I always see him with his beautiful girlfriend and happy child. To me, Michael is the epitome of someone who quietly has his act together, yet affects hundreds of thousands of lives deeply. My addiction was a cunning and progressive disease cloaked in many layers of denial. I lost my band, my major label recording contract, my friends, my health, my guitars, my girlfriend, and almost died several times, yet thought I was doing all right. I finally got into recovery and still go to four or five 12-step meetings a week.
Recovery is a difficult, yet very beautiful lifetime journey.
I think that the most important people in my life are my parents. I cannot choose one over the other. They taught me basic Christian values that, even though I am not a Christian, have been a guiding voice in the back of my head always. No matter what I have done wrong in my life, I have always done it despite a little warning voice in my heart. The voice is sometimes my mother and sometimes my father.