John Smethers

I went to a party when I was eleven and didn't get back until I was forty five. I managed to put an end to more than thirty years of alcohol and drug addiction culminating with a stretch in the state prison system. Upon being released from the California Department of Corrections on Dec 3, 1989, my first life came to an end. During that first life, however, I did manage to raise a daughter. I have two grandkids, a boy and girl. Fortunately, my grandkids will never see me the way my daughter did. They'll never have to watch the police take me out of the house in handcuffs like my daughter did. They'll never have to control their behavior according to what drug I was taking like my daughter did. And they'll never have to endure being embarrassed in public like my daughter did. Fortunately I haven't taken a drink or put a needle in my arm since May 7, 1990 (my last relapse date), and for that I am most assuredly grateful. In 1990, when my second life began, I became a college student at 45 years old. I transferred my obsession with drugs and alcohol to education which eventually earned me a Ph.D. in 2004. In June of 2008 my book Scumbag Sewer Rats was published. For more information, please visit my website at

www.ScumbagSewerRats.com