I was working at the Human Services Department as the state-wide program manager and I oversaw the procurement and budget for all the Income Support Division offices in the state. Thirty-one offices. Yeah. So, I’d been doing this a few years and I went and applied for a job at PERA to work in procurement. I went and did the interview. They were all excited about me. I was excited too. I walked out of there and within two hours they called and they offered me the position. I told them yes, I’ll take it. But first I had to go through a background check. No problem I thought, and I told them, you know, I put on that paper that I had a felony conviction in my past, it was more than ten years before, and I want to make sure you guys know that and that I’m up front. I’d been sober more than ten years. I was good. No problem. About an hour later, they called me back and said “you know, we really can’t have someone like you working at this agency.” And I was like…what do you mean ‘someone like me?’ And she explained they couldn’t have someone that was a “known criminal” working for the agency.

That’s stigma, man.

When I was ten I started drinking beer at parties my older brother threw. When I was twelve, I started on the pot, maybe some Cocaine. I was hanging around with the older guys and thought I was cool. My brother had no idea. Well, then I started buying Pot, Cocaine,  Speed, Mushrooms, and LSD. When I went into high school, I found my identity as the guy who had access to drugs and alcohol and I could see how that made me cool. The big guy on campus. I felt the power. I was an honors scholar, I had a 4.0 GPA. But I was a drug dealer. I had money. Everyone wanted to be my friend. I turned down a scholarship to college and went into the Army then got kicked out after three years because they busted me in a d rug test with cocaine. I came back to Santa Fe and ran the streets. I committed crimes in multiple states. It is all a haze. That’s just what I did all through the 90s.

In 2001 I was on the run from probation and parole in a couple of different states and I knew I was going to get caught. I was going through a rough break-up and I was drinking a lot and I spent the weekend with my brother and we did a bunch of drugs and drinking. We both had to report to parole the next week but we had a plan. We’d drink and use drugs to Friday, we’ll stop the drugs and drink until Sunday then we’d spend all Monday and Tuesday cleaning out. He went first and he never came back home. I went later in the afternoon and there is my brother sitting there in cuffs but I was thinking….hey, I’m good, man, they won’t get me. But they did. They got him for the drinking and me for the cocaine and we both went to jail.

I sat in jail. A bunch of cops came in and slid a pile of warrants under the door of my cell. Five felony warrants. All New Mexico. Burglary. Embezzlement. Nothing violent. I never did anything violent. I start reading through the warrants and realize…man, I’m looking at twenty-five years. I was like…wow…I’m done. Cooked.

At that moment, I was sitting there by myself on the floor of the cell and this warm feeling came over me. This is what I call my spiritual awakening. It was God and he said: “It’s over. You don’t have to run anymore. You have to face the consequences. You don’t have to use drugs or alcohol anymore. You’re choice.”

I spent the next three months going in and out of court. But I didn’t use drugs. I didn’t drink. I didn’t violate any rules. I just prepared myself for prison. The DA told the judge that it would be a waste of the state’s resources to rehabilitate me. That I was a career criminal and I had to get sent up. Society had given up on me.

Around that time, about two months into all the hearings, my mom heard about drug court and she got me on the list to get paneled to try drug court. They sent someone to assess me. I was just honest with them about everything. It was my mom who fought for me. She never gave up on me. For months she begged the court not to give up on me either. I later found out my mom had spent the better part of twenty years riddled with anxiety at the phone ringing and them telling her I was dead. So I got into the program and I started this journey.

What I learned was that I mattered and that I had a responsibility to my family and community.

Judge Vigil says to me “It doesn’t sound like you’re responsible enough to have a job and your parents tell me that you’re not reliable in paying your bills.” So, the court ordered that I get a job in seven days to avoid prison. I was thirty-two years old and they put me in the custody of my parents. They ordered that I would bring all my un-cashed paychecks to my dad, he would pay all my fines and give me what was left…which was about $10/week. The judge also ordered that I carry pictures of my kids on me at all times. “Anytime you think about doing drugs, committing crimes or drinking, pull that picture out, look at it and I want you to make a choice.”

After 12 years in and out of recovery and treatment centers it finally made sense.

I didn’t have a car. I was on a pedal bike my dad loaned me. I rode all over town and every place I applied to turned me down because I was a felon. On the fourth day, I was riding by the Albertson’s and I saw the sign that they were hiring. I filled out an application. They asked me if I wanted to speak to the manager and I thought sure, whatever. The manager comes out. His name was Mitch Torres. We sat down and talked and I told him the whole truth. Everything.

I told him I just needed a chance. He looked at me at said, “everyone deserves a second chance.” Hired me on the spot. And they put me, the felon convicted of stealing money, in charge of the money! I spent eight years at Albertson’s. Mitch and I are good friends to this day.

A week later, Judge Vigil comes into Albertson’s. There he was. I thought “oh shit….I didn’t do anything!” He walks up to me and puts his hand out. He says hello and shakes my hand. He said: “got those pictures on you?” I showed him the pictures of my kids, he patted me on the back and said he was proud of me.He did that twice a week for about six months.

He didn’t care who was watching. In public, he acknowledged me as a fellow human being. That? That was everything to me. Don’t give up. You never fail unless you’ve given up. Keep trying. There is value in the fact that you keep trying. 

New Mexico…we need more treatment facilities and better access to treatment facilities. It is so hard to find a facility and its hard to get into a facility. You’ve got these people out there who are willing to try but they can’t get into treatment ‘because there is no space. And then we wonder why he/sheended up dead from overdose? People need the help when they are ready and willing to do it. Services and housing after recovery is lacking too. People can’t get housing because they have a ten, fifteen or twenty-year-old felony? It’s a basic need. What are we doing with all our money? We have an epidemic in this state.

-          December 2022