“I grew up in a sweet little place in the suburbs of Atlanta. I didn’t have many dreams or aspirations growing up. Everything was provided for me, so there was no incentive or vision for what I needed to do. But I was an only child and had my parents’ expectations for my life. That was so loud that it didn’t allow the space for my own Mitchellness to brew.

I started realizing at 12 or 13 that I was in a different world. My parents tried to tell me, ‘Hey, you have access to wealth.’ I didn’t understand. 

My parents also treated me like a little adult and let me drink with them. That went from drinking to experimenting with smoking pot. I took pot out of my dad’s closet at 12 or 13. Soon, I wanted to do that all of the time and became a pothead. I was happy. Had a lot of friends and made good grades. There weren’t many negative consequences out of the gate.

Then I started selling weed and making money.  I eventually got thrown out of private school and ended up in public school. I got along with everybody and had a lot of friends from different worlds–that’s when I realized I had a vastly different life. I would go over to a friend’s home, where they would be living with three or four aunts and uncles in an apartment; I was living on my own floor in our house on the lake.

Then I found painkillers. Some of the rich kids became drug kids. 

I tried OxyContin for the first time at 16 and thought I would take that every day for the rest of my life. I used to get sad. I wasn’t sad anymore. I did that all the time for a year or two. Stopping  felt like I was on fire. All my friends started being like, ‘Oh man, we’re like drug addicts now.’ Eighteen. Full-fledged.

I looked in the mirror. I was so thin but couldn’t eat.

But I was pretty good at selling drugs and was making money. I disguised selling drugs as being social: people came over to our house all of the time. I got kicked out of public school for selling drugs and graduated from an alternative school. 

My parents told me to stop. I couldn’t. I went to a 30-day rehab to get clean before I went to college at The University of Alabama. I tried heroin for the first time in rehab. Heroin was a lot cheaper. I went to the University of Alabama and became a heroin dealer. I had contacts in Atlanta and drove there every couple of days. I didn’t go to college at all. Maybe five or six classes total.

Eventually, I got raided by the West Alabama Narcotics Division. They kicked in my door. Assault rifles. The whole thing.

I almost welcomed getting caught because I wanted to get clean way before I actually did. 

I was caught with heroin and Xanax. I went to jail and had to call my parents. But I’m a white kid with access to capital. I got out in three days with a bunch of felonies. That gave me a deep understanding of white privilege.

I went back home. I was 19 or 20 and wanted to rebuild my life. I stayed clean for a couple of weeks, but I was turned loose in Atlanta. I couldn’t beat the drugs and started doing it all again. I was a sweet person and business-savvy, but I wasn’t gangster and got robbed a lot. I knew I wouldn’t do well in prison, but I was still willing to throw it all away.

I was on probation and couldn’t smoke pot because it stays in the system, but there is other stuff. So I got on Spice: I didn’t even know what that stuff was. Every batch was different. And as a drug dealer, I would buy it by the pound. 

I was arrested in Atlanta with a bunch of stuff I shouldn’t have. Now I had two cases in two states. It was bad.

I got a hold of some weird batch of spice and somehow ended up in a psych ward. I remember coming-to in a mental facility north of Atlanta, and I’m in a straitjacket. The doctors were like, ‘You’re either schizophrenic or you’re just doing too many drugs.’ I was like, ‘I’m doing too many drugs.’

I was finally done with drugs, and my parents were done. They gave me an ultimatum: go back to the drugs or move to Orange Beach with them the next day. We moved to their house in Orange Beach. 

My parents saved my life, and I started laying the foundation of being a real human. 

I went to Coastal Alabama Community College. I was clean and started doing well. It’s the beach, and I’m having a good time. But I also started drinking and working at a liquor store. I became a hardcore alcoholic real quick. Remember, I was on probation for a bunch of felonies.

One day I crashed my car on Ono Island, taking out the power transformer. I woke up in the hospital, cuffed up. My dad was like, ‘Dude, you’re screwed. We can’t help you. All of this past is coming down on your head.’

I had 15 chances. It was over. Time to go to prison. I was like, ‘Damn. Fair enough. I get it.’

But I prayed to God for the first time in my life. I had no experience with God. I was like, ‘Listen, dude, if you get me out of this, I’ll go 100 percent.’ And I meant it. 

I walked into my probation officer’s office. He called down to the jail. There’s no warrant. He logged onto the computer. There’s no record.

He had a choice to make.

He looked at me and said, “Mitch, you may be the luckiest person I’ve ever met in my life. Get out of here,”

I’ll never forget walking down that hallway. It was like I was a baby seeing the world in a way I had never seen it before.

I heard, ‘This can be your life.’

That was the first time I experienced God.

I got off drugs and booze after walking out of my probation officer’s office. That was like 15 years ago. I’m working hard, keeping up my end of the bargain.

I also had lost my best friend and a lot of other dudes to heroin. I was still here. 

I went back to college and got a degree. I thought I wanted to be a therapist or a drug counselor. I was in a lot of rehabs, and a lot of seeds were planted in me. 

Education worked for me, so I saw it as an opportunity to help other folks going through hard things. I started working at the Literacy Council and had God with me. 

Two months into the job, the director vanishes. All of the sudden, I’m the director.

We grew from a staff of two to seven, and I started helping people on a pretty large scale. I used to just walk outside and cry almost every day. I would pray, ‘Thank you. This is unbelievable.’

I once had a guy who was living in his car and showing up for a tutoring session. I was blown away. I started seeing all these gaps. Food pantries. People living in cars. 

God called me to leave the Literacy Council and help fill in those gaps. My Dad and I started Lee Charities two years ago to help non-profits and social services agencies in Baldwin County.

I’m always working and thinking of these connections, trying to help a lot of people in whatever form or shape that takes. 

Plus, becoming a dad is the greatest gift I’ve ever received. It’s stretched and grown me in ways that are only possible through being a parent. My wife and kids bring me so much joy and light up my life. 

As a husband and father, I’m now responsible for not only my life but five others. That responsibility helps me dig deeper and pushes me to live up to my potential and serve others the best I can.

I know this is a one-in-a-billion chance that I get to do all of this. If it were up to the choices I made, I’d be dead or in prison. But apparently that wasn’t God’s plan or purpose. I’m here for it. I’ll try to do whatever I’m supposed to do.”

Mitch