Prison Is What I Needed, I Just Never Knew It Then.

GETTING OUT IS PAINFUL 

Coming back from my 10-year prison sentence is one of the happiest and most remarkable events in my life. Imprisonment is one of the most painful experiences one can go through. A lot of precious years will be wasted and never recovered. Children will grow, birthdays celebrated in your absence, parents, family and friends will pass on while languishing in jail.

You will outgrow a lot of your personal relationships and a lot of habits and places. You will be forced to learn to live and to survive in a very hostile and unwelcoming environment. Prison is very painful, I must emphasize but on the flip side, it did grant me the opportunity to really deal with my substance addiction. With that, I also found my spiritual and emotional weaknesses. Through the many many hours I spent in isolation, I had ample time to confront my demons head-on.

When you’re gripped in a life of DRUG and SUBSTANCE ADDICTION, your spiritual world is darkened, you get trapped in a dark and bottomless pit of crime, dishonesty, debauchery and evil. Your relationship with God is compromised and you become friends with the devil. A very grave and despicable friendship it is.

FIRST STEPS

The first thing I did was to seek repentance and restore my relationship with God. I had to forgive myself for all the transgressions and injustices I did to wrong my soul. It also dawned on me that it was imperative for me to sincerely forgive all those who might’ve transgressed against me if indeed I was hoping to achieve what I really yearned for and set out to achieve.

The road to redemption and recovery is not an easy one but through my faith and my Deen (Islam), I was able to pray, fast and meditate. I spent time trying to realign the mental and the spiritual. This had to be done so as to deal vigorously with my anger issues, my grief and loss issues, my issues of betrayal and failure. I had to heal or die. In retrospect, on the day I was sentenced I felt like my life was over like it was a day of condemnation and I was not going to survive the prison years.

LOOKING FORWARD

I felt like God had forsaken me and He was very displeased with me but in true essence, He was not. Instead, God was restoring my life and saving me from myself and the devil. Fast forward to now I do realize that my incarceration was not a condemnation but a blessing in disguise. I’m so grateful and thankful to my creator for giving me another chance, another shot to live a life of meaning and purpose.

Spijo Makanvas is an ex-convict and recovering addict who has been clean for more than 6 years. He is an advocate for the reformation of communities especially ex-prisoners and drug addicts. He will write more about his experiences and take us through his life with the purpose of inspiring and helping the young generation to not make the mistakes he made.