Growing up almost predisposed to addiction, one young man is hoping to finally get clean and back on track.

“There’s always been an air of addiction running through my family,” Thomas Taylor, 20, said.

With an uncle who passed away after an accident caused by drinking, a drug-addicted father who failed his recovery program, alcoholic grandparents and a stepfather who was once a meth addict, Taylor said there have definitely been influences.

Taylor was accepted into the current Crossover Ministries addiction recovery program after a long road of drug abuse and an eventual incarceration.

“I’d been in and out of trouble growing up, kind of always with drugs,” Taylor said.

From being on juvenile probation at 14 to joining the Autaugaville Hit program, a kind of boot camp, to finally being incarcerated at the Covington County Jail July 8, Taylor said he is ready to be clean.

“Around July 12, I realized I needed some sort of rehab,” he said. “Somewhere that was going to not so much get me out of jail, but give me the necessary qualities and skills that I needed to stay clean.”

Through a church he had been attending on and off for a decade and people he’d known go through the program, Taylor was introduced to Crossover and reached out for help.

After a meeting with the Rev. James “Red” Coleman, a staff member for Crossover, he was accepted.

“One of the main things that it’s done has introduced me a lot to the Word of God,” Taylor said. “It brings us to a lot of churches and it’s brought me closer to my faith.”

When you are on drugs, you don’t really think about anyone else or how your actions affect others, he said.

“My mom is a saint,” he said. “It’s kind of shown me the effect that my behavior and actions have had on her. That hurts me pretty bad because I’m a big momma’s boy.”

He said he also worries how his actions have reflected on his younger brother and how he has not been a positive role model to him.

“I need to be someone that my whole family can look up to, not just be the black sheep of the family,” he said.

Taylor said he plans to remain active in the program.

“A lot of the staff around here are graduates of the Crossover program,” he said. “I hope to be able to stay involved with them in some way.

“To be honest, I’d just be happy to stay clean and provide,” he said. “Provide not only for my family, but for myself and stay on the path I need to stay on.”