Please don’t let this fact discredit my advice. I may try, wish, pray, hope, and even force some of these principles into my daily fabric, but I am not a saint at following these things. What I have is over 1,000,000 minutes of life’s experiences. In those million pages have been points of reference that light a path that is being taken or should have been take. An analogy would be a golf or tennis coach. In most cases, neither can physically duplicate the trait they are trying to get the student to emulate. They each know from their own experience what is the capability of the student and what may work for them. They also know the pitfalls.

My knowledge of pitfalls is what I have tried to pass to you. I guess that is why I have always had a lot of “Don't” in my conversations with you. It is not that I am trying to control but just trying to make the your path less bumpy (well maybe I am a controlling individual, but that is the rationalization I am using today).

I have always said DON’T do drugs. I do not say this because of society, but from my experience. Though the payoff from them is immediate, they rob from your future. They steal secretly from you and all the time telling you things are going to be OK. In essence, they lie. The lie is unknown and they become your friend, but sooner or later you know the lie. You may deny, ignore, or even admit to what they are doing to your soul, life, spirit, and future, but you are too weak to fight. To me this is the most dangerous situation one can be in. Because the death begins on the inside. Once your dead inside, destruction of your surroundings and loved ones are eminent. I do not wish this upon anyone. I was very lucky.

There are many parallels to this don’t. I could substitute love of money, power, prestige, sex alcohol, work etc. Anything that has the secret lie. For me, I try to avoid the lies

Back to your question of “did you do all these growing up”? No, I believed the lie for a long time. I cost me dearly. Please don't follow my example. Please don’t make the same mistakes I have made.

Love you, Dad