Gabriel Mizrahi

Through some combination of boys' wilderness reform schools, expensive for-profit rehabs in three or four states...

jail dry cell torture, mental hospital stays, AA 12-step work, and probably just aging out of crime.

My sweetheart eventually got to a place where he could more or less hold a job, keep housing, and stay off all drugs except THC, which he is still heavily reliant on to cope with any type of mundane stress, anxiety, or trigger.

What a journey this guy has been on.

Meanwhile, I grew up poor, often in trailer parks.

Gradually put myself through a BA and MS over the course of 16 years while working retail and barista jobs.

and never did drugs harder than the occasional joint and a couple of mushroom trips in my early 20s.

I was raised by a violent, six-foot-tall mom who had undiagnosed bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder, so I have a hyper-attuned ability to navigate people who have a lot in common with grenades and landmines.

Though I myself was pretty emotionally chaotic and troubled in my younger years, educational opportunities, a decent work ethic for self-examination...

and a love of rational thinking and Buddhist-type takes on life have helped me find my way to a pretty peaceful state.

I'm also fascinated by intelligent but troubled people.

I used to teach college classes in a prison, and my students were lifers.

Fascinating.

Wow.

Okay.

I met my sweetheart four years into his California sobriety and comparative stability.

Just one of our state's many iconic exports.

So she goes on.

I knew it was going to be a wild ride.

I could tell from his stories and my observations of his current state that he had come a long way, but still had a long way to go in catching up on many lost years of emotional and social development.