Stephen Benenati:  

Born May 20, 1956 in RIVERSIDE, CA. Raised there with my two brothers and one sister. My Mother is from Michigan and was an R.N. at Riverside Community Hospital. She died at age 59 in 1990. My Father is from Massachusetts and was a Photogrammetric Engineer and Pilot. My Mom and Dad worked hard to provided us all with an upper midle-class lifestyle. Dad was a hard ass to my brothers and I, most all of the time. But who doesn't think their Dad was a hard ass? At the age of 11 I began to find tripping on drugs, like Marijuana, LSD, and Hashish my only goal in life. So I began to rip and run with a bunch of boys and girls with similar goals. Of course school was not first on my list of favorite places to be. Getting high became my first priority in life. All that was new in the young Hippie generation of that era was tops on my list of things worthy to learn and become involved with.This is how I lived in the late 60's up till the late 1970's. In the early 70's at the age of 16, I managed to get myself into a heroin habit. I had become an addict (junkie) by the age of 17. I came to find out people often assume that those with addictions should be able to quit by simply making up their minds to do so. WRONG! People with addictions often cannot quit on their own. Addiction is an illness that requires medical treatment(among other forms of treatment). Some of my friends who became heroin addicts before finishing high school, did not get treatment soon enough, and they died from their heroin addiction. You may know who they are. Then after turning 18 in May 1974, I was no longer just taken home to Mom and Dad when the cops caught me doing what I did to get my high. Instead, after being arrested one to many times, I was taken away to be a guest with the State of California for what, at that young age, seemed like forever. After my time with the...Expand for more