Mate,you need to channel your addiction,or addictive personality into summat that's an healthy addiction.Listen,your life sounds like it was a bit fucked up but tbh I spent my childhood with my Dad in prison,getting sexually abused,knocked about and bullied at school when I dared going.I followed a similar path to you but mine led me to smack and heroin addiction and quite a few prison sentences of my own.Now I'm far from perfect but when I reached your age summat clicked...in your 30's it can do that with addicts...I'm 47 now and I haven't been on the gear for years! I last went to jail in 2005,it's a slow process fixing up your entire existence,trying to be 'normal' when you probably never knew what that even was! I work out,I'm not confident enough it a gym so I have a home multi-gym set up etc... I get into that.I play guitar ALL the time.I teach it too,which earns me a few quid.FFS I never passed my driving test till I was 43/44 or summat,u think 21 is late lol But what I am tryna say is as bad as you think you had it,someone always gets it worse.But you can deal with it.primarily by getting deliberately obsessed with things you buzz off.I'm an obsessive anyhow.But bruv,you can get ur shit together...as they say you have to reach rock bottom before you can raise up again! There's deffo some truth in there.
Do u wanna fix all this up IN UR HEART? It sounds like it...you can't do it coz everyone wants you to.Trust,prison and the system dint help me too much.But once I was truly sick of it and started to change mentally...I think that's the thirties ting going on right there...you will crack it.Maybe with baby steps,one day at a time.Don't bite off more than you can chew.But know this.You can do this COZ I DID!!
I was THAT bad that even you at ur worst wouldn't wanna know me bruv.
Now people love me which in turn teaches me to love myself.
PEACE.And thanks for sharing x