For the first 24 years of his life, Chris Rickerson’s future looked dim. He grew up in poverty, with a drug-addicted mother and drug demons of his own. Facing dire consequences, he turned his life around and, in 2013, started Elite Staffing Solutions, a Wichita, Kansas-based staffing company that lifts up people who are struggling as he once did.
–As told to Sheila Marikar
Finding peace and prosperity
My mother was addicted to drugs. She raised me in low-income housing, in El Dorado, Kansas. We got by on government peanut butter and cheese. I remember food stamps and sitting outside the closet, waiting for my mother, who’d be shooting up behind the door. My breakfast spoons had to be bent back into shape so I could eat with them. I found drugs in a compact disc case, needles by her bed, and pot under the coffee table. By the time I was 13, our house had been raided twice. But I don’t blame my mom. I remember telling myself that I would not become like her. For a while, though, I did–I started using in sixth or seventh grade, after she brought me to her drug dealer’s house and he offered me meth.
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