How Journalism Saved My Life (Three Times)

I have a toxic relationship with journalism and it's killing me.

*This is a text paired with my new podcast on YouTube named ‘saga’ and coming up next! Subscribe to my channel by clicking here so you don’t miss the first episode. 

CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico.— I haven’t told this story in public before. Not sure how I feel about doing so, but I thought this would be a good way to explain myself as to why I do what I do, and why I have this toxic relationship with journalism. The story begins with a lot of cocaine. 

Before I even tried to be a journalist I was a coke-head. I started early. The first time I tried cocaine I was 17. The thing is, that by the time I got my first job as a journalist in a local newspaper in Ciudad Juárez, the Mexican industrial border town right next to El Paso, Texas, I had already overdosed twice. 

My first assignments were already interesting: I traveled with a group of activists across Texas and Arizona fighting against an anti-immigration law that would have hundreds of thousands of migrants arrested and deported. Amongst the activists were people who fought back to back with Malcom X. I also wrote an investigative piece about how the Sinaloa Cartel was recruiting young guys through Metroflog (a social network before Instagram or Facebook) in Ciudad Juárez. 

The feeling of seeing those stories published on paper had probably the same effect on me as cocaine on a good night. I slowly started drifting away from that life as journalism wanted more from me. Working all day and night, going to college and 21-years-old, I became an international correspondent in my own hometown, covering the very beginning of the cartel wars.  

This was the first time journalism would save my life by taking me away from a third and probably last overdose. 

The war against drug cartels and between cartels turned my shitty industrial city into a violent shithole. I was 23 when Ciudad Juárez was dubbed “the deadliest city in the world” after counting more than 13 murders a day in a city of just over 1 million habitants. The Sinaloa Cartel was violently trying to take this city from the Juarez Cartel. And they were not backing down. They both fought with all the manpower and gear available. At the same time the Mexican army, marines, federales, local and state police were all fighting both cartels but also between each other. The chances of getting killed, kidnapped or wounded were high. 

At the time, I rode a motorcycle to be able to go to college in Ciudad Juárez, get across the border to write two stories a day for El Diario, local newspaper in El Paso, and get back to Juárez before 5pm to begin reporting on at least five different murders happening all over town. At nights I had to do homework and drink like a 50-year-old divorcee, just to start all over again the next morning. 

On top of that, during those years, I was writing poetry and reading my shitty drugs-and-sex-and-broken-poeple little poems at a local café. One night after reading some of my texts I was outside the place having a smoke when I bumped into my best friends at the time: four skinny addict streetwise kids with their girlfriends. It had been awhile since I parted ways because I was trying to become a journalist. They invited me over to the bar next door, but I said I had to go back home first, finish homework, submit two stories and then I’d reach them at around midnight. I grabbed my motorcycle and rode back home. 

After submitting my last story and wrapping up my homework I fell asleep, still dressed, wearing my work boots, in front of my computer. At around 3 in the morning I got a call on my cell phone. I noticed that I had three more missed calls from my editors in Spain. They alerted me of several men killed at a bar not far from where I was living at the time. ‘The photographer is already there. See what you can find and if it’s worthy send something asap,’ they said. 

I jumped on my bike again and arrived at the place. The bar was packed with all sorts of policemen and military and yellow and red tape. I couldn’t see much, but I found my photographer. I asked him if he knew something about the killings. He said it was five men, three girls. Show me the photos. I recognized Jaime’s shirt, Joey’s bracelet, Luis Carlos’ camera, Aaron’s silly hat. I didn’t know the other kid. Their girls were also killed. I was supposed to be there that night with them. But I wasn’t. I was too busy writing, meeting deadlines. I was too tired. I was trying too hard to be a journalist. Once again, journalism saved my life. 

After these experiences my skin grew thicker. But also something died in me. The stress, the anxiety, the adrenaline, the alcohol, the loneliness…and finally the deep depression I fell into. 

Of course there’d been other times when I almost lost my life to journalism —I will bring you those in the next episode of this same story—, and one of those required me to flee my city across the border into the US. And that’s where depression hit hard. I would drink and cry every night watching my burning deadly city from afar knowing I probably would never be able to go back. My family was all there. I had no friends now. My city was ripped from me. The only thing I had, again, was paper, ink and a violent desire to write. 

During the toughest of my depression I sheltered in journalism. Writing would keep me going. Finding stories, talking to all sorts of people struggling in life. Reading my stories in national and international outlets thinking they could have an effect in someone’s life. The little joys of journalism kept me through. I eventually was able to go back to my city feeling somewhat safe. I made new friends. Got my family back. The streets of Juarez were mine again. Journalism paved my way out of suicide. 

I’ve tried too many times now to exit journalism. It is a toxic environment, a shitty industry, an ungrateful son of a bitch. But I’m in love. And I need to pay back my debt. I owe my life to this overrated job. Will I die a journalist? I hope not. I want to die rich and old, and as of today I’m far from rich, not too old.