Early Life and Struggles
Avalon was raised in a non-practicing Jewish family with many turbulent experiences. His mother worked as a marijuana dealer (which Avalon began doing as well) and his father was a heroin addict. By the time he was out of his teenage years, he had prostituted himself in order to get money to support his heroin addiction. He spent time as a prostitute and drug dealer before finding success in music. During his late teens, Avalon briefly adhered to Orthodox Judaism. By his early 20s, Avalon got married, had a daughter, and moved to Portland, Oregon. While battling his drug addiction, Avalon moved in with his sister to aid each other with recovery. During this time, his sister relapsed and died from a heroin overdose.
Read more about this topic: Mickey Avalon
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or struggles:
“No two men see the world exactly alike, and different temperaments will apply in different ways a principle that they both acknowledge. The same man will, indeed, often see and judge the same things differently on different occasions: early convictions must give way to more mature ones. Nevertheless, may not the opinions that a man holds and expresses withstand all trials, if he only remains true to himself and others?”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“Human contacts have been so highly valued in the past only because reading was not a common accomplishment.... The world, you must remember, is only just becoming literate. As reading becomes more and more habitual and widespread, an ever-increasing number of people will discover that books will give them all the pleasures of social life and none of its intolerable tedium.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“...I was confronted with a virile idealism, an awareness of what man must have for manliness, dignity, and inner liberty which, by contrast, made me see how easy living had made my own group into childishly unthinking people. The Negro’s struggles and despairs have been like fertilizer in the fields of his humanity, while we, like protected children with all our basic needs supplied, have given our attention to superficialities.”
—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 1, ch. 19 (1962)