One Thing Leads to Another

I have three brothers and four sisters. We grew up in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, and came from a home where mental and physical abuse ran rampant. My father was an alcoholic and my mother was the perfect co-alcoholic. My father left home when I was ten years old, and we had little or no money to live on. If we behaved badly it was common for us to go to bed without supper, plus get whatever beating Mom saw fit to give us. Most of us were accomplished thieves by the time we were twelve or thirteen years old.