Monday 27 February 2012

Giving Back Entry #16

It’s been a long road to get to where I am now. I’ve been through a lot of crazy episodes and survived to tell the story. I’ve been robbed at gun point, shot at, stabbed, incarcerated and survived alcoholism with 2 years of sobriety under my belt now. At this point of my life I feel it’s my responsibility to give back because I spent most of my life being a selfish person taking and taking. I started selling drugs at 17 years old and sold drugs for 17 years after that, so that’s a lot of taking. Over the years of my criminal career I’ve lost over 7 people to murders in this crazy game and one thing that I have learned is that life is short. Every time another layer of sorrow was added to my life I tried to drown the pain with alcohol and now that I’m sober I realized that it only made things worst and my problems still remained prevalent. I feel blessed to be a survivor because so many of us don’t make it to the other side to tell about their experiences. My point is that I need to give back and try to encourage all the people still caught up (especially the younger cats) to know that we all have choices. It doesn’t take a genius to sell drugs it’s just some simple math mixed with charisma and the respect gained from that is mostly fake love, fair weather friends and in a lot case just temporary fear. But it’s the dealers that have the true fear, the fear of challenging the mind and the fear of failure. So the so-called easy route is readily taken and with jail and death waiting at every corner how easy of a route is it really? Besides we’re loosing way too many of you these days at a young age, we need ya’ll to be a future leaders to carry the world into the future, instead of carrying your caskets now in the present day.
The reason I call my blog the Sober Emcee is because I know that the term is oxymoronic like jumbo shrimp it’s like going to the pet store trying to find a unicorn. Sober emcees are hard to come by and most of the sober rappers I ever heard of do that Kirk Franklyn gospel rap. I ain’t dissin’ that type of rap but it’s not teaching the average street kid about changes because 99% of the time they aren’t trying to listen to that stuff. So as a guy who has been there and done that I feel it’s my duty now to tell my story and hopefully change some lives for the better.
I’ve been trying lately to speak at different venues, telling my story as a way of giving back and I realized something. From going around sharing my story and hopefully helping other people I’m helping myself stay sober also. I can’ go around telling people how much I’m sober and what I’ve accomplished if I’m going to turn around and pick up a bottle of vodka later, that would make me a hypocrite. So essentially I have to thank all the readers of this blog and the people that come out and hear me speak because you’re all helping me to stay sober through your reading eyes and listening ears. So I’m going to continue to write this blog and speak at as many places as I can because if I’m helping any of you in any way, just recognize that you’re helping me too. So thank you.
Bless

1 comment:

  1. beautifully written and i can definitely relate (maybe not so much to the violence etc) but demons are demons, and trials/tribulations is what makes us strong. Congrats on 2 years sobriety- keep influencing others to make positive changes for themselves. Stay blessed. peace and love.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X5T3op9cB8

    ReplyDelete