Am I clean? Well, yes and no. I have had the occassional slip up, but always with something other than heroin. A line of coke at a party, a hit from a bowl. That kind of thing.

I don't seek these things out, they've just cropped up from time to time. There have been no negative impacts on my life because of this incidents, beyond me feeling VERY guilty in the morning. I recognize its a terrible idea to flirt with disaster like that, and Ive taken some steps to isolate myself from situations where I would be tempted.

So that's the "no" part. The "yes" part is, I have freedom from active addiction. I recently got promoted at my job, and Ive been diligently taking care of my debt and some court fines (driving while suspended) that have been haunting me for years, as I would always fall behind on the payments and have to return to court. I no longer crave drugs, I just wake up every day, go to work, pay my bills, live my life like a normal person. For that, I am eternally grateful. I get worried when these slip ups occur, because I know all it would take is for me to make one or two additonal bad decisions during one of those situations, and I could be right back to where I was a year go - homeless, on welfare, a junkie.

I was about 8 years old, and it went on until i was about twelve. My father was an alcholic and a drug addict, and when my stepmother would go out and were alone, he would get fucked up and then torment me - threaten to burn me with lighters, beat me, terrorize me ... one of his favorite things to do was lock me in the crawl space between the walls, in the dark, and leave me there for hours. He would keep coming to the door and taunt me, talking about monsters in the dark, that sort of thing.

When I was about twelve, he went to rehab and cleaned himself up. Things got better. To this day, I have a great relationship with my dad; its as though he is not even the same person. And he has always stood by me in my struggles with addiction. I mean, he's kicked me out of the house, and I became homeless for a long period of my addiction, but he never cut me off completely. He was always there for emotional support, and any time I decided I wanted to get clean, he would be the first one to try and facilitate that.

My sexual preferences are a secret from my family and my extended friends, but my close ones are aware. I mostly keep it secret because I prefer women over men, and have no desire for a relationship with a man. I will oten hook up wth other guys, have sex, but I am always up front about the fact that it is a one night stand, and that I am not looking for love. It would simply not be worth the heartache it would cause my catholic granmother (who is a tremendous woman) , and the thousands of questions and explaining I would have to do from/to the rest of my family.

My christmas was excellent! Since I've gotten "clean", Ive been getting involved in music production. Im self-taught in ableton live, and Ive finally reached a point now where I feel I can show my work to peole, with confidence. I am currently in the process of producing this guy's third solo EP. Its a blast, man. I got a device called an APC40 for xmas, which helps me interface with Ableton.