I always told myself I would never grow up to be like my dad. But one day I looked in the mirror and realized I was becoming exactly the man I swore I wouldn’t be—full of rage, drinking to numb everything, no self-worth, drowning in the same patterns I watched destroy him.

I grew up never knowing who I was supposed to be. I didn’t feel valuable to anyone. My name is Rolando, and when I was born, my mother was incarcerated in the Shakopee Women’s Prison. From the beginning, I felt like a burden—like people only tolerated me. I felt like a chore more than a child.

Growing up, I always felt like an outsider in my own home. I didn’t connect with my parents or my siblings. I kept everything bottled up, building a dark prison inside myself.

My earliest memory is waking up after a night of my parents fighting—my mom and all my siblings were gone. We lost the house, and I lost the only safety I knew. My dad pulled me into the only world he understood: gangs, drugs, and violence.

When I got arrested, my life hit the ground hard. Sitting in prison, I hit bottom in every possible way. I even signed off my parental rights. That was the darkest moment of my life.

After a traumatic experience with a boy at school, I started making bad decisions at a very young age. I was pregnant by 15 had a baby at 16. I wanted to be good mom, but I really didn’t know what I was doing. I started using really heavily to mask the pain and the trauma that I didn’t think I could tell anyone about.

A few years back, I lost both my parents to cancer and my best friend to suicide. Not dealing with that grief and loneliness made me turn to alcohol. Shortly after, my marriage of 20 years ended and I lost everything. I began a new relationship with a man who was very abusive.  He introduced me to drugs and slowly but surely, I slipped away from my family and my career. I started getting in trouble with the law, ended up in jail and was homeless.

​After graduating the long-term program at Teen Challenge, I enrolled in the Teen Challenge Leadership Institute.  This allowed me to further develop my relationship with Jesus, while really focusing on what my new life would look like.

When I was young, I lived in constant chaos. My mom was a single mother and often had a different boyfriend that we would move somewhere new to live with. I was always the new kid with very little self-esteem and no connection or attention at home. I was drawn to the other kids with rough lives and wanted to fit in.

I went to my first court appearance on drug charges and the judge didn’t want me to go to Teen Challenge or any treatment at all. He said I was a menace to society and I was never going to change. He told me that I was always going to be a druggie. Afterwards, I went back to my cell, and I cried feeling hopeless. I didn’t want to do anything to better myself anymore, I was just going to serve out my time and when I got out, I would go back to using.

In the beginning of May, my journey started with a first-degree sales charge. I spent six months in jail, feeling lost and cut off from my family. I had never really believed in the Lord, but one day, while laying on my bunk, I realized I needed to change. My life was empty, and I was all alone.

I grew up in a family with an absent father who was often working, and he was abusive both physically and mentally due to alcoholism. This pattern extended through generations. At one point, I had two sons, and I reached a breaking point where I realized they needed their father. So, I entered Mn Adult & Teen Challenge to become the man they needed.

When I was younger, my dad was a very angry and hot-tempered man. He didn’t channel his anger appropriately and often took it out on my family. This upbringing left me feeling fearful and anxious. School was a struggle, and I didn’t receive the support I needed.

My addiction wasn’t where my problems began. I had a good family and home, but I made bad choices as a young person. I was drawn to different things, not the usual stuff that interested people. I continued making bad choices throughout my youth, accumulating 23 felonies and serving 11 years in prison.

I grew up feeling unworthy, devalued, unloved, and experienced mental, physical, emotional, and sexual abuse while in foster care. My life was defined by fear and rejection from a young age. These painful memories haunted me for years.

I was born in South Minneapolis into a broken home. Due to financial struggles, my mom sent my brother and me to the reservation where we’re from. However, I felt like I didn’t belong there and was relieved when my mom brought me back. But then she moved me to a suburban area where I still didn’t fit in. I started getting beat up, so at the age of ten, I joined a gang, and my drinking problem began.

Growing up, I really didn’t have a mom around. She was married nine times. I was growing up in dysfunction and I wanted to feel like I belonged. I fell into addiction with meth pretty quick.

I was born in Hastings, Minnesota, raised by my grandmother and my mom. We had a fairly normal household; mom was just trying to make ends meet and my biological father left when I was born. I think that sparked the rejection that I have always struggled with.

I’m 46 years old, the father of three, and I was born and raised in Minneapolis. I guess my journey of drug abuse started at 15 when I started smoking cigarettes, then drinking beer. I come from a predominantly alcoholic family. Both my dad and my stepmother drank.

I mostly grew up in group homes and foster homes, all the juvenile places. I’ve been doing that since I was about 13. Growing up with all guys from correctional places, we never learned the principles needed to live in society. I had always been involved in the gangs and had a prison mentality.

I’m Summer and I was born in Alabama, raised by my mom and my mom’s side of the family. When I was four years old, my dad went to prison and I was molested. I don’t know if my mom ever really believed me but it was really confusing for me as a child growing up.

I was born and raised in northeast Minneapolis. A really good student who didn’t go to parties, I was the last person you would ever think would deal with addiction. I had a family, three kids, married for 19 years. In my later thirties, I had a lot of anxiety and stress over things that were going on with my family and I discovered that alcohol calmed me. I fell into a closet addiction with alcohol.

I was so used to seeing drugs everywhere around me, that it just seemed normal. I was raised by grandma and felt rejected by parents, who were in addiction. I grew up angry and full of hate and I wanted to be accepted and fit in.

As I grew up, we moved around quite a bit. I was always worried about meeting new people and making new friends. I played every sport I could but I was always anxious. Pot and alcohol set me free in my teenage years, the first time I tried it, my anxiety finally went away.

My parents were never married and they were both addicts. I watched them party and do meth around me, and I dropped out of high school when I was 16. I started using pot and alcohol to party with my sister and her friends. Then I experimented with all kinds of drugs. I turned to meth, because it was familiar.

I was alone, miserable and jittery because of my meth use. I worked hard and got a massive opportunity for an internship at Harvard. I suddenly realized that what I spent so long pursuing wasn’t going to make me happy.

I took to the streets early, hanging out with kids that accepted me. I started selling marijuana and I felt loved because everyone came to me for the drugs.

After having 2 kids and beating an addiction to meth, I found myself cross addicted to alcohol. I was waking up every morning to drink. I was putting my kids and family aside for alcohol, I was losing everything and holding onto so little.

I grew up in a loving home. I moved around a lot as a child, but we landed in a nice suburb. I was a funny and bright kid, and I excelled at pretty much everything. My parents loved me and wanted me to be the best I could be. I tried really hard to be the best, but inside I felt like I was just holding my breath before I failed.

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