Troy's Times - April 1st, 2005
Hi Friend! IN THIS ISSUE
“It is not important How we come to the events in our lives, but how we Deal with those events”- Troy
This week’s article: Looking back...
How did I come to the point of robbing banks? How did I come to a time in my life where I was willing to point a gun in someone's face and demand his or her money? I can assure you that I did not aspire to become a bank robber growing up. I did not walk into kindergarten career day and say, “When I grow up I want to spend a large chunk of my life in prison and cause my family a great deal of pain.” That was, however, the path that I chose. Believe it or not, I was once an honor role student. I played baseball and football so well that even when I was very young my coaches and parents thought I might go pro one day. I was surrounded by my teammates and friends and coaches encouraging me to do as well as I could. That was my ambition. I wanted to be a professional ball player. Then, when I was 14 years old, we moved to an entirely different city in an entirely different state and everything changed. If you’ve ever moved, you may already be familiar with some of the dynamics of making new friends. For the most part, there is an initiation process. To get in with the cool kids, you have to show them that you’re cool. To get in with the jocks, you have to be a good athlete. But, to get in with the “bad kids,” all you have to do is be bad. Had I been able to join up with a baseball or football team as soon as I moved I might never have had to make a choice about whom I was going to be. But without that path, my choices were to wait until the school year and sports seasons began or make friends immediately with the kids who were most readily available to me – the “bad kids.” I made a choice – the easy one. Looking back, I can directly link my crimes and incarceration to the decisions I made as a teenager, and in particular, my decision to experiment with drugs. What started out as casual marijuana use, just occasionally on the weekends, soon grew into greater frequency and harder drugs. Before I knew it, and I'm here to tell you it seemed like overnight, drugs became the most important thing in my life. Within the span of two years every event, intention, and action within my existence surrounded acquiring and using drugs. There was not a single aspect of my life that was not affected by drug use. I eked my way out of high school with C’s and D’s and immediately turned to the only profession that could feed my habit, and at the same time pay the bills. I dealt drugs. It was obvious that this was the only occupation that would allow me to feed a habit that had now grown to the point of daily use, and to the ingestion of nearly every hard drug available on the streets. Two years out of high school I met a girl who was foolish enough to marry me, and we had a son. Bringing a child into this world is supposed to be a beautiful thing. At that time, bringing Eric into this world was not. I would look into his crib knowing that I had just helped create a new life, a new person whom I would hurt, whom I would later abandon, a person whom I would add to the long list of those who were devastated by my drug addiction. Bringing my son into this world should have been the most beautiful event in my life. With my addiction tucked firmly at the top of my priority list, I saw that it wasn't. I made a choice. I could have chosen my family…my son…being clean. I chose drugs. It was easier. After four years of putting up with my lying, cheating and drug addicted ways, my wife filed for divorce and won primary custody of my son. I didn't think that there was more downhill still available in my life, but I quickly discovered that the gutter has amazing depth. I chose to leave the small town where my son and ex-wife resided, but found I had nowhere to turn and nowhere to go. My addiction had now reached the point where I literally could not hold any type of job. Not only did a position not exist which could support my daily intake, but I had also reached the point where I stayed so high throughout the day that I could not perform even the simplest of tasks. For me, robbing banks was a no-brainer. It was a win-win situation. Either I came out of that bank with enough money to feed my addiction for another 30 days or the police showed up, in which case I would force a confrontation and make them take my life. These days they have a catchy term for what I was doing – “suicide by cop.” At the time, however, all I knew was that I wanted the police to do something I did not have the courage to do myself. I'm not going to tell you that my decision to rob banks came without any difficulty. There remained a small part within me that realized that what I was doing was very wrong, that what I was doing was outside of my inner character. There were at least a dozen banks that I entered, gun in waistband, intent on completing the job, only to hand the teller a $10 bill while requesting a roll of quarters. But, confronting my life and going through withdrawals would have been new…unknown…hard. Drugs or death was much easier. I had been taking that path for eight years and knew exactly what to expect. Then the unexpected happened. Rather than getting myself killed, I was caught, convicted and sentenced to thirteen years in federal prison. ............................................................................................................................................................ Some say forget about your past and concentrate on your future, but for those who are looking to make a change, that is tantamount to sticking your head in the sand. As they say, those who forget about history are bound to repeat it. I think that in order to move forward, we must first recognize where we come from. That means confronting your wrongs and accepting responsibility and it can be painful. That pain makes us fool ourselves. It makes us point fingers, contrive excuses, and it locks us inside a prison where there can be no change. Have you ever wondered why they make addicts introduce themselves at meetings as addicts? “Hi, my name is Jim and I’m a drug addict.” It’s because if we say our secrets out loud, it’s not a secret. If it’s not a secret, we have to deal with it. Drug addicts are great con artists. It’s an important part of the addiction because in addition to fooling our friends and family, we have to fool ourselves. We tell ourselves we’re fine, we don’t need any help, it’s not affecting our work, it’s not affecting our families, and we do it because the truth is too terrible. My first wife brought my family together for an intervention once. I came home to a room full of family, friends, co-workers, and my boss. For every excuse that I gave they had a reply. “I can’t go to rehab now, I have to work.” They prepare families of drug addicts to cover all of the bases like that, because addicts always have excuses. We have them because it’s easier to say, “I have to work.” It sounds rational and responsible. The alternative, the truth that is screaming through our heads is just too awful. I mean, how could anyone, drug addict included, look their families in the eyes, look at themselves in the mirror and say the truth, “I can’t go to rehab until I’ve had one more hit. I choose drugs over you, me- everyone and everything. I am willing to steal from you, jeopardize your safety, and leave you without your son, husband, father in exchange for my next hit.” Someone recently asked me why, when I was making all of those pivotal decisions in my life, couldn’t I take the mask of the bank robber off or stop using drugs. Back then, while I was living in the world of drugs and crime, I had dozens of excuses. Looking back now from my life as a clean, law-abiding citizen, however, I realize that the question shouldn’t be “Why couldn’t I,” but rather “Why didn’t I?” It was never a question of can or can’t. I’m proof today that I could have all along. The simple answer is that I chose not to. To quit, I would have had to admit I was addicted. To admit I was addicted would mean that I had to look at my actions as an addict. To look at my actions, would have been too horrible for me to bear. To become the man I wanted to be, I had to let my secret out. I had to acknowledge the person I had been and I had to claim the pain that I had caused everyone. This is what I mean by confronting your past and claiming responsibility. Maybe you’re battling an addiction like I was. Maybe the thing you want to change most about yourself is your weight, job or education. Whatever it is, to claim your past, you have to take away all of the reasons that you give yourself and others for being in the situation you are in, claim responsibility for your past, and tell yourself that it is not good enough going forward. If I throw my hands up and say that I was a drug addict and bank robber because I was a victim of a move when I was a teenager and lost my support network, there will always be people there to pat me on the back and say, “Poor Troy,” but it will never help me get better because you can’t improve yourself by giving your power away. I have to own my decisions. If I claim them, no matter how bad they are I claim the power that I have always had to control my destiny and to make the changes that I want to make in my life. Try it out. “It was not my mother making me finish all of the food
on my plate that makes me overeat; I do it.” “Stress does
not make me drink; I do.” “My boss is not holding me back
in my career; I am.” “I am not a victim of my past or present
who cannot control my future, I choose to take back that power.”
Say it over and over again, say it to another person, but say it until
you can feel the weight of the secret being lifted from your shoulders.
Sometimes the hardest part is putting aside the excuses and honestly claiming
it for yourself, but it can also be the most freeing.
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Note: You are free to reprint any portion of this electronic newsletter as long as the portion remains complete and unaltered, and the “About the Author” section is included. About the Author- Troy Evans is a professional speaker and author who resides in Phoenix, AZ with his wife Pam and his dog Archibald. Troy travels the country delivering keynote presentations, and since his release from prison has taken the corporate and association platforms by storm. Overcoming adversity, adapting to change and pushing yourself to realize your full potential- other speaker’s talk about these issues, Troy has walked them.
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