Q.T.:     How was your life as a teenager?

J.N.:     My life as a teenager was not good, due to the fact that I got involved with friends that misled my ways. I started drinking, getting into fights, and stealing cars. At one point I thought my friends were my family. Because I was ignorant all I wanted to do was to party. I wouldn’t listen to my parents, even though everything they were saying was for my own good, like telling me to stay in school, change my life and friends and all that. But I never paid attention and that was my life as a teenager.

Q.T.:     When was the first time you used drugs and what made you use them?

J.N.:     The first time I used drugs was with friends. I saw my friends using them and being together. I didn’t want to feel left out. At the time I wasn’t thinking of the danger of drugs. The only thing I knew was that drugs were bad. This is more or less how every teenager starts and gets involved in them. Also, they are looking to end their problems, sometimes curiosity or they don’t have enough intuition about drugs.

Q.T.:     When you were consuming drugs, how did you life become?

J.N.:     My life became total chaos and I was unaware of it. I dropped out of school, got involved in even more violent activities which pulled me into deeper troubles, and my life changed from that moment on.

Q.T.:     Why are you incarcerated?

J.N.:     For two charges of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and intent to murder.

Q.T.:     How do you feel about your crime?

J.N.:     I feel really deeply hurt because I hurt a person I loved who was very close to me, all because of drugs. The day I committed the crime I used LSD and ACID and couldn’t control its reaction in my body and in my mind. This almost cost me my life and brought drastic consequences because now I can’t play sports. I have a metal plate in my leg and three broken ribs. My hip was broken in eight different places and I almost ended up paralyzed because I was drugged up and I tried to kill myself. They still wonder how I am walking. I know that I will never forget what I have done.

Q.T.:     How do you feel about being in prison?

J.N.:     I’m feeling very bad because the most precious thing we have is our freedom and that is exactly what I don’t have. Also, I miss my family and I feel desperate not to be able to help my family physically and economically during this difficult time. In these years of incarceration two of my closest family members died and I couldn’t be there for them on their last day. That brings me such guilt that I hope I can cope with it. The person I miss most is my daughter, and it hurts to know that she’s not growing up next to me. Knowing that I’m not the one who brings her to bed and kiss her good night devastates me and pulls me deep into a bitter feeling that is so unexplainable.

Q.T.:     How is your life in prison?

J.N.:     My life in prison is total hell. From the time you enter a prison’s door…. kiss your life good-bye. You are told how to walk, where to go, when to wake up, when to sleep, who to be… in other words you become a puppet to these people. You get to realize how much you want to be out in the real world. Especially when you get pictures from the other side, you realize how wonderful life is and that’s when prison hurts the most. When you want to eat you have to walk under rain, snow, deep freezing temperatures or however the weather is out there. Food here is nothing you would feed your dog, so you can tell how bad it is. You get to miss mom’s cooking. Also, when it comes to your health, you sign up to be seen because you have bad pain and they take several days to see you. When they see you, usually they say you are okay, but you are not, so you never know what to expect from these health programs. You get treated like someone who has a rare disease that can be passed to everyone. To tell you more…. you become ashamed of being a human being. It feels like you’re dead, even when you know you are alive and sometimes you get locked up in the hole for no reason, just because they want to prove who is really the man. But what hurts the most is that people on the outside forget you. Little by little you are forgotten.

Q.T.:     What have you learned all these years in prison?

J.N.:     I’ve learned how wonderful life is, that if it wasn’t because of drugs I would have had a different perspective of how to react to different situations instead of letting the drugs’ side effects take over my decisions. I’m more mature now and have better ways and points of view of how to live. One day at a time is all it takes.

Q.T.:     If you had a chance to say something to the victim, what would you say?

J.N.:     Being the fact that the victim will always be in my life, all I would like to say is that I would give anything I could to change or erase that painful moment from that person’s heart. If I could turn back time, I wish I could take back what happened, but I can’t. There are NO words in the world that would justify what I’ve done. That’s what hurts the most. I know I was wrong but I never noticed because I was blindfolded by drugs.

Q.T.:     What is your plan when you get out?

J.N.:     For once to make things right and avoid mistakes and to help our youth so they won’t make the same mistakes I did. I know this is hard, all these years being away from my daughter, and I would also like to show my family and relatives how I’ve changed and to prove that a second chance could be well invested. If you really want to change, a second chance means that heaven’s doors are opened when you were submerged in the deepest of hells. What I would like to do is to show everyone that I’m a new person today, to show the real me, to allow people to know me without that mask that drugs had me behind of.

Q.T.:     What would you say to all youngsters?

J.N.:     What I would like to emphasize is that our youth needs to understand there is nothing in drugs. It’s just emptiness. That is what usually makes us use more. Our parents never mean to go against us. It is just that they know what they are saying and are trying to keep us away from harm. Besides, when you are in prison…. Parents are just about the only visit you get. I urge them to start to appreciate life now and not to wait until they are here in prison to realize that. Having money is not a sin, how you use it is. Don’t use your money to buy drugs or things that will lead you to prison. Instead use it for your own good. Take your girlfriend out; buy your mom a present. Most of all always try to show the best you.

Q.T.:     What would you say to all parents?

J.N.:     For the parents, please talk to your kids, even those that look like they aren’t listening. They are.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

JN and QT are both ABE students in Shirley

QT is from Vietnam. He came to America at the age of seven. “I came from a poor family. I not buy what we wanted to buy but our compassion toward each other is unconditional. I remember when I was in school. I desperately wanted to learn English very much but there is no one to taught me the basic or explain for me to understand the meaning of the word in my language. Therefore, the hope of learning in me gradually bade away day by day eventually I dropped out of school doing nothing. Just hung around here and there simply to past another day in life. I do have a mother like every mother in this earth. She always there to encourage me to go back to school so that I could help myself in the future. She is not an educated person but she constantly try her very best to taught me the principle of life and what is best. For which I never listen to her. "
"Now I am sitting here alone wondering all the thing that my mother has taught and said to me when I was a teenager. I wish I could turn back the hand of time, which is impossible. All I can do right now is to do my best with the environment that I am inhabited. To acquire an education while you are incarcerated is very tough and rough because they don't have sufficient of material and you can not what you are wanted to learn. But I will do all I can to assimilate so that I could help myself and the people around me.”