When I first entered the New York State prison system with a 25-years-to-life sentence for murder back in 1993, I honestly had no respect for anything or anyone. It was all about ME. I was young, then 25, extremely ignorant and foolish. On top of that, I was really upset about being sent to prison! Really filled with pain and rage, I blamed the world for my own mistakes. I was just so arrogant. In reality, I had absolutely no respect for myself either, and at that time I was unable to see this fact.

It wasn't easy adjusting my new environment. I was alone and really scared for the first time in my life. What made the situation even worse was the fact that while lying on my bed at night my inner demons would surface, preventing me from getting more than three or four hours of sleep at a time. There were times when I felt that the nightmares would never end. Often I woke up screaming or in a cold sweat.

For many years, I maintained an unconscious street mentality and although I would tell my family that I'd changed my ways, I was still participating in negative, non-productive activities while incarcerated. I was attempting to serve two masters at once — which just isn't possible. My thought patterns were twisted, unrealistic. I was unable to see things with clarity.

Does any of this sound familiar?

After a few years of incarceration, I began to slowly realize that life in general was in fact bigger than ME. If I wanted people to trust and believe in me again, I would have to retrain myself to think like a normal person, not as someone surviving on the streets. I began to grow as a person and to grasp life for what it really is, as opposed to what I wanted it to be.

At this stage in my life I was introduced to the power of introspection. This path was difficult to accept and navigate at first because I had to be totally honest with myself. There was no longer any room for lies, my deceptive and manipulative ways of thinking would have to end. Through this process I realized that I had more good than evil in my heart. With that realization I slowly let my negative facade crumble away, accepting that I would be vulnerable in the process.

Unfortunately, I was still making some bad decisions. After spending several months in solitary confinement back in 2000, reality smacked me in the face like a Mack truck for the second time. I finally decided that I had to turn my life around for the better. No more playing games! If I sincerely wanted the opportunity of ever returning to society as a free man, I had to grow up and take responsibility for my actions. So I started surrounding myself with like-minded individuals, those who were about genuine, positive change.

Another major turning point came when I began to explore the spiritual aspect of my life. This is when I began to express genuine remorse for all the terrible things I'd ever done, none of which I'm proud of. Some of these things were so repulsive that I would cry myself to sleep when I reflected on them. The internal pain was excruciating, I needed to find a way to stop it. And at that point my redemption process began. My life was never the same again.

I began to self-educate myself on several levels by using my free time to read whatever I could get my hands on. Before long I was able to start releasing my pent-up frustration and anger by writing about my personal experiences in prison. That led to my acquired passion to make a significant difference regarding prisons and outside communities, the places that the majority of us inside would one day return to. I would send copies of my material to any individual or organization I could find an address for.

Then in 2010, while I was at the Eastern Correctional Facility in Napanoch, I got a break. The local newspaper there, the Shawangunk Journal, agreed to publish my material. When space permits it has been publishing my articles about once a month ever since. It gave me the opportunity to enlighten society about what really happens inside a prison and to show the readers that not all incarcerated individuals are vicious, regardless of the crime or crimes we may have committed in the past. The majority of us simply made some really bad decisions when we were young and never considered the consequences of our negative actions. For that we are paying with the loss of our freedom, often in excess of twenty, twenty-five, even thirty years.

The point is that I have changed; almost everyone serving that long a sentence does change. I really am not that 25 year old anymore; I have a completely different outlook on life.