Portraits of a New Beginning: Rubén García

«I am fortunate. It’s amazing to be at a different spot in life where the other lifestyle was just so irrational and impulsive. I’m blessed right now. ... What helps me is that I’m helping people who are struggling with addiction.»

A few months before his release in 2019, Rubén García heard his daughter say that her biggest fear was that he would go back to using drugs or committing a crime. Those words shocked him. Now that he is free, when he finds himself in situations that could lead him back to his former lifestyle, he says he can hear his daughter’s voice, and it gives him strength to stay sober. She was 5 years old when he was first sentenced. “I’m proud to say that I’ll never go back again. I don’t want that lifestyle,” Rubén says. He was born in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1975 and grew up with his mother, who is of Native American and Mexican descent, and his stepfather, who is Mexican. He says he developed a willingness to heal childhood wounds that filled him with hatred and resentment during his fourth prison term. He took several self-improvement classes and became an instructor for some, where he told his story. “I started learning the stuff I was doing was not right,” he asserts. Today, he works as a security guard at a community outreach program for people with substance abuse disorder in the same place where he was a patient. “Recovery is real. You just got to want it and work for it,” he says.

^{* The testimonies in "Portraits of a New Beginning" were collected and edited by Ana María Carrano, María Gabriela Méndez, Olivia Liendo and Tamoa Calzadilla, under the coordination of Olivia Liendo and Ana María Carrano.}

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