The Road to Recovery

Mike is staying at a Phoenix House sober living facility in New York City, and Lisa says he looks like a different person. "It was hard for me to believe [you are] the same Mike we saw strung out just five months ago," she says. "You've gained 35 pounds, and your skin looks amazing!"

Mike says his life was headed down a dangerous road before he finally sought treatment. "If we wouldn't have ended up dead, we would have ended up in prison and Cayden would have been taken away from us," he says. "Worse yet, something could have happened to him."

Almost half a year later, Mike is working as a painter in Washington Heights. Though the neighborhood is known to be the heroin capital of Manhattan, Mike says he's not tempted to use. "I know where it will take me," he says. "There's no one shot, no one chance that I'll do the drug and then I won't pick it up again. It doesn't work like that—you pick up once and you're done."