Looking at the ground

Looking at the Ground is a raw memoir about how quickly a life can collapse-and how hard a person has to fight to build it back.

Daniel Sandman once had a family, a career, responsibilities, and a life that looked normal from the outside. Then addiction took hold.

What began as drug use spiraled into meth and fentanyl addiction, crime, jail, broken relationships, overdoses, and eventually homelessness. He went from being a father, husband, and department manager to sleeping in a tent in the woods of Duluth, Minnesota, digging through dumpsters, searching the ground for anything he could use, sell, or trade just to survive another day.

People passing him on the street didn't see the son, the friend, or the father he once was.

They saw a homeless man staring at the ground.

Behind that lowered head was a man trapped in addiction, ashamed of what he had become but unable to imagine another way to live.

Looking at the Ground doesn't hide the desperation, the bad decisions, or the consequences. It takes readers inside the loneliness of addiction, the reality of homelessness, the revolving door of jail and probation, and the painful realization that sometimes the hardest person to escape is the person you've become.

But this isn't only a story about falling.

It's about the fight to stand back up.

With his mother refusing to give up on him and one small spark of hope beginning to grow, Daniel started fighting his way back-one day, one decision, and one victory at a time.

From rock bottom to recovery, Looking at the Ground is a brutally personal story of addiction, survival, redemption, and learning to finally look up.