www.pokerstatic.com interviewed me two days ago. What a blessing.
I prayed on it a lot, and God has put on it on my heart to give some more details about my life. It's important to me that people who are going through the fire know that they are not alone.
My name is Jared Huggins, I'm 28 years old, and I was born in Inglewood, California. I am the youngest of 7 children from my mom, my dad also had two older kids from his first marriage. My mom gave birth to me at the age of 40, my dad was 50. When I was one year old, my parents divorced.
My mom found herself in an unimaginable situation. A single mom with seven children to feed, ages 17, 15, 13, 12, 8, 3 and 1. My mom worked harder than anyone I've ever seen in my life. She had two, three tough jobs, including the midnight shift as a security guard. The fridge was empty for days at a time, we barely survived.
My oldest brother Lawrence was such a beautiful person. He was very intelligent, he had an amazing smile, an amazing personality, he did well in school. He even had these huge dimples. Around this time, my dad had two heart attacks, got real sick, and wasn't around much. At 21 years old, Lawrence, was the man of the house, with 6 younger siblings, and we weren't doing so good.
This was 1987 when crack cocaine was hugely popular. He had this idea, he thought he could make a lot of money selling drugs. He told my mom that whatever she gave him, he could triple it in a few days. My mom resisted at first, but she didn't have enough to keep going, so she handed him all of her money.
At first Lawrence was making some good money. I still have pictures of him showing off fat stacks of hundred dollar bills. He bought me my first bicycle. He had two classic thunderbirds, one cherry red and one sky blue, he was an entrepreneur, channeling his money into promoting night clubs, he gained a local reputation. He had these beautiful stunning girlfriends…he was my hero.
Like in a lot of these situations, things took a turn for the worse. One night my brother Kelton, who was 16 at the time, was attacked and beaten by a rival gang. They hurt him, they hurt him bad. He was hit in the head with a 2x4, he was beaten and left there to die. He survived thankfully, sustaining a major head injury, and losing sight in one of his eyes. A few months later the police raided my mom's house, herded us into the living room and trashed our house to get evidence. The police took Kelton and Lawrence to jail for selling cocaine.
My mom packed us up and moved to the suburbs. From aged 5-9, those were really happy years for me.
Then on March 5th, 1991, 6 days before my 10th birthday, my father passed away and everything took a turn for the worse.
Lawrence was out of jail and selling again. When dad died he started using heroine. The transformation was slow at first, but it wasn't long before he was a completely different person. It was me, Lawrence (16 years older), Kelton (11 years older), and Javis (2 years older) and my mom in the house.
It wasn't long before Lawrence had sold his classic cars, and was begging on the street corner to get money for drugs. He stole my mother's VCR and pawned it for money. Things in the house began to show up missing. I had to lock the door to my room, nowhere was safe anymore. Lawrence started to act more and more erratically to the point where it wasn't safe for me to be home alone with him. One day he grabbed my ass and said "Hey, let's play bumping booties, no one is here just you and me now!" I thought he was going to try to rape me, so I ran into my room. He had this sick smile on his face at my pure terror. I lived in fear.
My mom felt guilty about Lawrence's heroine addiction, and even about my father's death, that it was all her fault. She began to drink heavily to numb the pain. Lawrence would be high on heroine in one room talking on and on to himself for hours. In the other room my mom would be howling Bob Dylan songs, then sobbing to sleep. I’d be laying in bed trying to go to sleep and I’d hear my mother weeping every night, it gave me this terrible chest pain. I had a difficult time sleeping. Sometimes I would put a pillow over my ears to block out the noise, at one point I even started wearing ear plugs whenever I was in my house, but it was no use. That's the environment I grew up in. Lived in most of my life. That's all I knew. Elementary school, middle school, and high school. All of this seemed normal to me because it was all that I knew.
Something must have happened to Lawrence in jail, because for years he insisted on telling me about men raping each other in prison. No detail would be left out. He'd talk about the screams of men, as their anus was ripped, and how the inmates would psychologically break down the fresh fish. Instead of getting bedtime stories, or advice, or caring, I was coached on what to say when I got to prison. I was told what to say when I got there. What gang to claim as they first led me in, and how to make sure I got a good bunk and access to good food at the prison food store. I didn't want to hear any of this, it pretty much drove me crazy.
I'd ask people to be quiet so that I could do my homework, I was told to shut up. Sometimes I'd get threatened with a screwdriver or a knife. For a lot of years I had a fear of getting shanked in my sleep. I don’t blame anyone though, people in my family were just very sick. It’s a cycle that is very difficult to break.
One of the main reasons I ended up in my car which I didn’t talk about much before is that I got to a point where all the family secrets I was keeping were eating me up inside and I refused to keep any secrets anymore. Sometimes I think it's easier for people to pretend that something didn't happen than to deal with it.
As a little boy, I'd see my mom driving drunk up and down the street, I'd take her car keys and hide them, so she couldn't drive any more that night, I didn’t want to see her die. She'd argue with me, to get her keys back. Day after day, months after month, the same thing again. One of the hardest things for me ever was watching people I cared about hurt themselves.
Most of my life, I stayed out of my house as much as possible. In elementary school, I'd wait by the bike rack when school let out, then I'd hop on my bike and try to go home with one of my classmates. I’d literally try to follow them into their house and join their families. Eventually their parents would kick me out or tell me not to come back. I did this for years hehehe. Even through high school.
As the years went on, from middle school to high school, I became more and more of an outcast at school. I'd try to talk about the things I heard at home. I'd try to make conversation about some crazy prison story I heard. Or something that would weird people out. It was very frustrating.
If I liked a girl, I'd cut out newspaper clippings into a cryptic message, and mail it to her. I can’t remember how many girls I scared away with my bizarre behavior. And when I told people the truth about how I felt about life and what I was going through, they just thought I was a weirdo. I was 25 years old the first time I kissed a girl, went on a date, or had an intimate relationship with a woman who I was not paying money to.
When I was 19, around 2001, I gave up for a year and a half on trying to connect with people. I moved back into my mom's house and I barely went outside. Showered once a month. Didn't brush my teeth. I pissed in gallon Arrowhead bottles so that I didn't have to leave my room. I had these bottles lining the walls of my room. I'd have some bottles for pissing, some for spitting into when I brushed my teeth, and some for drinking water. Once I accidentally drank from the wrong bottle and swallowed a mouthful of piss. This was probably the low point in my life. Nobody really said anything to me, because in the environment I grew up, none of that was abnormal.
In 2005-2006 I did a really long around the world trip. Before my dad died he worked for the airlines, so I got to fly for free. It opened up my eyes and had a huge impact on my life. This was one of the first steps in my recovery, realizing that there were other ways to live and other situations to be in. I'll put up a link to my travel pics tomorrow.
Then in 2007 I moved to Hawaii, started 2-3 years of intense therapy, played tons of poker, gave my life to Jesus, the rest of the story is where you came in. My life has slowly gotten better over a 4 year period. Bad situations can be overcome, I’m certain of it. I should be in jail, on drugs, or dead, but I’m not, so I think that there is hope for all of us.
I’m working on my relationship with my family. I love them all very much, they’re just like me, people with problems doing the best they can. My oldest brother Lawrence is the person who got me into playing poker.
God bless.
Last edited by gregorio; 10-05-2010 at 04:23 PM.
