I dropped out of school at 15 with no significant paperwork and ended up cleaning toilets and operating rooms at my local hospital for several years; and it sucked.
All I've learned is that, really regardless of what's going on in your life, if you have any reasonable skill/experience in our industry then rock bottom doesn't really apply to us like it does to others. These days the worst thing that would happen would be falling back to a a 6 figure permie salary somewhere doing some boring work.
There is no easy way to 'make it'; I can't speak for those who started out in our industry with a good education an an internship, but in my experience if you're capable, willing to do the bullshit work (years of datacentre work, helldesk, miserable corp ops etc) things will eventually happen. Move around. Get involved in projects. I'm always happy to pull people forwards in their careers.
Lots of people will call themselves lucky (certainly, I consider myself fortunate to have been given the opportunities which helped me escape such a life) but I think that's not really the full story. There's always a comeback, and there's always going to be a basic living available to you if you have our kind of skills.
I go home and see people who stopped and they're exactly where they were when I left them behind. I could have been there too.