When i was a kid i was raised in a house where my mom and stepdad both used drugs. From my earlyest memory i remember my parents smoking weed. I remember asking what they were doing and what it was like. They offered me some and thought it was funny when i was high. And then in about the 5th grade my parents started usi front of me and my siblings. And just like the weed when we asked what i what it did they offered us some. So my drug use started at an early age. By about 12 years old i was using meth threw a suringe. My step ( shoot me up ) and by the time i was 13 i could do it by myself.

My parents were on welfare and would trade the foodstamps for 50 cents on the doller and then go and buy drugs and get high and get us high. Then when the dope was running low they would send my brother and myself out to go and rake leafs, shuvel snow, mow lawns, kind of work that a couple kids could do. And they would take that money and use it to supply there dope habbit and they would give us alittle to keep us going.

All the dope, malnutrition, lack of sleep and lack of any real parental guidence caused major problems in my family. I used to rebell fight and argue with my parents. It seemed like i was getting kicked out of the house every other month untill i was 14 years old.

At 14 i was kicked out for the last time and i ended up going into a series of fosterhomes. But i was stealing from the first two i was in to supply my 3 year old dope habbit. And the 3rd one i was having sex with my foster mom and it was eatting at her and she turned herself in and the caseworker in charge of me told me that if i didnt find somewhere to live than i was going to be placed in a boys home.

So i found my real father and told him my situation and he welcomed me into his home. He was a church going man and had rules for me to follow if i wanted to stay there. So i got off the dope and pot and started working with him at his drain cleaning busniss and started attending church with him and his family. Things for the first time in my life were stable and i felt great. I was healthy and had some clean time in and i got to act like a teenager. But my past would come back to bite me in the ass and it would bite me hard.

I was continuing to go to church and i meet the most beautiful woman of my life. Her name is Cynthia Josman she was 18 years old and i was 15. After my stepmom talked me into building up the balls to ask her out i did and we were soon dating.

A few months into it she told me she was pregnant and i was so happy. 9 months later my daughter was born and from the moment i first held held her i knew what love felt like. Ive never felt a love like that before and all ive wanted was to be a good father and raise her better than i was. I think that was the proudest moment of my life.

But it wasnt to long before my past addiction would come back and jump on my back. I had been working 2 jobs and my girlfriend was lonely and working hard raising our daughter. She had meet some new friends and they had invited us to a BBQ. We went and had a meal and a few drinks and someone had brought some meth and weed out and were asked if we wanted some. My girlfriend took them up on the meth and i said yes to the weed and we got high with them.

It wasnt a week before i came home and my girlfriend had a sack of dope at the house and asking me if i wanted to do some with her and fuck. I said yes and that was the beginning of the end for me. Our meth use had picked up and before i knew it i was an addict again. Using all the time and being high around my kid. I had turned into the person i hated the most.

It wasnt 2 years befor i had cought a case and come to prison the first time. The state had told me that i was going to lose custidy of my kids unless i took some classes, took some clean piss tests and reported to them. I thought that they couldnt do shit to me if i ignored them and i was wrong. They took custidy of my kids and termenated my rights. It hurts so much to know that i let my addiction take controll of my life and custidy of my kids.

A year after getting released from prison i was right back at it and had let my addiction put me in a spot where i was involved in murdering a man that i knew. I was under the impression he had stole money from me and a friend of mine. And we took him out in the woods and shot him. After i was arrested and had been clean for a while i seen threw all the crap and i had been lied to and i killed an inocent man.

This is the biggest regret and burden i have on my heart and i must try and look at the brightest side of the situation ive put myself in. It took comming to prison for a long time to kick my addiction. Im not around my kids getting high and exposing them to a lifestyle that i hope they never have to experance. And i can only hope and pray that the chain of addiction stops with me.

This is the story of an addicted father.

Sincerley,

Mike Lindsey
DOC #847863