About Me

Foreword by John Moore

The book that you are reading is the result of a suggestion that I journal as many of my experiences with drug use as I could remember. As I began the journal, I noticed a developing timeline which marked various events at different stages throughout my life. For some time, as I continued with the journal, my memory dug deeper than the previous entry, which took me even further back into my life. Along the way, I made the unsettling discovery of the truth about my drug use. I realized that I had been far more involved with drugs for much, much longer than I had ever acknowledged. The John Wade Moore who surfaced was not the man I thought myself to be. An illusion was exposed.

In order to give my journal entries harmony, I began to fill in the timeline with details of the events that were occurring in my life during the time of each entry. To maintain the original intent of the journal, I chose to portray these occurrences as they related to my drug use. In doing so, I made another unsettling discovery about myself which tied in very intricately with my drug use. The man who appeared on the pages of my journal was a criminal. I found that my criminal behavior patterns spanned for almost 40 years of my life and I had never considered the wrong that I did as criminal. I had become so engaged in the illusion that I became it. There was precious little about the man in my journal that agreed with who I had always believed myself to be. The reality of the illusion shook me.

I saw my journal as a mirror. When I looked into the mirror, I did not know the man who was looking back at me. I vaguely knew the little boy who you will hopefully come to know and love in the first few pages. But once he began to grow and to make his own decisions, he became strange to me. He became the illusion.

I saw that in order for me to forsake the illusion, I first had to accept that there was one. Next, I needed to trace its origins. It is there that I met an innocent little boy with fresh morals and values. He had not yet stepped into the illusion. It is there that I must return. It is a bridge that I have yet to build. I don't even know how to do it, but I know that I have to. I have to find that little guy and pick up where we left off. I have to find him because he is me. Everything else was only part of the illusion.

As the story unfolds, you will meet the people whom I encountered along the way who helped to make my world complete. Because of the nature of the topic of this book, it shouldn’t surprise you that there are many things about me which they may read that they never knew. Some of what they discover will amuse them while much of it will shock them just as it did me. As shocking or amusing as things may be, what remains important is that everything in my life is now out in the open. With the illusion shattered, I can stand and face the world with nothing left to hide.

It is my prayer and hope that as this book has helped me to connect with myself, so too it will help people everywhere face the illusion and embrace the truth. I give thanks to the living God in heaven for giving me the experience of life. In spite of it all, and because of it all, what a wonderful life it has been. Thank you, God, for showing me the meaning of pain. And thank you, God, for the pain itself.