BEL AIR, Md. — "I didn't just get a second chance, I got a third, fourth and fifth chance."
He's only 40 years old and every day Daniel McGhee counts his blessings to still be alive.
"I overdosed probably 7 times. I went to prison a few times," said McGhee. "I've been incarcerated 29 times and I've been in and out of rehab."
He started with alcohol when he was 13 living in Bel Air. He moved to Edgewood and experimented with cocaine. By the time he was 17, he'd met his match.
He found heroin.
"I was at the bottom of the barrel living in the gutter, homeless using dirty needles heroin addict, like if you can think of something horrible, I did it," McGhee said.
"I was found on the church steps in Bel Air. I had been left there by a woman that I was out getting high with and I had overdosed," he explained. "I was taken to Upper Chesapeake I had a heart attack and hypothermia, they released me Friday I went right back down to the city, copped heroin again, went into cardiac arrest and woke up in the back of an ambulance."
Fast forward to 2019, now 18 years into recovery and clean for 9 years, McGhee has turned his life around.
But he admits drugs in the 90s were a lot different than what's on the streets today.
"I watched a lot of people die around me, but it wasn't like today. I don't know if I would be here if I was in this era, people are dying on their first use or their first relapse."
He's even written a book, 'Chasing A Flawed Sun'.
"I think that's the toughest thing to understand for some of the friends and family members is why their loved ones do what they do for this drug and turn their back on everybody else, and so when I wrote the book, I tapped into my emotions during those experiences and put them down on paper," McGhee said.
After creating a successful bail bondsman business, he really went to work. He started with helping children of addicts and feeding needy families.
Now he does coat drives sponsors Christmas shopping outings and hosts mission trips to Haiti and beyond.
McGhee feels since his life was sparred, it's his duty to give back.
"I just want to impact and change this world for the better as much as I can," he said. "I think that's what most of us want, but I'm actually trying to do it."
