my grandfather:he raised me. he was a raging alcoholic for many years. he quit drinking right around the time i was born, and when i was 10 he had a one time relapse. my grandfather divorced my bio grandmother when my mother was 5, and married the grandmother who helped raise me when my mom was 9. my grandpa entered the marriage with 2 girls, my mom & aunt christie. my grandma entered the marriage with 2 boys, my uncles jimmy & bobby. my bio grandma died when i was 2 weeks old from alcohol related illnesses. my grandpa died last April from pancreatic cancer. he was 82. R.I.P. Poppy.

my (step)grandmother:helped raise me. she worked full time, and my grandfather was retired, so he stayed home with us kids (me & my 2 brothers & multiple cousins). when i was 14, my grandma left my grandpa, and i found out at that point that my grandma is a raging drunk. for almost 2 years, she wanted nothing to do with my grandpa, me or my 2 brothers, but when i was 16, she realized how messed up this was, and started getting involved in our lives again. to this day, she spends every waking moment at the bar, or at her boyfriends house. he is 30 years younger than her.

my mother:gave up custody of my brothers and i, to my grandparents when i was nearly 3. just months before that, she nearly died from a drug overdose, and spent 3 months in the hospital recovering from that. once she recovered, she gave up my brothers & i and moved to washington state... 1100 miles away. my father went with her. my father came back 2 1/2 years later, but my mother stayed in washington and married my step-dad when i was 5. my mom has been clean from the harsh drugs, but still smokes pot. when i was almost 13, she came back to cali to be with us kids. she never really got on her feet though. she worked, but bounced from guy to guy and motel to motel. right after i turned 14, she went back to washington to be with my step-dad again. i didn't talk to her for 2 years because of that. we now get along fine, but we have a sort of "girlfriends" relationship. i never cared to develop a "mother / daughter" relationship with her.

my father:went to washington with my mom, but came back almost 3 years later. he was a raging alcoholic, the worst i've ever seen. we would see him almost every weekend, and he seemed to make it to almost every big event in our lives... birthdays, holidays, the dance recitals, the baseball games, the school plays... but while he was there physically, there was always a wall that us kids couldn't get past. when i was 12, the visits started getting further and further apart, and he started missing out on the big events. i soon found out that he was an alcoholic, and developed some resentment towards him because of it. from the time i was 12, until the time i was 18, he only visited a handful of times, and i started hating him. however, he has now been sober for 8 years, and he has proven to be a wonderful grandpa to my daughter, and has more than made up his lack of parenting to me.

my older brother Billy(27):has severe ADHD and epilepsy. billy also has alot of mental issues on top of this. i believe he needs to be medicated for bipolar mania, but have never found a doctor that would listen. billy was a troubled kid, and was always getting into trouble. he got kicked out of more schools than i can count, he had a hard time making friends, and he constantly bumped heads with our grandpa. when he was 18, he got into some trouble with the law, and spent nearly 2 years behind bars. when he got out on parole, he skipped the state and ran to washington to be with our mom. once he was there, he got into trouble with the law at every turn. he is 27 years old, and has spent the majority of his adult life behind bars. he refuses to quit doing drugs or to quit drinking, which is what usually gets him into trouble. he is currently living on the streets with his 19 year old, schizophrenic girlfriend. both refuse to work, but they are trying to have a baby... WTF?

my twin brother Michael(24):he has a learning disorder, and was in special classes his whole childhood. he too, had trouble making friends, and spent a lot of his youth depressed because of it. once he turned 16, he took up with a rough crowd and got started on drugs and booze. he got into some legal trouble, and ended up on probation and house arrest. once he turned 18 and was cleared with the state, he moved to washington too. he hooked up with some chick, and had 2 kids with her, both boys, exactly 1 year and 3 days apart. both he and his breeding partner refuse to be decent parents, which forced my mother to get a full time job, just to financially support his 2 kids. he spends every dime he makes on partying with friends.

my aunt christie(41): started doing drugs very young... around 15. she has slept with almost every guy in california. she has 2 kids, neither live with her. she currently lives with a registered sex offender, who was convicted of "lued acts with a child under 14". when christie had her first child, tabatha, i was almost 7. christie would drop off her newborn baby with me, 7 years old, to babysit for weeks at a time. her daughter tabatha lived with us on and off for years, and chirstie would come and go without thinking anything about it. my grandpa and i raised tabatha until she was 8, then christie took her back. when tabby was 11, christie dropped her off with my grandpa again, and never went back to get her. tabatha now lives with her super tweeker dad. her and christie have a "buddy" sort of relationship now. tabby is 17. christie also had a little boy, michael, but gave custody of him to his dad when mikie was only 2. when mikie was 6, his dad died and my aunt christie didn't bother to show up to court to regain custody of her son, so he now lives with distant relatives in virginia. he is 13. christie has not been able to get on her feet since well before she had kids. she hasn't worked more than a week in 17 years. drugs rule her existence.

my uncle jimmy(40): had his first, and only child, when i was 9 years old, with a girl named chantel. i was very close to chantel and jessica (their daughter). jimmy was never able to function normally, because of his drug use. he couldn't hold down a job to support his child, and chantel would call me to come spend the weekend at their house, only to babysit jessica, so her and jimmy could run around and get high all weekend. when jessica was 1, jimmy and chantel split up, and chantel took jessica, only to drop her off on my grandpa's front porch when jessie was 14 months old. jimmy would live with us off and on over the years, but always left so he could go stay with his drug buddies. i helped raise jessica from the time she was born, until i moved out... she was 8 when i moved out. jimmy took to living with his mom, my grandma, and jessica stayed with my grandpa. chantel bounced around from state to state, finally landing in las vegas, then getting married and moving to washington. jessica lived with my grandpa, until 2 weeks before he died, at which point chantel came to cali, placed my very ill grandfather in a hospice, and took jessica back to washington with her... without telling anyone else in the family a thing about my grandpa being ill. i found out just days before he died, luckily i was able to say goodbye to him. jimmy bounced from tweeker pad to tweeker pad, living with my grandma on and off, until 2 years ago when he moved to wisconsin to "clean up his act".. he is still getting high and fucking up his life, just in a different state.

my uncle bobby (39): has 3 kids, by 2 different mothers. his first child, meagan, is now 13 and lives in oregon with her mother, kim. i was very close to kim, as her and my uncle were together for a number of years. kim and bobby did the same things jimmy and chantel would do... "crystal, can you watch meagan for us?"... i was 12 when meagan was born, and watched her 2 -3 nights a week so bobby and kim could go get high. kim and meagan lived with kim's mom, and my uncle bobby bounced between my grandpa's house, his buddies houses, and finally landing at his mom's, my grandma's, house. kim finally got her act cleaned up, met a great guy, and moved herself and meagan to oregon with this man. my uncle bobby had another little girl, kayla, who is almost 5, with a girl named holly. before kayla, holly was a big tweeker too, but gave it up to be mommy. my uncle never gave it up. he has never been able to hold down a job because of his drug use. in january, bobby and holly had a little boy, thomas. holly, kayla and thomas live with holly's parents, while my uncle still lives and tweeks at my grandma's.

so, that is just my immediate family. i still have numerous aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, ex-boyfriends, and another set of grandparents. all of these people are either drug addicts or alcoholics.

i'm the black sheep of my family. i'm the only one who never became an alcoholic, drug addict, never went to jail, pawned my kids off on someone else to raise or sat on my ass to live on the government dollar.

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