Heroin made him rob a jewelry store

Jimmy Abbate started drinking as a kid. It escalated into heroin, the heroin led to a jewelry store robbery, and he served three prison sentences totalling eleven years before he began rebuilding his life.

Here is the part I wanted to get into. Putting down the drugs and alcohol was not the end of it. Jimmy spent sixteen years as what he calls a dry addict before he went back to Alcoholics Anonymous, got a sponsor and worked the steps.

We talk about the behaviour that was still there after the substances were gone, what it did to his family, and why asking for help turned out to be the turning point. He is twenty-five years in.