Wasted: A Childhood Stolen, an Innocence Betrayed, a Life Redeemed - Softcover

As a young child, Mark Johnson and his siblings would turn up to school battered and bruised by their alcoholic father, but no one ever investigated their home life. Mark just slipped through the cracks and kept on falling for years. He was stealing at the age of six, was drinking by the age of eight, and took his first hit of heroin when he was just eleven. A sensitive and intelligent boy, art college beckoned, but he ended up in prison instead. With searing honesty, Wasted documents Mark’s descent into the very depths of addiction and criminality. Hooked on heroin and crack, homeless on the streets of London with a price on his head, no one—least of all Mark—believed he would ever survive, never mind recover. 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. A shocking and inspirational story.

Mark Johnson was born in England's West Midlands in 1970. He abused drugs and alcohol from childhood, finally leaving both behind in 2000. Since then he has set up his own tree surgery business and is spearheading national projects that aim to bring recovering addicts and young offenders back into society. He has won The Prince's Trust Young Achiever of the Year Award and the Daily Mirror Pride of Britain Award. He is now working as a special adviser to both the National Probation Service and The Prince's Trust.