More than forty-two years ago, addiction collapsed my early life. Before recovery, I served three years in the United States Marine Corps. After my service, I spent significant time in boxing gyms. These spaces shaped me in important ways, teaching discipline, humility, respect, and the importance of mentorship. They later became places where I learned about structure, belonging, and guidance. In my early twenties, that collapse unfolded through addiction, trauma, and exposure to violence, narrowing my world and my sense of possibility. The consequences were tangible and cumulative. Employment disappeared, relationships fractured, and the future narrowed. The night my daughter was born, I was arrested and spent the night in a holding cell, missing her arrival into the world. That moment became a turning point. I did not get sober that night. I got sober seven months later. But something cracked open then and set the direction of my life.

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