Eighteen months ago I contacted Project Read. I decided I needed help with my reading and writing. I found Project Read very helpful in finding me a tutor I liked and who knew about computers and had similar interests. She had a flexible schedule so she could come to class at the library. I learned at the classes with her about the Internet and exploring the net. She was very good at helping me with my computer skills and writing and reading. The classes were very interesting and I learned about how computers help me to learn more about reading and writing. For studying at home I like to read books and write stories. I found out that my tutor was going to leave the city. I am glad that I can keep in contact with her on email. I am glad that Project Read is there to help me with the upcoming year 2000 to find me a new tutor so I can go on with my learning. I would like to thank her and Project Read for the past eighteen months. 
 

Since I’ve been in the Walden House program, I have learned a lot about my dual diagnosis and drugs and what they can do to me and how they can harm me if I don’t get help. In my childhood I had two nervous breakdowns, one when I was five and another when I was ten. That came from my father who was an alcoholic beating on my mother and us kids.  I have been seeing psychiatrists most of my childhood and teenage years. 
      I started hearing voices at the age of eight years old and started taking drugs at the age of fourteen years old. When I started on drugs, I quit taking my medications which were Thorazine and Mellaril. The voices I heard were out of control and so was the speed I was taking. So my mother put me in the hospital for uncontrollable behavior. 
     When I got out of the hospital, I started back on my medication. In two months I went back to taking street drugs and then my mother had me put in juvenile hall for uncontrollable behavior. I was sent to a boys’ home called A.R.C. In this program I was able to join a trade school and learn offset printing. In one year and a half I graduated and became an offset pressman. 
        For seven years I worked as and offset pressman, then I went back to using drugs and started robbing banks to get drugs, and went to prison for seven years. After I got out of prison, my parole officer sent me to the Walden House..