My Very Humble Beginnings And Kudos To Jason Mewes

With the press about the release of the highly anticipated and long overdue "Clerks" movie sequel "Clerks 2", there has been a lot of talk about actor Jason Mewes and his essential come back. As a former heroin addict-as was his unfortunate mother before him, now deceased, he struggled for many years to overcome an affliction that likely found it's root in a painful childhood. He, through determination and the unbelievable support of Kevin Smith - who sounds to me like the best friend a guy could ever hope to have in life- conquored an enemy that has taken far too many good people not only out of their professions but out of this world completely. I think his story of survival and hard-won victory touches and inspires me so much on so many levels because I have personally been deeply affected by my own birth mothers heroin use. I was myself a drug baby, born to a heroin addicted teenage prostitute and abandoned on Manhattans lower east side. I was the result of a year long affair she had with the 3 decade older seminole indian country music star Jimmy Cook-something he himself publically admitted to before his death. In "Pretty Woman" style, he unexpectedly fell in love with the tall slender blonde while in New York. He moved her into his Manhattan apartment, offered to buy her a car and got her into rehab. He claimed he would have married her if she would only stay clean but her attempts in Methadone treatment failed and he finally gave up on her. [She was in and out of both rehab and jail, resorting to crime to support her habit. She later died in her 30's of a heroin and cocaine overdose, her body discovered outside the Hudson street entrance to the New York Subway system.] I was born in '71, tiny, under-developed and undergoing the ravages of opiate withdrawal. I spent months in Bellevue Hospitals neonatal icu-only 9 pounds at four months of age. From there I went to a "shelter boarding home"-essentially an orphanage for homeless infants, to a foster home in Manhattan and then finally to live with my adoptive parents. My birth father had fought for custody of me, unsuccessfully. He was still legally married to the mother of his first 15 children (He would go on to have 18 including me, including sets of triplets and twins) and in those pre DNA testing days he could not prove his paternity. Whille I was thereafter raised in a stable, drug free home and have successfully avoided all drug use-including cigarettes-all of my adult life, the damage was aleady done. I have long suffered with dibilitating anxiety, agoraphobia and ocd-all of which doctors attribute to my neonatal addiction and lack of emotional bonding in my early years of life. I know too well the pain of living with stigma, illness and misunderstanding. In this way I live as any other former heroin addict, only no longer with shame. For I am as Jason and so many others are, a survivor. I am just as ready to defy the odds. I have chosen to be forthright about sharing my own story and struggles because I believe there needs to be light brought into the darkness. We lost children have lived long enough in darkness and fear.

I rejoice with Jason; I applaud him. All things considered, he has accomplished a miracle. No blame. No shame. He is his own hero. He is finally coming into his own, poised to show the world just how talented he is. He is a living example that no matter how tough your start in life may be, no matter how badly beaten down you can feel, we can achieve anything if we fight for it. We all deserve health and happiness.

Wherever you are Jason, you are an inspiration. I wish you every joy and success in life!