Former gang member speaks to Valley families

The first thing you are sure to notice about Adam is his tattoos. They cover significant portions of his arms, legs and head. His son's name is displayed in large letters on the back of his neck.

The man from Oxnard, Calif., got involved with the El Rio street gang when he was 10 years old. Now 31, Adam is offering a message of hope to Valley teens and their parents.

Adam spoke at Marcos de Niza High School on Tuesday, Sept. 30, as part of notMYkid, a Phoenix organization that promotes a healthy, drug- and violence-free lifestyle for teens.

NotMYkid finds recovering addicts or, in Adam's case, former gang members, to speak to teens about how their choices now can greatly affect them later in life.

The group at Marcos de Niza listened intently for almost an hour as Adam revealed intimate details regarding his upbringing. He spoke of a physically abusive mother and how that led him to become involved with a local gang.

"The love was not at home, the love was in the streets," Adam said. "All my world was, was pain. I dealt with it by inflicting pain on others."

What he articulated was a mindset that most people are not used to hearing.

"The only attention I ever knew was negative attention," Adam said. "To me, wrong was right and right was wrong. I was in a dark state of mind."

He told the audience about his run-ins with the law and multiple prison stints and how they currently affect his day-to-day life. He spoke of the difficulty teens will face in finding a job if they have a felony conviction.

He said the biggest thing he realized was that when he was on his own, in prison or recovering from a hospital visit, the gang was not there for him. Adam said that when he was in a wheelchair for seven months after he was stabbed, no one came to his aid.

"You're there for yourself," Adam said. "I saw that I was on my own, when I needed help the most."

He is currently living in a halfway house and working as a telemarketer. When he is released later this month, Adam will move back in with his fiancé and two children.

To find out more about notMYkid and their upcoming Valley events, visit www.notmykid.org.