Knowing what the right thing to do is and actually doing it, well, those are two different things. Let’s just say motives play a big part when it comes down to choosing between doing right and doing wrong. What motive influenced me the most are money, mulah, doe, cheese. If it’s about the money it has my attention. Four prison numbers in, you’d think I would have learned the first time. You thought wrong and even though you couldn’t tell me nothin at that time, so did I. Behind a lot of my criminal thinking survival, making it in a situation where resources are finite. And if you don’t eat you get ate.
Hustlin. Myself and plenty other guys on the inside are cut off from the world outside and there are a lot of different reasons why people do not have anyone outside to help them, so you have to know how to generate some money to be self sufficient. My main hustle used to be middle manning everything. Taking clothes, shoes, select of choice food items that people want and adding tax to the price of the item. My mind was constantly turning on how to make some money, and having to buy Suboxone. In prison, that got expensive. Clean from heroine since 2017 thanks to the Most High, I’d get locked up and they wouldn’t give me my Suboxone, even though I got it prescribed on the Street. I spent years of living with hustlers mindset motivated by money to support a habit.
Forward to 2023, I get put on the MAT program and get sent to Grafton. Getting my medication while incarcerated has helped me so so much. I’m stable now and was able to focus on how to be a better person instead of having to chase Suboxone and hustling. I have been working in the Barber Shop for over a year now and I absolutely love my job, I’m perfecting my craft and finding some sense of normalcy from working five days a week.
Normalcy, something about the word stands out in the prison environment and caught my attention. Someone once told me you do the same things you’ll get the same results. I’ve done a lot of time and every time I’ve got out I was set up for failure before I even left because of the old prison lifestyle. Being in normalcy has completely changed my outlook on life after prison. Being in a very close community of guys and staff members. That want better for you has made this experience completely worthwhile. While giving me the tools I need to be an upstanding citizen in my community at home.
I can’t really look at you and say I feel like I’m in prison, because all the things that triggered me when it comes to prison aren’t happening around me. The staff views me as a man/human being and are very supportive and selfless when it comes to minimizing the amount of stress one has to deal with when it comes to being away from people you love. I’m learning how to budget my finances and how to have control over my impulses, how to be of service to others because I’m a man of integrity, and not for what they can do for me. Those are some of the very positive things I’ve picked up since I arrived at normalcy, and it’s all thanks to the guys and staff I share this lifestyle with. Without them and their guidance with the Normalcy Model, I can’t say that I’d have the chance to be the person I am today. I am so grateful that I was able to be a part of all of this change, now I can go home with the confidence and mindset that I’m going to stay out of prison.
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