Michael Steele Case Study

Born on January 22nd, 1980, to a seventeen year old mother and twenty-one year old father, Michael Steele began life with the odds against him. Originally from Point Pleasant, West Virginia, Michael and his parents moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma when he was two years old. Michael’s young parents enjoyed drinking heavily and experimenting with drugs. Although his father was a hard worker, and his mother was a loving homemaker, they frequently drank and did drugs in the presence of their son. At the age of five, Michael’s father was at work as a long-haul truck driver. One evening his mother became so intoxicated that she passed out in a pool of her own vomit. When most five year olds would be in bed for school, Michael was cleaning up his mother and getting her to bed. Michael’s life would continue with these types of experiences and worse for the next nine years, until the family relocated to Slidell, Louisiana. At the age of fourteen, Michael’s father received a job offer with a monetary increase. This offer relocated the family to Slidell, about thirty minutes north of New Orleans, Louisiana. At this time, Michael had already experimented with marijuana, and his father regularly requested that he retrieve some for his parents as well. With no parental role models to tell him …show more content…
He has found a job that he enjoys, and he allows for his past to stay far behind him. He has lost all contact with former friends, and considers his son and his fiancée to be the only friends he needs. When Michael is not working he is at home playing with his son, and getting high on his new found way of life. Michael is proof that tough beginnings and drug addiction does not have to define people. Through his tough life lessons and the love he has for his child, Michael has been able to find the person he was meant to be. Michael has been clean and sober since October 4th, 2013. He hopes to one day help others and become a drug and alcohol