My life has been a journey of both good and challenging times. I grew up in a great family, with a  dad who was a professional and a mother who was a teacher. My brother was a chiropractor and then was me, the black sheep. What I mean by being a black sheep is that I chose different paths that fulfilled my personal needs. However, I didn’t become the black sheep overnight. It was from a series of occurrences and behavior traits.

Despite my responsible parents, who did anything humanly possible to raise me well, I always felt inadequate and uncomfortable whenever in the presence of my large family. I found myself gravitating toward things and people that stoked my ego. I ended up involved in drug addiction and crimes because I found acceptance and a sense of being valued in that lifestyle. 

I spent many years struggling with active addiction, married twice and had two prior incarcerations, but today I am a clean man and have been in recovery since 10/28/2008. I am also a graduate of Saint Johns University with a Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice.

There are so many other avenues that we’re going to talk about. We’ll get into depth on them. I just wanted to give you an overview of where I am or where I was and show you that we could all change.

We could all change but it all starts with being willing to make a change and make a choice to change. And we have to be willing to put in the work.