My name is Michael Larkins and I am an addict, however I do not look like it nor act like or think like it but i am an addict. I grew up in Boston Massachusetts in a middle class military family with three other siblings. I am the second for the last child. I was the kid that always got into something whether good or bad but mostly bad. I was one of the troublemaking kids in school, not doing homework, cutting classes and being just disrespectful to my teachers. I would get suspended from school many times and many times I would be punished, military style. My father would have me in the push up position for hours until I would shake. ( I should be diesel from all the times I was put in that position.)
I started drinking beer with the fellas in High school and smoking weed. Weed became my go to when things were not going my way. My friends and I would buy two 40 oz bottles of beer after school and drink one and save the other for the next morning. We would start our day off with beer and weed everyday. By the time I was in the 10th grade I started engaging in criminal activities.(stealing cars). I realized that all my issues stemmed from my relationship with drugs. See information without application is just information, but when you get information and you apply that information to your life it becomes knowledge and knowledge becomes wisdom. Wisdom to know better or the difference. I was released in 2007 and was sent to a treatment program Phoenix House.
I became interested in substance abuse and its effects . I entered school and eventually earned a CASAC-II as well as a SAP. I worked as a counselor for 12 years at a program in the Bronx. I acquired so much information that it became knowledge. I worked hard helping people struggling with addiction gain sobriety and understanding. I am now a Program Director of a Program in Queens.
