My Story
My Name Is Maurice and I Lived
My name is Maurice R. Barnett Jr., and my story is simple:
I lived through things that were meant to break me — and I’m here because I didn’t stay broken.
I was born in Regensburg, Germany, on Thanksgiving Day in 1963. My father was in the military, so my life started in motion. My earliest memories are of snow filled days in Denver, Colorado making snowmen with my older sister. But by 1968, we landed in Long Beach, California — the east side — and everything changed.
By seven years old, I had seen more violence and tragedy than most people see in a lifetime. Those moments didn’t just shape me — they rewired me. School didn’t make sense. Adults didn’t understand me. After psychological testing, I was told I had a “chemical imbalance,” but no one explained what that meant for a kid who already felt overwhelmed by the world.
When my parents separated, I was twelve. I chose to live with my father and stepmother in the Wilmington projects. That year was filled with abuse, neglect, and a deep sense of powerlessness. I learned early that sometimes the people who are supposed to protect you simply don’t.
By thirteen, I was back in Long Beach — and that’s when the streets became my teacher. Marijuana led to harder drugs. Drugs led to crime. And crime became my escape. I didn’t fall into that life by accident. I was drawn to it — the adrenaline, the planning, the feeling of beating impossible odds. But underneath all of that was pain I didn’t know how to face.
Every arrest I ever had involved drugs. Every conviction was tied to the lifestyle I used to numb myself. By twenty‑eight, I had five prison terms behind me. I’ve been housed in prisons all across California — Chino, Tehachapi, Wasco, Corcoran, Soledad, Folsom, Donovan, Lancaster, and more fire camps than I can count.
I never joined a gang. I kept to myself. I read the Bible. I worked out. I stayed alive.
But the truth is, I wasn’t just running from the law. I was running from a moment in 1981 when I was high on marijuana laced with PCP, paranoid, and trying to turn myself in. Instead of help, I was choked unconscious by a jailer and woke up handcuffed to a hospital gurney. That moment changed me — and not for the better.
For years, I created my own twisted version of justice. I committed crimes and got away with them. It became my therapy, my rebellion, my way of taking back power. But it also cost me relationships, distanced my children, and contributed to the collapse of my marriages.
Eventually, the anger faded. The pain softened. And in 2005, after my second marriage failed, I reached for something bigger than myself. I reached for God. I joined a church. I studied scripture. I served. I ministered. I even pastored. For ten years, I walked the tightrope of Christian discipline, trying to understand my purpose.
By 2016, I had earned an associate’s degree in computer information systems, studied graphic design, and worked as a teacher's assistant. I had rebuilt parts of my life. But something still felt unfinished.
By 2018, I had drifted back into my past lifestyle and after a disagreement with my girlfriend left me homeless and moving in with a homie who was still using. Angry at my situation, I began to use again. Eventually, after being introduced to the dealer, I started dealing. The money came fast, but not easy. I built my own customer base, moved into my own apartment, invested in business ideas, created a music production studio, and financed a better lifestyle for my girlfriend and I.
But I didn’t like the life I had created. It went against everything I believed in. To dull my moral compass, I began using PCP again. I knew the consequences, but once again I ignored my best judgment and found myself in a real dilemma. I wanted out, but I didn’t know how. I had created something I no longer controlled.
I stopped using in July 2021. I prayed over and over again for a way out. That way out came in September. But the effects of PCP last long after the use stops, and I was living in a distorted reality, unable to make sense of the world around me. God intervened through an argument with my girlfriend that led to an arrest — and a plea agreement for diversion and drug treatment. After graduating from the program, I became a Peer Support Specialist and Addiction Counselor, eventually gaining employment at the very program that helped save my life.
And then I realized something: My purpose wasn’t hidden in the pages of a book. It was written in the pages of my life.
Everything I survived — the trauma, the substance abuse, the prisons, the injustice, the relapse, the recovery, the faith journey — all shaped me into someone who could help others climb out of the darkness I once called home.
Today, I work for the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health as a Substance Abuse Counselor and Certified Medi‑Cal Peer Support Specialist. I'm here not as a man defined by his past, but as a man who transformed it into a roadmap for others.
I lived through hell.
I learned from it.
And now, I help others find their way out — because I lived.