I grew up in Illinois with my parents, brother and sister. I would say we were a middle class family living in a home with lots of love and support. I was the “class clown” that my peers would label as “smart but lazy”. I struggled through school and even had to attend summer school my last year so I could get my high school diploma. I went to the local college and earned my Associates Degree in Business and Marketing. How I accomplished that I still don’t know! I got my first sales job selling motorcycles, ATVs, snowmobiles and boats. It was fun but I had a hard time staying focused because of my ADHD, which wasn’t diagnosed by my doctor until 2014. So being organized was impossible. I got married to my high school sweetheart and we had 2 wonderful girls. My pattern of jumping from job to job had already begun but I never thought much of it because I looked at it as me just trying to better myself.

Back then I was still, for a lack of a better word, stupid when it came to my marriage. I felt it should be my way and my way only, there was no room for discussion. Our relationship started to fall apart and towards the end I had an affair, which ended our marriage. This was the first time I was diagnosed with depression. My doctor prescribed me my first anti depressant and things got a little better for awhile. I started abusing alcohol and drugs spending, less time with my kids and more time with my so called “friends”. During this time I was fired from my job because of my drinking which sent me into an out of control downward spiral.

I met my second wife and we had a daughter together. I stopped drinking and doing drugs at this point and things seemed to get better. We came into some money and while most of you would call that a blessing, a person in my condition with access to money is called trouble, a lot of trouble. With more money came even more problems. I started partying every night, sometimes not coming home for days. I wasn’t drinking anymore and still don’t but I still loved my marijuana and my new “friends”: cocaine and Oxy. Money and drugs also came with a lot of new friends or what I thought were friends at the time. I gave up on everything, my family, my marriage, work, everything.

Finally, one morning I came home around 9 am after a night a partying and was in no mood to talk to anyone, I just wanted to go to bed. My wife caught me coming in the door and reminded me that our anniversary was the day before which I had forgot and then handed me an envelope with divorce papers. I looked at them and told her good riddance and went to bed. Before I knew it, she moved out with my youngest daughter and I found myself all alone in a big empty house. I still continued to not see my kids and abuse drugs. This was back in 2009 I think. As the drugs took over my life I jumped from job to job not doing what I was hired to do, so before I would get fired, I would quit and find something else. The money was long gone so I went from having a beautiful home, a wonderful family, cars, toys, everything we think we need to make us happy, to having absolutely nothing. I lost both houses, my car was repossessed and I was earning less than $1500 a month, before taxes. Suicide was still a daily thought but what kept me from it was the thoughts of my kids having to live with something like that for the rest of their lives.

I had checked myself into the hospital several times for severe depression but I knew the right things to say to the doctors so I would be released and go back to my old ways. I was a highly functioning, depressed drug abuser. I was still abusing drugs, having many sexual affairs, still not talking to my family much and not even coming close to making ends meet. This had gone on for almost 6 years. Finally, in 2016, I got a new job selling cars, which I have been doing now for over 30 years. The bad thing about being in a job like this and being depressed is I make my money by selling. In order for me to sell something I need to talk to potential customers. The problem I was having was if a customer came in, I would run the other way. I had grown to hate people. I had lost most of my friends and my natural ability to talk to people was gone. Once again, my depression took over and I checked myself into the hospital for 3 days.

I finally came back to work and one of my co-workers came over and sat down at my desk with me and told me straight out he could see something was wrong. With a smile on my face I said it’s all good and tried to change the subject but he continued with his conversation. He told me about a documentary he had seen on Netflix that he claimed changed his life. Right away I thought to myself here’s another one of those people that is full of BS. I listened politely to what he had to say and moved on.

One night I was home, living in a friends basement, trying to find something to watch on TV. Suddenly I remembered what my friend had told me about The Secret and started to watch it. At first, I watched with nothing but a negative attitude but as I watched, it started to make sense, a lot of sense to me. It’s not rocket science, in my opinion this is all common sense but for some reason I had in my head if it was this simple everyone would be doing it. There has to be so much more to all of this and if this was the case, I’m not interested. I finally convinced myself to try. No more dwelling on all of the bad stuff that was always happening to me, no more laying in bed wondering if I should get up because all that’s going to happen is all bad. No more running from customers. No more pity parties.

All of a sudden, little by little, things started to happen around me. Things that were good! I started selling again, my relationship with my kids is getting better slowly but surely. I met an amazing lady that isn’t toxic, is responsible and is very supportive of me, she is my guardian angel. My financial situations is heading in the right direction and we are now talking about opening our own business next year! I still have a long way to go but I know in my heart I will have a wonderful life full of family and love.

Thank you Johnny for telling me about The Secret because if it weren’t for that, I really doubt I would be here today writing this.