Growing up a teenager, my friends always loved coming to my house. My parents stocked the house with food and were never around. I loved it, obviously. I was -the- spot to go to after school. I started smoking trees around the age of 14, and we designated the outside connected shed as the "GB Hut" (Gravity Bong Hut). My parents stayed in their room for the most part except for going to the grocery store, and the occasional trip to the kitchen to get food. Hell, they even bought me cigarettes when they found out I was smoking and even beer to keep me at the house as opposed to going out and drinking.

The real behind the scenes wasn't really recognized by me until years later when I was ready to move out. My parents were addicted to pills after my father's hip surgery. They stayed in their room, and literally ate pills all day long, every day. Growing up, the lack of adult supervision was naturally welcomed by me and my friends --- but once I understood what was going on, I became furious.

I moved out at age 17 to another state with a friend and began working two jobs. Both under the table. I sent money to my younger sister who was still living at home with mom and dad. Quality of life for her was similar to how I had it.

When I was 20, I moved back home to the same area my parents were living at, and was working a professional job. I got a call at work from my Uncle that told me to go to my grandparent's house (which is where my parents were now living because their savings had dried up, and the bank foreclosed on our old house).

Pulling up to my grandparent's house, there was a couple ambulances, and a handful of cop cars and a fire truck. I brushed it off, because my father, in his attempts to keep the supply of pills up, had actually tossed his artificial hip out of place in the past to get an ER visit and a supply of pain pills. But reaching the carport door, my aunt told me to not go upstairs, because my mother was there.

My obvious reaction was .... "Why are you saying that?", and the news was broke to me that my mother died in her sleep, and my father was unconscious on the carpet beside their bed, vomit beside him - an obvious overdose sign. We lost mom when I was 20, and after 11 days of my father in ICU on dialysis pumping the shit through and out of his body, he died shortly there after.