In AA they say that a person can only get clean and sober once they hit rock bottom. Well, I can’t imagine being any lower than the situation I am in right now. I am at the bottom of the darkest well known to man – prison.

I haven’t disclosed my name because I am ashamed of my actions and of how my life has turned out.

How did this happen – family trouble? No, that isn’t it. No mother or father? No, I have two very loving biological parents and I had a fantastic childhood. Some sort of abuse, then? Absolutely not – well, I guess that wouldn’t be totally true, because I put a lot of effort into abusing myself and everyone who ever cared about me.

I was a happy child with two loving parents who brought me to church every Sunday. I never missed a day of elementary school and I always had good grades. I was involved in Little Lad football, Pee-Wee baseball and karate classes. I was the perfect little blond-haired boy that everyone adored.

The only disconnect in my family life was the tremendous age gap between my parents and me. By the time I was 8, my father was in his 60s and my mother well into her 40s. They loved me and I loved them, but we sometimes had trouble relating. Seeking a bond I could not find at home, I looked outside the family and found love, attention and a strong sense that I belonged – in the projects of Portland.

I remember my first teen-age friend. His name was Chris; he was a homeless kid who had run away from the Maine Youth Center. My fondest memory of him is how he laughed when I got into petty trouble or choked on smoke. What I could not possibly have realized at that time was that this was the beginning of the long fall to where I sit now.

My descent was a blurry 20-plus-year addiction spree. In place of all the good morals instilled in me by my parents, I substituted drugs and alcohol. I interpreted my family’s pleas to stop as a means to hurt me. I pushed them further away. They became the “enemy” against my addiction.

At 10 years old, the police removed me from my home for fighting with my mom and dad. I was put in a jail cell for the night. Now, you would think that at 10, a jail cell would be a rude awakening and a reason to quit my rebellion without a purpose – but no, in that cell I was introduced to the thugs that I now call family. Jail only solidified my stance against all those who truly cared for me.

When I was 12, my descent picked up speed. I assaulted my mom, dad, and older sister and was sentenced to time in the Youth Center. I was in and out of that revolving door until my 18th birthday. I took LSD and got into cocaine use by the time I was 14. By the age of 16, cocaine and other pills were my favorites, but I would take any kind of drug I could get my hands on to escape into the reality of addiction that I had come to love.

When I was 19, my 75-year-old dad died, and a year later my best friend died. If I did have a spark of life in me it was surely gone now. I became a heroin wraith at age 20. I used my addiction as a shield. It was all that I knew. The love of my family was only a distant memory. I was arrested for robbing a pizza man; that led me to a halfway house in Bangor where I stayed clean for 18 months.

But I was still a prisoner to my addiction.

On Dec. 2, 2002, in a haze of Klonapin and methadone, I walked into a sports store and shoplifted an item of clothing. A store clerk chased me down the street, and in the end, I committed a homicide.

Now I am sentenced to a term of 35 years for the crime of felony murder and robbery. I wake up every day wondering if my sentence is a blessing or a curse. I did not mean to take a life on that cold December morning. I cannot bring back the life of my victim and I know I will be in torment for the remainder of mine. I can only hope to reach others through my story and stop their fall before it’s too late.

-NAME WITHHELD, MAINE STATE PRISON

Please join our weekly conversation about Maine’s substance abuse problem. We welcome stories, comments or questions from all perspectives. Letters may be mailed to Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor 04401. Send e-mail contributions to findingafix@bangordailynews.net. Column editor Meg Haskell may be reached at (207) 990-8291 or mhaskell@bangordailynews.net.