He snorted heroin while his two-month-old slept

Andrew was using heroin in the same house where his two-month-old was sleeping. He sold and stole to keep it going, went to juvie, and overdosed twice in a single night.

He was shot four times and lived. That is the part of the story people fix on, but it is not the part he fixes on. What he keeps coming back to is what the addiction was doing to his son's first years, and how long it took him to care about that more than the next one.

He is sober and doing the work of being a father now. He also has a warning about 7OH and kratom, which he thinks is the next thing coming for people who believe they have already found the safe version.