Twenty-three-year-old Aaron Martinez grew up going to school in Espanola, New Mexico, a city with a population of about 10,000.  You'll pass through it if you're driving between Santa Fe and Taos, two tourist towns known for its art scene, winter skiing and opera. Unfortunately, it also sits in a Northern New Mexico region where it's known for having one of the highest rates of drug overdose deaths.  For Aaron, he can speak about it first hand.  Within a space of a couple of years, he lost both his oldest sister and father from overdoses.  He says growing up both his parents were addicted and family members kept telling him he was going to grow up to be an addict too.

But for Aaron, miraculously he didn't follow the same path. Where his only role models were heroes in action movies, he made a choice to stay away from drugs in spite of being raised in an environment where it'd be easy to see why anyone would. 

Today, Aaron is a youth mentor and gymnastics instructor in the same town he grew up. He also speaks to kids about his experience and how it is possible to choose a different and positive path.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Moving Arts Espanola
  
  Plus, videos that include Aaron Martinez mentoring youth at work:
• CNN Heroes
• Meow Wolf Community Voices re Moving Arts Española

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