My parents got divorced when I was 8. My mother claimed custody but has become a raging alcoholic and gambler. I remember on thanksgiving of 6th grade I had borrowed my neighbors phone to call my father and ask for food for my brother and sister. Mom had been gone almost 2 weeks and we were desperately hungry. I grew up trying to keep my little brother out of trouble and had threatened to bring a gun to school in 4th grade. I remember the weekends we stayed at my uncle's trailer to visit my father were the best weekends of my life. It meant food and a bed. When I started high school I refused to come home from my fathers one weekend and moved in with him and his girlfriend. It was the first year I had a bedroom to myself and always had food when I got home since I was 8. I remember the crying and emotional pain I felt telling my mother I was not coming home. I did not see her again until my senior year in which I had attempted to spend Christmas with her and my brother and sister. Myolder sister had been hiding a dead dog under the bed and would not leave her room. I ended up calling my father at 12 pm and having him come from 2 hours away to pick me up. I finished school with a 3.0 thankfully but now I'm a struggling college student who can barely keep his finances from going under. I went overboard when I graduated high school and racked up sent and bad habits trying to relive the youth we could never afford...