My documentary on addiction and homelessness in Minneapolis -- "The Wall" -- hit 150,000 views today. And now it's starting to inspire others to share their stories of recovery.

![hands-reaching-out-help_42667-1660.jpg](https://images.hive.blog/DQmVPtEh8hFEwqe71mJRhH6DJa8CSQefgjCGBqL6DJeVht7/hands-reaching-out-help_42667-1660.jpg)

This is the best one can hope for when making such a film--that the openness and courage of those who shared their stories from this camp would act as a springboard for healing. Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZMy7Q0U88I

Here's an example of the kind of responses it's getting:

--from Daniel Valadez, who asked I share his "experience and strength and hope for those still in hopeless situations, because hope is real".

"3 years ago I was sitting in a makeshift mini bus that I converted into a part time place to sleep, in the middle of the winter in Washington state, freezing cold. I am married and have a beautiful wife and 2 daughters that are all my biggest supporters. You see, I had a home but I chose to be out there living on the streets because I thought I was keeping my family away from what I was doing. I didn't want to take all that mess to the home front.

"I remember I just scored a 8 ball of heroin and a gram of meth. That was my drug of choice--mixing heroin and meth together. Well, I hadn't eaten in like 2 days and just ran out of cigarettes, so my wife was getting off of work and had brought me a couple of grocery bags of drinks and hot food and soups for later. Well she had forgotten the cigarettes, and you know when you are in active addiction, the whole world revolves around you. It's all about you, everything else in the world be damned, because I didn't get my cigarettes. Well, everyone else was going to pay for it.

"So as I am sitting there telling my wife who just worked a 12 HR shift in retail that she didn't care about me, etc. She started crying and stepped out of the vehicle and grabs the bags of food and threw them on the ground and called me a few choice words and drive off. At that exact moment I realized that I was only hurting everybody including myself and decided to make 3 very strong syringes full of my drug of choice and shoot it all up back to back, and rationalized the fact that I wanted to die because for 20 years even though I had family I was so hopeless inside. I was just sick of being sick and tired and hurting every one around me including those people that were not around me. But since I was too chicken to shoot myself in the head, I decided to overdose myself and said that if this takes me out, at least my family will have a grave to go visit me at, but if I wake up from this, I am going to do everything in my power and call on the powers at be to get clean and make a new life for myself and then for my family.

"Well I woke up 16 hours later super depressed because I couldn't even kill myself right. So I was awake and was checking my messages on my phone and the 1st message I heard was from a treatment center in Wenatchee, Washington that was reaching out to me to see if I was interested in going to detox and enroll in there 28 day inpatient treatment program. So I kept my promise and went to detox and then to the program, and I learned so much in that 28 days, but 28 days was just long enough for me to realize that I was a piece of shit for 20 years. So I checked myself into another long term 90 day inpatient treatment program and graduated from that and came out and moved into a clean and sober living house where now I'm the house manager.

"And my relationship with my wife and daughters is incredible. Like I said, they're my biggest supporters, and I'm actually in the RECOVERY COACH ACADEMY getting my license so I can go into the facilities and help those who are exactly like me find a way to get out it. But every day is a lesson, every day is a fight. Some days is one second at a time, but every day I am mindful of the here and now. Recovery is life change and a commitment. I had every excuse under the sun when I was in use. My favorite word was tomorrow, tomorrow I will go down there, tomorrow they will be open, tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow. But for 20 years tomorrow finally showed up.

"A person has to be done. Yes you can plant the seed of recovery, but you cannot force anyone into recovery until they are ready.

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All those who helped make this film should know what you've helped create. From those working on the film, to those in the film, to those who donated to the film, and to those who've watched and shared it: THANK YOU.