02/05/2023
Hi everybody. My name is James Mann but many know me as Bo Mann. I recently spent two years at ISP/Michigan City Prison for a technical rule violation of parole staring out the window at death row while all around me ones had the rest of their lives to do, many having already been there for decades. It was a depressing, dark, desolate place. What is crazy is that stepping back out into the city that I live in has opened my eyes to just how depressing, dark, and desolate the situation has become in these streets. Growing up on the westside I saw nothing but drugs and criminality but nothing as ugly as it is now. I sacrificed a total of 22 years of my freedom and more years than that selling and using drugs. The worst of consequences failed to deter me or wake me up to the destruction I was causing in my life and the lives of my family and friends. However, today, I am clean and walking a different path. I now see how my sense of loyalty was misguided and misplaced. The jails, prisons, and court system seemed more than willing to take as much as I am willing to give, but I finally realized that I have no more to give. They say that no one is going to clean until they are ready. I have found myself thinking on this a lot lately because I thought I would continue on until death. I could not see myself changing every aspect of my life and becoming a person I could not even envision what I would look like, what it would take, how would I even begin to go about it. So I was unwilling to put forth any effort at all. Then a switch clicked and suddenly I found myself still not knowing what it would all look like but open and willing to try. In the last month that I have been free things have felt so different as I no longer feel like a disappointment because I am letting ones down, no longer feel like a liar because I am telling ones I am doing the right thing but selling and using behind the scenes, no longer plot and stress because I am on parole and doing so much wrong wondering just how much longer I have before I am put back in prison. All of that has been removed and replaced. Now I feel good about what I am doing, have no need to lie or hide any thing from anyone, parole included, because I am not doing anything wrong now. Where I thought this path would be far too difficult so was unwilling to even try, now I find that what I was doing before was ten times harder and hurt ten times as many people. What is crazy about all of it is the simplicity of how it all begins for all I had to do was surrender, admit who I really am, and be willing to change and want better for myself.
Well, now that I have discovered this, I want to share it and help others discover what awaits them if they are tired and willing to give in, to surrender. Please reach out if you are suffering and in need of any assistance or have a loved one in need. I will help in any way that I can. And I promise that together we can accomplish so much more than we ever would alone.
