My name is Steve Clark and I am a 51 year old man serving a sentence of Life Without The Possibility of Parole.  I have been incarcerated since the age of 19, for over 33 years. I grew up with alcoholics and abuse, both physical and emotional.  I felt unloved, abandoned and angry.  My stress and anxiety became overwhelming and after a long period of hurting others and displacing my anger onto others, I finally turned to drugs as a coping mechanism to escape my reality.

 

My addiction and violence worsened as I got older.  I placed no value on people or property.  It was no surprise that I ended up in prison. I gravitated towards people broken just like myself.  One day my eyes opened and for the first time I truly saw the monster I had become.  I didn’t like him at all.  It was from that day that I walked away from the violent behavior and drugs and began transforming my life into something positive.

 

Today I am a leader in the self-help community.  I have received extensive training in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and I facilitate groups and train trainers. I realized that being abused made me think it was acceptable to become an abuser myself. I needed to find a positive way to express my remorse and empathy for those I harmed directly and indirectly. By using my artistic talents I now choose to donate to charitable organizations such as Artists Serving Humanity.  This is a positive avenue for me to make amends while at the same time embracing the elusive peace I desperately wanted and only recently have found.