For as long as I can remember, I’ve wished for a father. A dad who would be there to care for me, hang out and show me what being a real man was all about.
I was raised in a single parent home in Las Vegas. My mom was a Black Jack dealer for 24 years, which meant my sister and I were home alone most evenings. My dad wasn’t in the picture, and at an early age I was told he died in a car crash – a story I began to question as a teenager. Men came in and out of my mom’s life, and five different boyfriends lived with our family when I was a kid. A couple of them tried to be father figures to me, but didn’t stick around. Another beat my mom so badly she was hospitalized. All of this left me feeling hurt, confused and alone. When my mom’s last marriage failed and I saw another “dad” walk away, the pain was so intense that I didn’t want to live any more. Those feelings were eating me alive, so I turned to women, drugs, drinking, stealing and anything else to numb my pain. (more…)
