I was the father with a needle in his arm. How I took my life back from heroin

Who I became has a lot to do with my upbringing and the adversities I faced.

Growing up biracial and without a father in a predominantly white, affluent New Jersey suburb left me with feelings of abandonment and indifference. While most of my friends had two parents and nice houses, I had a mother and a one-bedroom apartment.

I was 12 when my brother and I learned our father wasn't in our lives because of his heroin addiction - I always wondered how someone could choose drugs over a relationship with their own children. My mother did the best she could to raise us,