Addiction was a consequence of being raised by street thugs and dealers, where the only substitute available for a mother’s love came in the form of a line of cocaine or, worse, a needle in the arm. Joey had somehow managed to survive his childhood and early teens by replacing the lack of his mother’s affection with the warm, enveloping embrace of ecstasy, and his father’s constant stream of mental gaslighting and physical abuse with the mind-numbing dexterity of opioids.
