When Cupcake Brown was 11 years old, she discovered her mother's dead body. Her mother had suffered a seizure and died during the night. After receiving this devastating blow, she and her brother were ripped away from the only father they had ever known and given over to a man they had never met, their biological father. This man wasted no time abandoning his two children to the foster care system, as he was only interested in gaining access to whatever funds they would receive from their mother's estate and from the Social Security system.
The home the children were placed in was abusive to say the least. It got so bad that Cupcake ran away, several times, only to be returned to the abusive foster family or placed in other foster families that were also abusive. Raped and sexually abused, Cupcake ended up on the street, surviving by prostitution, eating out of garbage cans and masking her pain with an escalating series of drugs and alcohol. During the course of her teen years, she joined the Crips gang in Los Angeles. After she was shot in a drive by, she left the gang, but continued to abuse any drug that came her way and supported her druggie lifestyle by stealing, prostitution and a series of jobs that she managed to hang onto despite her crumbling lifestyle. As she describes it, "After smoking crack or using various forms of speed all night, my heart would be beating so hard and so fast that it felt like it was going to (literally) explode. My eyes would be trying to see everything everywhere at once, and my body would be zooming. Because of these 'health reasons,' I allowed myself to drink in the mornings. And when I couldn't get away long enough to sneak a couple of drinks, I'd pop reds, T's, blues, or valium. Of course the downers and booze did what they were supposed to: calmed my body down, slowed my heart rate, and steadied my eyes. Problem was, they slowed everything down so much that I'd damn near fall asleep at my desk, in the bathroom, or wherever I happened to be when they kicked in. So to counteract the booze I'd toot some crank or pop some beauties or yellow jackets at lunch. They lifted me up and gave me the oomph I needed to make it through the afternoon."
Her drug and alcohol abuse got so bad she ended up sleeping behind a dumpster and turning tricks to earn the funds for her next hit. Then she caught a glimpse of her reflection in a gas station window and was shocked and alarmed by what she saw: "You look like one of those starving children in Africa, I told myself. Honestly, those children looked healthier than I did at that moment."
At this point she realized that if she didn't get some help she could soon be dead. She got herself checked into a hospital and entered a 12 step program. Using the daily meetings, her sponsor, and turning her life over to God, Cupcake turned her life around. Not only did she kick booze and drugs, she went to college and graduated with honors, moved on to law school and eventually became a lawyer.
This is an inspiring story that points out that it isn't the adversity that ruins a life, it's how one chooses to respond to it. Cupcake buried her grief and pain with drugs and alcohol and she was only able to truly live her life when she turned from chemical anesthesia and faced the brutal pain of her horrific past.
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