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C’mon, we don’t got all day! On New Year’s Day 2000, large wet and slushy snowflakes covered the streets of downtown Juárez, quickly melted, and created icy pools of water. The street in front of the hotel bustled with people as the buses passed and sprayed slushy water all over the sidewalks . People filled the nightclubs, and it was a good day to get lost in the crowd. I had spent New Year’s Eve watching TV and enjoying the last part of my little vacation. Soon I would be back to my usual routine , panhandling money for the rent or a “bus ticket back home.” After the holidays, there was a little bit less money on the street, but I managed to pick up where I had left off. My routine worked, the rent got paid, and the dope kept flowing. The next couple of weeks seemed like a blur, and I started to think about kicking heroin once again. There is always a voice in the back of every junkie’s mind that reminds them that the run cannot last forever. I was tired of asking people for money, and I wanted to find a way to move beyond life on the street. One morning in late January, I found what I thought was a chance at another life. Panhandling on the corner of Sixth and El Paso Streets, I ran into someone from the Victory in Jesus Men’s Home. He handed me a flier and talked to me about starting over again and living without dope. I was vaguely familiar with church-based recovery from reading David Wilkerson’s The Cross and the Switchblade but had never considered entering such a program. I wasn’t even aware that such places existed in El Paso. I put the flyer in my pocket and thought about it that night. It had been some time since I was offered the chance to try something different. Lalo, the guy who gave me the flyer, said that he was an ex-junkie who had found a new life. He convinced me to take Six N e w M i l l e n n i u m 78 Border Junkies a chance on the program, and his description of my lifestyle really hit home with me. That evening, after I copped enough dope for that night and the next morning, my mind was made up. I decided to leave the hotel and go into the Victory in Jesus Men’s Home in El Paso. I would withdraw, cold turkey, from heroin, again. The next morning, I shot up and left the room, bound for El Paso. I left all of my belongings at the hotel, just in case the program didn’t accept me and I ended up returning. All the clothes, the pennies on top of the dresser, and the dirty needles remained in the hotel room. The only things I carried were the clothes on my back. When I arrived at the corner of Sixth and El Paso Streets, I called up the recovery home. A voice on the line told me that someone was leaving to pick me up and that I should just wait there on the corner. Lalo must have been glad that he had reached out and helped someone on the street. It felt as if time was standing still as I waited for the people from Victory in Jesus . Finally, a pickup truck with three people in it showed up. They asked me if I was ready to go, and the next thing I knew, I was sitting in the back of the pickup and riding up East Paisano and Alameda Streets toward the east side of El Paso. The Victory in Jesus home was located on Grimes Court, near Alameda in east-central El Paso. It was a midsize, single-story home that housed about a dozen guys. Lalo turned out to be the assistant home director. The main director was Pastor Donny Marcelino. Whether he was a real pastor was beyond me. My first day at the home proved to me that it was a structured rehab. Since the other guys in the home told me that they had detoxed, there was no doubt in my mind that the Victory in Jesus Men’s Home was all about kicking the heroin habit and beginning life again. The “detox bedroom” had a set of bunk beds and a large...

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