Met My Dad, Ruined a Family Reunion, and Took Pills from my Dying Aunt | An Addiction Story

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:00]I first met my biological father when I was 22 years old during one of the brief times that I wasn't using heroin. I went down to Kentucky to say my goodbyes to my great aunt who was dying of a terminal illness and didn't have much time left. Me and my grandfather used to go down and see her every other summer from the time I was really little.

[00:00:26]Uh I had had a lot of problems during the previous years. I hadn't seen her in probably a decade plus. And on the way down to say our goodbyes, we were going to meet up with my biological dad. I'd never met him, never spoke to him. He got in contact with my mom and they set up this meeting. I On the way down to Tennessee to meet up with him, found a bottle of Valium in my mom's purse. So, I took I don't know, eight or 10 of them and hid them in my pocket. I ate two as soon as I found them.

[00:01:09]And so, I was already pretty sloppy when we got to Meramec Caverns and we're doing like this walk-through.

[00:01:18]I think I ate another one uh when we got to the caverns because I was nodding out like while standing up and my mom kept like getting really worried about me because I was losing my balance. We proceeded to go meet my my biological dad and go zip-lining. I don't really remember any of it and I'm sure that I was probably slurring my words and sloppy and I don't know, I would have wanted nothing to do with me.

[00:01:48]It was a weird vibe and it was kind of awkward. The one thing I can respect is that he didn't even pretend like he wanted to make any kind of plans for the future or keep in touch even. After the day that we went zip lining, we were staying in a hotel that night and then we would be going to Kentucky from Tennessee to go say goodbye to my dying aunt. During the ride down, I took some more of the Valium and I had like two left when we made it. As soon as we got there, my cousin Richie was like, "Hey, why don't you come out to the fishing hole?

[00:02:29]Me and some of the fellows are just going to go hang out." My cousin Richie had also been having problems with addiction.

[00:02:37]Pill mills were still a pretty big thing in the South back then and I was like, "Hell yeah."

[00:02:44]My cousin Richie, I'd known since I was three or four well, since he was three or four and I was eight or nine. As soon as I got into the car with Richie, he sparked up a blunt and extended his hand and in it he had two Narcos and he said, "You like painters? You want a painter?"

[00:03:02]He called he called pain pills painters.

[00:03:05]I'd be rude not to oblige, so I took one and I'm like, "Actually, I got something for you." and reached into my pocket, found the last two Valium and offered him one.

[00:03:17]He looked at me and smiled and was like, "All right, you came prepared. I see you." And we were prepared to have a good night. We did in fact go to the fishing hole. It was more of a swimming hole though. We didn't do much fishing.

[00:03:30]We did however pick up a couple of Richie's buddies and go down to the liquor store, got a case of 30 rack of some Coors, some silver bullet and his friends had a lot more painters and drainers and zaners and I don't even really remember getting back to the house.

[00:03:53]But when we got back to the house, I know that we were messy, sloppy, nasty, [ __ ] up and did not hide it very well.

[00:04:03]I was interrogated by my great uncle who was like in his 80s. He's a Southern Baptist preacher.

[00:04:14]Should have led with that probably.

[00:04:16]Southern Baptist preacher don't play no [ __ ] Uh that man had been scaring the bejesus out of me since I was a wee lad. He asked me a lot of weird questions and uh I pretty much just snitched on Richie.

[00:04:33]Threw him right under the bus. Yeah, I know. Piece of [ __ ] It gets worse.

[00:04:38]After snitching on Richie and him realizing that I snitched on him, Richie wasn't [ __ ] with me and honestly I wouldn't have been either. Because Richie was an addict, they had a large medicine cabinet made of wood and it was shuttered and locked on the top with like a bolt hinge and a padlock through it. All of my great aunt's pain medication, not all of it but all of her backup pain medications were in there.

[00:05:13]Anxiety medications. It was kind of the junkie's jackpot if you will. So that night, instead of attempting to pick the lock because I wouldn't have known how, I went out to the garage. I found a screwdriver. So I just bypassed the lock altogether and took the the hinges off.

[00:05:36]Got into the medicine cabinet.

[00:05:38]And instead of taking like a whole bunch of different stuff and and just, you know, that being the score, I took two or three of various kinds and locked it back up or screwed it, you know, screwed it back on. And I got so messed up that I went rummaging through random rooms in the house, found like some random jewelry, and like I don't know if in my super messed up state I thought that I was committing a burglary or what because I was like finding jewelry and like different stuff and like I put on my aunt's necklace. like a like a thin gold chain. I put it on. I put on like a gold tennis bracelet. And I I I fell asleep, went to bed wearing it. Had pockets full of random knickknacks from my aunt's house. I was so messed up that I pissed the bed.

[00:06:43]Pissed the bed. Full bladder. Pissed the bed.

[00:06:48]Woke up after pissing the bed, realizing that I'd done so, stripped the sheets off the bed, put them I don't know if I put them in a washer or where exactly I put them.

[00:07:03]And then went back to sleep on the undressed bed wearing the jewelry that I stole stole from the house that I was staying in. I woke up still kind of messed up and took more of the pills and then waited for those to kick in and then went downstairs to breakfast because I had heard people wake up.

[00:07:29]And uh I was so high that I didn't realize I had gone down to breakfast wearing the jewelry that I stole.

[00:07:41]And the entire family obviously knew something was very wrong, but for whatever reason overlooked it.

[00:07:52]I don't know what I said to play it off, something stupid and un- non-believable.

[00:07:59]But I think at that point I was so far gone people were just kind of willing to ignore what was happening because there was other stuff. I would spend most of that day pretending to be sick in the bathroom while very slowly unscrewing the medicine cabinet lock situation again, taking only a couple more pills, screwing it back, hiding the screwdriver. That would take about 30 to 40 minutes each time, and I did it probably two or three times that day.

[00:08:42]They thought that I was in there [ __ ] my brains out. At one point, around lunchtime, I came out of the bathroom and realized that we were having some kind of family reunion. Cousins and second cousins and aunts were all there.

[00:09:02]And I so egotistically thought that nobody knew how messed up I was, despite me having absolutely no balance and going in and out of blackout mode.

[00:09:21]Uh I think we had to like I think we had to leave the very next morning because of how much of an absolute goddamn embarrassment I was.

[00:09:36]I don't I don't think I even actually got to say goodbye to my aunt because I was so messed up that I didn't understand why I was being like corralled into the car that morning.

[00:09:54]And we got in and we're driving away and my sister's in the backseat crying and my mom is furious and I'm oblivious and I'm cracking jokes and making comments and acting like absolutely nothing is wrong.

[00:10:14]And we get to a gas station and I I can't really remember too many specifics unfortunately. I I wish I could just to feel just to be able to feel the shame appropriately, but I remember me and standing outside of my mom's car and her laying into me and bawling her eyes out. She looked like she hadn't slept, probably hadn't, and she's telling me exactly why we were leaving and how everybody knew everything and I was not in fact a master of illusion or disguise or deception.

[00:11:00]Um and that my aunt wanted me to know that she wasn't mad and that she loved me.

[00:11:15]That [ __ ] really [ __ ] me up. Um and it was at that point that my mom asked me to empty out my pockets because she didn't believe me when I said that I didn't have any more pills, and oh boy, man, I I thought I was set because the last time that I went into the bathroom, I took probably a hundred different goodies.

[00:11:50]Um and I remember dumping them all out onto the backseat and trying to like trying to because I was sitting in the backseat, I was trying to dump them in a way that like they would scatter and I would be able to rescue a few, but my mom realized what I was doing and slapped the [ __ ] out of me.

[00:12:16]I deserved it.

[00:12:19]That was probably the loneliest shittiest feeling car ride home when I was awake for it because there was a lot of the I mean, a lot of it I was just zannied out, barred out of my brain.

[00:12:42]Um I haven't actually told this story before. It's one of the the more shameful things that I've done and it's it's one of those stories that's just kind of like a cliche. Like if you haven't taken drugs from a dying relative, are you really even an addict?

[00:13:04]It it's almost too cliche of a story to want to tell.

[00:13:08]Uh but I'm I'm telling it because I think it's important to remember where we come from.

[00:13:21]You know, I'm I'm having a daughter in like 4 months and have to make sure that I instill in her all of the things that will make her succeed in life and not end up a junkie like me.

[00:13:42]I I absolutely cannot afford to let her follow in my footsteps. So, I've just been racking my brain trying to figure out all the things I did wrong and what the possible signs were and why I did them and what could have been done to prevent me doing those things. What could have been better?

[00:14:06]Would it have helped if I had a dad that wasn't dead or a biological dad that wasn't, you know, interested in being a dad and hadn't for 22 years up to that point. So, why would he then? So, obviously I I want to be as present in her life as possible, but yeah, I don't know.

[00:14:27]Um I get a lot of messages from people telling me that they're grateful that I tell these stories and that I've inspired them or given them hope.

[00:14:37]People that are going through a rough time.

[00:14:40]Um I think sometimes it's helpful to see that other people have done terrible [ __ ] just like you. You're absolutely not alone.

[00:14:52]I guarantee you no matter how bad you think the stuff that you've done is, somewhere out there is somebody who has done something a lot worse.

[00:15:03]That's the way this goes. I thought that I was the biggest possible piece of [ __ ] in the world until I went to prison and I realized there are a lot worse people.

[00:15:15]Same thing with rehab.

[00:15:16]First time that I went to rehab was an eye-opener.

[00:15:20]I Honestly, it was kind of an ego boost.

[00:15:23]I didn't feel nearly as bad because the people in there, those were the real addicts.

[00:15:30]Those were the real junkies.

[00:15:32]But, after my ninth, 10th, 11th, and 12th rehab, I was the guy that people were saying that about.

[00:15:42]I was the real junkie that the other cats were like, oh, man, I ain't like him. Thank god. But, started from the bottom, now we're here.

[00:15:53]I am the president of a nonprofit. I am a professional yapper.

[00:16:00]I am having a daughter. I am in a position to raise a daughter and not be terrified about money. Things are going all right and um I am a long, long way from nodding out in that bathroom.

[00:16:18]And I'm thankful for that. I hope that you've enjoyed this story. If you have, leave a like, subscribe if you'd like to see more content from me, if you'd like to support the channel.

[00:16:30]Uh that would be great. We are offering memberships now. You can become a member of the channel. Members only videos, members only live streams at some point when we get enough members onlys.

[00:16:41]But, um thanks for watching.