I remember kicking the tin cans strewn in my neighborhood until I completed my journey to wherever I was going. I recall slamming the cans with my foot, kicking them for blocks. And even though I kicked the cans with the determination of altering their purpose they still remained tin cans. My story of prison and heroin is like a tin can in that I received much punishment from institutions determined to change my behavior, as well as from myself. This experience is a significant part of my life.
Years ago someone once called me a low life but I've since redeemed myself with inspiration from my soul. As a teenager I easily succumbed to peer pressure, giving in to taunts such as, Come on, you're a woos. You'll like it. Just snort it. What weakness I had when I told myself, Paradise! And, the rest is a history of my pursuit of the ultimate high with heroin. I boarded a train that would never stop until I was forty years-of-age.
One snort led to injections. I lost myself in oblivion, and success for me was over because my destination was to darkness. And though it was my choice, I was enticed by a road that was distorted with false promise. Many people who seek comfort through marijuana, pills or alcohol do so out of experimentation because of peer pressure, and many experience the hard reality of addiction. They seek that comfort, as did I, without considering the consequences. My consequence with heroin was that it became my preference and necessity, and I would continue with my compulsion until I was worn out from addiction.
When I was seventeen I made an effort to change my life, so I enlisted in the United States Army National Guard. My hope was to make the military a career if it kept my interest. Boot Camp and Infantry Training were over in five months and I stayed in the Reserves for a few years until I received my Honorable Discharge. I then decided to not make the military my career, but I never regretted wearing the uniform for my country, and I would have served in war had there been a conflict. I never forgot the discipline that was instilled in me, and I continued to respect the military for helping me appreciate that value. But, I could not have foreseen that it would be the value of discipline that I would later regain in my life, to help me become a different kind of soldier; a soldier of God.
If I had my life to live over with the chance of making the right choices, I'm not certain that would change anything. I do know that sometimes circumstances make all the difference, but I don't believe I could ever change who I am. And I must believe that I can learn from my experience so I can continue to improve myself, and to tell my story to inspire others to learn from my mistakes.
Through my choice, I stole, burglarized and robbed to get money for heroin. My life of self-deception and false self-confidence led me deeper into a pit that stripped me of my soul. The more heroin I injected the more spiritless I became. In time, I came to realize that each high was actually a low, and that each low necessitated me to get high. I couldn't stop wanting to think that I was in control, and I couldn't believe that control was not mine to have.
As I think back, I realize that I was the perpetrator depicted in many articles in Southern California newspapers about drugs, auto theft and burglaries. And in one news article the story was about me robbing the Bank of America. My crimes continued, and every turn of the corner for me was marked by physical and mental turbulence that spiraled me away from peace. I was slave to an other-than-normal world, damaging my body, mind and soul.
During my early years of heroin addiction I once saw someone who knew me, but didn't recognize me at first because of my sickly appearance. Only a few feet away, her statement to me was that I looked like a plucked skinny chicken, filling me with so much shame that it nauseated me as much as it stung my ego. She could see that I had no purpose in life other than drugs. And I knew that my only goal was to inject a needle into my arm to satisfy my craving, and that I had shaped myself into a person willing to lie, cheat and steal. I could only manage to say to her, Huh, what? Eight to nine years of my life were lost by being incarcerated in jails and prisons in many parts of the United States, places like Terminal Island, California; Florence, Arizona; La Tuna, Texas; Englewood, Colorado; Boron Federal Prison Camp in California; and Chino, Jamestown, Tehachapi, and Baker, California. There was even a halfway house somewhere in Santa Barbara, California. And before every release date I told myself that I would never return only to once again be arrested. Hey! What can I say? I was a teenager when it all began so it was easy for me to continue with the same pattern. It was no effort at all for me to keep doing what I had always done. Even with my time in the military to help me understand the meaning of discipline, once receiving my Honorable Discharge I was back to the life of drugs.