Mark Johnson's father had LOVE tattooed across his left hand, but that didn't stop the beatings. The Johnson children would turn up to school with broken fingers and chipped teeth, but no one ever thought of investigating their home life. Mark just slipped through the cracks, and kept on falling. For years.Constantly in trouble at school, he began stealing at the age of seven, was drinking by the age of eight, and took his first hit of heroin at age 11. Art college beckoned the sensitive and intelligent boy, but he ended up in Portland prison instead.
With searing honesty, Wasted documents Mark's descent into the very depths of addiction and criminality. Homeless and hooked on heroin and crack, no one, least of all Mark, believed he would survive. And yet he somehow found the strength to pull through, and now runs his own thriving tree-surgery business, employing and helping other recovering addicts.
Both shocking and inspirational, this is a heartbreaking and compelling account of one man's struggle to save himself, and help save others in the process.