ABOUT THE BOOK

I bought a couple of bottles of cheap alcohol and some flat razors that I could use to slice my arm from wrist to elbow. Then I would lie down and go to sleep, peaceful and with as little pain as possible.

As I was sitting in the driver’s seat the officers were standing outside the driver’s door. I was a big man weighing about 532 pounds. I reached down and grabbed the knife thinking that I was going to try and stab one of them, praying that they would kill me first.

Then the beating started. Lash after lash, I remember the pain. I remember the belt hitting me between my knees and my ass, from my back up to my shoulder blades. He kept hitting me over and over and over as hard as he could. I remember thinking at one point that I was going to die…

As I walked in the bathroom to take my shower that first morning after the beating, I looked in the mirror and saw angry purple bruises up and down my back. I…thought, "If this is love, then I don’t want any part of it."

I made my mind up that I needed to get some help. I had to try and save my family from this nightmare we were living in.

…I was struggling to find my foothold on life. I didn’t want to believe that I was as stupid as [my stepfather] said I was, so I worked twice as hard in order to prove myself.

Then one day it all fell apart; that fake-happy exterior crumbled and my worst suspicions were confirmed: [my wife] was cheating on me.

The first time I saw my counselor I looked at her and said, "I’m so stupid." She said, "Royce, that is the first word you are going to have to stop using.

Maybe he truly believed he didn’t do what he did, but I knew firsthand the damage he had caused, not only to me, but to my brother and sisters as well.

Diets don’t work. In my lifetime I have been on over 50 diets, and I lost weight with some, but the pounds always came back, and they brought friends!

It doesn’t matter how much pain a parent or loved one causes us, we still crave that person in our life. We want them to be who they need to be in order to guide us and make us feel good as human beings.

[Jennifer] would tell me that I could do so much better in life and that I was so talented. It was the first time somebody ever told me that and I actually heard it.

When you’re young you have all kinds of dreams and goals to be things like a firefighter or a truck driver, but through circumstances in your life, whether they be negative or positive, your true purpose will show itself. It’s up to each of us to look for it and find it.