Tom is in his late 50s. He has been “in the game,” as he calls it, pretty much his whole life. “I was always fascinated by the junkies,” he tells me with words that are garbled from his mouth of missing teeth. “Pretty much goes back as far as I can remember,” he says. “Hell…I started using junk when I was just a kid.”
I know! I was enveloped by it as a child. And at the same time, as fascinated as I was by the scene, I was simultaneously aware that becoming entrenched in that world would be the end of me.
A spiral is a good way of putting it! Perhaps that is one of the reasons why I was so compelled by this world when I was younger, i.e. what I learned there helped me to better understand many of the situations I work in today.
So glad you didn’t end up there too!
I know! I was enveloped by it as a child. And at the same time, as fascinated as I was by the scene, I was simultaneously aware that becoming entrenched in that world would be the end of me.
What a profound spiral your life travels in... from witness to helper...
A spiral is a good way of putting it! Perhaps that is one of the reasons why I was so compelled by this world when I was younger, i.e. what I learned there helped me to better understand many of the situations I work in today.