Great post, Dana!

I was born with natural wealth, but also into a broken household, drug addict parents, constantly moving from place to place, around a lot of bad people and negative influences, but somehow I managed to stay away from all of it. My father was in prison from the age of about 4 to 11, so I grew up going to prison visits, never thinking much of it. It seemed semi normal going to visit my father every other weekend.

As a 26 year old man, I've managed to not follow in my father's footsteps of being an abusive alcoholic, a pill addict, a crackhead and a thief. I didn't follow my in my mother's foot steps either -- she shoots up pills, has been a crackhead for the majority of my life, and also a drug addict.

I don't know what has kept me from following in their foot steps, but I've managed to never smoke, never drink, never do any drugs, and have gone in the complete opposite direction of their negative influence. It really is fascinating to me that I managed to stay sober in such a toxic environment, and I would love to know what determines whether a child of drug addicts follows suit, or breaks the cycle.