I was born in 1948 and grew up in Grosse Pointe, Michigan in an upper-middle class family where I had all of the advantages that affluent life had to offer. In 1967, when I was nineteen, I was given the choice by a judge of joining the Army or doing hard time in Prison for aggravated assault. I chose the Army. At that time it was the height of the Vietnam War and I had my right hand blown off in combat. When I returned home I became a heroin addict and street criminal. My heroin addiction lasted twenty-two years.