favorite thing. Can't go to jail for beating up yourself.

One time I went to jail because I was in Fred Meyers and had drugs on me. So I have the one drug possession. 18 months later then I was right back to where I was. No jail. I went through their probation thing. All it is, you pay them off, they don't give a shit about you. I didn't have to quit drugs. I didn't have to do nothing. I had to get a maid. That's what I had to do for my probation. Just get a maid. In both of my places.

Social security

I took a psyche eval for social security. I as having too much fun they said. Phyche evals take quite a while. Especially if your honest with them. It's a five hour test for a mental health evaluation. I was there seven hours. It was one of the hardest test's I've ever taken in my life. They sorted me out.

Mental health is greatly improved over the last 10 or 15 years. I'm still involved in it. I'll never not be able to be involved in it. I have a councilor in Oregon city. He's the only one I tell my dark secrets to. He don't care about it. I also go through NAMI. It's for mental health. You have to have a diagnosis in paranoid schizophrenia or PTSD to be involved in it.

But it's just a bunch of other crazy people getting together. I'll color for a couple hours and B.S. They got all sorts of different groups. Support groups. Family and Peer groups. To help other people understand people with mental illness. It's a good organization.

I'm almost ten years sober so I got into it about eight and a half years ago.

I went onto probation about 7 years ago.

 So not long after I went into housing then went onto probation. They knew where I was. Got caught in Fred meyers with the drugs.

I didn't get caught when I was homeless. And they (Fred Meyers) still don't like me. They don't like me standing in their parking lot. Any other people that shop lift there and still go there, I don't know how they do it. But they caught me at the coast.

Why I quit

Health issues. I burned up my esophagus from drinking. From getting sick every morning. I couldn't keep down food. Eating maybe two meals a week. I couldn't eat. The only thing I could do was drink. I could only have so much food in my stomach at one time. So I would only eat three or four bites of food a day. And that was more than I could handle. Or the blood would come the next morning.

I tried quitting for three months. To ween myself off. I couldn't do it. Then good ol' Hooper. I had two nights of blackout drinking, waking up to Hooper. I asked for a ride the third day because my stomach couldn't handle it.

***Hooper Requirements

Councilor for Hope

I had a relapse when Charlie died.

I had a psychotic breakdown from the drugs not being good enough. I was doing too much drugs to stay high. It was better for me just to get off my medication for two days. I was higher than anybody else. That was the hardest one to get off. Not the drugs. Not the alcohol. Prescriptions that do not get you high. That was miserable. Three months of not knowing what was going on. The meds I was taking were giving me seizures. I think it was those stupid gel tabs telling my brain, "Hey, every time you take one of these, have a seizure."

It took a while for me to figure out left from right. Once you're on those meds you don't really know. You're drugged up all the time. It took about four months for them to get me stable.

I had to go back to do some good therapy with my doctor. I think I went and did a couple other sleep clinics. They wouldn't let me just get off the drugs. It was a hard ride.

My relapse went about a year. Christina, my case worker at Hope, told me to get off the drugs or get kicked off the program.

I like Alice. Alice is my friend. She's my payee. I never met her. But she keeps care of my money. She said I won't take care of you no more. And I said "Ok, yes ma'am." I knew I really didn't want to lose housing but I really didn't want to lose Alice. She gives me my weekly allowance. She don't let me lie to her. I can't buy her nothing. I think she's a nice little old lady with a big ol' gun. Don't mess with Alice. I recommend people with mental illness not keep their money themselves. Get a payee.

My biggest hinderance that kept me from changing was forgiveness on myself.

I understand why people do the NA program or AA. They hug too much for me. That's why I can't do them. But I can see why these organizations work. Cause it does work. But I went for the mental health instead of deal with my addiction. You have to deal with one or the other. And mental health was a little more fun because I get to go color. Work on water paintings or whatever. I get to go hang out with people and BS all day. That's much more relaxing than hugging somebody. I don't want my hair touching my skin. Why would I want you touching me.

Faith

I had a bible. My mom made sure of that. Everybody would stay away from religion talk. My dad was a drunk and he would like to argue. Mom wouldn't want to get into the argument between me and my dad, and God. I read the bible a half dozen times before I believed in it. That's because I had a lot of leg problems. I've done Shriners ever since birth. I had a couple operations. I got to get a couple more here in about five years. I came in this world wearing braces, I'm going out wearing braces. I've had a lot of leg issues. Lay in bed and let them heal. You can only read one book one time. But you can read the bible a half dozen times and understand none of it. I wasn't a Christian. It was the only book laying around.

I found my faith at Renewed Live Fellowship. With Pastor Steve. It wasn't the church. It was the bible studies. The one on ones. There were some good teachers. Larry. He got me hooked. He was very slow talking but he had so much to say. I got hooked going to bible studies. Church is fun. You get to sing and hang out with everybody. Hang out with the guys. Especially if they're not going to your church. The soup and sandwiches got me going.

I don't think there's anybody steadfast. You got to keep your guard up.

When it comes to addiction, You got to ride the ride. there aren't no words of wisdom. You figure what's going wrong for you or you figure what's right for you. Trial and error. What works for you works for you. Once the streets got you it's hard to get away from the streets. I couldn't do it anymore. Not these days. I'd go to jail before I hung out with these people under the bridges. No one's got nobodies back.

Back then nobody wanted to get ripped off. You hung out as a group. Nobody ever got in trouble from stealing from people. It was more family oriented. But all those people are dead. All my alcoholic friends. We burned the candle up real quick. You say "I got to be sober to go into this nice establishment". Drug addicts get to do it. They can fake it. But the alcoholics, you say I can't drink a beer in the middle of the night? I have to drink a beer in the middle of the night. You have to remember that. Especially for the alcoholics. They don't get along with everybody cause they don't like themselves.